I heard the front door open and shut downstairs and felt a jolt of adrenaline tear through me. I scrambled quickly to find my pants, waking Quinn up first.
“Shit, are her parents home?” he whispered, his face a mask of fear.
“Yeah, I think so.”
We both pulled on our pants, not even having a moment to talk about how weird this whole situation was. We'd just shared a girl. I had never in my life done anything like that with my brothers. Doing something like that had honestly, never crossed my mind. But something about the situation, in that moment, just felt – right. I couldn't explain it – and didn't have the time to analyze it – but, something in the way everything had unfolded felt natural.
Hailey's eyes fluttered open and saw us getting dressed, and she sat up. A look of hurt crossed through her eyes and I realized that she probably thought we'd gotten our rocks off and were bailing on her.
“What's going on?” she asked, a slight tremor in her voice.
“Your parents,” Quinn said, leaning down to kiss her nose. “They're home.”
Although the hurt melted away, it was replaced with something close to panic. With wide eyes, Hailey hopped from the bed and started scrambling for her bra and shirt. I found the bra, Quinn found the shirt. We tossed both at her at the same time as we heard footsteps coming up the stairs.
Hailey looked at both before tossing the bra under the bed, throwing on her sweater and pulling her leggings up, nearly tripping until I managed to catch her.
“Careful,” I said with a laugh.
When the knock came, we were all three dressed and sitting on her bed again. Everything looked perfectly normal and perfectly innocent. For the most part.
“Hailey?” her mom said.
“Yes?”
“Can I come in, please?”
We all looked at one another and tried not to laugh, Hailey hushed us. It was hard to not think we were back in high school all over again.
“Uhh, sure,” she said. “It's open.”
The door opened, and panic hit me. What if it was obvious – Hailey's hair was a mess, falling loose from her ponytail now, and Quinn had a guilty look on his face. I tried not to meet her mom's eyes at all, feeling like there was no way I could after what we'd done with her daughter – no matter how amazing it felt to us at the time.
Ada Roberts didn't have a good look on her face when she stepped inside. In fact, she looked positively grim, which sent a stab of fear into my heart again. Something had happened – and it wasn't that she'd figured out we'd just had the strangest threesome I'd ever experienced in my life. Something was genuinely wrong.
“Honey, I have some bad news,” she said, sitting on a chair across from the bed. “Leo has already posted bail and has been released. He's already out there somewhere.”
Hailey's face fell. Her hands were clenched in front of her, and although she forced her fists to open, she started wringing her hands.
“Already?” she managed to choke out.
“I'm afraid so,” her mom said. “We can go down to the courthouse and file a restraining order –”
“A restraining order won't do anything,” Hailey scoffed. “Not with someone like him. He laughs at things like that.”
“It's all we can do, Hailey,” her mother said.
Quinn spoke up. “Hailey, would you feel more comfortable at our place?” he asked with a seemingly casual shrug. “Leo wouldn't know to look for you there. And you'd have the three of us to protect you if he did.”
I nodded. “I actually think that's a great idea.”
She looked at Quinn, then at me, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
“It wouldn't be a problem?” she asked. “I don't want to impose.”
“Not in the least,” Quinn said, taking her hand in his.
He stared deeply into Hailey's eyes, and for a moment, it felt like they were the only two in the room.