‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he says, and as his hand grips mine his mouth quirks back up into that knowing grin I’ve seen on him before. It makes me feel a tiny bit flustered, I can’t lie. It must be part of his supernatural skillset because I consider myself to be completely straight, as a general rule, but Cam’s charm transcends the laws of attraction. By the time he lets go of my hand, I’m pretty sure I’m blushing.
I nod a goodbye and turn for the door, but just as I get there, Cam speaks again.
‘Quinn?’
‘Hmm?’ I reply, looking back at him over my shoulder.
‘Don’t give up on her,’ he says, his grin widening into something bright and genuine. ‘She’s worth it.’
I breathe out a little half-laugh. ‘I won’t.’
Because I already know that. I knew it from the moment I saw her.
I don’t like to hope for the best, but as I walk out of the clinic with the world on my shoulders, it feels like hoping is the only thing I can do.
ChapterEighteen
FLORENCE
This instalment of my short list of essential vampire experiences has been quite the undertaking. And I mean undertaking like it’s taken a lot of effort, not the dealing-with-dead-people kind of undertaking. Although I suppose technically there was a dead person involved.
Well,undead.
I didn’t actually know that Louise had become the manager of the leisure centre until Cam mentioned it in passing after his early morning swim yesterday. Louise and I were good friends when I lived here in the 1940s and spent many a summer night larking about in the sea. That’s what gave me the idea for tonight.
That said, swimming in the North Sea at night is an activity best left to the immortal, and as we’re currently unsure of Quinn’s status in that regard, I thought a swimming pool might be a better idea. So, I took advantage of my afternoon off and went to see my old friend.
And now I need to go see my new friend.
It was important to me, after the disaster I made in the aftermath of the kiss, that the next time I saw Quinn I’d have a decent peace offering. And what says ‘sorry I kissed you in a haunted abbey and then freaked all the way out about it’ like a private, late-night swim?
Ok, so I actually have no idea if he can even swim, but as he grew up at the seaside and has hair that any surfer would be proud of, I’m taking a punt. I’m going to grab my things and then head round to Quinn’s.
I quickly find a bag I can use after I sacrificed my last one to the cellar beach, and stuff in my bikini and towel. I go to grab my phone, but before I get to it, it lights up with a notification. And then another.
QUINN
Tap.
Tap tap.
The grin that spreads across my face at the sight of his name on my screen is so wide it makes my cheeks ache.
FLORENCE
That’s my line.
Pocketing my phone, I grab my bag and keys and lock up the flat, then run down the stairs like the building’s on fire. When I push through the outside door, there he is, leaning lightly on the railings that edge the pavement. His mouth pulls into a lopsided smile when he sees me, and it sends my heart into free-fall.
It’s strange how quickly the parts of him have become familiar to me. I take him in for a moment– everything from those wild sandy-brown waves down to his beaten-up Converse. No glasses today, which I lament for a moment or two, but he’s made up for it with another shirt, navy this time, the sleeves rolled to his elbows. Every part of his look seems like it might have happened by accident, but together? All together it’s magic.
‘Hi,’ he says, the timbre of his voice settling somewhere deep in my chest.
I chance a smile. ‘Hi.’
Then I start to talk at the same time he starts to talk and we’re both saying we’re sorry, and then we’re both laughing, and when we make eye contact again it’s like nothing was ever wrong. But because I can’t entirely remember how to human and I’m not sure I was good at it in the first place, I don’t say any of the things I’ve rehearsed in my head. Instead, I blurt out, ‘Sorry I kissed you in a haunted abbey and then freaked all the way out about it.’