Do you really think we could?”
Alec went quiet as he mulled the question over and then shrugged, starting up the Jeep as he did so. “Yeah. If they can with that dumpster fire, you guys can do it.” He pointed at my seatbelt, which I’d yet to pull over. “Come on. Let’s get you home so you can sleep it off.”
“Actually, can you bring me back to MontRec?” He tilted his head in confusion, but excitement was already flooding into me. “I have something I need to do.”
3
Quinn
I almost choked on my coffee when I looked at the time and saw that it was five in the morning. I was just shy of having been awake for twenty-four straight hours. That was probably why I kept confusing my pen for the banana I told myself to grab at least three times and never did. I was delirious and exhausted, but it was worth it. I leaned away from my computer and looked at the blocks of text that I’d filled into all of the boxes on the screen. Who knew that submitting an application for semi-pro status would be so arduous?
“Okay,” I grumbled to myself as I leaned back in.
I scrolled all the way to the top of the screen and scanned all the fields one by one. The first several boxes were okay, but the further down the page I got, the more grammatical and numerical errors I came across. It wasn’t a shock that I lost my mind a little bit as it got later in the night, but toward the end, things really stopped making sense. It took much longer than I wanted it to for me to sort through my thoughts, figure out what I was trying to say, and get the words down in a way that was easy to understand. I felt like only a blip in time had passed, but suddenly, the doors to MontRec’s employee entrance creaked.
One of the morning instructors, Tabby, walked past my office and then backed up when she noticed me sitting there. “Quinn?” She checked her watch. “I assumed you weren’t here. Everything is still locked up.”
I checked the time again, and it was eight o’clock. “Holy crap.” I blinked a couple of times to try and push the tiredness away, but I was unsuccessful.
“Wait,” Tabby started, stepping into my office. “Are you still here from yesterday?”
“No.” I downed what was left of my coffee in one gulp. “I left to go watch the Vipers play.”
“But you haven’t been home to sleep?” She looked around my office. “Or eat?”
“That stuff’s for the dead,” I responded and went back to looking over my application.
“Which you will be if you keep on like this.” She pulled out her phone. “I’m calling Christine and telling her you’re gonna be off today.”
I shook my head. “I’m fine. Just let me finish this, and I’ll get things opened up.”
“Christine? Hey, it’s Tabby. Yeah. I just got to MontRec, and Quinn isn’t doing so well. Yeah, I know, she’s being stubborn and won’t go home. Uh-huh. Okay, thanks. Bye.”
Tabby pulled her phone from her head, and half a minute later, my phone rang.
“You’re welcome,” Tabby said, before walking away.
It was Christine, the owner’s daughter. I answered. “Hey.”
“Hi. I just talked to Tabby. She says you’re sick?”
“No, I’m—”
“Go home, Quinn. Now.”
“Really, I’m—”
“It wasn’t a suggestion. I think I spend, like, one day a month in the rec center. I’ll come in and keep an eye on things today. Wrap up what you’re doing and go home. I’ll be there in thirty minutes, and you had better be gone.”
I took a deep breath and let it out. “Fine.”
“Bye.”
The phone went dead, and I shoved it into my purse in irritation. I didn’t like skipping work, but as my head lulled forward and my eyes drifted shut against my will, I conceded it was probably a good thing. I finished looking over the application for errors, and when I was confident it was good enough not to get us disqualified from consideration, I submitted it. My stomach did a little lurch as I watched the page refresh to tell me that my application had been sent and was being reviewed. I had no idea how long it would take for someone to get back to me about the requirements, but I officially didn’t have any brain capacity left for figuring it out. I powered down my computer, grabbed my backpack and purse, and started the painful walk