Chapter 9

Quinn

Fucking hell. This is not how he wanted this night to go. This night, week, month.. it has all been a cluster fuck of shit. He was trying his damndest to keep himself in check. He didn’t want to go back to the way things were before. He was doing so much better now, all because of Em.

He was so pissed off though. At his dad, at her mom.. at the world. The very fucking moment things were all working out, everything went to complete shit. How the fuck could her mom do this to her? His dad.. well that was another story but after everything Em had been through— it didn’t make sense to him. It wasn’t adding up.

But he refused to do it. He wished that she would just understand he’s doing this for her. People would talk. No matter if they weren’t blood related, it would be the whole talk of the town. Em would be ridiculed and he would get off without a word. There was no way he was gonna allow that to happen… she had been through too much in her life to go through something like that again.

And now she knows about Finley. Probably from fucking Asher. Quinn didn’t like the extra closeness between the two of them lately. Or had they always been that way? He didn’t know for sure.

The amount of jealousy he’d had the day he walked in on them in the basement. The two of them cuddled up on the couch asleep was enough to drive him mad…. And it just about did.

He had been at Chase’s barn the other night when he saw Finley. She had asked him how things were going — of course she had heard the news. The only reason he agreed to go was because he thought it would be better for Em if he wasn’t there. He didn’t know they’d already been planning a separate dinner anyway.

Later that same night he had seen the girl from the last party weeks ago. He had made the same stupid decision again and if and when Em found out about that.. well he didn’t want to know what would happen. But he needed to …. No. He HAD to get over her. He had to forget her and move on. It was the only way to protect her.

The girl, whose name was oddly Angel, was one of the only people he had ever met that lived in Eugene and didn’t know Fin. Eugene was a little town about 45 minutes away from where they lived in Andover. Finley’s dad lived there.. he had for years and years so she stayed out there a lot with him.

Angel, he found out, was a few years older than him though. She was taking a year off college to help her mom run the little bar and restaurant she owned. It just happened to be the place out by the mill where the last fight had been. Her dad had recently passed away and her mom needed help keeping the place afloat.

When she was telling him all this.. she mentioned she had been in college for a few years and only had a few more classes to take before she graduated. When she said this.. he finally asked her age. She was 22. It was fine with Quinn. He could handle an older woman. The only problem was he never.. ever.. double dipped so to speak. He never spent more than one night with a girl.. except for Finley of course since they had been together since they were kids.

But the fact that Angel was older .. he figured she could handle it. He made everything clear to her up front. He was in love with someone else… and this would just be for fun. But he needed a distraction, and she would do the job.

Until she left and went back to school… that is. She was going to be a nurse.

Quinn really fucking hoped she didn’t get a job at the hospital where Carol worked because talk about all his different worlds crashing into one.

Angel was sort of the opposite of Em.. and maybe that’s why he went for her. That and .. she was there and offering. She was tall and had long straight jet black hair. She was kind of a rocker type chic. Hell she worked at a fucking motorcycle bar. And the best part, her eyes were dark brown … the complete opposite of Em’s light grey moon ones.

The ones he was staring into right now. He was having trouble looking away from them as they filled with tears.

He sighed again. “Em….” He started.

“I’ve explained all this to you already. I don’t even know why we’re still talking about it. We’re going to be siblings for fucks sake. We can’t be together now. Why would you even want to??”

He was lying through his teeth but he wanted her to understand. He was back in his old ways of trying to hurt her just so she would hate him and stay away.

The truth was.. he could give two fucks if they were step siblings. But he knew this town.. and he knew the ridicule she would endure. He was doing it for her. He wouldn’t tell her that because she would just try to talk him out of it.. and she might be successful. He was going to have to be harsh and he dreaded it more than he had dreaded his brother coming home a few months ago.

“I’m having thanksgiving with Fin because she’s my family. You don’t want me there anyway. Elias and Chase are going too. Just have your dinner.. let me have mine what’s the big deal?”

And just as he knew it would.. those words hurt her. He could see what he had done immediately from the look on her face. But even that wasn’t as near bad as what happened next.

As luck would have it… if he wanted to push her away he was about to succeed. In that moment his phone rang. He had on purposely put Angels name in his contacts…. and for the cherry on top he’d taken a picture of her to pop up when she called. It was very obvious the picture was of the two of them in bed. He had taken it just a couple nights ago when he saw her again at Chase’s.

He saw it the moment it happened. If he hadn’t succeeded in making Em hate him, he had at least succeeded in breaking her heart…… again. And fuck. He hated every single second of it.