CHAPTER 4

Claire:

She woke up alone in Bennett's bed a full almost fifteen hours after she'd initially burst through the door. The first thing she noticed was that her phone, that had been lying in the middle of the bed inches from her face, was dead, so she forced herself to roll over and plug it into Bennett's charger. It quickly lit up with a barrage of text messages. Mostly from Rachel and her mom. One of the last ones was from Bennett, saying that he'd been avoiding running as a wolf for so long that Leah had finally scheduled him for a quadruple shift as payback. It explained where he'd gone and made Claire smile that he'd thought a text message was the best way to communicate when he could have just left a note. The last messages that Claire delayed viewing were from Quil. There were two sent a few minutes apart.

Thanks for the delivery. You couldn't have come up though? We could have talked about it…. Is Butch our preferred mode of communication now? What's next, homing pigeons?

The second one, sent fifteen minutes later, was much simpler and to the point.

I'm sorry Claire.

Claire's eyes, that were extremely swollen and puffy, immediately filled with tears again. She vaguely wondered if she would ever have another waking hour where she wasn't crying. She could see the read receipt under the messages and knew that sooner or later he'd look and see that she'd seen it. She brought the phone closer to where she was curled up in the corner of Bennett's bed, still only taking up the smallest modicum of space she could, even though he wasn't even there.

She started to type out something and then changed her mind and deleted it. She locked the phone and set it face down on the bed as she bit her lip in agitation and ran a hand through her mess of hair before picking the phone back up.

This time she was completely intentional as she took the time to hit every single key and simply write out,

I'm sorry too.

Her thumb hovered over the send key as her mind race. Would he even understand it? Would he be able to sense her tone, her almost-sarcasm? Would he know that what she too was sorry for was what he'd done, or would he take it literally and assume she regretted things that she'd done. She did, but not things she was actually sorry for. She regretted the way she'd loved him. The way she had given everything to him. The way it hadn't ever even occurred to her to save parts of herself. To not give him so much power over her. She was starting to wonder if that was the reason he'd broken up with her. That she'd loved him so completely must have been a testament to her age and lack of experience. Maybe if she'd not accepted his proposal. She'd seemed to have him while she was hesitant about talking giant steps into the future but as soon as she accepted, he'd backed off. Or maybe it was the losing the virginity. Maybe giving herself so completely to him had been the step that had finally convinced him she didn't possess the judgement and maturity necessary to become someone's wife.

Claire dropped her phone to grab at her head, slapping her palms against her ears, shaking her head violently, trying desperately to shake those thoughts and the train they were taking, out of her brain before they could take root there.

NO! This ISN'T my fault! I didn't do anything wrong! She repeated to herself almost on a constant loop, hoping that if she could put enough energy behind it, she'd actually believe it.

When she noticed her head start to ache, but her eyes start to dry, a few minutes later she stopped and picked up the phone again. This time instead of hitting send she went to the top of the conversation and hit delete. A bubble popped up asking if she was sure she wanted to delete a conversation from Quil-Quileute, it even had his contact picture. It was his most relaxed face and posture, because he was asleep. It was a close up of him on his side in her bed. Just seeing it made her feel like she could almost feel his too hot hand on her hip, holding her even while he slept, all over again.

Frustrated that there were tears in her eyes again, Claire bit down on her lip until it hurt.

She'd had enough of this. Enough of the pain. Enough of allowing this to hurt her. Enough of pretending to herself that this was just a stupid phase, probably even just grief that was driving him, and that he would come running back to her. This was real and she needed to stop pretending like it wasn't her new life. Even if Quil wanted to get back together, she wouldn't even accept the offer.

That thought made her break out in a desperate sob as she leaned forward pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms around her knees. She prayed no one would walk in (like Bennett or his mom) and find her because she was still in her dress from the day before and knew that her underwear was hanging out at a very visible angle.

She couldn't lie to herself though. Not about this. She was trying desperately to establish some control in the situation again. To find her own power here. But the truth was so obvious it couldn't possibly be ignored, the thing she wanted more than anything was to be with Quil again. She wanted it so badly her entire body shook with it as she cried, knowing that she had to be approaching dangerous levels of dehydration at this point. She felt like a junkie in detox. Quil was her high. Except he wasn't. He was her calm. Her peace. Her home. And she didn't know how to find any of that without him. She wasn't supposed to find any of that without him. And she'd had a plan. A really good plan and now… now all of it was just gone.

She was supposed to marry Quil this summer. Her dad was supposed to walk her down the aisle in a simple backyard ceremony and give her away before Jacob stood before them and officiated, both as ceremonial chief and as the true alpha. She was supposed to move in with Quil and Butch in that stupid tiny studio apartment above the shop that was one hundred percent a bachelor pad. They were supposed to spend that entire first year with Claire working her ass off to finish two years of high school in one, and Quil hustling his new side project of restorations along with his regular business, setting enough money aside to spend their entire second year abroad with Butch. They were supposed to have stupid fights about things like how they desperately needed a real couch and that the mustard colored loveseat older than Quil that he had had literally inherited wouldn't actually cut it in their new non-bachelor life, or who had unstacked the dishwasher last, or that they should buy a real bed frame with an actual headboard. They were supposed to pretend like they were really trying to be more responsible and learn to cook better when really only giving it half a try and then ordering take out instead so that they ended up spending twice as much on their grocery bill than they'd budgeted for every single month. They were supposed to travel and explore the entire world together. They were supposed to go to college and fight about what Claire would major in, she'd want to do something practical like accounting and he'd push her to take art history classes. She'd fight with him about when he'd quit phasing. He wouldn't want to. Even after they'd left the reservation area. He'd feel too much obligation. Like he was letting the pack down. That he'd need to continue to shift to help train the young guys and Claire would remind him that he'd given enough of his life, he could finally stop. It would probably take the birth of their first child to sway him and then Claire would finally get to see him age for the very first time right alongside their babies. See his first gray hairs and if he'd develop a tiny bit of a gut to go along with the hottest dad-bod that had ever been in the history of the world.

That was her plan. And it had been a really good one. She couldn't believe, looking back, that she'd even hesitated to grab a hold of that life for even a single second. She could even understand why the day before there had been a part of her that had been willing to try to conceive a pregnancy. If it was enough to keep that life from slipping through her fingers… but of course it never would be. Even if she could find a way to justify it to herself, Quil was already gone. Sure, he'd be there. He'd be there standing next to her at their shotgun wedding in the courthouse. He'd be there, making sure she took her vitamins and holding her hand at doctor's appointments. He'd even be there for all of the late-night feedings and diaper changes, but he'd also be the one filled with so much regret and pain that he couldn't look her in the eye. The one who, even after a few years of marriage, would hesitate to touch her because of what sex had come to represent for him, the tool he'd used to steal her entire youth and cement her in the relationship and life she couldn't escape.

Yeah, she'd get to keep him. But not the him she wanted.

Claire's body shook with the realization. It'd never be enough. She'd never be able to force him. She might never ever have him again, not the way she wanted. And if she couldn't have him the way she wanted, then she didn't want him at all. She loved him too much for that. She loved herself too much for that.

She didn't fully know where the hell it had all went wrong but it had and all that seemed left was her baggage of shit to sort through…. And she was cursing now. Even in just her own mind she told herself forcefully she wasn't a kid anymore and if her plans had gone to shit, she needed to at least be prepared to acknowledge it while her mind ran back over the plans she'd had laid out for them for the millionth time.

She allowed herself to cry and hurt and feel every single ounce of pain for one more minute. She even timed it in her mind, counting the sixty seconds off as she fixated on every single beautiful moment she'd had with Quil through the course of their relationship. Every single look, every touch, every kiss. On all the things she'd wanted for them but might never have. Some of those things could still happen, but some of them never would, like her dad laughing and agreeing to babysit their kids while they went out for an overdue date night.

When she hit the sixty second mark, she pulled in a huge breath of air. Holding on to it for a moment as she wiped her face and sat back up in a more dignified position. She blew it back out as she ran a hand through her hair and then picked her phone back up again. It was dark from the time she'd taken to fall apart. She unlocked it and then didn't let herself hesitate when the screen went right back to where she'd left it.

She hit yes and deleted the entire thread of text conversation between herself and Quil. She went straight to her contacts and pulled Quil's up. She couldn't delete it, even if that would feel cathartic in the moment. She knew that she'd still be in his life and they'd have to communicate with each other in some form still, not to mention that she was sure if she tried hard enough, she could list Quil's number off by heart. But she went to the contact photo and tapped on it. Letting herself feel a single moment of grief when the picture popped up.

His lips looked so soft when they weren't held with tension, and his tattoo was so prominent on his shoulder since he never slept with a shirt on, his hair was falling across his forehead almost obscuring his closed eyes. He just looked happy. Which was weird because he wasn't smiling, but he just had this whole aura of contentment, and Claire knew it stemmed from touching her.

There was grief as she hit delete on the contact photo. How could there not be? That relationship, that love, that piece of her life…. Had somehow died right along with her dad.

The phone chirped and asked if she wanted to assign a new photo to Quil's contact. She hit decline. She knew what he looked like and she would rather remember him in the old version in her mind than see even more evidence of who he was turning into. She hit the edit button and went immediately to where it said, Quil-Quileute in the first name box. She clicked the end of the name and pressed delete, losing Quileute backwards letter by letter. Once it was gone, she moved down to last name and simply typed in Ateara, before hitting save.

She threw the phone away from her across the bed as soon as she was done. She shook her arms out in a mix of discomfort and disgust. She felt like something had been sucked from her in a small part and it was unpleasant and uncomfortable.

Determined to shake it off, Claire stood up again, finally climbing off of Bennett's bed. She grabbed the set of his keys off his dresser that she knew he must have left there for her, it was his subtle way of taking care of her and she was grateful for the gesture since she needed to keep moving.

She was going to go home. She was going to avoid her mother. She was going to put on a sports bra and some shoes (and the rest of her clothes hopefully) and she was going to go for a run. She was then going to come home and take a shower.

She didn't think she could do any more than that -especially without crying- but she could do that. And that was what she was going to do.

Quil:

His heart pounded as he looked down at his phone again. He wasn't sure if it was from adrenaline, concern, or simply the fact that he'd just finished bench pressing three hundred plus pounds an insane amount of times before he'd leaned over to grab his phone off the floor where'd he set it with his earbuds and check again to see if Claire had responded. Of course, she hadn't.

It'd been three days since she'd sent Butch home with that stupid pregnancy test around his neck and since he'd texted her. It'd been two days since the receipt on the text had changed from delivered to read, and yet she'd still never replied.

Quil was less than thrilled with her chosen delivery of the message. He couldn't blame her for it though, he knew he'd been an ass about it. If she said she wasn't pregnant he should have taken her word for it and yet the entire experience had been so surreal to him that he couldn't really believe it until he'd seen the negative with his own two eyes. He still hadn't thrown the test away. It was obviously a disgusting memento to hold onto and it wasn't like he was planning on keeping it with any of the real things he'd kept from Claire over the years since her childhood, and yet he felt like until he heard from her again, until he could rectify the situation just a little bit, it was the only proof he had that her future was still soundly intact and that come a year from now, everything really would be okay.

He still hadn't seen or heard from Claire since the test with the note though. The note he'd thrown away. The note he hadn't wanted to keep, he'd rather wait until he'd had better communication from her than that.

He'd thought that he could wait her out, that she'd eventually come to him, either through text or phone call or just showing up in person at the shop. He did after all have leverage this time in the form of Butch.

He didn't want to just spring himself on her again, but he also didn't think he could outlast her anymore. The day she'd read the texts he'd only picked up his phone a handful of times to see if she'd respond, yesterday he'd starting checking on the hour every hour to make sure he hadn't missed a message, today he'd escalated to not just checking the notifications but actually opening the text conversation and staring at the read receipt every five minutes just to see if anything was going to change. He wasn't going to make it.

It was the reason he was at the gym right now trying to work out and hoping that he could use physical exertion to try to push some of his anxiety away. It was helping only in that he didn't think his head would explode anymore but that also might have something to do with the fact that he'd decided she'd just have to deal with the unexpected if she didn't respond because either way he was coming over tonight. He was a part of the Young family and that was never going to change.

Quil sighed with disappointed frustration as he looked at the unanswered messages he'd sent days ago, before plugging in his ear buds and then shoving them into his ears as he started his playlist. He only had the one playlist. It was universal really, whether he was working out or just working in the shop or even driving. It started with Journey and ended with Metallica. It was about as classic eighties rock as you could get. He put the band around his arm and shoved the phone in its sleeve before standing to grab a towel from the rack. As he moved, he noticed the woman on the treadmill in the corner who seemed to be trying to catch his eye. To avoid the awkwardness of having to acknowledge her, since they were the only two patrons in the gym currently (and it really wasn't that big of a gym) he brought the towel to his face and wiped at it so his eyes were covered, before bringing it down to wipe the sweat off his bare chest. He turned away so his back was to her as he grabbed a set of fifty-pound free weights and went to sit back on the bench he'd just abandon as he started curling both at once.

He only got through a single set of fifty before he set the weights on the floor to pull his phone out again. It was pointless, he knew, since if he'd gotten any messages he'd have heard the alert through his earbuds but it was a compulsion that he simply couldn't ignore as he pulled it out and then opened the conversation just to stare down in frustration all over again at that one stupid little word. Read.

More like Rude. She should acknowledge his apology at the very least. If she wasn't going to forgive him, she should at least acknowledge him. Her silent treatment was just cruel on her part. She had to know how insane it would drive him to simply not know how she'd responded to it. Quil started to squeeze the phone it frustration, knowing he needed to put it down before he crushed it and yet wishing he could force her to respond through sheer willpower alone when, miraculously, a message appeared right where he'd been staring, bumping his outgoing message with the read receipt up one spot to make room for her message.

Where are you rn?

Quil's heart pounded in his chest again, and this time he knew he couldn't even try to blame the work out. He took a steady, and very relieved, breath before he brought both thumbs to the screen to type and then send his reply.

At the gym. What's up?

He stared at that message too for the next several seconds until the receipt changed from delivered to read and then a bubble with little alternating dots popped up indicating her typing a response.

Quil flexed his fingers agitatedly as he watched it blink for a few seconds before disappearing. He expected a message to appear but there was nothing for a moment and then the bubble with the dots appeared again.

"Come on, Claire." He muttered out loud in a quiet plea to his phone even while knowing full well that he was talking to himself and that the woman across the room was definitely watching him and was so intense about it she had now drawn the attention of Beka (the bored teenaged girl in the uniform polo behind the reception desk that he could see in the reflection from the mirrors on the wall) watching his back curiously, obviously trying to figure out why the woman was staring him down so hard. He didn't care enough to give attention away from the phone in his hand (or to even stop from muttering out loud to himself).

When the bubble disappeared again Quil held his breath waiting for the message to follow. Nothing did though.

There was nothing in response to all her typing.

Eventually he had to blow his breath out again, this time in a frustrated huff as he realized all he was left with again was a text he'd sent and a blatant read receipt.

Frustrated and beyond annoyed he pushed play on the music again, turning it up loud enough that hopefully the woman now moving to the rowing machine less than ten feet away from him would get the hint that he wanted to be left alone and went back to his curls. This time only doing one arm at a time and actually focusing on the sets.

He did twice as many as he was planning on since he now was full of even more agitated energy and had no other way of working it out of his system. He wiped his face again and stood to move the weights back to the rack. He had just set them down when the chime of the front door sounded, and his too sensitive hearing picked up the sound of Beka's voice over his headphones.

"Um I don't think you can- Hey wait!"

Quil turned around just in time to see a very agitated looking Claire holding up an index finger indicating a just one second to the girl without looking at her. No, she was looking at him. She was looking right at Quil, looking beyond pissed as she dragged Jamie by the hand, so forcefully she was almost yanking him along behind her and he was having to really scurry his shorter legs to keep up with her.

A smile immediately took over Quil's face, because whatever she was pissed about it had clearly been enough to break her and he had beat her out in the radio silence game.

Suddenly he felt annoyed and disappointed. Almost as if he was routing for her to win, but that didn't make any sense.

"Claire?" he asked happily surprised as he took his earbuds out and draped them across his shoulders. "Why are you dressed like that?" he immediately asked curiously.

She was wearing a dark gray shift dress that fit her body like a glove and had sleeves that seemed to be more just square geometric cut outs sticking directly out from her shoulders with what had to be six-inch black stilettos that not only made her look taller than he'd ever seen but also more fierce and powerful too but the dark lipstick she was wearing might have also added to the effect. She was almost to him now and the girl behind the counter looked a little panicked about the intrusion.

He nodded to her to let her know it was fine just as Claire spoke in a scarily chilled voice.

"Because I had a meeting. A meeting that was supposed to start twenty minutes ago. A meeting I was almost to when I got a call from Jamie's daycare and then had to reschedule to come back and pick him up. Do you know why?"

"Um no….. What do you mean? Who was this mystery meeting with, your guidance counselor?" Quil asked in confusion and very quickly learned that that was the wrong thing to have said. The look that she gave him in reply was so darkly disdainful that Quil actually got chills down his back and had to shiver in response.

Instead of replying to his question she pulled Jamie forward into the limelight and then pushed him in between them.

"Tell him why I had to come pick you up, Jamie." She said with fake enthusiasm and suddenly Quil was nervous. He'd never ever heard Claire be sarcastic with Jamie. She'd never really been that upset with Jamie before, she was too good natured and too much older than him to get mad about any petty thing he could do at such a young age. Whatever was going on, it had clearly pushed her over an edge she'd never gone before.

Jamie looked up at Quil for one second with his huge chocolatey-caramelly eyes, the same as Claire's, that seemed to be beseeching him as they filled with massive crocodile tears before he looked down at the floor and shook his head.

"Tell him, Jamie." Claire commanded angrily.

"I don't want to." Jamie muttered to the floor and Claire immediately huffed in frustration as she threw her arms in the air in exasperation and then slapped them back down on her thighs that exact same way she'd done at the park three days before.

Sensing that something was about to snap (probably inside of Claire) if something in the situation didn't give soon, Quil quickly squatted down in front of the weight rack so that he was now at almost even height with Jamie who still wouldn't look at him as he reached out and placed a reassuring hand on his small shoulder before he spoke directly to him.

"It's okay, buddy." He said softly, trying to make him feel more comfortable even with Claire's clear wrath hanging just behind him, but he still wouldn't even look up the two inches to meet Quil's eyes. "Why don't you want to tell me?"

Jamie simply lifted his one shoulder under Quil's hand before letting it drop in a half shrug as his only reply.

"Is it because you think I'll be mad at you?" Quil asked and Jamie finally looked up to nod hesitantly just as Claire scoffed so hard, she almost snorted bringing Quil's confused attention back up to her.

She rolled her eyes at him before saying in a more reasonable (but still clearly frustrated) tone. "Tell him what you did, Jamie."

Quil looked back at him and Jamie took a deep breath before looking down at Quil's gym shoes in front of him and muttering.

"I punched Beau Davis in the mouth when he said I was a big fat stupid head."

"What?" Quil laughed out before looking at Claire for further explanation and realizing that again he had reacted incorrectly since she was glaring at him with such heat, he was surprised it didn't burn him. He immediately wiped the smile off his face and cleared his throat to force the laugh that was already there back down before he asked, "And why would you punch him in the mouth because of that?"

Jamie shrugged again but this time with both shoulders as he looked up at Quil, clearly encouraged by his obviously non-angry response, before saying simply, "I dunno, you punched Bennett in the mouth when he said he'd slept in Claire's bed with her."

All of the air seemed to suck out of Quil's lungs in one immediately deflating breath, taking anything funny about the situation out right along with it.

This was his fault.

He had set the shining example of what manhood was supposed to be for Jamie who had immediately followed his lead. Claire was right with what she'd said with that look, there was nothing funny about this situation.

Quil dropped Jamie's shoulder and brought both hands up to cover his face as he groaned aloud in shame and horror, trying desperately to think of any way to rectify this situation.

"Look," Claire started, clearly agitated, before he had a chance to think of a response. "I need you to keep him this afternoon. I had to push my meeting back to pick him up, but it starts in forty-five minutes in Port Angeles and now I have to fill up on gas since making my unexpected round trip drained my tank."

Quil could feel his brows crush together in a skeptical expression as he stood back up to speak to Claire again.

"And what is this mystery meeting that you're clearly so stressed about?"

She gave him an annoyed look before seeming to realize that Jamie was staring straight up at her and then schooling her expression (and probably her tone) before replying, "It's just a meeting with a bunch of lawyers. I'll be back to pick him up at six, alright?"

Quil finally paused the music still coming out of his earbuds around his shoulders so that he could make sure he'd heard her clearly as he checked the time on his phone to see that it wasn't even two yet.

"… You have lawyers?" he asked her in clearly confused skepticism. He was, after all, twice her age and didn't have a regular lawyer.

She rolled her eyes and adjusted her purse as she took a step back clearly in a hurry to go, before she said, "Yes, I actually do have lawyers. Now can you watch him or not?"

"Yeah, of course I can watch him." Quil said and noticed the guilty tone underlying his voice. Whatever was going on between them he needed to do a better job of helping her here, especially with Jamie. She should have called him to come pick him up to begin with instead of driving back from where she must have been close to Port Angeles. "Let's just switch cars. Then you won't have to stop for gas. I have a full tank."

Claire had already been turning to leave as soon as he'd agreed to babysitting but jerked back in surprise as she finally had a turn to be skeptical. "You're going to take the Jetta?"

"Yes, I'll take the Jetta." Quil said with an eyeroll, it wasn't like he couldn't drive it….. he just hated to. "It's got Jamie's booster anyways, right?"

Claire nodded as she reached in her bag and pulled out her rather large ring of keys and unclipped a keychain extension with the Jetta keys on it before tossing them to him.

"You need my keys, or do you still have your set to the Camaro?" he asked as he caught them and then absentmindedly set a steady hand on Jamie's shoulder as he stood in front of him facing Claire too. It looked like they'd be having an unexpected boy's afternoon.

Claire just stared at him for a second like she was searching his face for a sign of something until he raised his eyebrows in a 'what?' sort of gesture and she shook her head as she looked away again.

"-I have my set of keys to your car." She muttered more to the clock on the wall than to him before she dropped down to lean almost precariously back against the heels of her stilettos with her knees held together in her tight skirt, she grabbed the side of Jamie's face with her soft palm to encourage him to look back at her before she spoke softly in the voice Quil was much more accustomed to hearing her address him with. "We'll talk more about this later, alright?"

Jamie nodded solemnly without quite looking at her and she sighed aloud in response making Quil's heart pinch. He seriously needed to start doing more to help her here. Jamie shouldn't be her responsibility alone.

"I love you." She muttered before she leaned in and kissed his cheek she wasn't holding.

She smiled when she pulled back since she'd left an obvious lipstick stain on his cheek, but Jamie couldn't tell. She left it there like some sort of claim on him as she stood back up and simultaneously turned away to leave without acknowledging Quil at all.

"Hey." He said making her turn back to look up at him at only three or four inches shorter than him a few feet away. Those stilettos definitely had to be putting her over six feet tall. She turned back to look at him and as their eye's locked it was like something passed between them. An invisible electric current, binding them together sharply.

'Imprinting' was immediately the word that came to his mind as Claire sighed sadly in response, still waiting for whatever he was going to say.

"What's this meeting about?" he asked in a much softer tone than he'd managed to use with her in the last few days. He was grateful it had actually translated for once instead of coming out so gruff or angry like it had been lately.

"-My dad's estates." She answered immediately and Quil knew it was only because he'd managed to ask nicely that she had answered. He could see the stress emanate in her shoulders just from her saying it.

Quil nodded his head in sympathetic understanding before glancing down and automatically saying, "-And you think those are the appropriate shoes for that?"

That probably would have earned him a slap to the chest if it weren't for the fact that Jamie was standing in between them, as it was Claire's hands were shaking as she huffed more of a choke than anything and turned without response, walking away and shoving the door open before walking out of sight without ever looking back at either of them.

The gym stood quietly transfixed in response to her exit, Quil heard the powerful sound of the engine of his car pick up before pulling out. The room suddenly seemed darker and bigger, like she had taken up all the room and light and left a dark empty space behind her. Beka behind the desk was leaning over sideways, holding herself up against the desk so that she wouldn't fall as she continued to stare after Claire driving away. The woman on the machine wasn't even rowing and Quil looked over to make eye contact with her for the first time but she immediately looked away, having the decency to at least look embarrassed as she started rowing the machine again.

Quil blew out a breath as he sat his other hand on Jamie's shoulder still standing in front of him facing where Claire had just left. He gave both of his shoulders a squeeze before he sighed and said, "Come on, let's get out of here. You and I need to have a talk about today."

Jamie just nodded his head as he finally stopped staring at the door Claire had left out of while he sniffed and then wiped at his nose with his bare wrist. Quil let go of his shoulders to make sure his wallet was in his pocket along with his keys and now the keys to the Jetta that were in his hand. He tossed the towel that was still hanging over his shoulder into the designated basket and then reached down Jamie's arm until he grabbed his small hand. Jamie immediately grasped onto him much tighter than Quil was expecting, especially since it was obvious from the kid's droopy posture that he fully expected to get chewed up and spit back out once they got in the car.

"… Well… we could probably go get ice cream and still have time to have our talk before Claire gets home." Quil said like he was weighing the options together in his mind.

Jamie's head immediately snapped up to look hopefully up at Quil beside him, "Really?"

Quil nodded and said, "Yeah, but just this one time, alright? And it has to be our secret."

Jamie just nodded before asking, "But we can get rocky road?"

Quil laughed at that response, "Obviously, we're getting rocky road."

"In a cone?"

Quil gave Jamie a skeptical look as he started using his hand in his to lead him out in front of him in between the pieces of workout equipment without ever giving the woman on the rowing machine another look. "What do you take me for, Jamie? Some kind of ice cream newbie? Of course it'll be in a cone."

Somewhere in the back of his mind he did worry that Claire would be horrified if she thought that he was rewarding Jamie's violent behavior but he shrugged it off since he'd still have plenty of time this afternoon to convince him of his wrong doing before Claire picked him back up again.

They were just reaching the gym door with Jamie's hand still held fast in Quil's when Quil nodded at the receptionist, "See you later, Beka." he said easily as he reached for the door. He expected her to say it back like she did the roughly five times a week he saw her but stopped when she hesitantly called his name instead.

"Quil?"

He looked back at her, but she was rummaging through a drawer before she pulled out something and reached forward like she wanted to give it to him. He automatically took a step toward her, taking Jamie along with him as he reached for whatever she was trying to hand to him. It was a business card with the name, address, and phone number of the gym on it.

For one single second he thought the teenaged girl was trying to hit on him by giving him her number, in what had to be the most curious timing she could have picked, but then he realized there was no personal name or number on it, just the official business ones. He looked back up at her in slight confusion just as she explained,

"For you to give to your wife. That way she'll have it if she ever needs you while you're here again. You know, if something else ever comes up with your son or anything." She said with a shrug as she nodded down toward Jamie standing slightly behind him and not paying any attention.

"…My-? Wait….." Quil said as his head reeled. "How old do you think she is?" he asked in shock as he used his thumb from his hand still holding the card and keys and not Jamie to gesture in the direction behind him that Claire had left in. For some reason the thing that struck Quil the most about her assumption was that this girl Claire's age assumed Claire could somehow not just be old enough to be his wife but also the mother of a five-year-old.

Beka shrugged a little in obvious confusion over Quil's response before she said a little defensively, "I don't know. Under thirty. Twenty-four, twenty-five maybe?"

Quil just nodded since his mind was so confused by the exchange as he backed away to move back to the door again.

She shrugged again like she wasn't sure why he'd reacted so weirdly to her comments but wasn't ashamed of them as she waved at Jamie who still had Claire's kiss printed on his cheek and who smiled at her in response. She looked back up at Quil as he turned to leave and said cheerfully,

"You have a really beautiful family. See you later, Quil."

"… Thanks, Beka." Quil said in a daze as he turned away again and then lead Jamie out the door.