Crazy for You Read online

  “I’m happy alone,” he said out loud, and looked down automatically to see if Katie was tilting her head at him, quivering like the neurotic little rat she was.

  Right, no Katie.

  Fuck.

  He really should be there. Bill might still be out there if Quinn hadn’t filed charges. In fact, she probably hadn’t filed charges. That would be like her, not wanting to cause a problem she’d have to fix. He’d better go over there and make sure she’d filed charges.

  He put the book down and got up to go to Quinn’s. Don’t come back until you’re coming back for you, she’d said.

  So he’d lie.

  He was heading for the door when the phone rang. When he picked it up, Patsy Brady said, “You told me to call you if something was wrong.”

  Nick went cold. “What?”

  “That little dog’s out again,” Patsy said. “It was walking funny and crying, so I let it in the back gate and it tried to get in the back door, but it couldn’t so I went to let it in—”

  “Call nine-one-one,” Nick said. “I’m leaving now.”

  “—and that’s when I saw the window on the back door was broken,” Patsy finished. “That poor little dog ran right through the glass—”

  “Fuck!” Nick slammed the phone down and ran for the door.

  Quinn’s scream echoed in the tiny bathroom, and Bill smiled. “Hey,” he said. “It’s just me.”

  She jerked the shower curtain in front of her and said, “Get out. Get out of here!”

  “Now, just be calm.” He smiled again, reassuring her. “Just think about this for a minute.”

  “Bill—”

  “I know you’re upset right now, but that’s really just stubbornness. You knew we’d get back together sooner or later, and I think it’s time. Really, it’ll be okay.”

  Quinn clutched the shower curtain and tried to stop shuddering as he smiled encouragingly at her. Stay calm and you can fix this. Okay, he was nuts but he wasn’t violent.

  Yet.

  Her heart leaped and she gritted her teeth. No, she could fix this. It would be better if she wasn’t naked in the shower, though. Of course, that had probably been Janet Leigh’s last thought when Tony Perkins dropped by.

  “Why are you hiding behind that curtain, silly?” Bill said and Quinn forced herself to smile.

  “You scared me,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting you. Uh, could I have a towel, please?”

  Bill said, “Oh. Sorry,” and handed her the towel from the rack behind him.

  “Thank you,” she said, and wrapped herself in it, feeling less vulnerable once she was covered. Not a lot, but some. She pushed the shower curtain back and stepped out of the bathtub, her wet hair dripping. “I’ll just go get dressed and be right back,” and he said, “I’ll come with you and we can talk,” and followed her down the hall, speeding up when she did.

  She tried to close the door to the bedroom in his face, but he stopped it with the flat of his hand, so she retreated to the other side of the bed, knocking over the suitcases he had stacked beside the foot of her bed. They fell lightly, as if they were empty, sliding against each other so that she moved back, staring at them as they came to rest.

  “Sorry,” he said, “I’ll store those in the basement later,” and she yanked the top drawer of her washstand out, looking frantically for clothes to stave off whatever he intended to do between now and that “later” he was planning on.

  Her underwear was gone. All of it. In its place was his clothing, T-shirts, jockeys, socks.

  “Where’s my…stuff?” she said, trying to sound normal.

  “That trashy underwear wasn’t you,” he said. “You’re not like that.”

  Yes, I am. “Okay,” she said, and grabbed one of his T-shirts from the drawer. “Okay, fine.”

  “We’ll have a lot more closet space when we put the new addition on,” he said, stepping over the suitcases so he could sit on the bed. “I thought we could go out for dinner tonight and talk about it so we could get started on it as soon as school is out.”

  She looked at his calm, sure face and tried to decide if he’d get homicidal if she told him the truth. Maybe the best way to handle this would be to not disagree, to just ignore what he was saying. She pulled his T-shirt over her head, hating it that it was his T-shirt, but not in a position to be fussy. She kept the towel wrapped around her under it like a bulky sarong even though the T-shirt went to her knees. The more fabric between them the better.

  “My dad’s living here, you know,” she said offhand. “He should be back any time now.”

  Bill shook his head. “I doubt it. Edie moved back to her apartment, so he’s probably at your mom’s.”

  “Edie moved back?” Quinn felt dumbfounded and then alarmed. If her dad wasn’t coming back—

  “It was all the mothers could talk about at the game,” Bill said. “I heard Darla moved back with Max, too. That’s when I knew it was time for us.”

  “Bill, there is no ‘us.’” Quinn watched him cautiously to see if he looked annoyed.

  “Of course there is.” Bill shook his head, patient as always. “You were like this the last time I moved in. I kept suggesting it and you said no, and then I just moved in and things were fine. And it was the same way with the new apartment. Once I moved us, you were happy.” He shrugged. “Sometimes you don’t know what you want until I show it to you.”

  Quinn opened her mouth to protest and then shut it again. He was right. Not about what she wanted, but she had given in all the other times. He wasn’t crazy to think it would work again.

  He was just crazy, period.

  “I didn’t want it,” she said carefully, watching his eyes to see if he’d go rogue on her. “I just didn’t want to cause a problem by arguing about it. It was stupid of me, and it’s what got us into this mess now, but I didn’t want it.”

  “We’re just like we always were,” Bill said, almost to himself, and she said, “No. Bill, look at me. I’ve changed.”

  He grinned at her. “You look just the same as always to me. You used to sleep in my T-shirts sometimes, remember? This is just like always.”

  “It’s not like always. I told you, I’ve ch—”

  “People don’t change,” he said. “They think they do, but they really don’t. Down inside, they’re the same. Look at Max and Darla. And your dad’s probably going to move back with your mom. Just like I’m back with you. People do stuff, but they don’t really change.”

  “Well, I did,” Quinn said. “And I’m not—”

  “No, you didn’t,” Bill said. “You cut your hair, big deal, it’ll grow back. Next September you’ll be back teaching art again with long hair, just like always. You’re the same.” He waved his hand around the room. “You’ve got the same furniture in this bedroom, the same pictures on the walls. You hung the colander next to that kid picture in the kitchen, the same place it was in both our apartments. You didn’t change.”

  Quinn blinked at him. He was right.

  “And I know you think I don’t belong here, but you wait.” He nodded at her. “It’ll be like it always was.”

  “I’m in love with Nick,” she blurted, as much to prove to herself that she’d changed as to him.

  “No, you love him,” he corrected her gently. “You always have. You just got confused about the kind of love it was because I wasn’t with you.”

  “I’m sleeping with him,” Quinn said. “I’m pretty clear on how I love him.”

  “No,” Bill said, his face darkening, and she remembered where she was and how much trouble she might be in. “You just tell him you don’t love him that way. It was a mistake. He’ll understand. You know Nick, he doesn’t like to get involved anyway.”

  “Okay, you have to listen to me,” Quinn said, as quietly as she could. “I think you’re right about me not changing”—he smiled at her—“because I think I’ve always loved Nick.”

  “No.”

  “I think I loved him when I