Any hardness residing in Tricia’s features melted away, transforming an aesthetic beauty into an actualized vision. “Thank you, Quinn. And I’m …” Tricia gave a quick glance over at her twin across the room, an air of resolve settling in. She met Quinn’s gaze. “I am sorry about before. There’s no reason to drag you into my drama, and I appreciate you not saying anything.”
Quinn was too stunned to respond, and before she had a chance, Tricia was already halfway to the kitchen. She followed.
From there, Trina took the lead, weaving together the building’s storied history and the preservation efforts while making sure to highlight all the latest technology the builders had included. She was impressive—Quinn had to give her that. She also noticed Tricia didn’t utter a word the rest of the time, either simply nodding along with what her sister said or staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows. Either way, she was no longer in the room with them.
Eventually, Trina was done with her pitch. She did a little twirl in the middle of the room, her chartreuse print skirt flaring out. “So, what do you think? Is this your new home, Sebastian?”
Her brother’s eyes scanned the loft, his feet moving the rest of him wherever his gaze landed. “It’s worth considering.” He stopped, focusing on the twins. “Give us a minute … alone?”
Trina’s micro-bladed brows arched. “Uh, sure thing.” She eyed her sister. “Come along.”
Tricia nodded. “Let us know if you have any questions. We’ll meet you and Quinn downstairs.”
Bash waited until the Pemberleys were in the elevator. “So, what do you think?”
Quinn walked over to the windows, taking in the expanse of their town. “Well, Trina was right: you can see everything from up here … there’s Church Street Eats … and there’s Sarita’s Ice Cream Shoppe.” She sighed. “I miss Nielsen’s.”
Nielsen’s used to be on the corner of Church Street and Lawyer’s Road, and they’d made the best ice cream—or, as they called it, “custard”—in the mid-Atlantic. The shop had closed a few years back, tired of paying Vienna’s escalating taxes and rent, and everyone in town missed them like a phantom limb, especially in summer.
“Where’s Prose and Scones?”
Bash scanned the view. With his chin, he motioned toward the left. “Right over there. See the red roof? That’s our bookstore.”
Quinn pressed her nose against the window, watching her breath fog the glass. Bash copied his sister, writing “Well?” with the tip of his finger into the condensation.
She let out a soft laugh and bumped her shoulder with his. “You know, this place is amazing. It’s just a shame those two will get the commission. Feels like we’re supporting the White Walkers in their quest for dominion over the Seven Kingdoms.”
His eyes gleamed with amusement. “I’m thinking someone may be bingeing too much Game of Thrones.”
Quinn summoned her best fake-British accent. “There is no such thing as too much Game of Thrones, and I will cut out your tongue and feed it to my hounds if you utter such blasphemy again.”
Then she cocked her left brow, like a super villain, for extra effect. He stared for half a second before they both dissolved laughing.
He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Damn, Sis, I forgot how funny you can be.”
She offered a curtsy.
“I think I’m going to take it,” he said.
“Do you have that kind of money?”
He gave her a look. “Yeah, I have it.”
“Well, la dee dah. I guess they pay firefighters more than I realized.”
“Quinn, I was a wildlife firefighter on the federal level. I made decent money, plus most everything I own I can fit into the back of my truck. You do the math.”
“Fair enough.” She felt her pocket vibrate. She took her phone out. It was her alarm. “Listen, I gotta get back and walk RBG.”
“And how is Ruff Barker Ginsburg these days?”
She shoved her phone into her back pocket. “As long as she gets in her exercise and favorite treats, that’s all she needs.”
“If only people were as easy.”
“‘Girl, you know it’s true,’” she teased, quoting vintage Milli Vanilli. They’d played a lot of the ill-fated duo when she lived overseas in Cambodia—early Madonna hits and George Michael too. Now she couldn’t hear most bubblegum pop songs without thinking of her life back in Phnom Penh. Each place where she’d lived and worked had its own soundtrack.
He fished his keys out of his front pocket. “Ready to go?”
“No, you stay here. Work out your deal with the blonde Kardashian twins downstairs. I feel like walking anyway.”
His brows knitted. “You sure?”
She took a hair tie off her wrist, threading her reddish-brown hair into a ponytail. “Yeah, I need the walk.”
“All right then.” He opened his arms. “Bring it in for the real thing.”
She gave him a hug, and he rested his chin on the top of her head. “So happy you’re home for good,” Quinn said.
He held her for an extra beat. “You being back here meant it was time for me to come home too.”
She craned her head up. “I don’t want to be the reason you stopped doing something you love.”
He let go. “I like putting out fires. And I can do that anywhere. Besides, you’re not the only one who got their wanderlust out of their system.”
Quinn found that hard to believe. Growing up, Bash had always been the one who could never sit still. Their father used to joke he was like a wound-up husky, needing to be exercised several times a day in order to keep him out of mischief.
“You’re going to be bored silly here.”
He stared out the window before meeting her gaze. “Please, besides the job, what do you think my life’s been like outside of work?”
He didn’t wait for her to answer. “I’ll tell you what it was. Two choices: either going to bars in nowhere towns with a bunch of kids in my unit or staying behind in dumpy motels, watching bad TV. It’s nearly impossible to have a real relationship. I’m over it, Quinnie. I want roots and I want family, maybe even one of my own.”
Bash was all determination and resolve. She could feel the energy coming off him in waves, charging the molecules around them. Quinn could appreciate her brother missing home, longing for family, but no way was either the mitigating factor for his return. She knew him too well.
“You came back for Rachel.”
Bash swallowed. “Yeah … it’s her. It’s always been her.”
Well, it’s about time. She had known Rach was the one for her brother since he first brought her home to meet the family back when they were in high school. Maybe that’s why Quinn had taken it almost as hard as Rachel when he broke off the relationship later on.
“Winning her back is going to be …” She wanted to choose her words carefully. “A challenge.”
He frowned. “Yeah, don’t I know it.”
She looked around the loft. “And this place, while completely awesome, screams bachelor pad, not ‘man who’s ready to settle down.’”