“I’m pretty sure it means he likes me too. A guy doesn’t get a hard on for just any old reason, right?”
I phrase it like a rhetorical question, but I actually really want to know what Daria thinks. She’s got a lot more experience with men than I do.
“Of course he likes you too,” she says, glancing at me as she slows the car at a red light.
“Are you just saying that because you’re my best friend which makes you required to say that? Or do you really mean it?”
“I really mean it. Plus, you look so beautiful tonight, what man wouldn’t want you?”
“Ha, I was going to say the same thing about you. Do you think I can wear a wig next time?”
“There won’t be a next time,” she says firmly.
“Why not? You said I did a good job.”
“Quinn, you were there as a distraction, not an operative. To get you up to speed—to the point where my girls and I are—would take years of training.” She pats me on the knee, as though that’s supposed to make me feel better about the badass, alter ego vigilante side of her that is totally rejecting me. And it doesn’t.
I pat her on the knee back. “I’ll just continue to be the distraction person. No big deal. I didn’t really like firing the gun anyway. Plus, I wasn’t very good at it, so I’ll just be the person who doesn’t use any kind of physical exertion or skill to get things done.”
She glances my way, then back at the road, and quickly back at me again. “That might actually work.”
“I know it will.”
“Not all the time or anything, but that’s not a bad plan for when it’s required. The only thing is, Quinn, I need to make sure your life isn’t in danger at any time and that’s not always easy to do.”
“Nothing is going to happen to me.” I roll my eyes.
“I’m sure my sister, Katya, thought the same thing.”
“Well, when you put it that way.” She knows I can’t compete with that. “I wonder what normal people who don’t have vigilante badasses as their best friends do?”
“They don’t get into situations like this.”
“What are you going to do about Mack?” I change the subject.
“What do you mean what am I going to do?”
“Well, you’ve been working together again, and tonight he gave you that look.”
“There was no look.”
“There was most definitely a look.”
“Even if there was a look, I can’t do anything. You know that. It’s an impossible situation. I have bumped against the wall.”
“What wall?”
“You know, the wall. I’m bumped against the wall.”
“Your back is against the wall.”
“Fine. Whatever. Still means the same thing. There is no future for Mack and me.”
“So, if I help you, does that mean there’s no future for Reed and me?”
“Probably.” She shrugs, as though it’s no big deal. As though that simple statement hasn’t just rocked my world in the worst way possible. I can barely remember a time that I haven’t loved Reed Roberts. Yes, technically, I’ve only known him a year or so, but the love I have for him is deep-rooted. And in that twelve-month time, it has become more real than anything I’ve ever felt before.
“No offense,” Daria says as she turns onto my street.
“None taken.” My little place looms ahead. I smile to myself when it comes into view. One of my favorite things about it is the holiday lights the owners put up every year—draped ones that look like icicles floating down from beneath all the street facing windows as well as colored twinkling lights around the main entryway and the stairwell leading to my apartment. It’s not going to win any awards for best on the block, but its eye catching and festive, two things that always make me happy.
Daria pulls up in front of the house and shifts the SUV into park. The engine idles.
“Do you want to come up?” I ask her even though I know she’ll say no. “We can salvage Christmas Eve. I’ve got holiday movies and popcorn just waiting for us.”
“No.” She smiles sadly. “It’s been a rough night and I really just want to get this makeup off my face, curl up with a blanket, and forget this whole thing ever happened.”
“You can’t do that,” I tell her. “Otherwise, how will you catch the bad guy?” I’d mostly meant it as a joke, but she doesn’t laugh. So, I leave it be. “See you tomorrow?”
“Of course.” Her tone has that fake assuredness to it. I wonder what has her so down and upset. Whether it’s Mack and the impossible situation they are in, or that they had to take a step back tonight and let the bad guy go. Not something that Daria is used to.
I blow her a kiss and exit the SUV. She waits by the curb until I’m up the stairs and have unlocked my front door before driving away. My apartment looks the same as it did when I left earlier tonight. I’m not sure why I expect anything different; except that everything else in my life has changed over the last seven hours so why should this stay the same.
Tonight was exhilarating, no doubt about it. Like all the best parts of all my favorite movies dissected and spliced back together to make one extra-long cinematic adrenaline rush with no intermission. I see the appeal of what Daria and her girls do on a regular basis. Hell, I feel the appeal. The vindication in righting a wrong. The satisfaction of a much-needed job well done.
She said that I don’t get to do it again, go out on a job for her as an operative. But I nailed it tonight—for the most part. And I think I make a good asset to her team. Even if it is as a diversion. Something about being part of her vigilante collective is intensely rewarding and I don’t even have the intimate connection with trafficking that she and the other girls do.
After donning my sweats and making a large mug of hot chocolate, I curl up on my couch with a blanket and make a list of the ways I’m a missing piece in the puzzle that is Daria’s quest for justice.
Quinn’s Value to the Team
1. Rocked it as a diversion.
2.
I take a sip of my cocoa, tapping my smell-tastic glitter pen against my lips, waiting for some blend of memory and inspiration to strike, reminding me of my intrinsic value to the cause. I doodle a bit in the margins of the page: hearts, smiley faces, flower petals. I’m not much of an artist, but I have a real knack for drawing a flower petal. The long and narrow type like on a daisy. Nothing crazy like marigolds or orchids. Just the pretty phallic shaped designs.
Mmmm, phallic.
Reed is packing where it counts, for sure. It wasn’t just once tonight that I felt his desire for me. His hard, throbbing, pulsating love rod coming to life. I giggle as I write that in the margins next to one of my sappier looking hearts.
Maybe I have an inner romance writer waiting to emerge. I’m pretty sure that hard, throbbing, pulsating love rod is a damn decent universally appealing description of a dick. Betcha I can doodle a picture of what I think Reed’s manhood looks like to scale. I flip to a blank page in my notebook and sigh as I take another sip of my cocoa, only to realize the mug is empty.
Shit, when did that happen?
I guess it has been twenty minutes since I began my list. Bringing the notebook with me, I head into my kitchen to make another cup, flipping the pages back to review my list as I wait for the water to heat.
Quinn’s Value to the Team
1. Rocked it as a diversion.
2.
Huh. I really thought I’d come up with more than that. Oh, I know, I treated the cuts and scrapes on Reed’s hands after he hit David. Surely that counts for something.
Quinn’s Value to the Team
1. Rocked it as a diversion.
2. Didn’t pass out at sight of blood. Good at basic first aid.
3.
And I’m sure there’s something else of value I did or provided that I just haven’t thought of yet. Because I know there has to be more than two reasons why Daria needs me in on this, even if I haven’t been able to come up with it over the last twenty minutes.
Maybe I’m better served by drafting this list while I’m with Daria since she knows better what is needed on a job and all the roles to be filled. Except, I think sometimes the girls work solo. But maybe that’s out of necessity because they don’t have the manpower for any more than one per job. Definitely something to ask Daria about if I’m going to be one of the Darlings.
The paper list now forgotten; I begin to make a mental list of all the clothes I currently have that would work on a mission. Clothes like what Daria wore this evening, which were functional but still sexy as fuck. And, regardless of what Daria says, I’m getting a wig like the one she wore tonight. If for some reason I can’t wear it on an op then I’ll just have it around for fun.
I grab my laptop to look at wigs online, but somehow end up streaming White Christmas, and sing along with Bing Crosby as he glides (yes, glides) through the snow. I fall asleep on the couch before the movie is over. Laptop perched against my knees, empty mug resting on the coffee table, and soft snores flowing from my lips. Like a vigilante baller.