I found myself in the window seat in the Lobatos’ family room, watching the lights glint on the cold glass. I couldn’t sleep, and I knew that my restlessness was keeping Quinn from sleeping well, so I had decided to get up and read. I had wandered down to the Lobatos’ family room but once I was there I didn’t want to ruin the stillness of the room combined with the faint lights from the tree. I had been childishly breathing on the glass and drawing patterns in it.
I still felt like crying over Dad. Coming to the Lobatos was both a blessing and a curse. It was good to be social again and they let me know I belonged there with them. It was bad because the family setting made the pang from the loss of having none of my own more acute. I tried not to think about what I would have been doing with him throughout the day. Everyone was well aware of my internal struggle, even though they didn’t mention it. They kept the conversations light and no one asked me how I was doing.
I drew in a deep breath and released it against the window again. I started over with a new design. I didn’t really pay attention to what I was drawing; I just moved my finger along the glass. I thought over the day and smiled. Quinn had come back for me. He hadn’t left me again, even though I had given him reason to. The morning with him had been wonderful. It was exactly what both of us needed.
I only hoped that Quinn wasn’t upset that I still hadn’t told him I loved him. I knew I did, I just couldn’t bring myself to say it yet. I knew that whatever my future would bring, Quinn would be in it. That was just what I wanted. I was grateful for all he had done for me, yet there was still a small piece of my heart missing. I knew he wouldn’t leave me again. I just didn’t understand how he could have left like that in the first place.
I gasped and jumped when an image in white floated in the reflection of the window. I turned, clutching my hand to my heart and looked at Quinn’s grandmother standing beside me. She looked a little ghost like in her long white pajamas.
“I’m sorry dear,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
I smiled weakly at her. “That’s alright. I didn’t realize anyone else was awake. You just surprised me.” My heart rate was slowing back to normal. I had met Marie’s parents in the past. They used to come visit several times a year when the Lobatos lived in Quarry Springs.
I had always liked Mildred and Martin Spencer. They were exactly what I thought grandparents would be like. I barely knew my own. Both sets had died before my twelfth birthday. Mildred always brought cookies when she came, and took tons of pictures. She was always helping out in the kitchen or finding something to do around the house. Martin was just as busy. He would spend his vacation tinkering with all sorts of little projects around the Lobato house. He would fix things like a squeaky door or a broken rain gutter. Neither of them sat still for long. Both absolutely adored Quinn. He was their one and only grandchild and they showered him with attention and praise.
Mildred reached out and placed her hand on my shoulder. “Are you thinking of your dad?” Her voice was sad, but still offered comfort.
“Some. I’ve come to terms with it, but I still can’t seem to stop the tears when he crosses my mind.” She squeezed my shoulder.
“It will be a long time before you will. You can never replace someone you love like that. Eventually the memories won’t be so hard on you. With time, the memories will make you smile and you will be grateful for having them.” Her voice was a little louder as she moved the chair by the wall closer to me and sat down in it. She was still close enough that she picked up my hand and held it.
“I know that will happen. It did with my mom. I just don’t want others to have to walk on egg shells around me, worrying over how I’m doing or afraid they will say something wrong. I feel guilty for the way I’ve been this past month. All of them were so helpful and I just blocked them all out. I still can’t believe Quinn stayed by my side with me being as moody as I was.” I didn’t know how much I should say about Quinn staying with me. I’m pretty sure his grandparents were aware of it, and I was sleeping in his room. But I didn’t know how Mildred would feel about it.
“Dear, that boy understands what you’re going through. It wasn’t so long ago that he spent the summer at our place going through the same thing.” I looked at her curiously. “Oh, he wasn’t grieving a death, but he was grieving over the loss of someone close.” I knew then she was referring to our breakup. “I had never seen Quinn so emotional. He was a mess. We never really knew which Quinn we would see. He was angry, withdrawn, sullen and just all out ill-tempered. Some days he refused to leave his room. He wouldn’t even eat. Other times I caught him staring at the phone for an hour. I think he wanted to call someone but never did. Then there were all the letters I found wadded up in the trash. At least I think they were letters, I didn’t read them. Some days he wouldn’t say anything to us and other days he snapped our heads off at any little thing. If I hadn’t known what happened, I would have thought he was on drugs. He was so different.”
I stared at her wide-eyed. Quinn had said that he never really got over it but if he acted like that it must have been just as heartbreaking for him, too. “You make it sound as if he still loved me. If that were true he wouldn’t have left me like he did.”
“Have you asked him why he left?”
“Yes, he said it was so I would take the scholarship. I would have had to take out loans for Princeton and he must have been worried about paying them back. He left me so we wouldn’t have to do that in our future.”
Mildred gave a small dry chuckle. “Oh, child, money was never the issue. I don’t know why he did it. You will have to talk to him about that. But I assure you that money doesn’t matter to Quinn. If I had to venture a guess, I would say he left you for some altruistic motive. He is so much like Alex that way. The pair of them are always putting the needs of others before themselves. You are like that too.”
I pondered her words. Could there have been more to it than what he told me?
“Well, dear, I need to be going back to bed now. Maybe that old buzz saw in there will have quieted down by now.” I giggled. It was well known that Quinn’s grandpa could wake the house with his snores. I stood with Mildred. She hugged me to her. “You talk to my grandson. The two of you were made for each other. It’s not every day you get a second chance.” She stood up and I stood with her.
“I will.” I surprised myself when I reached out to hug her, yet it just felt right. “Thank you.”
I slid her chair back against the wall and we turned together towards the door. That’s when I saw Quinn standing there watching us. He looked incredibly sexy, standing there in just a pair of black sleep pants. His eyes were heavy lidded and his hair was all over the place. He had a very bemused look on his face. I’m sure he was wondering just what I was talking about with his grandmother in the middle of the night.
Mildred squeezed my hand. “Speak of the devil.” Quinn walked over to us.
“Grandma? What are you and Sylvia doing up?” He sounded like such a confused little boy that I couldn’t help but smile.
“Just trying to catch Santa.” Mildred dropped my hand and patted his cheek. He looked at her in utter confusion. She pulled him into a hug and whispered something in his ear. I’m not sure what she said but he looked at me with his eyes wide open.
“I’ll just leave you two young people to this late hour. I’ll see you both in the morning.” With that, she made her way out the door and -- I assumed -- back to her room.
“Sylvia, what are you doing up? I rolled over and you were gone. I was worried.” Quinn reached for my hand as he spoke with me.
“I couldn’t sleep.” He nodded. “I had an enlightening conversation with your grandma.” He quirked an eyebrow at me, waiting for me to continue. “I think we need to talk.”
He sighed deeply and ran his hand that wasn’t holding mine through his hair, and then rubbed his eyes. I felt guilty for keeping him up on Christmas Eve talking about this, but I thought this was the perfect time. He led me over to the small love seat that faced the Christmas tree and sat down pulling me on to his lap.
I snuggled in against his chest and ran my fingers up it, feeling his silky hair slide between my fingers. Neither of us said anything for a few minutes. I didn’t know how to start and I’m sure he was waiting for me to begin. I watched the lights from the tree change colors against his chest, giving it a blue tint before morphing into green then yellow then white and back to blue. I loved the fiber-optic lights on that tree. Marie had said this was the first year they didn’t get a real tree. She wasn’t sure if she was happy with it or not. I thought it was beautiful. Even more beautiful was the way the light played against Quinn’s skin.
I finally gathered up the courage to ask him. “Quinn, did you still love me when you left?”
He squeezed me tighter to him and I felt his lips brush the top of my head. “Yes, always.” He whispered it.
I continued to stare at his chest, watching my fingers play with his chest hair, afraid to look up at him. “Why did you leave then? I know you said so I would take the scholarship but your grandma said money wasn’t an issue for you. I’m confused.” I whispered it, but I knew he’d heard me.
He let out a big breath, and I felt him pull away from me slightly. I glanced up and watched him. His head was thrown back against the couch and he was pinching the bridge of his nose. I knew he probably wasn’t expecting this, but I had to know. Once he’d gathered his thoughts, he raised his head and looked down at me. His dark eyes were clouded with hurt and remorse.
“Sylvia, one of the things about you that I love and hate is how independent you are. I admire your desire to accomplish things on your own without the help of anyone else. You never expect things of people and never expect things to just be handed to you. It’s also frustrating because you never let anyone give you anything. It doesn’t matter if we want to, if giving you something to make your life better or making you happier is, in return, our gift.”
I was definitely confused now. I wasn’t sure where he was going with all of this. I started to say something but he stopped me by placing his fingers over my open mouth.
“Shh. I need to tell you all of this. Please just listen and you can talk when I’m done.” His brow was creased and I reached up to rub my thumb along the furrow, smoothing it out. I nodded and stayed silent.
“I’ll start from the beginning, then. I wanted nothing more than to have you at Princeton. Yet from the time we started talking about it I always felt that you applied there just because that was where I was expected to go. Honestly, if I hadn’t been a legacy and if Grandpa Lobato was more understanding I would have chosen the University of Minnesota to start with. That was never a choice for me. You knew that. You knew that we went back three generations at Princeton and it was just another one of those things that came with being a Lobato. Dad told me I didn’t need to go there, but I saw the disappointment in his eyes and knew that would never be an option.”
I shifted in his lap and reached up so I could wrap my arm around his neck. I knew the pressure he had on him, not so much from Alex but from his Grandpa Lobato. I never once resented his decision to go to Princeton. I wanted to reassure him of that.
“Do you remember the day I offered to help you pay for Princeton so you wouldn’t have to take out loans, or at least not have to work once you were there?”
I nodded. That was one of the biggest arguments we’d had. I didn’t want Quinn to feel like he had to pay for anything for me. I was perfectly capable of working and paying my own way. We argued and I pushed him out the door before slamming it in his face. Of course I opened it back up right away and we worked it out.
“Well, when you got that scholarship I was afraid that if you didn’t take it you would begin to resent me for taking away that option from you.”
“I...” He shushed me before I could tell him that I would never resent him.
“You would have. As soon as I paid for something, you would have thought about that scholarship. Maybe you would have let it go, or maybe it would have been in the back of your mind, eating away at you. I just couldn’t live with the risk that one day you would wake up and hate me for taking that away from you. I see now that I was wrong on it.”
I had never thought about it that way before. I still didn’t think I would have ever resented him for it.
“Why didn’t you just tell me this in the first place?”
He pulled me in against him, and I could feel the hardness of his chest against my cheek. “Sylvia, I tried. You wouldn’t hear of it. I was about to give up. Then during the graduation ceremony, it hit me. If we broke up, you would take the scholarship. At the time it seemed so simple. I would break up with you. You would go off to the U of M and I would go to Princeton. You would get settled in and start your classes and see that it was a good idea that you were there. You would meet some friends and be happy. I figured then I could come home for summer break and make it up to you. That we could work it out and hopefully get back together. By then you would be established at here and would return in the fall but we could still keep our relationship going. I figured we were meant to be and everything would work out just fine.” His voice was so sad and wistful that it tugged at my heart.
“Why didn’t you come back?” I could lie to myself but I knew that, had Quinn came back that summer, I would have been back in his arms in a heartbeat.
“At Christmas I saw you walking down the street with Jason.”
I sat up straight and looked at him. The expression on his face was heartbreaking. “It was never like that with Jason. You should have come to see me.”
Quinn pushed me down against him again. He started playing with my hair, running his fingers through it and twirling the ends around his fingers. “I know that now. I didn’t then. It looked like you had moved on. I had been so miserable and angry without you, and I knew you had a hard time at first. But then I saw you with him and I thought you were happy. Sylvia, I would do anything to make you happy. If that meant leaving so you could be with another guy, then I would do that.” His voice was hoarse, and I imagined he had the same lump forming in his throat that I had in mine.
“I went back early after that, and refused to come home. I just couldn’t bear to be in the same town as you and not go to you. Mom encouraged Dad to take the job here. I think she knew how hard it was for me. I still hated coming back, and rarely ever did. I focused my whole life on school. I didn’t make many friends at first. I didn’t do anything. The second year, I made a real effort to join in. But I never really enjoyed it. I know Mom was worried, and she begged me to come home. Finally, when I was done with my undergraduate stuff, Dad talked me into coming back. Mom was thrilled and she set out to find the apartment. That’s when she found you and decided to play matchmaker.”
“Have I told you how much I love your mom?” I felt Quinn chuckle against me. “So it wasn’t about the money?”
“It was never about the money. It was about your happiness. That’s all I ever want, is for you to be happy.”
We sat in silence after that for several minutes. I played over what he’d told me as I trailed my fingers over the hard muscles of his upper chest and over his shoulder. I understood now why he chose to leave. It still stung that he didn’t have faith in me, but I could see why that was. I had given him little to have faith in. We could never know if I would have resented him for that, but now I needed to not resent him for taking that option away from me, for taking himself away from me. It was over, and the only thing I could do was go on from here.
I raised my head to tell him I loved him. I looked deep into his eyes. I wanted to see them as I told him.
“Quinn, I love you.” I whispered as he bent forward as if to kiss me. He slowly brushed his nose against mine. I could feel his warm breath against my parted lips as he slowly grazed his nose along mine. My eyes fluttered closed as I felt him inhale deeply, breathing me in. I tilted my head slightly to reach for his lips, but he continued with the idle nuzzling.
Just as I thought the anticipation of his lips against mine was going to kill me, I felt the tip of his tongue on my lower lip. He nonchalantly swept up over my lips with just the very tip of his tongue. It was just a hint of what was to come.
The second pass was slightly faster and firmer. I felt the warm, wet, satiny texture of the broad part of his tongue slide up over my parted, ready mouth. I licked my lips, tasting him on them. It was a heady mixture of Quinn, the mint of his toothpaste and a slight hint of the hot chocolate we’d had just before bed. It was intoxicating. I wanted more.
When Quinn came in a third time I was ready for him. He started the same as before, his tongue slid out running all across my lower lip. I felt the strength of it massaging my full lower lip. I slipped mine out to greet his, to invite him in, but he resisted. Instead he licked the tip over and briefly tested the corner of my mouth before circling up over my top lip. As he rounded the opposite corner and came back to my bottom lip, I captured his tongue and drew it in before he could tease me further.
His hand strayed up my shirt. His finger left tingles up my side as he glided over my ribs. He stopped and just grazed his fingertips around the outer edges of my breast, barely touching me, making me ache for more. I felt his chest move against me and my nipples hardened under my thin shirt as my body consumed his heat.
He gradually slid his sweet tongue out of my mouth, only to lick my bottom lip one more time. Again he traced the outline of my welcoming mouth, leaving no part untouched. His full lips momentarily moved against mine, making me long for more. I followed his lead, loving the smooth feel of the inside of my lips as I chased his tongue finally snaring it with my lips.
His slow, sensuous kiss was warming my entire body, awakening every part of me, making me yearn for more. I needed to have more of him but he continued to taunt me with his tongue, almost bringing his mouth to mine but never quite closing the distance. I played along with him as our tongues spiraled around each other, savoring each other. We each pulled back, tempting the other to follow, only to join together once again.
Quinn’s hand curved around the swell on my breast, cupping the weight of it in his hand. Softly he kneaded the flesh, tormenting me. I arched into his hand silently begging him to take more of me. I sucked his tongue into my mouth every chance I got, trying to relay my need, pleading with him to give me more. He continued to sample my lips, with just his tongue taking leisurely trips around the inside, yet never fully bringing his mouth to mine. Just as I thought he was going to give in and deepen the kiss he pulled back, enticing me once again with just the tip of his tongue as he left me with quick slight licks at my lips and tongue.
Our noses once again brushed as we moved back slightly to catch our breath. I tilted up, touching my lips to the tip of his nose before moving on to his mouth. I reciprocated his teasing with my own. I felt his lips part as I flicked just the tip of my tongue over them. I concentrated on the feel of his fingers circling up to my nipple as I swiped at the corner of his mouth. I relished the softness of his lips with my tongue, particularly the middle of his upper lip.
Quinn let me control the pace of the kiss. He held steady as I came in time and time again with gentle pleasure-seeking licks. His breath cooled my wet skin, sending little shivers out around me. I felt myself growing damp in another place and as I stroked Quinn’s tongue with my own I thought about him tasting me there, too. I wanted the same languid licks lower as he had given my lips. I moaned into his mouth and he once again began to memorize my mouth with his tongue.
His magic fingers pinched and flicked at my nipple as he began to deepen the kiss. He pressed me to him tighter, and I felt his hardness pressing against my thigh. I brought my hand down his side to his hip as I turned into him, trying to get closer. I took his tongue into my mouth, urging him to take more. At last, he caved and brought his lips fully against mine. By then my need for him nearly consumed me. I moaned again as I felt more than heard him do the same.
We greedily absorbed one another, our mouths wet and strong, taking and giving, each leaving the other breathless. His fingers only stopped playing with my nipple long enough to move on to the other one. Just when I thought I couldn’t take any more and I desperately needed to feel him against me, in me, he stopped devouring me. He left soft little kisses on my swollen, parted lips before pulling away completely.
He took his hand away from my breast, leaving me longing for its warmth. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into a tight embrace. I felt his lips curve up into a smile as he rested his forehead against my temple. That’s when I noticed the wetness against his cheeks. I moved my head away, and in the incandescent lights of the Christmas tree the tears on Quinn’s cheeks glistened.
“I love you, too.”