Page 43 of On My Side (Quiblings #3)

Piper comes sliding into the room in her socks.

She wasted no time in making herself at home, and I love her for it.

“What the fuck ? It took you like fifteen years to tell me you were together and you tell him right away?” She glares at Mr. Quinn like he’s the bane of her existence. “I don’t even know who he is!”

“This is my dad,” Ren says. “Dad, this is Piper, Audrey’s daughter.”

Somehow, this seems to break Mr. Quinn out of his ongoing frantic nodding and he beams at Piper, who scowls at him, arms folded across her chest. “It’s nice to meet you,” he says, holding his hand out for Piper to shake. “I’m Sean.”

“I don’t care,” Piper says, making no move to shake his hand.

I give her a death glare, but am taken aback when Sean throws his head back and howls with laughter. Ren and I look at each other in confusion.

“I like you,” he says to Piper after quieting his laughter. “You’re funny. Have you met Nic? Nic hates people too. Nic!” he yells over his shoulder into the house. “Come here.”

A short woman, around Piper’s height, with Ren’s complexion and a curly pixie cut comes into the room, a scowl etched on her face. “I was busy , Dad.” she complains, crossing her arms across her chest so her posture mirrors Piper’s. “What?”

“This is Piper. She’s scary like you.”

“You’re short for a full-grown adult,” Piper says to Nic.

“Fuck you,” Nic responds, and Piper grins at her.

“I like you,” Piper says decidedly. “I’m Piper and my mom is fucking Ren.”

“No… that is not how we’re introducing ourselves now, birdie,” I stammer.

Piper ignores me, setting her eyes on the woman. “Who are you?” she asks.

“I’m Nic. The guy who’s fucking your mom is my annoying little brother,” Nic responds flatly.

“Can we not reduce Audrey and I to our sex lives? Is that a possibility?” Ren asks, raising his hand.

“No,” Nic and Piper say simultaneously.

Nic eyes Piper. “Goddammit,” she sighs. “I think I like you too, kid. This sucks.”

Nic and Piper wander off, yammering about how annoying it is that they like each other which… okay. That leaves Ren, me, and Mr. Quinn lingering in the parlor.

“Do you want something to drink?” Ren asks, turning to me before his dad can say anything. “Wine, beer…”

“A white wine would be great,” I say.

“On it,” Mr. Quinn says with a salute. He zooms further into the house toward the kitchen.

Ren takes my hand and leads me into the family room, where a pink-haired woman sits with her legs tucked under her next to a redheaded woman with some of the most intricate tattoos I’ve ever seen covering her arms. They immediately stop talking when we enter the room.

“Hey, Mills,” Ren says, and the redhead waves back without looking at him.

“This is my girlfriend, Audrey. Audrey, this is Millie and her best friend, Poppy.”

“Hi,” I wave awkwardly. “You probably don’t remember me, but…”

“Of course I do. You’re the reason I didn’t sleep for a week, and why I tattooed Ghostface on my arm when I was eighteen,” Millie points at me in a way that feels slightly threatening. “Thanks for that.”

With her right arm extended, I can see the Ghostface tattoo in question. It’s around two inches big and below the dimple of her inner elbow.

“Um. You’re welcome?” I answer, oddly touched and confused by the interaction.

“So, that’s like… what, half of my siblings?” Ren says, wrapping an arm around my waist and gently directing me away from Poppy and Millie. I hear them whisper when my back’s to them, and my instinct is to worry if it’s about me.

“But you, like… were careful?” One of them whispers to the other.

“I mean, it broke, but we took care of it. So it shouldn’t matter… but I think it might,” the other responds, voice tense.

I want to eavesdrop more, but I'm distracted when someone says my name.

My old name.

“Audrey Price.”

This time, I recognize the voice without looking. It’s a voice I used to know better than my own.

“Hi, Meow,” Ren says, turning us to face her.

Kat Quinn—Holt now, I guess—looks pretty much the same.

Long, wavy chocolate brown hair and menacing brown eyes.

Full lips, and the lightest scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

Now, there are faint wrinkles at the corner of her eyes, and I’m suddenly filled with a grief I didn’t expect at the years I’ve missed in her life. At the years she’s missed in mine.

Kat ignores Ren, crossing her arms over her chest and giving me a judgmental once over. “Had to see it to believe it. You’re dating my brother?” She scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Really? Couldn’t find anyone else?”

“Shut up, Kat,” Millie yells from her spot on the couch. “Just because you’re miserable doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be.”

Kat shoots a death glare at her sister. “I’m sorry, was I talking to you?”

“No, you were talking to my partner,” Ren says coolly. In a stark contrast to his icy tone of voice, my body fills with a warmth I’ve rarely experienced. Everything about him makes me feel new.

Kat’s face softens when she looks at Ren, and I can tell she has a soft spot for her brother.

Even when we were younger, Kat was the one Ren would go to when he had a homework question.

He’d always knock on her door and stick his little bespectacled face into her room to ask for help with a word problem, or how to spell something.

Maybe it was less about his admiration for Kat, and more about his big-ass crush on me, but it’s still evident Ren is important to Kat.

“Your brother is the most incredible man I’ve ever met,” I say quietly, appealing to her love for Ren. “I can’t believe he wants me…”

Kat scoffs. “Neither can I.”

“That’s enough, Kat,” Ren says, raising his voice enough to show he’s not fucking around. “I love you, but you need to back off if you want any sort of relationship with me.”

Kat opens and closes her mouth like a fish. “I just want to protect you,” she says feebly.

“For what it’s worth, she was like this with me, too,” a blond bearded man says, stepping next to us. He grins at me and sticks his hand out for me to shake. “I’m Josh, Nic’s boyfriend. You’re Audrey, right?”

I smile as I shake his hand, grateful for an interaction that isn’t an interrogation. Maybe knowing Kat was like this with him should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. The reason Kat’s acting this way towards me goes beyond the fact I’m dating her brother.

It’s because I’m me.

“Ren!” Another voice says. This family has too many people.

“Hi, Ma,” Ren says as Mrs. Quinn approaches. She wraps him in a big mom hug, and even though I see him trying to remain stiff, part of him still melts into her.

“And Audrey!” Mrs. Quinn breaks away from Ren and suddenly she’s hugging me, too. I look with panic at Ren, taken aback by the physical contact, and he places his hand on her shoulder and gently pushes her back.

“Ma, give her some space,” he says softly, and I’m impressed by his ability to remain cool, despite his face clearly showing his annoyance.

“Right, right. I’m sorry, dear.” Mrs. Quinn steps back and appraises me as I shift nervously on my feet. “I just met your precious daughter. She’s a spitting image of you at that age, but she did ask me if I was nuts when I tried to hug her.”

“Piper’s autistic,” I explain, forcing a smile onto my face. “She’s particular about physical touch.”

“She did a wonderful job at asserting her needs,” Mrs. Quinn says sincerely, reaching out to pat my arm before seemingly remembering what Ren said and pulling it quickly back. “She’s delightful.”

My eyebrows shoot up. No one has ever referred to my daughter as delightful.

Mrs. Quinn insists we go into the dining room and sit, so Ren and I oblige. Piper and Nic—who is enthusiastically explaining her favorite TV show to my daughter—are the only ones at the table, and slowly the room fills with more Quinns and the savory aroma of Mrs. Quinn’s legendary lasagna.

Hunter claims the open seat next to me, and Josh takes the seat next to her.

“Have you met Josh?” Hunter asks. “He’s Nic’s boytoy.” I laugh as Nic cackles and Josh’s face turns strawberry ice cream pink.

“I’m… no. Not… no,” Josh sputters. Nic grins and pulls him down to kiss him on the cheek. It’s like he forgets he’s embarrassed the way he stares at her with heart eyes.

My entire body tenses when Steve Holt, Kat’s husband, sits between her and Ren. I’m not saying this family is quiet—in fact, they’re anything but. However, he’s somehow even louder than the rest of his family, his voice echoing above the rest.

Kat always acted like she was above the noise, and she’d never admit it, but she could be as loud and brash as the rest of her family. “You have to be loud sometimes,” she explained when I called her out one time. “Otherwise, nobody will hear if you have something important to say.”

Steve is beyond loud and seemingly clueless to anyone but himself. Mrs. Quinn is staring in the distance and nodding absently as he talks about a client he golfed with last week, and Piper’s expression is one of unbridled disdain.

“Audrey, do you want salad?” Mr. Quinn asks, raising his voice and the salad bowl so I can hear him over Steve’s incessant yammering.

“Yes, please,” I say at the same time Steve takes a breath and is quiet enough to hear, apparently.

“Audrey?” he says, drowning out my response. “Who the fuck is Audrey?”

I lean forward to look past Ren and smile. “I’m Audrey.”

He narrows his eyes at me. “Do I know you?” he demands, like this is his home, and how dare someone he’s not familiar with step into his domain.

“Audrey went to high school with us,” Kat says quietly. I notice her plate is still full, and she’s pushing her food to the edges with her fork. “She was in my grade.”

“Are you sure? I think I’d remember her.” The way Steve’s eyes move over my body make me feel like spiders are crawling under my skin. I cross my arms over my chest in discomfort.