inconvenience for you. I know you’re rather be doin’ belly shots off some hot stray goddess than skippin’ around the city, playing Love Connection. But is there anything else about the apple we should know? Some rare legend? Some stupid, frigged-up rule no one knows about but your mom? It’s happened to us more times than I care to count. So don’t fuck with me now. Your best bet is to just spit it out. Don’t make me play a game I don’t have all the rules for, cuz old friends or not, I’ll fuck you and all your organs right the hell up.”
Nothing. There was nothing he could think of, no one he could think of who’d knock Quinn on her ass in order to become Aphrodite.
Her ass.
Shit, he had to stop thinking about that particular part of her body, along with her smile, and the way she got that wide-eyed look when she was staring off into space, trying hard not to be the daydreamer she was.
He liked that she was a dreamer. He didn’t meet many women who weren’t so entrenched in their past bad relationship experiences that it colored everything they did. And in most cases, they had every right to those feelings.
He liked that she had a picture of her and a cardboard Mr. Darcy sitting on her dresser. He liked that she liked frilly ruffles, and lacy clothes, and anything ultra-feminine.
He hated Jane Austen’s work, but he loved that Quinn loved it. Because that was who she was. Not a chance in hell would he sit around and read Keats with her, but he’d certainly smile while she did as he watched a game or caught up on his Grisham, if it made her happy.
There was an innocence to Quinn’s outlook, and though she was still stinging right now from her breakup with a wishy-washy mockery of a man, her vow to be more realistic was all a sham. He liked that she kept trying, even when she didn’t realize she was.
She’d always gasp at the wonder of love and its many miracles just the way she’d gasped over the magic of the arrow tonight. She might be fighting it right now, but it would always be in Quinn’s nature to keep reaching, to keep hoping. She just had to learn the difference between hope and a lost cause.
Which Igor had been. Stupid, too, if he were pressed to label.
Her joy, her happiness…it did something to the inside of his chest. Something he wasn’t sure he wanted floating around his insides as if it belonged there.
He just had to stop thinking about the kiss; if he could do that, it would be all right. It was just a kiss. He’d kissed plenty of women. Quinn was no different.
Oh, stop now. She was so different.
“Khris?” Nina prodded.
“No. There’s no secret, no hidden issues that I know of personally, attached to that apple.”
Nina pursed her lips and scanned his face. “Okay. But I’m telling you—”
“I know, I know,” he said on a laugh. “You’ll kick my sorry, powerless ass. Loud and clear.”
He definitely got it. He just hoped he was right.
* * * *
Carl sat across the table from Quinn and smiled, his grin lopsided, his face greenish in cast as Nina reattached his hand to his wrist. When she was done, she ruffled his dark hair and smiled. “Good job, buddy. You sat really still this time. Now, no more taking off like that, got it? Big, scary city out there, and if something happened to your wandering butt, I’d be heartbroken, okay?”
Carl nodded and thumped the table with his hand then he turned his gaze back to Quinn.
Who tried to keep it together. Because zombie. Like, real zombie. Sitting-right-in-front-of-her, happy-as-a-clam zombie, completely unaware he was about as hard to digest as finding out there really was a Santa Claus.
But to look at Carl, to see him up close, well…he really was darling. Gentle as a lamb as he stroked Buffy’s head, who’d decided Carl had the best lap ever and had curled herself right into it as though she never planned to leave.
Archibald brought a plate of broccoli with a napkin and set it beside him, straightening to gaze down at Carl and give him a look of reproach. “All right, young man, enjoy your snack, but in no way should you consider this a reward for your poor behavior. I’m absolutely doing this against my better judgment. You will be the death of