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She knew she should’ve just kept that one for herself. Abby had taken the one of the bride and groom, with the other woman off to the side, holding a bouquet of flowers. Quinn had wanted to look at that one more later when she was bored to see if she could figure out that woman’s facial expression. It had reminded her a little of the Mona Lisa: everyone wondered why she had a small smile. Quinn had wondered why the woman in the photo hadn’t exactly looked happy at the occasion of someone’s wedding. Now, she’d just have to try to remember the woman’s expression as best as she could to figure it out.

“Well, if she’s anything like me, she’s pissed because the woman she loves just married a man, whom she probably hates because he gets to marry the woman she loves.”

Quinn hadn’t ever loved a woman who had married a man, but she could definitely emphasize. Part of the reason she’d left school had been school itself – she hadn’t wanted to be a nurse, even after all the work she’d put into it – but the other reason had to do with the woman she’d thought she loved telling her that she wasn’t interested in Quinn that way after making out with her several times and the two of them almost doing a whole lot more than that. IfQuinnhadn’t suggested that they slow down and talk because they’d been friends, about to take an important step, they probably would have slept together, which would’ve made everything a lot worse.

Finding out a few days later that the friend in question had been dating someone and that she’d wanted to be withthatwoman andnotQuinn had hurt more than Quinn had led on, and since all three of them were in the same nursing program at a small school, they would’ve been stuck together for the next several years. Instead of transferring, Quinn had decided to save money on tuition, and that had been when she visited, found this place, and made the move to this small town that had something about it for Quinn that nowhere else ever had.

“Honey,” her mom began when Quinn called her after getting home.

“Yes, Mom?”

“Did you do anything this weekend?”

“Worked.”

“Quinn…”

“What, Mom? I’m my only employee, and weekends are big for antiquing.”

“Then, you should have your weekends on Mondays and Tuesdays. That’s smart, anyway. Most doctors only work weekdays.”

“What? Why do I need to go to a doctor?”

“You don’t. Or, at least, Ihopeyou don’t. But in thefuture, if you take a Monday or Tuesday off, you’d be able to go to the doctor.”

“I will keep that in mind,” she said as she put a frozen burrito in the microwave. “But I do inventory on Mondays, and I usually have so much, I finish it on Tuesdays, or I’m packing and shipping.”

“Why do you need to keep that shop open to people if all they do is buy things online? You hardly get any customers from the street. It would be better just to close that part of it down, ship things out a couple of times a week, and run your business from home.”

“Why would that be better?” she asked as she pulled a beer from her fridge.

“Because you’d only have to work there a few hours a day and could do something else instead. Maybe you could get a hobby or go to school.”

“This again?” Quinn asked her mother as she opened her beer bottle.

“Yes, this again. You are twenty-eight years old, but you act like you’re a ninety-year-old woman with no friends, no family, and nothing else to do but work in that musty old shop.”

“I happen to like the must. It’s cheaper than perfume,” she joked as she pulled out a plate and set it next to the microwave.

“Will you be serious?” her mom asked.

“Mom, it’s my shop. I love it. I get that you don’t and that you and Dad think I’ve just thrown my life away by not becoming a nurse, moving here, and never leaving, but I like what I do, and I like my life.”

“Howcanyou? You won’t even visit your family.”

“You visit me. It’s fine. And I have the spare room, so you and Dad can stay here whenever you want. It’s not old or musty. You don’t have to get a room at the hotel outside of town.”

“We don’t mind the hotel. And we also have a very nice house with your old bedroom right here, waiting foryou. Infact, we’d always planned on updating that room and changing your old full-sized bed out with a queen or a king one day, but there’s no reason to.”

“Because I’m not visiting?”

“Because even if you did, you’re certainly not bringing anyone home with you to share that big bed with.”

“And now, we’re back tothat,” Quinn grumbled.

“Quinn Elizabeth, you’re not going to meet anyone just working behind that counter all day, going home, and probably microwaving something for dinner that cannottaste good.”

Quinn took a drink of her beer before she said, “It’s a burrito. And yes, it does. I add a little salsa, and it’s great.”