Page 54 of Dirty Roxie

“You upset me when you left after we spent the night together. I wanted a grand gesture.”

“Quinn,” Mack comes toward us and takes a seat on the coffee table in front of me. “Do you realize how many ways that plan could have gone wrong?”

I nod, tears welling in my eyes once again.

“And how lucky you are that we found you?” he asks.

“Mm hmm.” I don’t trust myself to speak, so I just make sounds I hope are affirmative.

“And that everyone is okay,” Mack continues.

“You got shot,” Daria says.

Mack waves a hand in the air. “Reed shot me, so it doesn’t count.”

I laugh at that without meaning to. Mack does too. Daria joins in a moment later, and soon, everyone is close to doubled over. Not so much because of what Mack said, but also to release the tension and anger building in the room.

Reed is the last to laugh, scaring me for a minute. But once he does, he’s also the last to stop. “Who the fuck, in their right mind, decides to get kidnapped just so a guy can rescue them as a grand gesture?” He’s still laughing as he asks. And it’s mostly rhetorical since I think he’s just trying to wrap his head around the massiveness of my stupidity.

“This girl,” I raise a finger in the air.

“He said in their right mind,” Ronan quips. And we dissolve into laughter again. I know the laughter doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m forgiven, or they will forget this, but I at least know these people love me, and most importantly, they get me. And I’m pretty sure this entire experience has shown I’m not easy toget.

“Thank you,” I say to the room before I lose my nerve. “For being in my life and for being my friends, thank you for loving me, and most of all, thank you for rescuing me.” I raise my glass to cheers.

“Next time you decide to get yourself kidnapped, arrange for the rescue first, yeah? Might work easier,” Daria says. At the same time, pushing herself up from her chair to pull her phone out of her pocket and check it.

“Who’s texting you?” Roxie asks. “Practically everyone you know is in this room.”

“It’s my dad,” Daria answers. “He knows I’m here and he wants to meet.”

“When?” Mack asks.

“Now.”