Crazy for You Read online

  She swung open the door and stomped outside, flinging herself into her car and starting the motor immediately in case he followed her out, which of course he didn’t.

  “Nice job,” she told herself. Now she had to get a sex life since she’d threatened him with it. And she had no hair. And her father was living with her and using Nick’s toothbrush. “The hell with it,” she said and went back to school.

  Max poked his head out of the office. “She gone?”

  “Yes.” Nick stared into Eli Strauss’s Honda. “Permanently gone.”

  Max nodded, still safe in the office. “Is that good?”

  “That’s perfect,” Nick said savagely.

  “Well, good.” Max shook his head. “Why’d she cut her hair like that?”

  “I have no idea,” Nick lied.

  “I hate short hair on women,” Max said. “Makes ’em look tough.”

  “Yep,” Nick said, planning on killing Max if he didn’t shut the fuck up and leave him alone.

  “So you made a move on Quinn, huh?”

  Nick swung around and glared at his little brother.

  “I’ll just be here in the office,” Max said and went back in.

  Nick worked for another hour on the Honda without paying much attention to what he was doing. Mostly, he was fuming at Quinn. What an overreaction, big deal, a couple of kisses—his mind slid away from the mind-blowing heaviness of her breast in his hand—and she was acting like they’d—his mind ricocheted off what she was acting like they’d done, the things he hadn’t gotten to do, the way that soft flannel would have parted under his hands, the way Quinn would have rolled hot in his arms—he put his hands on the edge of the Honda and thought, I am such a hypocrite, and she was not overreacting.

  Suppose they hadn’t stopped, suppose he’d pulled that shirt off her, those jeans, suppose they’d had sex—

  He’d never be able to leave her. Life without Quinn wasn’t possible. She was one of the people he loved, like Max and Darla and the boys. She stayed.

  But life with Quinn in his bed on a permanent basis wasn’t possible, either. He liked living alone. And if he slept with Quinn, she’d want to move in or want him to move in with her, and he’d never be alone again, and she’d definitely want to talk about the relationship. Nightmare time. He had the perfect life, the perfect apartment, he’d done the right thing. He wasn’t the type to take care of people, he didn’t want responsibilities, he wanted to do what he wanted when he wanted, free to sleep with anybody and wake up alone—

  He straightened at that thought. He hadn’t slept with anybody since Lisa. That was before Christmas. He’d been alone and Quinn was alone, and they’d just lost their heads. As soon as they both dated somebody else, slept with somebody else, the problem would be solved.

  Except he didn’t want anybody else, and if she really made good on that dumb threat to have sex with another guy—

  The back door slammed again, and he turned so fast he bruised his shoulder on the hood of the Honda, but it wasn’t Quinn, it was Darla, and her hair was gone. It was short, like Quinn’s, only shorter.

  “Jesus,” he said. “What did you guys do, join a cult? Max is going to throw a fit.”

  “Screw Max,” she said, and he put his head back under the hood of the Honda because life outside of auto mechanics was just too damn emotional.

  “What did you do to your hair?” Max said.

  “I cut it off.” Darla closed the office door behind her. “I wanted something different so—”

  “Well, I don’t.” Max folded his arms across his chest and glared at her. “I can’t believe this. What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me,” Darla said, holding on to her temper with every cell in her body. “I just think we’re stagnating. We’re the same—”

  “I want us the same,” Max said, still seething. “I worked my butt off to get us here—”

  “Hey, I worked, too,” Darla said.

  “—and now we’ve got life just the way we want it—”

  “The way you want it.”

  “—and you want to change things?” Max was so mad he looked away from her. “Just for the sake of change, you want to screw up a perfect life.”

  “It’s not perfect for me,” Darla said, and then Max did look at her. “It’s been the same old thing for years, Max, we need to keep growing or we’ll just—”

  “You mean I’m not perfect for you,” Max said.

  “No.” Darla shook her head, her heart beating faster. “No, you’re the perfect man for me, you always have been, I love you—”

  “Then why this?” Max said. “Why all that stupid sex stuff?”

  Darla went cold. “I wanted some excitement. Evidently you don’t.”

  “We’re exciting enough,” Max said.

  “No,” Darla said through her teeth. “We’re not.”

  Max stared her down, as mulish as only Max could be. “You mean I’m not exciting enough.”

  “Yes,” Darla said.

  Max nodded, too mad to talk.

  “I want something different for us,” Darla said.

  “Well, I don’t.” Max uncrossed his arms and turned away. “So I guess you’re going to have to find something different on your own.”

  “Guess so,” Darla said, and stomped out of the office. On her way she passed Nick bent over the Honda and said, “And you’re a jackass, too,” and then she went out and slammed the door.

  “What’s with the haircut?” Thea asked Quinn later that afternoon, and Quinn said, “Sometimes you have to do radical things to make people really see you and realize you’re not who they thought you were.” When Thea turned thoughtful, Quinn added, “Which does not mean you should cut your hair.”

  “I know,” Thea said. “I like my hair long. But you’re right about people not seeing you. I mean, the whole school probably thinks you’re just the coach’s girlfriend and the art teacher who fixes things. They don’t see you’re a real person at all.”

  “Thank you,” Quinn said. “That’s enormously cheering.”

  “Well, now they will,” Thea said. “You dumped the coach and cut your hair. They’re going to have to look at you differently now.”

  “We can only hope,” Quinn said.

  “I think that was very smart of you,” Thea said. “The getting people to look at you differently part, anyway. I gotta admit I really liked your hair long.”

  Thea was up to something, and Quinn didn’t feel any more reassured when Jason came up to sign out an X-Acto knife fifteen minutes later, and Thea said sweetly, “I owe you an apology.”

  Jason gave her the same nervous look he’d been giving her ever since the movie fiasco.

  “You know, for when I asked you to the movies.” Thea radiated earnestness. “I was really using you, trying to make my life different.”

  “Oh,” Jason said, clearly not following at all.

  “I just wanted something more exciting than studying all the time. And I figured if I went out with you, there’d be parties, drinking, sex in the backseat, that kind of stuff.”

  “What?” Jason said.

  “It wasn’t fair.” Thea smiled her apology. “I mean, imagine if you’d asked me out to use me for sex. That would make you a real creep, and here I was doing it to you. So I’m really sorry.”

  “Wait a minute,” Jason said.

  “It won’t happen again,” Thea said soothingly and went into the storeroom.

  “She’s yanking my chain, isn’t she?” Jason said to Quinn.

  “I’m sure she’s truly sorry,” Quinn said.

  “She shouldn’t say that stuff about looking for sex,” Jason said. “She’ll have every creep in the school on her butt.”

  Quinn tried to look as innocent as Thea. “Why do you care?”

  “Look, she’s a nice kid.” Jason sounded exasperated. “She’s not my type, but she’s a good person. Tell her to knock off that sex talk or she’s goi