Accidentally on Purpose (Heartbreaker Bay #3)(90)

Shaking it off the best she could, she slid out of her car and forced a smile on her face. Sometimes you had to fake it to make it.

Actually, more than sometimes.

June in southern California could mean hot or hotter, but today was actually a mild eighty degrees and her mom’s flowers were in full, glorious bloom. She ducked a wayward bee—she was allergic—and turned to watch a flashy BMW pull in next to her, relieved to not have to go inside alone.

Brock Holbrook slid out of his car looking camera ready and she couldn’t help but both smile and roll her eyes. “Suck up,” she said gesturing to his suit and tie.

Brock flashed a grin. “I just know where my bread’s buttered.”

He worked for her father’s finance company and no one could deny that Brock knew how to work a room. He was good-looking, charismatic, and when he looked at her appreciatively, she waited for the zing she used to get from that very look.

But it’d been two years almost to the day since she’d felt a zing for anything. She sighed and Brock tilted his head at her, eyes softer now, understanding.

He knew. He’d been there when she’d found out about her sister Beth’s death. But his understanding didn’t help.

She’d rather feel again, dammit.

The front door opened behind them and Quinn glanced over. Both her parents and Brock’s stood in the doorway, all four of them smiling a greeting at the chickens coming home to the nest, where they’d be pecked at for all the details of their lives.

Quinn loved her parents madly and they loved her, but brunch was going to be more invasive than a gyno exam on the 405 South at peak traffic hours.

Brock grabbed Quinn’s hand, tugged her into him and planted a kiss on her lips. It wasn’t a hardship. He also looked good, and he knew it. He kissed good as well and he knew that too.

But though they’d slept together occasionally over the years, it’d been a while. Two, to be exact. Still, the kiss was nice, and normally she’d try to enjoy it—except he was only doing it for the show.

So she nipped at his bottom lip. Hard.

Laughing, he pulled back only very slightly. “Feeling feisty?”

“I’m not sleeping with you.”

“You should.”

“Pray tell why.”

“It’s been so long, I’m worried you’re depressed.”

This was just uncomfortably close enough to the truth to have her defenses slam down. “I’m not depressed.”

“Not you,” he said. “Your vagina.”

She snorted and pulled free. “Shut up.”

“Just keep it in mind,” he said, a smile in his voice. He took her hand back and held it as he led her up the front path, clearly having already accessed that she was a fight risk.

“I should’ve bitten you harder,” she murmured, smiling at the parentals.

“Next time,” he murmured back, also smiling. “Feeling vicious today, I take it?”

“Annoyed,” she corrected.

“Ah. I guess turning old does that to a person.”

He was nine months younger than her and for just about all their lives—they’d met in kindergarten when he’d socked a boy for pushing her—he’d been smug about their age difference. She nudged him with her hip and knocked him off balance. He merely hauled her along with him, wrapping both his arms around her so that by all appearances he’d just saved her from a fall. His face close to hers, he gave her a wink.

And suddenly it occurred to her that this wasn’t about her at all, but him. His parents must be on him again about giving them grandbabies. The truth was everyone expected them to marry. And she got it, she did. Brock had been her middle and high school boyfriend, and they’d gone off to college together until they’d had a wildly dramatic and traumatic breakup their first year involving his inability to be monogamous. Oh, he loved her. She had no doubt. But he also loved anyone who batted their eyes and smiled at him.

It’d taken a few years, but eventually they’d found their way back to being friends. Best friends at times, and had gotten into the habit of being each other’s plus one. They even had a promise that if they were still single at age forty, they’d put a ring on it, but it was more a joke than a real vow.

“You’re only making it worse for both of us,” she whispered as they got close to the front door.

“If they think we’re working on things,” Brock said out the side of his mouth, “they’ll leave me the hell alone.”

She shrugged, conceding the point. There were hugs of greeting and airy almost-but-not-quite cheek kisses. “Still not used to it,” Lucinda murmured to Quinn, clinging for an extra minute. “It never feels right, you here without her . . .”

She didn’t mean it hurtfully, Quinn knew it. Her mom wouldn’t hurt a fly, but as always, a lump the size of Texas stuck in her throat. “I know, Mom.”

“I miss her so much. You’re so strong, Quinn, the way you’ve moved on.”

Had she? Moved on? Or was she treading water, staying in place, just managing to keep her head above the surface? One thing for certain, she’d buried her feelings, deep. It’d been the only way to survive the all-encompassing grief, which sat like a big fat elephant on her chest. She’d locked it away in a dark corner of her heart and built a wall around it, brick by painstaking brick to contain the emotions that had nearly taken her down.