At Your Most Beautiful by Harper Bliss (best free ereader .TXT) 📗

Quinn realized she might have made an error in judgment. She shouldn’t have told him. There wasn’t even that much to tell. She could hardly confide in her father that she and Maya were madly in love. They’d only seen each other a few times and all of those times Maya had expressed great doubt about what they’d been doing—although that doubt had clearly never been powerful enough to stop her from doing it.

“Okay. Fine,” Quinn said. “Let’s move on. Let’s pretend I didn’t tell you. Erase it from your memory forever, please.”

“Are you… in love with her?” Her dad swirled what was left of his wine around in his glass.

“I don’t know. As I said, it might just be a rebound thing and Maya, well, she doesn’t know what it is either, nor does she know what to do with it. With us. It’s all very unclear. But… I do have feelings for her. We have a great time together. We went dancing at this salsa club on Saturday night and it was the most fun I’ve had in months.”

“But it’s definitely romance?” he asked. “Not just friendship?”

Quinn could hardly say they were more like friends with benefits at the moment. Her relationship with her father didn’t extend to being able to share comments like that. “Yes,” she said, even though she could hardly be certain. “Much more romance than friendship.”

“Also from Maya’s side?” He scrunched his lips together. “I never knew that about her. She was single for a long time after she and Drew divorced, but she never said anything about being interested in women.”

“You were never really close enough that you would know that about her,” Quinn said. She had zero intention of letting her father in on the secret she and Maya had shared for years. “Besides, I think it’s quite a new development in her life.” Quinn was beginning to see Maya’s side of the argument. Their families might complicate matters between them too much—and to Maya, family was everything.

He blew out some air. “Jesus, Quinn. I’m going to need some time to process this. It’s no reflection on you. Or Maya. But I wasn’t expecting this. I didn’t mean to be harsh or to judge you in any way, but you must understand that this is quite out of the ordinary.”

“I know, Dad. I know.”

“Your mother,” he said on a sigh, then fell silent.

“Don’t tell her. She won’t be able to cope.”

“I won’t, but… what’s going to happen? Are you going to keep seeing each other? Surely, this isn’t easy for Maya either.”

“I’m not sure. When it’s just us, we’re fine. But as soon as we start thinking about family, it’s not so fine. Maya hasn’t even told Tommy that she’s dating women. Imagine the shock when she tells him I’m the woman she’s dating.”

“I wish I could help make this easier for you somehow.”

This conversation was turning into a big downer. “I’ll probably need to face the music sooner rather than later. Realistically, I know we don’t really stand a chance.”

“Love has conquered much greater challenges,” her dad said.

Quinn scoffed, although it felt great to have her father on her side.

“Maya Mercer.” He slowly shook his head. “Let me know if it will be dinner for three next time I come to town.” He sent her a soft dad-smile.

“It’s hardly likely.”

He put his hand on the table, palm upward. “You know that all your old dad really wants is for you to be happy. That’s all.”

“Unfortunately, the world doesn’t only consist of people who are my father.” Quinn put her hand in his and relished the short-lived yet familiar comfort it brought her.

Chapter 31

Maya couldn’t avoid Angus forever. She hadn’t spoken to him in almost a week when they usually didn’t go more than a day or two without a chat, even if it was just some quick banter in the hallway.

When a knock came on her door on Tuesday evening, she knew it could only be him. She opened the door.

Angus stood in the doorway with the biggest pout on his lips, and his hands on his hips as if to say, “What’s it going to be, dear?”

Maya waved him in and without asking mixed him a rum and diet Coke.

“I won’t claim to have eyes everywhere,” Angus said. “But I have seen things I can’t un-see.”

Maya burst into a chuckle she sorely needed. Ever since leaving Quinn’s on Sunday, she’d had a heaviness in her chest. An unpleasant sensation she could only explain as anticipatory heartache.

“Do enlighten me. What is so impossible to un-see?” Maya looked into Angus’ friendly face.

“A woman arriving on Tuesday evening and only leaving the premises the next morning. I didn’t get too good a look at her, but she quite resembled a woman I’ve seen a picture of. Might she go by the name of Quinn?”

“Correct.” Maya had zero need or desire to be coy about Quinn with Angus any longer. “Quinn spent the night. I went out with Beverly on Friday and it was a big dud because all I could think of when I was with her was how much I wanted to be with Quinn instead. Then Quinn took me to the most fabulous club on Saturday and we had an amazing time and now, ironically, I find myself wishing we hadn’t had such a good time, because…” None of the reasons had changed. Maya lay awake at night thinking of ways to tell Tommy so he wouldn’t be too shocked but she could only ever imagine him so disgusted with his own mother that he refused to ever let her see Ethan again. “It’s doomed. Maybe that’s why we have so much fun, because time started running out for us before it even started.”

“Oh, please.” Angus performed one of his more impressive eye-rolls. “So that’s why you’ve been avoiding me? Because I refuse to be the harbinger of doom like that voice inside your head?”

Maya shrugged. “I don’t