"Listen," Quinn said through clenched teeth. "If it were up to me, you'd have your balls smashed in a vice and then run over by a truck." She made sure that her son was occupied in his room so he didn't overhear the conversation. "But for whatever reason, Alec loves you. So what the hell do you mean when you say that he can't come over this weekend?"

Her ex-husband blathered on the other end of the line. "Quinny, look —"

"Don't call me that." He'd called her that for years, when they were in love. She'd been in love, anyway. She couldn't say what had been going on in his mind.

Don sighed. "Quinn, I'm sorry. But I promised Sheryl I'd take her to —"

"You're jilting your eight year old son for your whore? That's really classy, Don."

"Hey, that's not fair. We've had these plans for weeks now, and . . ."

She didn't hear the rest of it. Quinn tossed the phone onto her bed. Throwing it at the wall would have felt better, but she's an adult, and adults don't do those kinds of things. Although, after getting blackout drunk a week ago, smashing a phone didn't seem that bad.

Quinn took a moment to compose herself and think of a suitable lie. Nothing was forthcoming, so she decided to go with the usual. She found Alec playing a video game.

"Hey, sweetie." She looped her arm around her son's shoulders. He's small for his age and fit perfectly into her side.

"Dad's not coming, is he?"

"How'd you know I was on the phone with dad?"

"Your face is red."

She shouldn't be surprised. Alec had always been an extremely astute child; it was impossible to surprise him with Christmas or birthday presents. "Well, he's really busy with work this weekend." She didn't have a clue why she was lying for her dirtbag ex-husband. Well, actually she did know. She wasn't doing it for his sake.

"But we can do something fun," Quinn added.

"Can we go to Barnes and Noble?"

She had known that was coming. The bookstore was the only place he ever asked to go. She constantly shifted between being worried about his introverted nature and being proud of how she had the smartest kid in any class. At the bookstore they always sat together on one of the plush couches and shared a pastry while they read. It was their thing, and she loved it.

Quinn knew it was crazy, but the apartment felt polluted after her conversation with her husband. Ex-husband, she reminded herself. They were married for fifteen years, and old habits died hard. She wanted to get out for a little while. It was almost as if talking with on the phone had left a stink in the air.

"What if we went tonight?"

His eyes lit up. "And can we go tomorrow, too? I'll probably finish the book I'll buy tonight and I'll need another."

"What's going to happen when you run out of books?"

"There are always more books, mom."

XxXxX

Alec might read three grade levels past his age, but she wasn't going to let him wander around a bookstore by himself. It probably came from spending too much time online, reading horror stories, but she never left him alone in public. Don said she was crazy, eight was old enough to go into a public restroom alone. But he didn't exactly have a record of good judgement. So, Quinn followed dutifully behind as they went shelf to shelf, looking for the tome that would catch his interest. He liked to have options, so she always ended up carrying a bunch of books.

Quinn managed to snag a book for herself before they squeezed into a wide armchair together. It was the latest thriller from one of those authors that seemed to put out three books a year. If she was reading what she actually enjoyed, she'd have a romance novel in her hand right now, a real bodice ripper. But those were for the Kindle during a hot soak in the bathtub when no one could see the cover and judge her. Quinn had a standing Friday night appointment with the bubble bath and the latest installment of Outlander. God, that Jamie Fraser . . .

Her son's small voice pulled her from her thoughts.

"Mom?"

"Hmm?" Alec wasn't usually one for talking when there were books available.

"Why don't we see dad very much?"

Smart as he was, and her son was extremely smart, Alec was still eight years old. It had been nearly impossible to explain divorce to him, and the fact that she dreaded having to do so had made the task all the more difficult. Quinn knew Don had talked to him about it, too, but she didn't know what he'd said.

"Well, we live in different towns now." It was a cop out, and she had no doubt that he would call her on it.

"Because you and dad got a divorce?"

"That's right." She hadn't pushed for sole custody. As much as she now loathed her husband, ex-husband, dammit. As much as her ex-husband was now her least favorite person in the world, she hadn't wanted to do that to him, or to Alec, for that matter. So they shared joint custody, not that it had mattered much thus far. Evidently Don was extremely caught up in his new love life.

"I read about divorce in a book."

Good grief, what kind of books did they have at that elementary school? Quinn suddenly remembered her guidance counselor in high school, a vapid woman with huge eyes, and her oddly titled pamphlets.

"Do you have any questions about it?" She'd rather not discuss this in the middle of a bookstore, but eight year old kids usually didn't have a great sense for timing, and in that way, her son was no different.

"I know that dad still loves me."

"That's right, he does."

"Does he still love you?"

Probably, in his own way. After she'd walked in on him with the secretary, Don had begged and pleaded for her forgiveness, had cried and sobbed, even. For a little while, a day or two, Quinn had wondered if she should forgive him and move on, for their family's sake. But then the cold numbness had receded, just a little, and she'd awakened to the fact that she hadn't done anything to hurt their family. That was on him.

She'd since read more than her fair share of books about how divorce affected children, and she spent too much time skimming internet articles, all of which served to convince her that whatever she and Don did, it was going to traumatize Alec either way.

"Dad and I will always do what's best for you." Another cop out, and it didn't even pretend to answer his question. There was probably a chapter in one of the books on her nightstand about how her response had just set him down the path to drug addiction or something.

"I think he does still love you, mom."

That was in the books, too. Invariably children of divorce, especially younger children, hoped that their parents would get back together. Quinn couldn't blame him, but his young mind didn't know how to factor in his father's secretary. And she hadn't told him that he was getting a sibling. That was Don's job. It made her sick at her stomach, anyway.

"Well, I love you," Quinn said, kissing the top of his head. "And I love when we're together like this. Do you want to take a break from reading and get a cookie or something?" That was usually an agreeable option.

They walked to the adjacent coffee shop and waited in the short line. Quinn was just thinking that after their little discussion she deserved a seven dollar coffee, courtesy of Don's latest alimony check, when she heard Alec squeal.

"Mr. Evans!"

The blonde teacher walked up to their place at the counter. "Nice to see you, it is," he said in a voice that took Quinn a second to place as Yoda. It made her son light up.

"Mom, Mr. Evans does impressions! He taught us about fractions, and the whole time he talked like Darth Vader!"

"Wow, Mr. Evans sounds really talented." The grin across his large lips looked like it could have come from any eight year old.

"It's all about putting on a show, you know?" Tonight he's wearing a t-shirt and jeans, instead of the usual skinny tie and slacks. Quinn had to admit that he carried off the casual look equally well. Maybe better, because whereas the cardigan sweaters he wore in the classroom where kind of bulky, the same could not be said of the t-shirt.

"Can't say I'm surprised to see Alec at a bookstore."

"We're here a lot since we moved," Quinn said. She saw that he had a box in hand and unconsciously arched an eyebrow when she saw the picture on the side.

"Legos," he said, a slight blush on his face as he held the box a little higher to let her see. "It's how I unwind. Tonight I'm building the Eiffel Tower."

"Is that what people in their twenties do on Friday nights these days?"

"The cool ones." He reached over and helped Alec grab a napkin that was too high for the eight year old. "I keep a bunch a work and that's what we do when it's too cold to go outside."

"I built a dinosaur," Alec quipped. "But Travis stepped on it."

"And he apologized," Sam prompted.

"He's a jerk."

"Alec, that's not very nice."

"He is, mom," her son rebutted before ignoring them and walking to a nearby table to eat his cookie.

To Quinn, Sam whispered, "Travis is kind of a jerk. He's the one who eats his own snot."

"Do you have any awful stories about my son?"

"Nope. Alec really is a great kid," Sam said. When the barista handed Quinn her drink, Sam leaned forward before she could swipe her card. "I'm getting theirs, too," he said, putting a bottled water on the counter with his Lego set.

"Hey, you really don't have to do that." Actually, she couldn't figure out why he would do that. They'd just run into each other by chance.

"I want to." He swiped his own card before she could object again. "You're a lady, it'd be rude if I didn't."

"I don't think that applies since we're not together." Whoa. Even the thought of being together with someone his age, someone who looked like he did, made Quinn blush.

Sam laughed. "You don't know my dad. He's kinda a stickler about the Southern gentleman thing." He winked at her. "I was raised right."

He looked like he was raised recently. Those round cheeks and full lips; Quinn stopped that line of thought right there. "Well, thank you, and thank you to your dad. At the next PTA meeting, the juice and apple slices are on me."

"I'm gonna hold you to that," he laughed.

Quinn couldn't help but note that he didn't wait to be invited before sitting down next to Alec at the little table in the cafe area.

They chatted for a minute about school, and Quinn talked to the two of them about how they spent their days in the classroom. It wasn't long, though, before Alec wanted to look at more books. But there was a young reader section next to the cafe, so she told him he could go alone as long as he stayed where she could see him.

They'd been alone for just a minute when Sam said, "I should probably apologize to you."

"For what?" So far all he'd done was take care of her son when she'd downed an entire bottle of wine. Oh, and he'd bought her a coffee. Quinn couldn't imagine what he should be sorry for.

Sam enlightened her. "Alec asks to stay back from PE everyday. I guess as his teacher, I should make him do stuff that he doesn't want to, because it's good for him. But I just let him hang out with me. He reads for forty-five minutes."

Quinn laughed. "Which explains why I'm always hearing that Mr. Evans is the best teacher ever." Now they're both watching her son look over a shelf, pull one book down, read the cover then put it back, try another. "Can I ask your professional opinion?"

"I'm not on the clock, but hit me with your best shot."

"Should I be worried that he's so introverted?"

Sam shrugged. "Getting an education degree, you hear about a thousand different models and developmental theories. But I don't think you should try to change kids. Sure, he's kinda quiet, but he works well with others when I push him. Alec's a cool guy with a mom who obviously loves him a ton. I think he'll be ok."

"That's sweet of you to say."

Alec returned just then, heavy laden with a stack of books braced under his chin.

"One book, Alec." After the expected sigh and return to the shelves to make a Sophie's Choice, Quinn said, "We have this fight every time we come here."

"I think my mom would've loved to have your problem. I hated to read as a kid."

"Really?"

Sam nodded. "I'm dyslexic."

What are you supposed to say to that? You hide it well? I'm sorry? What would she be sorry for? "Was school difficult?" She didn't know what she was asking, but she had to say something.

"Elementary school was hell," he said, voice flat. "Kids can be mean."

She knows that for a fact. She was the mean kid. Quinn feels bad about it now, doesn't know what she could have been thinking at the time. Why had terrorizing Rachel Berry made her feel good about herself?

"But I had a good teacher in fifth grade. A really patient teacher," he said.

"Great teachers can make all the difference." Well, that sounded like she was pandering.

They talked for a while longer. He's easy to talk to, eager and open. Quinn wonders for the second time that night what a guy who looks like that, and is obviously friendly and charming, is doing at a bookstore on a Friday night, talking with her, no less. If she just saw this guy on the street, she'd assume he was on his way to sleep with a supermodel.

"We should probably get going," Quinn said. Alec had since returned to the table, but he was reading and ignoring the two adults present. "I've got a long night ahead of me of searching online for a handyman."

"Something wrong?"

Quinn shrugged. "Nothing major. At least, I hope not." She knew absolutely nothing, less than nothing, about anything related to home repair. "The washing machine's started to leak, so I'm spending the night reading Yelp reviews, hoping to find someone who won't cheat the single woman who doesn't know a thing about washers."

Sam smiled. "Well, you don't have to worry about that. I'll look at it for you."

"You know about appliances?"

"I've been described as handy."

"Well, I can't ask you to do that." Who is this guy? People aren't this nice, at least not so constantly nice.

"You don't have to ask me. I'm offering."

Quinn shook her head. "I would really feel like I was taking advantage of you, especially after you helped me the other day." As in, took care of her child for an entire evening and didn't judge her for being a drunken loser. "I appreciate the offer, but it's not your job to fix things in my life."

Sam leaned over the table. "You remember I told you about my dad raising me right? Well, if he knew that I didn't help a lady who needed it, let's just say, I'm pretty sure I'm not too old for a whoopin'."

"Wow, I can't believe you just said whoopin'."

"It's the best word to describe it." He stood up. "And washers are easy. I'll have it ready to go in fifteen minutes."

XxXxX

It takes considerably longer than that. After two hours, she's spilled her guts. Quinn doesn't even know why she started telling this guy about her life. About the recent turn her life has taken, anyway. Really, he's just an amazingly attractive kid who happens to teach her son and be skilled at fixing washing machines. And he has such welcoming eyes. The way he looks at her just seemed to invite her to reveal every detail of her life.

"And I knew I had to get away. I didn't even want to be in the same city, let alone the same house."

"That's understandable," Sam Evans said from his position on the floor. He's lying flat, his head and shoulders mostly inside the open front panel of the washing machine. "I'm sorry you had to go through that." His voice echoes slightly from inside the drum.

Quinn stood over him holding a screwdriver. He hadn't asked for it, but it made her feel like she was doing something productive. His shirt's pulled up just slightly, ever so slightly, revealing maybe an inch of skin. Quinn makes a point not to look. Well, not to look for a third time, anyway.

"We were married for fifteen years, and then he goes and does something like that. I kept asking myself afterwards if he'd ever loved me at all." Alec's ensconced in his bedroom, reading his new purchase, which explained why she felt like she could talk like this. Well, no. It explained why she could talk without her son overhearing. It did not explain, not at all, why she felt like she could unburden herself to this guy on her laundry room floor.

There's a clanking sound from inside the washing machine as he adjusts one part or another. "Did you love him?"

It doesn't occur to Quinn to think him forward for asking. She opened those doors two hours ago. "I thought I did. I mean, we had our problems, but who doesn't?" The words are just flowing out. There's a voice in the back of her head, a quiet, faint whisper, that's telling her that later she'll be embarrassed for revealing so much. But she doesn't heed it now.

She's talked to her best friend, certainly. But as wonderful as Kitty is, Quinn hasn't actually talked to anyone about this who didn't just say "Don's an ass," as a matter of course. He is, she knows that, but this guy is actually listening to her. And again, Quinn knows she'll be plenty embarrassed by that later.

"He never wanted kids. I mean, I know he loves Alec, I wouldn't accuse even him of not loving his own son, but he never wanted children. And he knew I did. We were married for seven years before Alec was born, and he was completely by accident."

"A good accident. He's one of my favorite kids in class." Another clanking sound, a grunt from the repair guy.

"He's the best thing in my life. Sometimes I worry, about how our splitting up has affected him, I mean."

"He seems like he's really well adjusted," says the voice from inside the washing machine. "Seriously, kids are tough."

He would know, being as he'd been a kid only recently. But that's a mean thought, and she feels guilty for thinking it. This guy might be young, but he's the nicest man she's met in a long time. "My downfall is spending too much time on the internet reading about children of divorce. Do you think he'll become a serial killer?"

"I doubt it." There's a grunt from down below. "I think serial murder would be too messy for him. He's the only kid in my class who volunteers to wash his hands before lunch. Can you imagine if blood got on one of his books?"

He pulls further in and the shirt goes up another half inch or so.

"I guess I'm a bad mother for wanting to murder his father."

"Only if you go through with it." There's some clanking from inside the washer as he fiddles with whatever part or component he's decided is causing the problem. "Ah, here we go! I think I've just about —"

There's a spraying sound at the same time that she hears, "Shit!"

She leaned down. "Um, everything alright?"

A drenched third grade teacher emerges from the bowels of the washing machine. "Actually, I think I fixed it. However, there were casualties."

His shirt, his entire top half, is completely soaked.

"Oh." The garment is clinging to him. Clinging. As in, clinging to every single contour. It turns out that he's very healthy, and there are a lot of contours.

"Um, I might have a shirt you can borrow."

"That would be awesome." And then he just pulls his off. He just pulls of his shirt. In front of her. Just pulls that thing off.

Holy shit.

Her ex-husband, despite being the most despicable life form on the planet, was not an unattractive man. But he's also in his early forties, and for the first time in his life, he can't just eat whatever he wants without consequence, and so things have slackened around the middle in the past few years. And he's the only guy she'd seen shirtless in about fifteen years. At least, seen up close.

Holy fucking shit.

Sam Evans, her son's teacher, looks like he's carved from marble. Milky white skin blushed with pink and red. Golden hair on his lower arms. A six pack? An eight pack? She can't just stand there and count. Her eyes instinctively follow the little trail of hair from his bellybutton to the waistband of his jeans. Her stomach starts to hurt when she thinks about where that could possibly lead.

Holy fucking, mother fucking, fuck, fuck, fuck, shit.

"Um, Quinn?"

She woke up. "Lemme see what I can get you to wear." She darts from the room, praying that the burning sensation on her face doesn't translate to a blush. Quinn knows she's not that lucky.

He's still standing there, gloriously bare and seemingly unruffled about the whole thing, when she returned a few minutes later with a white t-shirt. "This was my ex's, and somehow it survived the purge." Quinn handed it to him, a large, large part of her brain reluctant to see him cover up. "I promise you won't catch anything from it, even if it was his."

He laughs and lifts his arms to pull the shirt over his head. There are tufts of honey colored hair under his arms. It's the single hottest thing she's ever seen in her life. Quinn cannot believe that she's just seen her son's teacher's armpit. It's such a weirdly intimate thing. She can't believe the sensation in her stomach right now.

To keep from endlessly clenching her fingers, she grabs the discarded, extremely wet, shirt. "I will get this washed and dried and bring it on Monday when I drop Alec off at school."

"You don't have to bother with that. I can take it and wash it at home."

He looks so much better in that shirt than her ex ever had. It's a white undershirt and she's absolutely certain that he could wear it down a runway in Italy or something. Quinn has to ask herself what the hell is wrong and why does everything keep fluttering? God, she can see his nipples through the fabric. She actually knows what his nipples look like now. God.

"Well, let me give you some money, for fixing the washer."

"No way. It was just helping a friend. It's no big deal."

So, she's friends with a hot twenty year old. "You've been here for nearly three hours. I think that's a big deal."

His smile crosses his whole face and extends to his eyes; she's starting to learn that he doesn't do things in half measures. Like, for example, exercising. He's obviously very dedicated to that.

"It's not," Sam said, "but hey, I do have a favor I'd like to ask."

"By this point I feel like I owe you a pretty big favor."

His eyes twinkled. "Well, you're free to say no, but I hope you'll say yes." He smoothed his new shirt across his chest. It looked like a self-conscious fidget, because, yeah, he is sort of just wearing an undershirt. And she can definitely see those nipples. Both of them. She wonders if he knows this.

"Um, so I'm taking my class on a field trip next week to the botanical gardens, and I need a parent chaperone. I was going to send out a group email to all the parents, but if I already had a volunteer, it could save me a lot of legwork . . ."

"Of course!" Is she disappointed that the favor wasn't to lick his abs? Maybe a little, but Quinn can admit that it wasn't a particularly realistic expectation. "I probably owe you two field trips after everything you've done for me."

"Seriously, don't mention it, I'm happy to help. And anyway, it'll be nice to have one of the cool moms to chaperone."

"I'm one of the cool moms?" She's a little embarrassed by how much she enjoys hearing that.

"Probably the coolest," he says, but with a mischievous smirk. "But don't get cocky, cause the competition's not too fierce."

She'd sort of like for him to elaborate on how she's cooler than the other kids' moms. For all she knows he spends all his free time helping out older women with their appliance needs.

"Um, I'm sorry, by the way," Quinn offered, "for boring you with all that, earlier. About my ex, I mean." It's dawning on her exactly how much she said, how much she revealed, to this guy.

Sam shook his head. "It's good to talk sometimes."

"Sometimes I talk too much."

"Maybe that means it needed to be said."

Maybe. "You're easy to talk to."

"In my line of work," Sam grinned, "you've got to be."

It did take a long time to fix the washing machine, so it's late when he leaves. Quinn had let herself get caught up in spilling all her secrets and hadn't noticed the time and that her son was still up. But it's Friday night, and they can sleep in.

Not every night, or even most of them, but some nights he sleeps with her. Don had always rolled his eyes, said she was babying their son. Part of Quinn dreaded the day when Alec would decide he was too big to be her baby.

But right now she's got him, and it feels good to hold him close after baring her soul, telling another person how badly she'd been hurt. Immediately after the divorce, she'd mostly tried not to think about it, to bury what had happened to her family.

Tonight was probably a good thing.

To Be Continued . . .

Thank you to the readers who left reviews on the first chapter! Things really start to move in the next chapter . . . leave reviews to get us there!