Page 68 of Seven Lost Summers (Broken Oasis #3)

Theo

N

ate

and

I

mapped

everything out in the car for ten minutes, parked in the shadow of Quinn’s apartment block, rehearsing how to tell the one woman we both love that we fucking do.

We agreed he’d go first when the moment came. I understood how hard that was for him, because saying the words has never been his thing. But that was one hell of a moment when he finally told her.

My eyes have been on her since we stepped into this shoebox she calls an apartment.

She’s still too fucking beautiful for my sanity, and she’s nervous, which bugs the shit out of me.

This is Quinn Thomas. The girl who went head-to-head with half the assholes in our year and made them regret it.

I watched her take on a quarterback back in school, and the guy walked away nursing more than his ego.

She’s standing there, arms crossed tight, chewing her lip hard enough that I’m half tempted to tell her she’s going to chew the damn thing off.

Quinn Thomas. The same girl who once made a full-grown teacher cry for trying to take her camera.

Now she’s holding herself small in her own place.

Doesn’t she know she could own the whole damn room with a single look.

This is supposed to be my turn to tell her how I feel, but my head’s gone sideways, stuck on the question of what the hell happened to her.

Did some prick make her shrink in on herself the way they tried to do to me back in school?

Did someone cut her down enough that she stopped seeing who she really is?

Because the Quinn I remember never hid from anyone. The fact that she’s here now, holding herself like she’s afraid to spill over, makes me want to track down every single person who ever made her seem small and show them exactly how much damage I can do when I’m pissed.

I take a step closer, close enough that I can count every damn freckle dusting her nose.

“What happened to you, Quinn?” I ask.

“What do you mean?”

“What made you change?”

“Nothing made me change, Theo.”

“Sure,” I say, stepping closer. “And I’m a fucking nun.”

Her mouth twitches, but the smile dies fast. She lifts a shoulder, casual in a way that’s too practiced. “People change.”

“Quinn,” I say.

“No one did anything to me.” Her voice is flat, but I see her throat work hard around the words.

I close the gap by a step. “You gonna tell me, or am I supposed to start guessing? Because I’ve got all night and an impressive track record of being annoyingly persistent.”

Her arms tighten over her chest. “I told you. No one did anything to me.”

“That’s cute. Wrong, but cute.” I let the silence sit, heavy enough that she feels it, but not so heavy she bolts.

She exhales through her nose, eyes still fixed somewhere past my shoulder.

“Maybe… Bianca’s death changed who I am,” she says, her voice careful, like each word could splinter. “But you wouldn’t know… because I never saw you again.”

Her eyes drop, lashes shadowing her cheeks as if she’s bracing for me to argue.

But I don’t. I can’t.

Guilt digs in deep, cruel and unrelenting. I’d never considered what she must have gone through until she brought it up at our house.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t think about you back then,” I admit, the words tasting bitter in my mouth. “I couldn’t. I was drowning and I didn’t even try to look for anyone else in the water. That’s on me.”

Her chin trembles, and she shakes her head slightly.

“You don’t understand, Theo. I had no one.

Not one person who could grasp what it was like to lose her and still have to walk past the bench where we used to sit.

Or step into the shop where she always laughed too loud. I faced that every single day.”

A tear slips down over her cheek and it breaks me to see the strong invincible Quinn falling still like Nate and I have these past seven fucking years.

“Everyone talked about how you and Nate were holding up, but no one asked me. No one even considered…” her throat tightens. “…no one thought I mattered in that grief. So yeah, maybe I have changed.”

I can’t stand that she’s hurting. I take her hand gently, pulling up the sleeve until I find her wrist, planting a soft kiss there, like I’m making a promise straight into her pulse.

“I remembered her every day,” I murmur against her skin, “but I should’ve thought about you too. You mattered, Quinn. You always did.”

When I lift my head, her eyes are glassy, and I know it’s not enough to fix the years we lost, but perhaps this is a start.

My mouth’s dry. I want to crack a joke, turn the moment into something stupid and harmless, but pressure builds in my chest and won’t let me go. It’s sitting there like a fist, squeezing tighter every second, and I know if I don’t speak now the words will choke me.

I drag in a breath that doesn’t do shit to steady me.

She stands in front of me, eyes seeing more than I ever want anyone to see.

I’ve spent years perfecting the art of being untouchable—loud, reckless, always moving, making jokes before anyone can get close enough to spot the cracks.

And somehow, Quinn has always been the one staring straight into them, as if they’re the only parts of me worth looking at.

My fingers twitch on her wrist. I want to grab her, pull her in and hold her, anything to close this distance. But I don’t. Not yet.

“I’ve told a girl I loved her before.” I swallow hard. “Bianca. With her it was easy. The words fell out of my mouth without thought, as if they’d been waiting the whole time for me to catch up and finally say them.”

I glance away for a second because looking at her is too much. She’s got a stillness about her now.

“With you…” I take a breath before lifting my gaze back to hers. “This is different. Harder. Not because I don’t already know it’s there—fuck, I do. The weight is real. And it’s because I know what comes after.”

The memories come quick and sharp. The funeral flowers, Nate’s silence, the way music stopped sounding like music. The kind of ache you don’t walk away from.

“I hate that you went through the worst alone,” I tell her.

My voice drops, emotion edging every word, but I push through.

“I hate that I let you. That I wasn’t beside you when the grief cracked you open and turned you quieter.

You’re not the same Quinn I used to know.

But under all that…” I take a step closer.

“…you’re still you. The girl who called me out on my shit without blinking.

The one who could make Bianca laugh so hard her muscles ached for days.

The one who made me believe I wasn’t some walking mistake. ”

Her throat works like she’s swallowing something down, but she doesn’t say a word.

“And I love you for that,” I go on, because if I stop now, I’ll never start again. “God, I fucking love you for that, Quinn.”

The silence that follows is thick enough to touch.

I reach up and cup the side of her face. My pulse roars in my ears.

“I’ve tried to be the guy who never says those words again,” I admit, voice low, rough. “The guy who keeps things light, stays loud, stays sarcastic. The one always cracking a joke before anyone can spot the cracks. Because if I hand you this part of me, there’s no taking it back.

Her eyes drop for a moment and then glance back up.

“I have no fucking idea how to do this,” I confess.

“I don’t know how to stand here and not hide.

But every time you look at me, I feel it.

The way you see me. The way you don’t flinch at the fucking mess I am.

I’ve been a hurricane my whole life, Quinn, and you…

” My throat chokes up, but I force the words out.

“You were one of the few who ever walked straight into the storm instead of running.”

Her eyes soften, but that doesn’t make standing here with my chest cracked open any easier.

“You’ve got to understand something,” I say, my voice low, the words spilling before I can catch them. “Every joke, every smart-ass line—they’ve all been armour, and you already know that. My way of keeping the world from touching what matters. But you…”

I swallow hard, my thumb brushing her cheekbone as if letting go would erase her from the moment.

“You’ve been slipping past my walls since the first time we talked at those parties.

And I’ve fought against this, Quinn. Christ, I’ve resisted with everything in me, because loving someone this much is terrifying.

It means standing here stripped down to the bone and praying you don’t turn away. ”

My grip on her wrist tightens, slightly. “But if you asked me right now to be that guy—the one who risks everything for you—I’d do it without hesitation. Because I love you in the way storms love the sea. Wild. Relentless. The kind that doesn’t end because the world tells it to.”

Her lips part, but no sound comes out. I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, letting my fingers linger against her skin until I can feel the shiver run through her. She’s caught in the same undertow that’s been dragging me under for months.

“I fucking love you, Quinn,” I whisper, barely more than breath, but every syllable wrecked and real. “Not the version I show the world. Not the one who makes people laugh to keep them from seeing too much. You’ve got the version no one ever sees. The one who doesn’t hide when everything hurts.”

I shift closer, until no air remains between us.

“I’m yours,” I say. “Every fucked-up, broken part of me. If you want me… I’m already yours.”

She lifts her hand, resting her palm over my chest. I don’t pull back. I let her touch the pieces I’ve spent years pretending didn’t exist.

“You think you’ve been hiding,” she says softly, voice brushing against the cracks in me, “but I’ve seen you since day one.”

The ground turns unsteady, but she’s still holding me.