About Last Night (About Last Night #1)(30)

Mom had placed me on waitress duty, as if I wasn’t embarrassed enough, so I spent the majority of the night taking trays of finger-food, walking them around for a minute, and then hiding in the corner with the tray, eating all the contents of said tray till I felt sick.

Ten-thirty rolled around and I was sure Mom wouldn’t notice my absence, so I fled upstairs. If Mom had an issue with that, she could suck an egg. I was done.

I got out of my clothes and into my Snoopy pajamas, tied my hair into a high ponytail, and sat on my bed, reading. Mom had placed a red rope across the stairs, so no one would be coming up, and I felt it safe to leave my door open.

I should’ve closed it. Then locked it. Then placed a chair against it and sat in that chair.

Being engrossed in my book had nothing on the tall, stumbling man who gripped my doorframe to keep from falling over. He held on tightly with one hand, his body swaying from side-to-side as he groaned and ran a hand down his face. Wide-eyed, I held the book to my chest and heaved in anxious breaths. Then he saw me.

His hair looked freshly cut, was dark brown and styled in that way hairdressers do when they’ve completed your new ‘do. I couldn’t see his eyes from where I was, but I knew they were too light to be brown. His tall body was lean but muscular, and the sleeves of the black shirt he wore over his dark jeans had been pushed up to the elbows, his top button undone. He leaned forward, squinting hard, looking right at me and teetering.

“Minnie, right?”

He knows me?

There was only one person who called me Minnie. My brother. By process of elimination, I quickly realized who this person was. I blushed and nodded slowly.

He smiled crookedly, and it was shocked me at how my stomach fluttered. “I’m Matt Quinn, Harry’s friend.” Before I could say anything, he stepped a foot into my room and sat. “Mind if I sit?” He stretched his legs out in front of him, giving me a close-up view of just how tall he was.

I opened my mouth to speak, to say something witty and make him laugh, but I couldn’t. I was paralyzed.

He sighed, leaning back in the chair, as if this was something we did all the time. “Why aren’t you downstairs drinking, or dancing, or mingling? It’s Christmas.”

That, I could answer without making a fool of myself. I shrugged lightly. “I don’t know. It’s not really my thing.”

He nodded as if he understood. “Me neither,”—then he smiled—“but I don’t mind the drinking part.”

My brother had told me little about Quinn. All I knew was he was in a bad way, keeping bad company, but he was trying to get himself together. When I asked Harry what he was involved in, he told me that was Quinn’s business. Harry stressed that Quinn was a good guy, but he just didn’t know it.

I choked down a laugh. “I can see that.”

He grinned. “Yeah, Harry sent me up here to find his bed and stay put. Apparently, I offended some old lady by asking if her hair was real.” He winked. “I got sent to time out.”

Then I did laugh, quickly slapping a hand over my mouth and wincing. “Oh, no. That was Mrs. Morrison, and yes, she wears a wig.”

“A wig? That was not a wig. That was more a toupee.”

Smiling, I shook my head, but mentally agreed with him. It was a toupee, and whoever sold it to Mrs. Morrison was not her friend.

He jerked his head to my chest, blinking sleepily. “You like to read?”

“I love to read.” I added, “It’s better than real life.”

Hazel. His eyes were a green speckled with brown. They were hazel.

He looked at me, frowning. “Why do you say that? There are lots of things in life that are better than reading. There’s eating, sleeping, drinking a cool beer in the summer, getting caught in the rain, and then there’s se—” He coughed. “Well, I could name a hundred things better than reading.”

I smiled, but it was sad, mainly because I was sad. The things he had just named held no appeal for me. “Not for me. I’m heavy-set, shy, and a nerd. Not much hope for me, I’m afraid.”

The words came quickly, and I hadn’t realized how pathetic they sounded until they were out in the open. My face mottled in humiliation and, hugging my book to my chest, I dipped my chin, hoping Quinn would just go away and leave me in my little bubble.

But then he spoke. “You know what, Minnie? You’re going to bloom into a beautiful butterfly. I know it.” He went on, “And I don’t mean you have to be the prettiest girl or the thinnest girl to make that happen. You just have to live a full life and experience real-life things to blossom.”

Without another word, he stood, walked out of my room, and turned left.

A second later, he walked past my room in the opposite direction, and I smiled to myself.

Harry’s room was on the right.



I stayed awake until almost two-thirty. Just as my eyes began to feel heavy, I picked up my phone.

Me: Sorry I worried you. x

His response was immediate.

Quinn: Sorry I woke you. x

My heart fluttered. It was only five days till Sunday.

My eyes drooped, closed, and I fell asleep thinking of Quinn and his crooked smile.



Ella and I had bonded a lot over the last few days. It was Thursday, and I found that if I avoided Mrs. Dietrich as much as humanly possible, Addison Ltd could be a pleasant working environment.