Page 60 of Man Candy (After We Fall 1)
But after we’d ordered and the waiter left, Margot’s spine curled and she looked distraught again. “OK, I’ll do it. I’ll talk to him. Maybe this weekend.”
“Good girl,” I said. Personally, I thought Margot could do a hundred times better than Tripp and didn’t understand the rush to get married anyway, but if she had her heart set on it, I’d support her. It was sad to me, though, that my gorgeous, classy, normally confident friend was letting a man dictate her self-worth.
That’s what happens when women fall in love, though. They lose themselves. They lose perspective. They lose control over their own happiness.
Thank God I was smart enough to know it.
This arrangement with Quinn was really the best—I had all the perks of being in a couple and none of the heartache…as long as I kept my cool, I’d be OK.
For that reason, I did not check my phone even once to see if he’d texted.
I left Marais around ten, and his car was on the street when I arrived home. Just go upstairs, I told myself as I hurried up the walk. Do not stop, do not knock, do not check your phone.
I was unlocking the front door when he pulled it open. “Hey, you!” He threw his arms around me, pulling me inside, just like he had the day he moved in. “I saw you pull up. Did you get my text?”
“No,” I said, disturbed by the way my pulse was racing. “When did you send it?”
“I don’t know, maybe an hour ago. I kept telling myself not to bug you on girls’ night, but then I couldn’t resist.” He took my wrists, tugged on them playfully. “I missed your face.”
“Just my face?” I made a joke while I tried to get my bearings. If I let him know how happy I was to see him, to know that he’d texted, that was bad, right?
“Maybe I missed a few other parts of you.”
“My brain, no doubt. My dazzling intellect. My sharp wit.”
His eyes flicked left. “Yeah, let’s go with that.”
“Thanks.”
“So would your intellect be available right now for, um, a consultation? See, I have this really hard…decision to make, and I think some heated discussion might help me…penetrate the issue. Gain some insight.”
“Really. You have a hard decision.”
He nodded. “So hard it’s painful.”
I smiled, feeling like I was on familiar ground again. Sex and game
s I could handle. “Well, I can’t leave a friend with such a pressing problem. Want to come upstairs for a pow-wow? I’ll try my best to wrap my intellect around your predicament.”
He slipped an arm around my waist, the other around my neck, and kissed me hard. “My predicament would be delighted to come upstairs, downstairs, or anywhere else you want it to.”
“So, did you miss me? You haven’t said.” Quinn turned onto his side and propped his head on his elbow.
I was stretched out on my back next to him. We’d just finished round two, during which I’d executed the Wheelbarrow and the Reverse Cowgirl, so I was winded as hell. (We’d been so impatient for round one, it had happened on the stairs with zero finesse from either one of us, although I’d probably have a bruise on my tailbone tomorrow.)
“I may have thought about you once or twice,” I teased.
“Once or twice, huh?”
I shrugged. “I don’t want you to get a big head or anything.”
He sat up. “Liar. You love when I get a big head. Be right back.”
Giggling, I sat up and hit him with my pillow as he got out of bed. “Jerk.”
He went into the guest bathroom like he always did, and I went into mine, thankful for the way he respected my need for space after sex. A lot of guys would have just used mine because it was closer. Quinn was considerate like that.
After using the bathroom, I took my pill and brushed my teeth. Believe it or not, I was actually contemplating asking him to stay the night, but when I came out of the bathroom, he wasn’t back in my room. The hall light was on, so I threw on a T-shirt and went out to the living room, where a shirtless Quinn was tugging on his jeans.
