Midnight Muse

CHAPTER 1

QUINN

The bead of sweat sliding down the skin between my breasts is driving me wild, but I can’t wipe it away because my hands are full.

“I think that’s the last one,” I sigh, setting down a cardboard box labeled Living Room on the stack in the middle of the floor. I immediately dig into my sports bra, shoving the fabric between the valley of my chest to soak up the pesky sweat. The box isn’t heavy—only filled with decorative pillows for the cheap futon shoved haphazardly against the wall of windows that leak afternoon sunlight into our apartment—but the tower of boxes sways precariously anyway. My roommate, Rory, darts forward to reorganize them before they all go tumbling over.

We were somewhat organized at the beginning of our move, separating boxes into piles for which rooms they belonged, but as the hot California sun beat down across our shoulders and the temperature rose throughout the day, so did our tempers. The process ended with us trying to get everything into our new fourth floor apartment as quickly as possible, which in itself was an almost impossible feat due to the slow-moving elevator.

Rory huffs, hands on her hips as she surveys the mess of boxes. Her gray-blue eyes are calculating, and the tip of her shoe taps the hardwood floors in a pattern that tells me that my best friend is trying not to let her annoyance of this mess loose from her lips. Neither of us had packed lightly, the same mistake we made last year and promised not to make again, and we both refused to hire a moving company to do the heavy lifting; if there is one thing that Cooper Conroy and Zak Wilson taught their little girls it’s that we don’t need any men to do anything for us that we can do ourselves.

Yep, our dear old dads have been best friends since their college days, too. Zak, Rory’s father, didn’t let having three daughters stop him from teaching them how to do any and all tasks that “every man should be able to perform.” He didn’t want them settling for anything less than average.

My father, Cooper Conroy, has a similar mentality. The only thing that differs between Rory’s family and mine is that instead of having two older sisters, I have an overbearing older brother, Sam, who also inherited my father’s ability to be self-sufficient. My YouTube history is filled with how-to videos on changing tires, patching holes in drywall (okay, so one party in our dorm last year got a little too rowdy, and we haven’t hosted one since, sue us), and videos of Harry Styles, because hey, I’m just a girl.

And while dad wants me to be able to fix anything by myself, he hardly lets my mother lift a finger. It’s as sweet as it is annoying, even though she will playfully roll her eyes at his antics when he takes the serving spoon from her hand to dole out dinner, or is the first to jump from his worn spot on the family couch when she says she has errands to run.

Moving all on our own may have been a mistake, if my aching arms and legs are any sign of all of the heavy-lifting I’ve done today.

I couldn’t wait to get out of Seattle, where my entire life revolves around my art. I love it, I really do, but I’ve been keeping this secret for a long time: how I haven’t felt that spark—that fire in my soul—for drawing in a long time. I couldn’t wait to get away from the questions and the compliments, the pressure put on me not only by my parents, but also myself.

Panting, Rory shoves away a few strands of her dark chestnut hair that clings to her forehead, sticky with sweat. The tresses at her nape curl away from her skin and I’m so glad that she grew out those awful bangs over the summer. I shouldn’t have let her cut them herself, but when I refused to assist her in the worst decision ever, she’d stubbornly taken the scissors to her head anyway, and I almost peed my pants laughing at the outcome that night.

It’s both one of my favorite and least favorite memories we share. Favorite, because I laughed so hard my stomach ached and the few seltzers we’d snuck from one of her older sisters had threatened to make a reappearance, and least favorite because I had to hear Rory complain about it over the phone all summer long, since her family was on vacation for an entire month.

The loose collar of her cropped shirt is damp with sweat and she uses the hem to wipe at the perspiration beading along her hairline. “Fucking finally,” she moans. “I need a drink.”

“Alcoholic or caffeinated?” I tease, but I hardly have the energy to laugh. I’m just as drained as she is from carrying all of our belongings into the apartment, and all I want to do is collapse on the navy futon that barely fits two. I’m hot and my clothes scratch my skin from where they’re glued to me with sweat. A cold shower, tall glass of something—anything—icy, and a few hours of napping will do me well. Maybe I’ll even muster up the strength to unpack a box or two before the end of the night.

A grimace works its way onto my scarlet face as I accidentally shift directly into a beam of sunlight, squinting as I shuffle to escape it’s sweltering heat. “Please, tell me there’s air conditioning in this place.”

“Already on,” Rory responds, stalking into the kitchen. I follow, dodging the tower of boxes and watch as she rips the door to the refrigerator open and shoves her head inside. It’s completely empty and I wince, knowing that it’s going to be a long weekend while we go shopping for groceries and unpack everything before the fall semester starts in a few days.

I also want to stop by the local art supply to gather the rest of the materials I need for my classes this year. It’s another reason that Rory and I have so many boxes with us; half of the ones adorning our apartment are stuffed full of art supplies: brushes and paints of all varieties from oils to acrylics, graphite pencils and kneaded erasers, and canvases too, both blank and filled. I swear, there’s an entire box dedicated to sketchbooks filled with random doodles and scribbled ideas for assignments that have never turned into anything more. Rory hadn’t been happy with me when she noticed that I left that box for her to carry up.

It’s our second year at Vulcan University together, our second year living together, our second year as art majors together…Rory and I have been inseparable since we were young and our fathers reconnected when they were both on a work trip in San Francisco. My mother says that they had planned on meeting up all along and that the trip was really a bluff, but my father refuses to admit it to this day. I don’t believe him, either.

When Rory’s had her fill of the crisp air wafting from the refrigerator, she hands me a bottle of water from the freezer. It’s nowhere near as cold as I need it, but the liquid cuts through the heat of my body as soon as it touches my lips and I almost moan at the cool feeling that washes over me. I had run into the gas station to grab a few bottles of water and candy bars for the last stretch of our road trip while Rory filled the tank of the U-Haul. It hadn’t occurred to either of us at the time to buy something with more sustenance until this very moment.

“Ugh,” I groan, choking down the refreshing liquid. “Do you have any money left in your account? We should order something for dinner and call it an early night.”

“An early night?” Rory retorts, making a face as she sips her own drink. “We have a lot of unpacking to do. And our beds aren’t even set up yet, Quinnie.”

“Fuck us,” I grumble, leaning against the marble counter. The surface is cool where it seeps through the fabric of my thin tank top, and I ache to rip off my clothes and press my burning skin to the stone in an attempt to cool myself off. “Let’s just find the boxes with the pillows and blankets and sleep in the living room. Oh—don’t give me that look, Ro,” I scold her when she grimaces. “It will be like when we were young again! Except now we’re old enough to buy alcohol.” I waggle my eyebrows and she cracks a wry grin. “Well, almost old enough. But those fake IDs Pipa got for us work like a charm.”

“Fine,” Rory relents and I cheer. “Dibs on the first shower, though.”

While Rory ignores my lame threat and uses all of the hot water anyway, despite it being nearly ninety degrees outside—blasphemous for the end of August in the middle of Southern California—I take the time to move the U-Haul from where she double-parked it outside of our new apartment building. Neither of us have cars yet, but this location is close enough to campus where we can walk to our classes. We saved up what we could from working at a local art camp this summer to road trip to school with all of our things, which our mothers were worried about but our fathers were proud of.

My phone buzzes in my pocket on my way down the rickety elevator to the lobby. Sliding it out, I see that it’s my mother calling, probably wondering if we’ve made any progress on moving in even though I texted her as soon as we parked the truck. I sent a picture of Rory and I for further proof that we made it to school in one piece.

She’s what one might call a helicopter parent. While my father is more than supportive in teaching me to fend for myself, my mother is used to being coddled and cared for, so she worries that I’m too independent. So what if I’ve never showed any interest in bringing a guy home to meet my family or going to dances or Friday night football games? That doesn’t mean that I’m not interested in any of it…

Except the football, I don’t care about the football. At all.

I let the call go to voicemail. I’ll return her message later when I’ve showered, decompressed, and have mustered up the energy to answer her million-and-one questions.

When the contact picture of her and I on vacation a few years back disappears, I check my texts. There’s one from my brother, Sam, warning me about how worried mom is and how he’s never letting me leave for school before him again if this is what he has to deal with.