The Party's Over, Go Home
Hello hello here I am with my fic for @wyattjohnston's winter fic exchange!
I had the pleasure of writing for @sc0tters I hope you like it!
Shoutout to @kat-hearts @matthewtkachuk and @raysofcrosby for reading through this and getting mad at me :)
This is inspired by Intrusive Thoughts by Natalie Jane, Deserve by Jake Clark, and the Gilmore Girl's episode from season 5 called The Party's Over
Warnings: swearing, alcohol, family financial issues, this is angst, the spacebar on my computer is starting to break so typos (I tried)
WC: 11k
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“We should do something tonight.”
“I was going to go to bed early, actually.”
“You do that every night.”
“What, are you stalking me now?”
“No,” Kendyl draws out. “You stop texting me by like, 8:30 every night. Your phone is on do not disturb half an hour later. Either you’re asleep early, or you’re ignoring everyone by then.”
Ellie narrows her eyes at her coworker. They still weren’t close enough that she felt she could comfortably hang out with the people she worked with outside of the workday. She had only been at her new job for a month, still getting the hang of things, trying to get to know people and figure everything out. Spending time outside her apartment with people who were practically strangers when she could be in her warm bed with her flannel sheets that she loved more than anything on this planet? “I don’t like that you picked up on that.”
“Well, too bad,” Kendyl says, sitting down on Ellie’s desk. “A bunch of us are going out tonight, so why not?” Ellie hesitates to answer. “If it sucks, you can go home at ten. You’ll be in bed by 10:30, two hours later than normal. And it’s Friday, we don’t have work tomorrow for you to use that as an excuse as to why you have to get up early, and you already told me that the only thing you planned on doing this weekend was laundry and cleaning.”
Ellie let out a long sigh. Maybe Kendyl did know her well enough to be able to call her out on her shit already. “God.”
“I don’t know if you’re religious or not to know if that’s a yes.”
“Fine,” she says, shuddering at Kendyl’s squeal of excitement. “But you’re buying at least one round and I get to leave at 9:30 if I want to.”
“Deal.”
Ellie’s day was full of dread, from spending the rest of work distracted about having to go out with seemingly everyone at her job, so the stress involved with getting ready and trying to look like someone who was actually 24, not the ‘1980’s power boss bitch without the hair and shoulder pads’ as Kendyl had described her multiple times, even down to walking to the bar that Kendyl had picked that felt way too conveniently down the street from her apartment.
“I’m surprised you even had someone convince you to go out,” her younger brother, Alex, says on the other end of their phone call. As soon as he saw Ellie leaving her apartment on Find My Friends, he called her panicked that something was wrong. “You never went out in college. I had to beg you to go to that one party the time I visited you.”
“That’s because you were still seventeen and Mom would have killed me if she found out you went.”
“She knew I was going to try anyway.”
“I’m going out because I was promised free drinks and the prospect of going home early if I want to. It’s not like I’m being forced to go out against my will.”
“I promised you free drinks.”
“Alexander.”
“Eleanor. Just be safe, ok? Let me know when you get home.”
“You sound like Mom.”
“If I were Mom, I would be yelling at you for not wearing a jacket.”
“How do you know I’m not wearing a jacket?”
“You never wear a jacket. Mom has been yelling at you about that since you were five.”
Ellie lets out a laugh, a sudden chill coursing through her when she realizes she can see her breath. “How is Mom, have you checked in on her?’
“Yes, Ellie.”
“In person?”
“Yes, Ellie. She’s good. At least, she says she is.”
The two of them stay on the phone in silence for a moment, knowing what he really means. Ellie and Alex hated the topic of how their mom was doing, but if they didn’t talk about it with each other, who else did they have? Their mom and Alex still live in the same area even if Alex was away at college and living in a dorm rather than with her. Ellie was on the other side of the continent now, for a job that she barely had any friends at, in a city she still barely knew, surrounded by things she wasn’t used to.
“Hey, I’m outside the bar now, I’ll talk to you later?” she ends the call, taking in one last deep breath before heading into what she was sure was going to be
“You came!” Kendyl yells once Ellie finally manages to get into the bar. “Here’s the first drink.”
Before Ellie could even tell Kendyl she wasn’t ready yet to start drinking, the drink was pressed to her chest and nearly spilled down the front of her. Despite it being early enough in the night that no one should be drunk by now, Kendyl and the rest of her coworkers seemed to be well on their way with Ellie needing more drinks than she could count to catch up.
The night goes by slowly, the drinks going away fast, and Ellie sitting in the corner while her coworkers, who are obviously close, talk about a bunch of inside jokes from before she was hired that Ellie was unable to participate in.
“Remember when he ordered the wrong cake?” Wesley slurs, punching Doug in the shoulder.
“I swear she told me to say, ‘Happy Retirement,’” Douglas defends himself.
“It was my 28th birthday, not my retirement?” Hazel says, everyone except Ellie bursting into a fit of laughter.
“What about when Sammy dialed 911 during the meeting?” Kendyl adds through wheezes, the remains of her drink nearly spilling on Ellie’s shirt, again.
“It fell out of my pocket and bounced weird!”
“How does a bouncing phone dial 911?”
“That’s the set up to a bad pick up line.”
“More like the setup to a story that makes no sense,” Ellie mutters, thankful that her coworker's howling laughter was too loud to hear her.
She gets up from the table, draining her drink on her way to the bar. It was only 9:15. She promised Kendyl 15 more minutes. The least she could do was down another drink in that time before pulling her classic Irish exit to go home and get in bed.
“Rum and coke?” she asks once she gets up to the bar, the sticky wooden counter acting as anything but inviting for her to lean on.
“Me, too, and put it on my tab,” someone says behind her, Ellie’s face immediately turning sour at the thought of some guy buying her a drink to probably get her to hook up with him.
“My friend is paying for it, actually,” she turns to him, surprised to find a seemingly innocent-looking guy around her age and not the middle-aged gross man she thought he would be. Anything was possible, and looks can be deceiving.
“Which friend, the one who almost spilled her drink on you or the one of the ones who have been ignoring you the entire night and letting you sit in silence while they have a good time around you?”
“I already don’t like you.”
“My friends pointed you out and said you were me when they drag me out to bars.”
“So you’re the friend who they barely know and who they only invited out of pity?”
“That’s dark. But also, kinda hot,” he says, the pink rushing to his cheeks as he turns away out of embarrassment. “Sorry, um. I’m going to go sit down now.”
“You haven’t gotten your drink yet,” Ellie points out, his sudden bashfulness making Ellie soften for him. “I just moved here. I don’t really know any of them too well.”
“I know what that’s like,” he tells her, leaning against the bar.
“You’re not from here, either?”
He shakes his head. “Born in Orlando, moved to Boston, then moved to Toronto, and kept going from there.”
“That sounds unstable,” she says, passing one of the newly appeared glasses of alcohol to the guy in front of her.
He shrugs, lifting the drink to his lips. “Well, they say you are a product of your environment.”
Ellie lets out a laugh, the first one that she had let out all night. “That’s dark. But also, kinda hot,” she repeats, the pink returning to his cheeks again.
“I’m never gonna live that down, am I?”
“Depends on how long we keep talking.”
“Hopefully it lasts past tonight.”
“It can’t if you don’t tell me your name. I’m Ellie.”
“I’m Quinn.”
Ellie loses count of how many drinks Quinn gets her, how long they’re talking, and when all of her coworkers leave the bar, not even telling her that they were leaving without her.
She could feel the warmth of the alcohol coursing through her body, the bar getting busier the longer she and Quinn stood there. Someone shoves in between Ellie and whoever is behind her, pushing her into Quinn’s arms without her being able to catch her balance. His hand falls to the small of her back, spreading out to hold her steady. They stood there in silence, the rest of the bar a world away from them.
“Are you ok?” Quinn whispers in her ear, his breath tickling her skin.
Ellie stammers for a second, trying to process what just happened. The alcohol was making everything foggy, and the room starting to spin slightly around her as if Quinn was rocking her back and forth. “Um, I, yes?”
His eyes flickered down to her lips, the distance between them closing with each additional person, he was so close to kissing her.
“I should go home,” Ellie says before he can, knowing that kissing him now would not be a good idea for either of them.
His grip on her doesn’t relax, the disappointment Ellie expected to show up on his face not there at all. “I’m walking you home,” he tells her, slipping his hand into hers before she can protest.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to.”
The difference in temperature between the bar and outside hit Ellie faster than she could process it, her lack of jacket her brother had scolded her for earlier biting her in the ass harder than the cold was in the moment.
Ellie didn’t even process Quinn taking off his own coat, the one she didn’t even realize he had been wearing the entire time, and putting it around her shoulders before wrapping his arm around her and pulling her close.
She was on autopilot, unsure how she managed to navigate her way to her apartment when her mind was on Quinn’s body pressed against hers. She just met him. She didn’t know much about him. She didn’t even know what he did for work and only knew that he had two brothers who lived in New Jersey even though that wasn’t one of the places that he mentioned living before.
“Here,” Ellie barely gets out, surprised with herself for managing to get back to the right place.
“Do you want me to walk you to your door?” Quinn asks, shoving his hands in his pockets when he finally lets go of her.
“No, it’s fine.”
Ellie goes to take off the jacket and give it back to him, the warmth something her drunk self quickly realized she was going to miss. “No, keep it. It looks better on you anyway,” Quinn tells her, pulling his things out of his pockets before turning away to head off.
She stands there for a few seconds, trying to process what had happened that night.
“Wait, no,” Quinn says, appearing again in front of her. “I can’t leave without getting your number first.”
“I couldn’t even tell you what my number is right now,” she admits, handing him her phone instead.
Quinn laughs, putting his number in. “I want to see you again, Ellie.”
She smirks at him. “We’ll see, Quinn.”
___________________
“What do you mean you’re not bringing anyone?”
“No one said I had to bring anyone.”
“Everyone brings someone. You have to bring a date to the holiday party.”
“Then why was one of the options on the RSVP ‘no’ to the question ‘will a guest be accompanying you?’”
Kendyl whines, earning a cringy look from Ellie. “You have no one you can bring?”
Ellie rolls her eyes, leaning back in her desk chair. “Let’s see, I’ve been here for like, what, two months? I knew no one when I got here, I hate going out and don’t have anywhere to meet anyone, and somehow none of you here know anyone either. Who would I bring?”
“What about that guy you met at the bar that one time? I see his name popping up on your phone all the time.”
Ellie snatches her phone from her desk and holds it against her chest as Kendyl cranes her neck to see that her statement is actually fact, three messages from Quinn, a fourth appearing while they were talking. “You need to learn what a boundary is.”
“And you need to learn what the Focus feature is on your phone when you’re showing me things because his name always shows up.”
She couldn’t invite Quinn to the party. She barely knew him, she couldn’t throw him into the party with a bunch of her coworkers who she also barely knew, putting her phone back on the desk without thinking. “He’s probably busy.”
Kendyl rolls her eyes, snatching Ellie’s phone from her desk before she can protest, fiddling with it while Ellie tries to process what could possibly be happening in front of her. “He’s not.”
“What?”
“He’s not busy.”
“Ken, what did you do?” Kendyl hands Ellie back her phone, a quick conversation with Quinn on her screen, ‘Ellie’ asks him what he was doing the night of the holiday party and he immediately answers that he is free. “Why are you like this?”
Kendyl shrugs, slowly backing away from Ellie’s desk. “You had fun talking to him at the bar, enough fun that he responded to you within seconds of being asked if he was free.”
Ellie looks back at her phone as Kendyl finally leaves her alone. The whole idea of having to bring a date seemed archaic in a way that Ellie couldn’t quite put her finger on. Why did she have to bring someone she barely knew to a party with more people she barely knew?
But she really did know Quinn better than she was letting on. She still didn’t know what he did with his life, him weirdly making her promise not to look him up, which made Ellie immediately question if he was a serial killer. He wasn’t, allegedly, but that still didn’t make sense.
She knew that he was from the States, went to school there until he left early for whatever job he had. He has two younger brothers, and apparently is known amongst his friends for looking like he was having a nonstop existential crisis, while also being nicknamed ‘Huggy Bear.’ She also knew that he was sweet, and listened to her when she went off on a tangent about something, him following right along and matching the energy she had. She knew that she wanted to see him again every night since she had met him that first time, and that he wanted the same thing.
His name came up on her phone, a call from him. “Hi, sorry, it’s easier to talk than text right now.”
“Why are you out of breath?”
“Workout.” Must be nice to have a job where he can just go and work out in the middle of the day, Ellie thinks to herself. “So, the 18th?”
“Yeah,” Ellie lets out, suddenly nervous. It felt like she was asking him for something much more serious than just going with her to an office party. “It’s the holiday party for my company, and apparently everyone needs to bring a date.”
“And you want me to find you one?”
Ellie’s jaw drops at his comment. “No, idiot, I wanted to bring you.”
“Oh, thank god. I was running through my friends who would go and none of them are good enough for you.”
Ellie could feel the heat rushing to her cheeks at his comment. Did he consider this a date? Was it a date? Was it bad if she considered it a date and he didn’t? What if he didn’t? Why was her mind running at a mile a minute while Quinn was there on the other end of her phone waiting for her to say something else? “So that’s a yes?”
“Of course, it’s a yes. It’s one of the few nights I have off, I want to spend it with you.”
The next days went by in a blur, Ellie freaking out over everything from what she was going to wear, texting and calling Quinn even more, wishing that they could see each other sooner.
“It’s not obsessive, is it?” she asks Kendyl, staring at herself in the mirror. Kendyl insisted on coming over to Ellie’s place to get ready, telling her that her roommate had their partner over that night and the last thing she needed to do was try to use the bathroom to get rid when they had a habit of taking it over for more than a few hours.
“No, El, you just like him. I think it becomes obsessive when you start to stalk him and you show up to where he works unprovoked.”
“Why do you say that like you’ve either done that or you’ve had that happen to you?”
“I’ll let you decide which one is better. What time is Quinn coming?”
“He’s supposed to get here in ten minutes.”
“Just breathe, El. You’re going to have fun.” Kendyl left her to finish getting herself ready, her date already waiting outside to take her to the party. They could have all gone together, as pointed out by Kendyl, but it was better to not throw Quinn directly into the fire that was her closest coworker.
Ellie’s phone starts ringing, not checking but expecting it to be Quinn calling to tell her he was early. She pops out of her seat to head to the door, picking up the phone and answering with an excited “Hi!”
“Eleanor?”
Ellie stops in her tracks, her mom’s voice coming over her phone speaker. “Mom?”
“Sweetie, can you do me a favor?”
Ellie felt her heart drop to her stomach, already knowing what her mom was going to ask her. It was the same thing that her mom always asked since she first got a job when she was in high school, every time she answered the phone while she was getting her degree, no matter where Ellie was in her life, it was never a call that a mother should have to make to one of her children this often. “Mom,” she lets out, knowing that she couldn’t say no.
“Please, Eleanor. I need the money. I, I-”
“Mom, you promised,” Ellie cuts her off, not wanting to hear anymore even though she knew her mom would keep going.
“I thought I would get a raise before they sent the eviction notice this time.”
“Mom,” Ellie says, more exasperated this time. “You have to stop doing this. You do this to me every time.”
“Alexander can’t help this time.”
Ellie heard a knock at her door, not even processing the fact that she should be looking through the peephole to make sure it wasn’t a murderer, opening it, and letting whoever it was in. Thankfully, it was Quinn, waving him in and motioning to give her a moment.
“Alex is still in college, already struggling because you’re no help. He shouldn’t have to give you anything in the first place.”
Quinn stands there, clearly uneasy at listening to only Ellie’s end of the conversation but following Ellie into her room regardless. He stands in the doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed while he watches Ellie continue to get ready.
“But you said last time that I couldn’t ask you again.”
“I didn’t mean for you to ask my little brother.”
“Eleanor, please. He’ll have nowhere to come home to. I’ll have nowhere to go home to.”
“What happened to everything you had last time I asked you?”
“It went towards all of the other bills, I promise. I’ll send you every confirmation for every bill I have.”
“You’re not lying to me this time?”
“I’m not, I swear!”
“How many months did Alex cover?”
“Only half of one month.”
“How many months are you behind?”
“I swear I used everything I had to pay-”
“Mom, how many months are you behind?” Ellie knew she was raising her voice, forgetting that Quinn was even behind her. She stopped putting her makeup on at this point, knowing that the tears that were about to fall were going to ruin what she had already on, anyway.
“Four.”
“Fuck, Mom.”
“Please?” her mom’s voice comes through, small and on the brink of breaking. “I know I’m still paying you back from last time. But what else am I supposed to do?’
“I’m sending it now,” she tells her, hanging up before her mother could say anything else. Ellie forgot Quinn was standing there in her doorway, putting her phone down on her vanity and putting her face in her hands. This couldn’t be happening again. Not again.
Quinn clears his throat, causing Ellie to jump. “Should I go?” he asks, creeping into her room.
Ellie wipes the tears from her cheeks, cursing herself mentally for now having to redo the makeup she already took too long to do the first time. “Uh,” she stammers, “No, no. I’ll be ready in a second.”
“Ellie,” Quinn kneels on the floor next to her, gently placing his hand on her thigh. “We don’t have to go to this.”
“No, it’s fine, I’m fine.”
“El.”
Ellie finally turned to him, the genuine concern on his face causing her to burst into tears. He reached up and pulled her close to him, his one hand on her back, the other holding her head on his shoulder, letting her cry on his white shirt. She hears him let out a quiet shushing noise, trying to comfort her in the way she had needed for so long. She cried for so long that she didn’t know how much time passed. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” he whispers when she finally stops crying, not moving from their position. “Do you want to talk about it?”
She never told anyone about the stuff with her mom. Ellie had been holding it in for years, going from friend to friend, place to place, never letting this out with anyone who wasn’t her younger brother, the one person who would understand and who she knew also understood what it was like.
But there was something about Quinn. She thought she could trust him, for whatever reason. She never told her ex-boyfriends in college or high school, despite the fact that this had been going on since then.
Ellie takes in a deep breath. “The only people who know this are me, my mom, and my brother, do you understand?” she asks him, watching him nod. “It started, I think, when my dad left. I was probably 10? Alex was 6, maybe? I don’t even remember, honestly. This probably started before Dad left, Alex and I think it’s why he left. But our mother is absolutely shit when it comes to money. Like, put us in debt every few months that then somehow fell to us as her children to bail her out.”
“God,” Quinn lets out, Ellie continuing over him.
“I think we realized it was getting bad when she told us we were moving somewhere smaller right before I was starting high school, out of the blue, when we had already moved to ‘somewhere smaller’ three times in four years. Normally she said she had been planning it because we, of course, needed somewhere to live, and she didn’t like where we were, but that was weird. I didn’t realize it was because we had been evicted every single time until I found the seven eviction notices my second year of high school from the last three times and a notice that we were getting evicted that year, too.”
“Ellie, I’m so sorry,” he tells her, pulling her back in for a hug.
She sighed, knowing that there was nothing more he could say. “At this point it’s normal, it’s just still frustrating when she tells me and Alex that she’s fine and that she has the money for everything, and then out of nowhere, tells us she hasn’t paid the rent for her current place in four months. Like, do you know what it’s like to have your mother owe you nearly a hundred thousand dollars because of how much she keeps needing?”
“I can’t even imagine.” The two of them sit in silence for a moment, neither of them sure what to do next.
“I’m glad you can’t. It fucking sucks,” she says, turning back to her vanity mirror. “God, I don’t even want to go to this stupid party anymore.”
“Hey, we don’t have to go if you don’t want to. We can stay here, we can go to my place, we can go somewhere else, we can do anything.”
“We?”
“I don’t want to leave you, Ellie. I came tonight because I wanted to spend time with you,” Quinn tells her, taking her hand in his. “If you’ll let me, I’ll take you wherever you want.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Ellie, I want to be with you.”
___________________
“Kendyl, I told you, I’m hanging out with Quinn and the rest of the guys tonight.”
“Can I please come?”
“Absolutely not.”
“But you’re dating the captain of the fucking Vancouver Canucks. You have to bring your best friend along with you.”
“Alexander can’t come tonight either.”
“Ok, rude.”
Ellie was already nervous about meeting Quinn's teammates. It had taken a while for her to wrap her head around that he was not only a hockey player, but a professional one, and the actual captain of the team. Honestly, she didn’t see it coming. She had heard so much about Elias and Brock that she felt like she knew them at this point. She hadn’t even met them. As close as she had gotten to Kendyl in the last six months she spent at her job, and as much time as they spent together outside of work when she wasn’t with Quinn, she didn’t need Kendyl mixed into the group.
“Let me meet them first, then we can talk about you meeting them, ok?” she tries to assure her, hearing a knock at her door. “I’ve gotta go, Quinn is here.”
She hangs up on Kendyl before she can protest, slightly worried that she would use the ‘Find my friends’ feature to just stalk the house they were going to and end up on the doorstep uninvited.
“Hi,” she opens the door, stopping for a second to take him in. God, she hated how hard she fell for him in a short amount of time. He was perfect to her at that moment.
He pulled her in for a kiss, one that made her wish they were staying in rather than heading to spend time with his friends. “Hi,” he whispers, kissing her again before pulling away. “You look amazing, as always.”
“I’m wearing jeans and a sweater,” she counters.
“And?” He could say anything to her with that stupid smile on his face and make her swoon. “Ready?”
They head out to his car, Ellie’s heart racing as they get closer and closer to Thatcher’s house. She wasn’t great with meeting large groups of people all at once, despite being in a new school nearly every year of her awkward teenage years and being forced to interact with new people every time.
“Hey,” Quinn says, resting his hand on her thigh as he drives down the highway, giving her a gentle squeeze to try to calm her down. “You’re going to like the guys. And they’re going to love you.”
“Yeah?” she says, her voice shaking slightly.
“How could they not?” he asks, taking her hand and bringing to his lips, his eyes glued to the road in front of them so he couldn’t see her melting at his words and his touch. “You’ll get along great with Elias.”
“He’s the one from Sweden?”
“Yeah,” Quinn tells her, pulling into the driveway of a house so massive Ellie wasn’t sure people could actually live in it. It was certainly bigger than anything she could have ever dreamed of being near, let alone being invited to. “He’s got kind of a dry humor. You’ll like him.”
Ellie takes in a deep breath, feeling incredibly inadequate just getting out of his car and standing on the pavement of a place like Thatcher’s house. Maybe she should have invited Kendyl.
Quinn takes her hand, pulling her along to the door when everything inside her was telling her to turn around and just run. There was no way she was good enough to be in this house, not with everything in her life, not when Quinn and his teammates had everything they could possibly want at the tips of their fingers.
He stops at the door, pulling her close to him, dropping her hand, and cupping her face to kiss her again, calming her immediately. “Hi,” he breathes when he pulls away.
“Hi again. What was that for?” she asked, his hands slipping down to her waist, sending a shiver through her entire body as he traced her sides.
“I’m going to want to do that so many times tonight, but I know the guys will tease us for it. I’ve gotta do what I can now.”
That shouldn’t have made her feel the way it did. He could say or do anything at this point and she would melt.
They go inside, the house loud and full of people despite Quinn telling her that it was just supposed to be a ‘small get-together.’ Everything in the house looked expensive, Ellie’s anxiety immediately spiking. She followed Quinn blindly through the house, all of his teammates talking to him and him introducing her to all of them while she stood there nearly mute over the sheer stimulus overload that was all around her. She barely noticed the drinks that found their way in hers and Quinn's hands, drinking once she saw Quinn drinking it, as well.
“Elias is right over here,” he whispers in her ear, his hand still in hers and giving her a reassuring squeeze as he leads her off into one of the side rooms. The room was quieter, the lights dimmer, and had a lot less people than any of the other rooms.
“You got here half an hour ago and you’re just making it in here?” one of the guys asks as she and Quinn sit next to each other on the couch. “Ellie, you have to get him to go faster through the greetings next time. I cannot be left alone with Brock for this long.”
She looks at Quinn, confused as to how they already know her name.
“You know I have to say hi to everyone, I’m captain.”
“As captain, you should be able to do one big greeting and let that be it so you can seclude yourself in a separate room where you don’t have to talk to everyone else,” one of the other guys said.
“Every time you talk, Brock, you add more to the long list of why you would make a horrible captain.”
“I would be a great captain.”
“Elias, Brock, jeez.”
“You know you can’t leave us alone for too long.”
Ellie gets lost in their conversation, not even being able to contribute to what they were saying because their verbal sparring is so fast and so specific to their history with each other, she wouldn’t even know where to begin. Quinn puts his arm around her, pulling her closer to him by her waist. He looks at her while Brock and Elias continue bickering, smiling at her and giving her a soft kiss on her forehead.
The guys interrupt them, jeering and teasing them to the point where Ellie has her face buried in Quinn’s shoulder, trying to hide from the embarrassment. “So, Ellie, what do you see in El Capitan here?” Brock asks, giving the most obnoxious facial expression possible.
“You do not have to answer that,” Elias tells her. “Brock has no idea how to interact with anyone, just ignore him.”
“That’s not true.”
“You thought a good pick up line to use on a girl was ‘you dropped something, my jaw,’ the other night and then were shocked when she just turned and walked away,” Elias says, earning a laugh from Ellie and Quinn.
“You have definitely taken a girl out on a date and then talked about yourself the entire time,” Quinn adds, Brock shrinking further into his seat.
“You look like the kind of guy that would go to a bookstore and pretend to look lost to see if a girl would talk to you,” Ellie adds, sending the guys into a frenzy.
“He wouldn’t have to pretend to be lost,” Elias says, poking a pouting Brock in the leg. “You should come around more, Ellie.”
“She’s spent too much time with Quinn already,” Brock whines, Quinn pulling her so she’s practically in his lap, kissing her cheek.
“I told you,” he whispers, just loud enough for only her to hear. “I need you to come around more, too.” Ellie turns to him, her cheeks burning before they both burst out laughing. “That sounded horrible.”
The four of them fall into an easy conversation, the three boys doing everything they can to make Ellie feel included, not shying away from teasing her like they were each other earlier. She felt comfortable.
Ellie eventually excused herself to go to the bathroom and get more drinks for her and Quinn, the alcohol finally hitting her. She barely finds her way back to the room the guys were in, Thatcher’s house seeming much bigger now that she wasn’t sober and much harder to navigate without Quinn taking her around.
She didn’t mean to listen to their conversation, standing on other side of the opening without them seeing her.
“Brock, I swear, if brains were dynamite, you wouldn’t be able to blow your fucking nose,” she hears Elias say, stiffling a laugh as Brock mumbles something about not meaning to spill his drink on Elias.
“Anyway,” Quinn grunts, sounding like he was getting off the floor.
“Ellie is awesome, by the way,” Elias says, Ellie sure she missed some sort of segue that could have led the conversation from Brock to Ellie.
“She’s snarky,” Brock adds, Ellie hearing a smack and Brock letting out a cough. “That’s not a bad thing.”
“I met her by accident but I cannot think about what it would be like without her now,” she hears Quinn say, Ellie trying to figure out if she actually heard him right. That sounded like he was much more serious about her than she thought he was.
“Woah, Quinn,” Elias says. “You met her a few months ago.”
“God, I know,” she hears Quinn let out. “But you know how you just know sometimes? You run into this person one day and they just make your life better?”
“You guys made my life worse since I met you,” Brock mutters.
“I say goodnight to her every night and I can’t wait until I can say good morning to her the next day.”
“You’re a simp.”
“Can you blame me? She’s perfect.”
Ellie finally enters the room, trying her best to pretend that she didn’t just hear everything Quinn told his friends, the ones he told her he would trust with anything. It had to mean something that they already knew who she was before coming and that he could tell them those things unprovoked.
Quinn lights up at the sight of her, giving her another kiss and wrapping his arms around her when she sits down. “You took a bit,” he comments.
“This house is confusing,” she lies.
Elias and Brock continue to bicker while ignoring Ellie and Quinn. Ellie eventually finishes her drink, along with the third one that Brock had managed to hand off to her at some point, sinking down so her head was in Quinn’s lap.
“How often do you think about the future?”
“I mean, I’m normally thinking about what I’m making for my next meal once I finish the one I’m eating.”
Ellie groans, their hands intertwined and in constant movement, suddenly regretting how much they had both had to drink. She looks up at him, a smile on her face despite the look on his that told her he had absolutely no thoughts behind those eyes. “Like, us in the future. Our future.”
“Huh,” Quinn starts, “I don’t know. I like us right now where we are.”
Ellie nods, trying to hide the disappointment that she felt. Why could he tell Elias and Brock what he thought about her, but not tell her? He hadn’t even called her his girlfriend to her face, yet. Were they even boyfriend and girlfriend yet? Was it too early to even ask, or should she even ask at all?
They were staying over at Thatcher’s house at this point, neither of them in the position to drive, Elias and Brock electing to stay on the couches. Quinn pulls her up and kisses her, a yawn escaping her after he pulls away. “Want to head to bed? Thatch said we can snag one of the guest rooms.”
Ellie nodded, Quinns hand in hers as he lead her down the hallway. She should be nervous, the first night they were spending together completely unplanned and in one of his teammates house instead of somewhere special.
But it was with Quinn.
She was fine.
___________________
“When are you going to be ready?”
“When I am.”
“You’re taking way too long.”
“I am not taking too long, you got ready too quickly.”
“Kendyl, I took an hour to get ready to meet Quinn and his friends, and you started getting ready before I got here,” Ellie groans, lying down on Kendyl’s bed. The group chat Ellie had with Quinn and the guys was blowing up, asking where Ellie and Kendyl were. After meeting Kendyl a while back, Quinn was convinced she would be the person to set Brock straight. Ellie wasn’t convinced, but what was the harm of introducing them?
“I’m meeting a Canuck, tonight, El, I have to look good.”
Ellie sits up, looking at Kendyl in her mirror. She knew her friend was nervous. No matter what she could say, nothing would change. “I promise you, you could wear nothing more than a trash bag and Brock would be drooling over you.”
Kendyl took a deep breath. “Are you sure?”
“Ken, you’re beautiful. You’re funny. You can verbally spar with anyone to get what you want at any time. If you decide you want something to happen with Brock, there’s no way he wouldn’t agree to it.”
Kendyl nods, finally getting up and grabbing Ellie’s hand and her coat to drag her out the door.
“Are we sure we’re going to have fun?” Kendyl asks, the shaking in her voice something Ellie had never heard before.
“You sound like me now.” It was still winter in Vancouver, the below freezing temperatures combined with the warmest bar appropriate outfits they had not enough to actually keep them warm as they walked through the city to meet all of the guys.
“What are they like? I only know Quinn.”
Ellie has to stop and think for a moment. How did she even begin to describe them? “I think you just have to wait and see. Quinn is nothing like them.”
“Oh, my god, you hate your boyfriend's friends.”
“No, what?” Ellie asks, unable to hide her laughter. “I really like his friends. I’m getting closer with Elias and Brock is definitely good for a laugh when you need it.”
Kendyl nods, both of them shivering as they walk. Quinn had such a warm jacket, Ellie thought back to the night the two of them met. She wouldn’t have been able to see herlife with Quinn coming. She thought Kendyl was just an annoying coworker, Quinn would be just a hook up, and that she would end up having to move home because of her mom and Alex. She never thought it would be this.
They get to the bar after feeling like they were walking forever, Quinn making a beeline to Ellie as soon as they made eye contact. “God, I’m happy you’re here,” he slurs, planting a sloppy kiss on her cheek.
“Wow, you’re already drunk,” she points out, trying to push him away slightly. Quinn had told her they were going into a break in the season, so getting drunk was necessary. She had seen him a little drunk, more tipsy than anything, but never like this, and never in public. “Let’s get you some water, babe.”
Quinn lets out a giggle, slinging his arm around Ellie while she focuses on him instead of getting Kendyl over to Brock. She looks around the bar for her friend, or at least one of the guys to hopefully help her make sure he doesn’t go much farther than he already was with the alcohol.
“Ellie, right?” she hears from behind her as she sets Quinn down at the booth in the back where the rest of the guys were seated. She turns around, one of the new guys in the office standing behind her, glass of beer in hand.
“Uh, yeah, hey. Dylan, right?”
“Declan, actually,” he corrects her, a quick apology escaping her lips. “Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt, I just saw Kendyl over by the bar and she mentioned you were here. I wanted to say hi.”
Even though it was darker in the bar, Ellie swears she saw him blushing, fidgeting and acting nervous in front of her. The guys didn’t seem to notice she was even standing there, but Declan seemed to be trying to take in everything about her.
“Are you here with anyone?” she asks, feeling Quinn pull her into his lap, Ellie falling without an ounce of grace down towards him. “Sorry, this is my boyfriend, Quinn, and some of his friends.”
“Uh, hi,” he says, Ellie feeling Quinns arms wrap tighter around her as Declan talks, “I’m here with my roommate, but I lost him about half an hour ago.”
“You should join us then,” Quinn says, moving him and Ellie further into the booth to make room for Declan. The tone in his voice told her he really didn’t want to do that.
Kendyl finally comes back with drinks, Quinn taking the beer that was meant for Ellie and downing it much faster than he should have. Brock was already captivated by Kendyl as soon as she sat down, Elias rolling his eyes as he was making a fool of himself, Kendyl finding it weirdly endearing.
“So, Deacon,” Quinn starts, much louder than he should have been. “How do you know my girlfriend?”
“Uh,” Declan says, as caught off guard by Quinn’s sudden shift in mood as Ellie is, “I work with her. Just started about a month ago.”
Quinn nods. “What did you do before this?”
“I was a nurse in the ICU at Vancouver General.”
“Couldn’t handle it, Derek?”
“Quinn, what?” Ellie scoffs.
Declan coughs, clearly getting uncomfortable fast. “It was a lot, so no. I liked helping people, but seeing traumatic thing after traumatic thing takes a toll on you really fast. So I went back to school and ended up with Ellie and Kendyl.”
“Ah, a college degree.”
“Quinn,” Ellie hissed. She didn’t like where this was going, Quinn holding on to Ellie like he was marking his territory.
“I actually don’t have my degree, yet.”
“Interesting thing to brag about?” Declan says, nervously sipping on his beer.
“Well, it’s hard to finish when you get called up to play with the Canucks, you know?”
Declan shrugs. “Is that the CFL team? I don’t follow sports.”
Ellie gets off Quinns lap, pushing Declan aside and dragging Quinn along with her. She didn’t need to hear what Quinn was going to say next. He was starting to act like a jackass and she didn’t want to see more.
The two of them end up outside, the cold hitting Ellie like a slap in face. “What is wrong with you? He wasn’t doing anything for you to act like that to him.”
“I don’t like him,” Quinn pouts.
“You just met him.”
“I don’t like people who are trying to take my girl.”
Ellie can’t help but scoff. “‘Take your girl?’ What, am I your property? Did you get a good dowry? How many sheep did you have to give my family in exchange for your hand?”
Quinn rolls his eyes. “Come on, Ellie.”
“No, Quinn, you come on. He wasn’t hitting on me. He doesn’t even know me to like me.”
“Of course he likes you, Ellie, look at you.” Quinn takes a step closer to her, suddenly getting softer towards her. “You’re so pretty. You’re so smart. You know what to do with everything.”
“If he likes me, that doesn’t matter,” Ellie snaps, still annoyed with him. “I don’t like him. I like you. I’m dating you. That should be enough for you to not act like an asshole towards him.”
Quinn hangs his head. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be saying that to him.”
The two of them stand there in the cold in silence, Ellie not wanting to budge and Quinn wanting her to go with him. “Come with me?”
Ellie bites her lip, her mood ruined because of him in just a short amount of time. “I think I’m going to go home. I’m tired, anyway.”
“Let me walk you?” Just like the night they met.
“No, it’s fine. I’ll let you know when I’m back.”
They stand there for another moment, Quinn making the first move to pull Ellie in for a kiss. “I love you, Ellie.”
Ellie hadn’t been thinking about love with him yet. She wasn’t there yet. “Goodnight, Quinn,” she told him, turning and walking away, leaving him there on the sidewalk.
___________________
“Have you ever loved anyone?”
“Uh, you.”
“Not that kind of love, idiot.”
“Oh, um. I was in love with Tess Virtue for a while there.”
“While I get that, I still don’t mean that kind of love, Alex.”
Alex laughs on the other end of the call, Ellie getting ready for work while he got ready for class. “El, you’re the older sister here, aren’t I supposed to be asking you this?”
Ellie and Quinn were in a weird place since Ellie left that night. She had hoped that Quinn was too drunk to remember that he had told her loved her and Ellie’s response was just to walk away. She didn’t know if she was in love with him. She knew she wanted to be with him. She didn’t know if she loved him.
“I mean,” Ellie starts, not sure where to go.
“Are you and Quinn ok?” Ellie tells her brother everything that happened, Alex staying silent for a few seconds after she finished. “Ellie, you did this last time.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Not to go psychology major on you,” Alex says, earning a groan from his sister, “But I think you’re more messed up from Dad leaving than you like to admit you are. You have what sounds like a solid relationship with this guy but you’re afraid that if you let him love you and you let yourself love him, that he’s going to leave just like Dad did. He left us with Mom and we never got that love back.”
Ellie takes a deep breath. “Jesus. At least I know your degree is worth it.”
“I could be wrong. I’m only six semesters into this degree, after all.”
“I hate you.”
“I love you, too, El.”
Everything goes back to her parents. There’s no reason she couldn’t love Quinn.
She was in a daze on her commute to the office. Does she love him? Regardless of Alex’s psychoanalysis, even if their dad leaving them with their mom made her think anyone who would love her would leave, is she able to love him?
She wanted to be with him, but she didn’t know what it was like to love him.
“You look horrible,” Kendyl says, Declan trying not to make eye contact with her at their little desk clump, probably trying to not agree.
“Thank you, for that,” Ellie huffs, dropping her bag on the floor before she falls into her chair. “I just had a weird morning. Don’t really want to talk about it.”
The morning passes by in a blur, the menial tasks of her job at least giving Ellie something to take her mind off Quinn. Anytime her mind would start to wander, anytime she thought about him in any way, she would just switch back to work mode and force herself to do whatever it is she needed to do.
“Hey,” Ellie thinks she hears from behind her, someone sounding just like Quinn. She ignored it, figuring it was just her imagination and her officially losing her mind over what was going on in her relationship. “Babe?”
Ellie jumps, thoroughly surprised that Quinn was actually standing behind her. “I thought you were leaving for Florida today.”
Quinn pulls her up, kissing her hello, a soft look on his face that told Ellie that everything was ok. “We leave in a few hours, so I wanted to come by and surprise you. Do you have a minute?”
Ellie nods, following Quinn down to the lobby of the building. She knew that if she went somewhere in the office, Kendyl would probably have her ear glued to the other side of the wall of whatever room they were in to try to listen to their conversation.
“So, you don’t love me,” Quinn lets out slowly, pausing a little between each word, breaking Ellie’s heart each time.
“God,” she lets out.
“It’s ok.” They stand in silence, what they had with each other when they first met already somehow dying off between them. “I’m ok.”
“I want to love you. You know I have other things going on that are messing with my mind. You know me.”
Quinn rolls his eyes, Ellie taking a step back. “What, the stuff with your mom?” Ellie gives him a small nod. “You can’t keep using that as an excuse, Ellie,” he snaps.
Ellie recoils at his words, the person in front of her not the same one who told her would always be there for her when she needed him, that he would help if she would let him and that he wanted to be there, for her and with her, for everything. This was someone who wouldn’t do any of that. “It’s not an excuse. It’s my life, Quinn. You grew up never having to worry about coming home from school and learning that the lights were turned off, or getting scared that the heat would get cut off in the middle of the winter, or that you were two days away from living in a car,” she nearly yells at him, catching him off guard. “I’m sorry that it messed me up and I’m trying to fix it and at least be honest with you about it because I want to be with you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, you idiot. I want to be with you. But I don’t know what it’s like to be loved by someone who stays. I don’t know what it’s like to love someone who wants to stay. I think I love you, but I don’t think that my work is the place to figure it out.”
Quinn smiles at her, hugging her and holding her tight, every part of her relaxing as he does so. “That’s all I need. That’s all I want.”
___________________
“Ok, if we have to stay all night, then we’re ordering food.”
“I never agreed to staying all night.”
“Ellie, we have to get this done before we go home.”
“Yeah, but I have plans tonight. I’m not staying all night, extra pay or not.”
Declan groans, a stupid smile on his face. “Are you driving to these plans tonight?”
Ellie gets a bad feeling in her stomach, one that puts a smile on her face regardless. This project had forced them together much more often than Quinn probably would have liked if he found out. The client was demanding it be done three weeks faster than anticipated,which meant they had to get it done before Monday. “Nope. Why?” Declan gets up from the table the two of them and Kendyl are sitting at in the conference room to give them more space to spread out, running over to his desk and yanking one of the drawers open. “Dex, what are you doing?” Ellie calls.
The three of them had already been in the office much longer than everyone else, the rest of their colleagues having left early for the weekend while the three of them stayed behind.
Ellie had plans with Quinn that night for the first time in a while.
“Getting this,” Declan says, pulling her out of the spiraling thoughts she was having about her relationship.
He holds up three plastic red cups and a bottle of rum, the one alcohol that Ellie could stomach without any mixer, a sociopathic tendency as Kendyl would call it. “Why is that there?” Kendyl asks.
Declan shrugs, popping open the bottle with ease and pouring way more than a single shot into each of the cups. “One of the clients gave it to me as a thank you.”
“We never get alcohol as a thank you,” Ellie scoffs, Kendyl agreeing.
“Men,” Kendyl rolls her eyes.
Declan laughs, raising his cup to Ellie and clinking it against hers, downing it in a few seconds as he watches Ellie do the same. Both of them cough, the liquid burning down their throats much more than they were expecting, neither of them breaking eye contact with each other while forgetting Kendyl was there with them. “Alright, we work until we’re done. We refill when we need to.”
Ellie smiles at him, the warmth of the alcohol already coursing through her. Her phone starts buzzing, a call coming in from someone whose contact she can’t quite make out. “No phones.”
The three of them get to work, the sun setting without them realizing it as their phones keep buzzing over and over again. They weren’t even entirely sure what the project was that their boss was asking of them, but then again, when were they ever?
They had to have been working for at least two hours straight without moving, feeling like they hadn’t even made a dent in the amount of tasks they had for the project. “I need to go home,” Kendyl groans, rubbing her hands over her face.
“We need to finish this,” Ellie points out.
“We need more alcohol.” Declan gets up, already somehow emptying the bottle into their three cups. He winks at Ellie, yet again ignoring Kendyl and sending a chill down Ellie’s spine before heading back out of the conference room without another word.
Kendyl squeals once he’s out of earshot, shaking Ellie’s arm. “Oh, my god, he is so obsessed with you.”
“He is not,” Ellie insists, the heat running to her cheeks at the thought of her coworker liking her. She’s dating Quinn. Dating a coworker is out of the question. Dating Delcan isn’t even a thought.
“Ellie, I’m not even here when he’s around. You two are flirting so much.”
“I’m not sure you know what flirting is.”
“What about Quinn?”
Ellie’s stomach churned at his name. “Quinn and I are fine,” she tells Kendyl, trying to ignore how high her voice got involuntarily.
“El.”
“Ken.”
“You’re lying to me.” Ellie bites her lip, hating that Kendyl knew her well enough to tell. “What’s going on with you two? You were off last time I saw you together.”
Ellie sees Declan out of the corner of her eye shifting around the desks outside the conference room. “I have no idea.” Kendyl stays silent, Ellie feeling like she has to fill the space. “We see each other less and less now, part of it because of both our jobs right now.”
“Well, that makes sense, that happens.”
“But when we do spend time together, we don’t say anything. We barely talk anymore at all. It’s like we ran out of things to say.”
“Who has nothing to say?” Declan interrupts, plopping down in his chair with another bottle of rum.
“Ellie and Quinn. Why do you have another bottle?” Kendyl asks.
“I have many bottles. Who’s Quinn?”
“Ellie’s boyfriend.”
Declan just nods, giving Ellie an uneasy feeling as they both take a sip of their drinks again, the eye contact between them mixed with the alcohol making her mind spin. “We’re just going through a weird phase right now. We’ll get through it.”
Kendyl recaps what Ellie told her, unprompted, to Declan, who infuriatingly just sits there, the alcohol making him look way too attractive for Ellie’s liking. “You don’t want my opinion, do you?” he asks.
“Kendyl gives me hers all the time when I don’t want it, you might as well give yours.”
“You’re both busy. That happens.”
“See?” Ellie prods Kendyl.
“But,” Declan starts again, Kendyl sticking her tongue out at Ellie like a child, “Being busy could also mean not being willing to make time for each other.”
Ellie took in a deep breath, hating what he was saying. It wasn’t like he said that much, but he said enough. The room suddenly felt too small, the work too overwhelming, the alcohol hitting her all at once. “I’m going to go to the bathroom,” she says, practically running out of the room.
Are she and Quinn not making enough time for each other? Are they just ending their relationship without saying that it’s over? She didn’t think she wanted to break up with him, but at this point, what was staying with him doing for her?
Ellie looks at herself in the mirror. She didn’t know if it was the alcohol distorting her perception of herself or if it was the mirror that probably hadn’t been cleaned in a while, but she didn’t look like herself. She looked off. She had felt off for a while, but she had no idea why.
Was it because of Quinn? Ellie had heard that to be loved was to be changed, but what happens when you don’t like how you’ve changed? How much should she fight to get things back to the way there were when they first started seeing each other? What has to happen for her to just give up instead?
“Hey, sorry,” Declan startles Ellie, causing her to lose her balance and stumble against the sink. “I’m sorry that I upset you.”
“No, uh,” Ellie starts, wiping a tear from her cheek she didn’t even know had fallen, “You didn’t upset me.”
“Can I ask you something?” Declan’s voice is gentle as he takes a step closer to you, waiting for her to nod. “If you aren’t happy, why are you still with him?”
Ellie shrugs, not wanting to look at him. If she looks, she’ll fall apart. “I love him. I do. He knows me better than anyone. I’ve told him things I haven’t told anyone outside of my family, not even Kendyl. But sometimes,” she takes in a breath, her voice shaking. “Sometimes I wonder if it was all for nothing. We have no time for each other anymore. I see Kendyl more than I see him.”
“Ellie,” he says, his voice low as he steps closer to her. She was sure he could hear her heart racing.
She was dating Quinn.
Quinn.
“Oh, fuck,” Ellie practically yells. “What time is it?”
“Uh, 8:30.”
“Quinn was picking me up at 8:15.” Ellie runs from the bathroom, leaving Declan calling after her. She grabs her stuff from the conference room without saying a word to Kendyl.
She hears Declan in the background, calling after her as she runs down the stairs, dropping things in the stairwell that she doesn’t bother to pick up. She was rattled, Quinn already waiting for what had now become twenty minutes without her so much as texting him back the entire time.
Declan catches up to her, everything she’s dropped in his hands when she bursts through the front door of the building, Quinn’s car at the curb with him leaning against it scrolling on his phone. He looks up, his eyes going between his disheveled girlfriend and the one guy that she talked to that he was worried about, equally out of breath and carrying her things, both of them looking panicked.
He could tell Ellie was drunk. He knew she was drinking with him.
“What is this, Ellie?” he asks, trying to keep a calm tone in his voice as best as he can.
Ellie starts stammering, the alcohol not helping her at all. “We were doing that project I told you about, we lost track of time. I know I’m late but I wasn’t looking at my phone so we could finish as fast as possible.”
Quinn takes in a deep breath, looking up to the sky so he didn’t have to see her reaction to what he was about to say. “Ellie, I know he likes you. I told you likes you the night I met him. And, I know you like him, even if you don’t realize it yet. What am I doing here?”
Ellie steps toward him, her legs starting to shake as she tried to process what he was saying. “Quinn, you’re taking me out. You said we were meeting the guys tonight.”
“No, Ellie. I am. You’re gonna stay here.You’re gonna finish the project. You’re going to spend the night with Declan. You should be with someone who has time for you.”
“Quinn.”
“We’ve both been busy. We’ve both had way too many things going on to focus on each other. We deserve better. You deserve better.”
“Quinn,” she repeats, standing right in front of him. She reaches up to his cheek, him leaning into her touch as he finally looks at her. “What are you saying?”
“You know, Ellie.”
They stand there, forgetting Declan behind them and ignoring the world around them. Quinn cups her cheeks, kissing her like he did the very first time. “Bye, Eleanor.”
“Bye, Quinn,” Ellie whispers, not wanting to let go.
Everything happened so fast. Ellie stood on the curb, wanting to drop her things right on the sidewalk and chase after him as he got in his car and drove away. She didn’t move as Declan came up behind her, gently putting his arm around her to try to comfort her. She didn’t hear him say that he wanted to get her back inside so that Kendyl could be with her, so that she’d have someone she trusted to talk to after what just happened.
She just stood there.
___________________
Quinn was miserable. The guys were all with their partners, while Quinn sat in the middle with no one by his side. All he had was the beer in front of him that he didn’t even want to drink.
He should be happy. They were already having a great season. They had already secured a playoff spot. The team was playing to have fun and winning was coming because of it.
Brock comes up to him with Kendyl, the two of them still going strong. Quinn liked Kendyl, but seeing her still reminded him of Ellie, even if the two of them didn’t work together anymore.
“Come on, buck up. There are plenty of girls here that you could at least talk to,” Brock tries to encourage him.
Quinn just shrugs him off, slowly turning the glass of beer around on the table. He wasn’t in the mood to be there, but there was no way the guys would let him leave this early.
Brock leaves to get another round of drinks, Kendyl staying behind. “She’s doing ok, you know,” she says, barely above a whisper.
Quinn sighs. “I miss her.”
Kendyl puts her hand on his shoulder, giving him a sympathetic smile. “I know.”
They sit for a moment, both of them unsure what to say next. What do you say to someone who was still broken over something that should have never shattered in the first place?
“Hey, isn’t that that Dexter guy you work with?” Elias comes over and asks, pointing to the other side of the bar.
Quinn feels the air escape his lungs, Ellie and Declan together, Declan holding on to her as a guy moved past them, pressing their bodies against each other. She didn’t hesitate to take the opportunity to drape her arms on his shoulders, getting up on her toes to kiss him, their foreheads pressed together when they pull away while they looked at each other like they were the only people in the world.
“She’s happy,” Kendyl says.
“She’s happier,” Quinn corrects her, his heart breaking at the fact that he couldn’t do that for her.
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