Sloe Ride (3 page)

Late at night, Miki and Kane’s bedroom

Kane: Mick, you’re a good judge of character. Do
you
think there’s something wrong with Quinn?

Miki, turning over under the covers to face Kane: I think there’s something wrong with
you
for even asking that. When are you going to let go of the Quinn you’ve got in your head and see the one that’s in your heart?

K: Way to kick a man in the balls there, love.

M: Hey, if ever you develop that kind of kink. You just let me know. There are times I
really
want to kick you in the balls.

“P
ROFESSOR
M
ORGAN
!”
A shout across the campus parking structure brought Quinn to a stuttering halt. “Excuse me! Professor!”

Despite the college’s nest up against the hills, the cold wind coming up off the Bay snarled and bit at his face, playing with the soft black scarf he’d wrapped around his neck, and Quinn shivered, zipping his bomber jacket up to his chest. Next to him, Graham Merris, one of his older colleagues at the school’s history department, flared his nostrils, a sneer working up from his tight lips to his narrowed black eyes.

“It is
Doctor
Morgan,” Graham sniffed when a ponytailed young woman caught up with them. “He has earned the right to that title—”

“It’s okay, Graham,” Quinn murmured, shoving his hands back into his jacket’s warm pockets. Smiling at the young woman, he tried to remember where he’d seen her before. “Quinn’s fine too. Can I help you?”

She exhaled, straining her thin T-shirt with the press of her large breasts and steaming up the air in front of her flushed face. Goose bumps carpeted her bare arms, undulating waves of prickled skin and raised hair. A slight dip in her skin, some remnant of a childhood injury, changed the flow of the wind, fluttering the hair along its ridge. She shifted, and the process began again, a full ripple of flowing hair, then a skittering, defiant broken line cutting the dynamics of the chilled wind.

A silence settled over the space, and in the pregnant nothingness, Quinn suddenly realized she’d been speaking to him.

“I’m sorry. Distracted.” It was a common apology, one he rattled off without even thinking about it. It was such a familiar phrase. His family’d grown used to repeating things twice, sometimes even when he’d been paying attention. He had no idea what she’d said or who she even was. “Can you say that again?”

“I was asking about our final papers. If I could have a couple of days extension? I was sick and—”

That
was where he’d seen her. She was in one of his classes. A back-of-the-room sitter who spent a lot of time slipping in and out of the last row of seats instead of taking notes. He couldn’t remember her name or even her grades, but from the warning tickle in his brain, they weren’t very good. He blinked, catching the tail end of her reasoning for the extension—something about a cat throwing up everywhere.

Since he had a cat, he understood the severe consequences of too much rich tuna and a sip of milk. He just wasn’t sure what cat hork had to do with needing more time on a paper.

“The paper isn’t due until a week from now.” Quinn counted off the days in his head, making sure he had the right timeline. “It’s only five thousand words—”

“Yeah, I kind of lost my research notes. That’s what I was telling you.” More wiggling, and she pressed in closer, leeching some of his warmth. Her nipples were poking up tiny points in her T-shirt, and if he looked hard enough, he could make out thin blue lines of chapped skin around the edges of her gloss-covered lips.

“Do you have a jacket? I don’t know if I have something in the car.” His Audi was new, too new for him to have anything other than a spare tire and an emergency kit in the trunk. “Graham, do you keep anything in your car? A throw or towel? Oh, I might have one of those fleece throws. My mother’s always—”

“Doctor Morgan, I just need more time.” His student rubbed her arms briskly. “I don’t need a jacket. I’ve got one with my stuff. About the paper? Can I have another week?”

“Then why aren’t you wearing—?” Quinn caught Graham’s eye roll. “Um, I can probably give you another week, but that’ll dock your grade down a half step. You’ll have to write a really good paper on….” Hell, he didn’t even know what topic she’d chosen. “You’re ‘Industrial Revolution’?”

“And its Artistic Influences.” Her teeth chattered through her smile. “A week’s great. Thanks. And oh, I love your accent.”

She was gone before he could catch her name, and Quinn sighed, resigned to writing himself a text to remind him about the conversation. He’d tapped in a few letters on his tablet when Graham cleared his throat. Looking up, he was surprised to find the older man’s curled lip directed at him.

“You’re too nice to them. They have to learn there are no second chances in life,” the professor droned.

His speech was a flat line, hardly wavering with any emotion, and Quinn fought to parse out if the scold was a gentle reproach or condemnation. Luckily for him, Graham’s face changed, softening back into its normal stiff features.

“Really, Morgan. A deadline is a deadline. They have to keep to it. You shouldn’t give out special compensations just because a girl is pretty and doesn’t wear a bra when she asks you for more time.”

“A bra? The bra’s the least of it. She should have worn a
jacket
. It’s cold enough to lose body parts out here,” he snorted, finishing up his notes. “I didn’t really give her an extension. Any student can turn a paper in a week late and take the dock. They’ve just got to tell me. She probably forgot.”

“I….” Graham sighed. “Are you heading straight home? Or do you have time for a pint? The Goose and Pig is having a reading in an hour. If you’re free.”

“Damn, I would, but I have a family thing.” His mind chased down where he needed to be, lost in what was waiting for him across the bridge. If he was lucky, traffic on the 80 and across the Oakland Bridge would be light. A second later, he remembered he needed to respond better, slap on a smear of normal to the flat answer he’d given Graham. “Brother’s boyfriend is reopening his coffee shop. It’s an all-Morgans-on-deck thing. Next time?”

“Definitely family first.” Graham’s nose twitched, a flare of nostrils at odds with the tiny smile on his thin lips. “I’ll see you on Monday if you come in. Remind me to give you that book if I forget. It’s in my office.”

Quinn was halfway across the quad before it dawned on him to ask Graham to join him. Looking back over his shoulder, he muttered a quick curse when he saw the other professor was nowhere to be found.

“Fuck. Invite. People want to be invited. Shit.” A bit of shame rolled over him, a guilt born of knowing he’d fucked up. It burned a hot roll of sand over his thoughts, prickling at his mind. “Hell. Fuck.”

Envy was a silly thing, but he had it in spades. Con and Kane socialized like it was as easy as breathing, and Quinn loathed the awkward starts and fits he had when interacting with people. Every conversation was a minefield, filled with nuances and trip wires he couldn’t see and quicksand deep enough to suck him straight down and drown him in situations he didn’t understand.

“No, that’s not right,” he muttered to himself as he approached his car. “Quicksand doesn’t suck people down. Not usually. It’d have to be pretty deep. And depends on where it is. Sand to water ratio—and how the hell did I get to that? God, how many times has Da said, pull your brain up, Quinn boy. Fecking hell, but ah, here you are. How are you, love?”

He’d found the love of his life—or at least bought it. Gleaming black and low, the R8 was a stupid expense in the scheme of things, an impractical sports car with sleek lines and a wicked smile, and Quinn’d wanted it as soon as he’d seen it. He had no regrets. The money was there to be used, and even as his siblings gave him a lot of crap for buying what was basically an engine and two seats, he stood by his choice. Unlike his brothers and one sister, he didn’t need a vehicle sturdy enough to be used as a tank in case police action was needed. What
he
needed was something comfortable, fast, and aggressive to make the drive from his townhouse in the city to his alma mater and back. If he’d been smart, he would have parked the Audi out in the sun instead of in the structure, but a quick flick of the heater, and Quinn was on his way to being warmed up.

If only the hot air could reach the cold kernel of fear lodged in his belly, because no matter how comfortable a drive it was going to be to Marshall’s Amp, he was going there not only to celebrate Forest’s reopening of his inherited coffee shop but also to face the biggest mistake Quinn’d ever made in his life.

Rafe Andrade.

God, he was going to have to face Rafe Andrade.

Q
UINN
MADE
it off the bridge in record time. Normally he would have taken his time driving past the hulking structures, their metal forms an inspiration for AT-ATs everywhere. He liked driving through to the city, and the Audi was like handling hot butter on a sharp knife. Coming off of the 80, the Audi hugged the road, and Quinn let it drift up into the oncoming curve, taking the swell a bit high. Steering the car down was easy, its engine growling and responsive when he pulled it back into the loop. The Audi responded.

Unfortunately, the large white panel truck behind him didn’t.

The first tap was a nudge, a quick kiss against Quinn’s new bumper, and he swore, pissed at the grill staring back at him in his rearview mirror. A hasty swerve to the next lane did him no favors. The truck echoed his slide, tapping him again, a harder push strong enough to stroke Quinn’s tires on the slick blacktop. With his window down an inch, the truck’s engine screamed and protested its existence, a dangerous
tok-tok
sound of a broken rod coming from its front end.

He couldn’t see into the cab, not with the differences of heights between the Audi and the truck, but Quinn knew he had one advantage. There was no way the truck would be able to keep up with him.

The road stretched out before them, and he knew it well. There wouldn’t be much time for him to maneuver freely. A mess of construction and signals was coming up fast. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember even passing a panel truck on the way over the bridge, much less cutting one off, but road rage was the only reason he could think someone would lose their shit enough to bump him more than once.

He instinctively slowed down coming out of the last curve before the final straight shot into the city streets. Habits born of daily commutes guided his brain, and Quinn shook them off, focusing on putting enough room between him and the insane driver behind him so he could slip away into San Francisco’s tangle of streets. A few hundred yards ahead, a warning light flashed yellow to caution drivers of a road split leading either to Fremont or Folsom, and Quinn tapped at the brakes to slow down, needing the car at a slower speed to make the turn.

The truck’s driver had a different approach. Instead of putting on his brakes, he used the back of Quinn’s R8 to slow himself down, slamming hard into the Audi’s rear and jerking it forward.

“Shite and hell, what is his problem?” Quinn spat a bit of blood out of his window, licking at his torn cheek, where he’d sunk his teeth into the meat. “Fine. Let’s lose this bastard, then.”

The split screamed past him, and Quinn pushed the Audi over to the farthest lane. A construction crew had the break tied up with equipment and men in orange vests, and Quinn debated his options as the truck sped up once again, filling his rearview mirror. Fremont did a quick cut to the left, and Quinn took it hot, counting on the Audi’s low profile to tighten down on the road. He caught a flash of white as the truck lurched to follow, its unwieldy boxy shape unable to maneuver the tight turn. Its tires lifted, and it swayed, threatening to fall side down into the next lane, and Quinn’s heart stuttered, more worried for the tiny Camry next to the out-of-control truck than he was for himself.

At the last second, the truck righted itself, slamming back down on its tires, bouncing once before catching momentum, then gunning forward.

Straight for Quinn.

He hit the gas, pushing the Audi through half a block lined with concrete and glass. The Howard Street intersection turned green, and the road was clear in front of him. Flying past a tavern on the corner, the Audi hummed over the damp street. A quick look back told Quinn the truck wasn’t far behind. A delivery truck coming out of an alley cut in front of the Audi, and Quinn pulled the car over, narrowly missing a bicyclist straying out of the bike lane and into the street. Forced to slow down, Quinn cursed under his breath when the alley he’d planned on ducking down was blocked off by a cluster of women stopping to chat in the middle of the walk.

“Okay, shit. What the hell is going on?” It was bad enough he was talking to himself, but it was worse knowing the answers he needed could be handed to him by whomever was driving the truck. The same truck who’d caught up with him once again, clipping the right side of the Audi’s bumper. The scrape of paint and metal wasn’t a pleasant sound, but Quinn was more concerned about keeping the car going straight.