Give Me Strength (19 page)

“Don’t call me Timmy boy,” he snapped.

The pantry door flew open, light flooding the
little space and I blinked rapidly, bringing Lucy into focus.
“What’s going on in here?”

“Pantry summit,” Tim offered, squinting in the
sudden light.

Lucy glared. “Who are you?”

“I’m Tim.” He raised his brows and looked Lucy
up and down. “And who are you? By the attitude I’m going with Mac’s
long lost sister, but you look nothing alike.”

“Watch it, Tim.” Mac shoved past him and he
stumbled, grabbing hold of the pantry door to gain his balance.
“I’ll be in the back office.”

“I’m Lucy, Quinn’s friend. I’m here to take her
shopping.”

“Me too and me too. I’m going to make a cuppa.
Anyone want one?”

Everyone chorused a “yes please,” and he
mumbled, “figures,” as he trotted back into the kitchen.

“It’s just the movies, Luce,” I told her as we
sat down in the living room where Evie was now splayed out on her
own. “It’s no big deal.”

“You never date,” she told me, perching on the
end of the armchair. “Of course it’s a big deal.”

Evie’s eyes shifted from the television to me.
“You don’t date?”

“Enough. No more talk about the date or
shopping.” I pursed my lips and focused on the television.

Tim came over and plopped a mug on the table in
front of me. “No idea if you wanted tea or coffee or how you have
it, but hey, you didn’t have to make it.” Taking a step back, he
put his hands on his hips, looking at me with wide-eyed hope. “So
is Casey coming shopping too?”

“Why would Casey be coming shopping?” I
asked.

He shrugged. “Bodyguard duty. Don’t you all get
escorted everywhere you go by hot badass guys when shit’s going
down?”

“Shit’s not going down,” Lucy informed him.
“Shit is currently contained.”

“Oh,” Tim muttered, his shoulders slumping as
though disappointed that shit was not, in fact, going down.

“Why are you so keen on Casey going?” Lucy
asked.

Tim looked at Evie and me in turn. “She hasn’t
met Casey, has she?”

We both shook our heads, Evie grinning.

“Honey,” Tim said to Lucy, “Everyone says Casey
looks just like Jensen Ackles,” he began. I bit the insides of my
cheeks as Casey walked down the hall from the office and came to
stand behind Tim. “But Casey is so fucking all that, he could have
a show all his own and screw calling it Supernatural, you could
call it Badassnatural because that guy is so fucking cool he was
born an ice cube.”

Silence reigned until Evie made a choking sound.
Tim closed his eyes and I really, honestly, felt for him in that
moment.

“He’s ah, behind me, isn’t he?”

Everyone did their best not to laugh, but I met
Casey’s eyes and they were crinkling.

Evie tossed a cushion at Casey. “Hear that,
hotdog? You’re the man.”

Casey showed off his lightning Badassnatural
reflexes by deflecting the tossed cushion, and it bounced off Tim’s
head as a final insult.

Despite his face flaming brightly, Tim pursed
his lips. “Takes a badass to know one.”

Evie raised her brow. “I thought the first rule
of being a badass was that you never talked about being a—”

“Don’t start throwing rules in my face,” Tim
interrupted.

“Enough,” Casey growled and stooped to pick up
the cushion and toss it back on the couch as Evie introduced him to
Lucy.

“I’ll leave you kids to it,” he muttered after
nodding his hello and turned towards the front door. “I’m going
home to sleep.”

“So that’s a no to coming shopping with us
today?” Tim called out.

Casey threw an incredulous look over his
shoulder as the front door swung wide and he stepped out, shutting
it behind him without another word.

***

“Stop fidgeting,” Mac
hissed from behind me.

I watched her fiddle a curl into submission as I
stood in front of the mirror of the wardrobe door. Mac had a good
foot of height on me, so her look of concentration as she tackled
my wispy strands was easily visible. She grabbed the hairspray off
the bench. “You and Evie could win awards for being fidget
sticks.”

“No spray!”

She held it like a weapon aimed at my head and
raised her brows as though I’d just said “death to shopping,”
something I’d come to realise was her holy grail in life.

“What?”

“I don’t like it.”

“But…” Mac trailed off.

“Beth loved hairspray. The smell makes my
stomach churn.” Not a strand of her hair dared to move when Beth
tossed back her unending supply of booze.

“Beth?”

“My mother,” I mumbled.

“Tell me about your mum.”

“You saw the photos, right?” Mac paused her
movements, her nostrils flaring dangerously. “I don’t have one. I
never did, not really.”

She set the hairspray down and looked at me
through the mirror. “Your mother didn’t deserve you,” she said
gravely and squeezed her arm around my shoulders. “Don’t let the
bitch get you down.”

The front door opened and closed when she went
back to fussing with my hair, and from downstairs we heard Henry
say, “Where are you taking her?”

A deep murmur was the reply, and my belly
fluttered.

“Travis is here,” I muttered, examining my
length in the mirror and my new outfit. If nerves hadn’t already
exhausted me, a shopping trip with both Lucy and Tim was enough to
send me running for a nicotine fix and I didn’t even smoke. Both of
them had whacked ideas of what constituted an appropriate outfit
for a trip to the movies. Lucy steered me towards everything that
screamed “tramp/whore/here are my boobs in case you weren’t sure I
had any attached to my chest.” Tim was aiming for glamour goddess,
which was actually quite sweet, but I was no Evie. Shimmery
backless tops and tight leather pants were a little beyond my
reality. Between the three of us, we managed to settle on a pair of
dark blue skinny jeans with side zippers, a pair of brown knee
length boots, and a low back gold metallic top.

“We want her back by midnight,” Cooper said.

“What the fuck, dude,” came Frog’s reply. “She’s
not Cinder-fucking-rella.”

There was more low murmuring that had my ears
straining to hear. Mac’s eyes met mine in the mirror after she’d
finished glaring my strands of hair into submission, as though
hopeful that would do the job hairspray couldn’t.

“What are they doing down there?”

Mac winked, her hands turning to her own head of
hair as she smoothed the soft, gleaming waves. “Playing big brother
it sounds like.”

I clutched my hands together, moving to sit on
the edge of the bed and slide on my boots. “They’re being
silly.”

Mac sat down beside me and slung an arm over my
shoulders. “Do you have any brothers, Quinn?”

“No.”

“Wrong answer,” she replied.

My vision blurred.

“How about I go tell Travis to bugger off and we
have a girls night in?”

I huffed out a short laugh. “Did I do that bad a
job on my face?”

She nodded. “It’s terrible. Next time let me
help you instead of locking your bedroom door. That was really
unfair and now it’s your own fault because you look really
shitty.”

I chuckled and she looked at me sideways,
grinning.

“No.”

“No?”

“I’ve never been on a date before. I need to
just get this over with.”

Mac jostled my shoulders. “Okay. Well first you
need to relax. You look like you’re about to ralph all over your
new boots.”

There had been no polite, gentleman-like
behaviour from Travis when it came to choosing the movie. We’d
bickered over the offerings and ended up with something that
involved wild shootouts, high tech gadgets, and fist fights. At one
point I’d leaned over and joked that it was probably just his
everyday life and he could write the movie. He’d chuckled and took
hold of my hand, pulling it into his lap so our linked fingers
rested on his thigh. He whispered in my ear that he should only be
so lucky, and throughout the rest of the movie, he proceeded to
pick apart the holes in the storyline.

My mind had barely paid attention to any of it
because he was holding my hand. Maybe I was just odd, or the dating
thing too new, but the gesture felt more intimate than anything I’d
ever done with another man in my life.

Now he was taking me to dinner, which from the
outside was a restaurant beautifully lit up in colours of gold and
red. Reaching the exterior steps, the back of my neck prickled and
I froze. The feeling was the same from before, but that didn’t make
sense because David hadn’t been released. I made a mental note to
get in touch with Mitch in the morning just to be sure.

Travis paused, waiting for me. “Everything
okay?”

Unease rolled through me, busy telling me that
nothing was okay. If someone was watching me, they were watching
Travis. They were watching anyone I was with. The question was, who
the hell was out there?

The urge to run rose swiftly so I forced a
smile, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other.
“Sure.”

His brow furrowed, but he led me inside without
another word. The interior screamed
Michelin star Asian
cuisine
, and I felt completely out of my depth. The waiter
seated us with menus, paying an exorbitant amount of attention on
Travis when he asked if we’d like to start with a drink.

“Wine?” Travis asked me.

At my nod, he ordered a bottle and sat back in
his chair when the waiter disappeared, running his eyes over me in
a way that told me he was remembering everything that lay beneath
the carefully chosen outfit.

I let out a shaky breath and smiled at him. That
was about when the text messages began. Evie’s came first, the
words highlighted across the screen as I picked it up.

E: I bet he’s taking you to Mr. Chow’s.
Bring me back a doggy bag if you want to live.

Henry’s followed not long after.

H: Text me if you need a rescue.

I heard more flood in after that, but I switched
off my phone with an apology, not reading the rest.

His lips curved. “Friends, huh?”

Something warm settled within me. “Mmm hmm.”

The waiter left again after pouring wine and
taking our orders, and I looked at Travis across the table. Lucy
and Tim had versed me through the art of meaningful dinner
conversation during our shopping expedition. Great conversation
doesn’t happen by accident Tim told me. Lucy’s suggestion was to
ask open-ended questions. I protested that Travis and I had been
alone together before, but apparently wild sex, beach swimming, and
work situations didn’t constitute a formal dinner environment. In
the end I think they made me more nervous than I already was.

“It’s good to finally have you to myself,”
Travis told me.

I frowned. That wasn’t an open-ended question.
What was I supposed to do with that? Tim’s advice was to be myself,
but it was firmly established I was socially inept, so that advice
went straight to the bin.

“You’re frowning. It’s not good I have you to
myself?”

“No. Yes.” I picked up my wine. “No.”

His eyes crinkled. “You seem nervous.” He
reached over and grabbed my free hand in his. “Will it help if I
told you all the things I want to do to you when dinner is
over?”

I took a gulp of wine as Travis started rubbing
his thumb in circles on my palm. I coughed and sat my glass down
hastily.

“Um, no,” I rasped and coughed again. “I don’t
think so.”

Having pity on me, Travis sat back and asked how
Lucy and I became friends.

“I met her when I moved in next door,” I told
him. The waiter brought our dinner as I regaled him with the story
of her barging through my door with a plate of biscuits that even
Rufus eyed with trepidation. I’d palmed a couple to him, and he
proceeded to trot out to the back courtyard and bury them deep into
the rocky layers of the earth. “I had to teach her how to cook.” I
sighed. I saw Rick the other day. He looked like he was losing
weight. “Not sure how good a job I did with that though.”