Accidentally Aphrodite (22 page)

Yes!
her mind screamed, even if her feet were reluctant.

Squaring her shoulders, she straightened and lifted her chin, marching past Khristos and Nina and walking directly into the coffee shop as if someone in the joint owed her money—boobs and all.

Which would have been fine if someone
did
owe her money. At least she’d appear as though she had a reason to be there other than a public, spiteful, jealous rage.

There were no tables where they could sit so her back would be to Igor and Shawna and she wouldn’t have to watch them worry she’d bust out her hunting knife and take everyone out in the scorned-lover routine she was almost certain they were anticipating.

Igor’s eyes bulged momentarily when he caught sight of her chest, stuffed into her red jacket like a sausage, but he looked away almost immediately.

So she plopped down at the table just two away from where they sat and folded her hands in front of her and waited for whatever was next.

“So, hot mocha lattes with a shot of espresso and some whipped cream in the shape of happy clouds?” Nina asked on a chuckle, sliding into the seat next to Quinn’s.

“Or arsenic with a spot of rat poisoning so I can end my suffering. Because um, humiliating when the people who did you wrong clearly think you’re here to end it all—or take them as hostages,” Quinn joked.

But she didn’t feel like she was suffering at all. Seeing Igor did nothing for her. It didn’t evoke rage or grief or much of anything, and that was odd. There was a time when seeing Igor, his horn-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose, reminded her she had another half to make her whole—or so she’d thought.

Khristos pulled out the chair next to her and reached for her hand, but she snatched it away. She was determined to handle this with class and some dignity, and without the pretense that she’d brought this hot hunk in here to show Igor she was doing just fine.

It was like a Mexican standoff, a waiting duel of who’d look at whom first. Or which of the two would ask whom her plastic surgeon was first.

Igor and Shawna, in defensive mode, huddled together, their bodies covering each other protectively as they whispered. Shawna’s red hair spilled down her lean back, her tight jeans revealing a pink thong at the waist.

How strange that she felt so indifferently about the fact that Igor had always said he didn’t care for what he’d dubbed “trashy lingerie”. Rather than be outraged, she chalked it up to yet another thing he’d done to pretend he was something he wasn’t.

Khristos leaned into her, his eyes scanning her face. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“In this game of awkward chess, I’m wondering who’s going to make the first move.”

The question was answered when Igor pushed off the table with his hands and approached them. His lean, tall frame moved across the floor with caution. His horn-rimmed glasses were nowhere on his boy-next-door face, and his blue eyes, eyes she’d always thought pretty enough to be a woman’s, were wary.

Nina went into serial-killer defensive mode, her body language stiffening, her low growl menacing.

She patted Nina’s hand to keep her in check. Igor might be a lying cheat, but he was as docile and non-confrontational as she was.

His smile was hesitant as he ran a hand through his sandy-blonde hair. “Quinn. Good to see you.”

She straightened her tinted glasses, hiding her freakishly purple eyes. “You, too, Igor. How’ve you been?”

“Okay, I guess.”

Quinn shook her head in amazement. He was minimizing his happiness to keep from rubbing salt in her wound. She saw it in his eyes, in the way he avoided Shawna’s curious gaze.

“Can we talk?” she asked.

“Is it about the sheets? I’ll give them to you, if you want. You paid for them—”

Quinn barked a laugh, cutting him off. The old, sad, misguided Quinn might have thrown the idea of those sheets right back in his face with a sharp retort about sloppy seconds and wisecracks about spending his time with a woman who thought picking the next
Bachelorette
was like taking an IQ test.

But the new Quinn, the new one who saw all the things wrong about them as a couple, all the cruel analogies she’d applied to Shawna out of anger, shook her head again.

Looking back now, she marveled at how she’d diligently ignored coming home to the lingering scent of Britney Spears perfume and Bubble Yum bubble gum in the air in favor of believing her Mr. Darcy would never cheat.

“I don’t want the sheets, Igor. I’d just like to talk.”

“Here? In front of your—”

“Friends,” Nina provided with a snarl. “Scary, cheater-hating friends who’ll—”

“
Nina
,” Khristos warned, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“It’s okay,” Quinn said, though the word “friend” warmed her to her core. “Slow your roll there, Dark Overlord. I’ve got this.”

Igor blanched when Nina snapped her teeth at him. “You upset her—one GD tear—and I’m comin’ for you. Got it,
lover
?”

Quinn hopped up and placed her hand on Nina’s shoulder, dropping a quick kiss on her cheek. “Have faith in me.” Pointing to a corner booth, she asked Igor, “That work?”

Igor nodded, looking back at Shawna, who pulled a string of bubble gum from her mouth and wound it around her finger as she watched them.

Quinn slid into the booth and took a moment to reflect on how easy, at least for her, all this felt.

Igor took his place at the table directly across from her and began to defend himself. “Listen, Quinn. I know I did something really shitty to you—”

“That’s not why I’m here, Igor. I’m not here to yell angry words at you, to humiliate you—or Shawna for that matter. Honest.” She didn’t even know why she was here. But then that urge she’d felt before came back tenfold, punching her in the stomach.

His eyes became guarded again. “So why
are
you here?”

Because the universe seems to think this scenario is LOL?

“Honestly? I don’t know. It just sort of happened, but while I’m here, I just want to say something to you, if that’s okay.”

“Okay,” he said, with hesitance riddling his tone.

“I hope you’re happy,” Quinn said with a smile, readying to slide out of the booth.

He grabbed her hand, to the tune of chair legs scraping the floor from across the room as Nina prepared to beat him down and Khristos warned her to ease up.

“Wait. Please, Quinn.”

Quinn fought a chuckle and held up a hand to thwart Nina. “For?”

Igor swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his nervousness. “I want to say something, too. I’m sorry I hurt you. Really sorry. It’s been on my mind, keeping me up at night since we broke up. But I need you to know something. Shawna and I never slept together while you and I were together. I know that’s what you thought, and I didn’t do a very good job of defending myself. But she made it clear I had to leave you before any funny business happened, and she was right.”

Quinn fought a gasp. Their last moments together had been fraught with angry words and her tears as she’d packed her things and stormed out the door. This revelation was a surprise. One she was glad of—it made Igor a better man than she’d originally thought.

“I’ve hurt a lot of people trying to figure out me, Quinn, but I’m sorriest I hurt you. This thing with Shawna…I know she’s not what you’d expect, as smart and well-rounded as you are. But there’s a quality to her, for lack of a better phrase, vocabulary skills I find endearing. I like that she needs me. She has a big heart. She’s kind, nurturing. I can relax with her. I don’t know…it just—”

“Happened. I get it, and it’s okay. Sometimes the person you’d least expect ends up being the person you love the most. I’m actually okay. I know people say that out of spite when on the inside they want to gouge their ex’s eyes out with a nail file, but for me, it’s true. We were a mistake from the start, and I see that now.”

His chuckle was as ironic as his smile. “I’ve been thinking a lot about that, too. About who I am for falling in love with someone else when you were so good to me. But I have this weird sort of self-discovery thing happening lately. I always felt like I was pretending with you. Pretending I was as well-read and knowledgeable. I don’t have to pretend with Shawna. I don’t have to pretend I’m something I’m just not. She’s okay with the fact that we’re pretty damn different. I don’t have to outsmart her or outthink her. I’m not doing things I really don’t enjoy just to keep from being lonely. And it’s a relief. But how I ended up here? That’s on me. I did those things to myself, and I regret every wasted moment.”

Khristos’s words came back to haunt her, but she wasn’t angry about them anymore. She was grateful. Grateful to share this moment of closure with Igor.

“Funny you should mention self-discovery. I did those things, too, Igor. I turned you into someone you weren’t in my head, and I let myself get carried way far away. I’ve done it before and it was wrong. So, I was wrong, too.”

“Did this self-discovery also include breast implants?” Then he pressed his wrist over his mouth. “Sorry. That was insensitive and rude, but they’re hard to miss. You really went all the way.”

Yet, she wasn’t at all insulted. Instead, she snickered. “Long story you’d never believe. They’re not implants but some weird medical thing I picked up in Greece. It’s almost too fluky to explain.”

He paused a moment, the tic above his eye pulsing, the one that acted up when he was genuinely concerned. “So you really are okay, Quinn?”

“Yep. I’ve packed up my shivs and testicle-removers for good, where you’re concerned.”

Now Igor laughed, shaking his head. “I’ve dreaded this moment, you know. Thought about it. Visualized it.”

“Bet it went a lot better than the movie you made up in your head, huh?”

“Yeah. That was filled with carnage and entrails,” he joked.

“Then that’s all that needs to be said. I’m glad you’re happy, Igor. I’m glad Shawna’s the one who helped you realize it was time to just be you.” She slid out of the booth and Igor followed while Shawna hovered in the background, her face full of concern.

Facing him for what likely would be the last time, she smiled, wide, genuine, reaching up to cup his jaw as she did. “I hope from here on out you’re always true to yourself, and most of all, that you and Shawna are happy.” She stood on tiptoe, planting a kiss on his cheek before she turned to leave.

Hitching her jaw at the door in Khristos and Nina’s direction, she plodded toward it until that damn feeling, the one pushing her to come to the Spotted Pig in the first place, grabbed her guts up in a fist and wrenched them.

Pushing her way out the door, she leaned against the side of the coffee shop as Khristos, always near, grabbed her around the waist. “Tell me what’s happening, Quinn!” he demanded in her ear.

But she knew what was happening—it had just taken her by surprise with its velocity, with its truth.

“
Now
!” she whispered to her mental image of Cupid, looking up and into the coffee shop window just in time to see the arrow—gleaming and bright in the morning sun, whiz through the air and land on Igor and Shawna, hugging each other, under a shower of gold and silver.

Was that the scent of Bubble Yum and Brittany Spears perfume she smelled in the air?

Quinn smiled. Now, everything really was okay.

Which brought to mind one of her favorite Keats quotes:
Who shall say between a man and a woman, who is most delighted?

* * * *

“Good job back there, kiddo,” Nina praised her upon their return to Quinn’s apartment. “Personally? I woulda fucked him up so hard he woulda shit his teeth for a year. You’re a better person than I am.”

Quinn gave her a distracted smile, her mind on something else. “All in a day’s work.”

Marty and Wanda, both on their laptops, peeked over the tops of them and grinned. “We heard! Goooo, Goddess of Love!” Marty cheered, shaking her imaginary pom-poms as Wanda gave her a thumbs-up.

Archibald stuck his head out of the kitchen with Darnell just behind him. “How do you all feel about pizza night tonight? I have the most amazing recipe just garnered from the goddess of cooking herself, Ina Gartner. I can’t contain my excitement!”

Carl, who’d returned while they were gone, thumped his hand on the table in agreement, shooting Quinn his lopsided smile when she gave him a quick hug. “Glad to see you, buddy. How about some
Goodnight Moon
tonight at bedtime?”

He leaned forward and grabbed his backpack from under the chair, pulling out a book she knew well—one near and dear to her romantic heart. “
Keats
, Carl?” She fanned herself and batted her eyes. “Be still my beating heart. Keats it is, my friend. You and me. It’s a date.”

Carl thumped her arm and grinned again.

What would she do when these people left her life? The notion made her sad, but there was a small part of her, the part who lived for love, that reminded Quinn her new job was forever.

It would be filled with plenty to do, and she’d keep busy matchmaking.

That was enough to fill up any romantic’s cup, and she’d just have to be happy with that.

Khristos grabbed her by the arm and smiled. “Good news from the forums.”

“Am I ever going to get a user ID and password for the forums? I feel a little left out of the loop,” she joked.

He held up his phone. “Yep. I have them right here. Just texted them to you. Also, looks like I’m not having my liver pecked out anytime soon. No punishment for losing track of the apple. I escaped the guillotine.”

“Yay for leniency!” she cheered, though she felt anything but cheerful. Khristos’s possible punishment was one of her primary concerns before she tackled her next task. Relief flooded her veins. He would be safe. That was all that mattered.

“So, you did a great job today. You’ve really gotten the hang of this, Quinn.”

Her heart pounded in her chest for what she was about to do next. But she was all about making the right choices in her life right now. Making sure she wasn’t creating something out of absolutely nothing ever again. That hurt too much.