I saw pity, and I couldn’t handle it. I whirled away and stalked from the restaurant.
“Quinn, wait.” Cora raced after me. She grabbed my arm and whirled me around.
“What was that? Was that a ring she picked up? Are you going to propose to me?”
Her eyes lit with a smile, but I snorted. “No.” Hell, no! “Because I never want to see you again. It’s over, Cora.”
This time, she didn’t go after me when I stormed away, and I wouldn’t have let her stop me if she’d tried.
Cora was a sobbing mess. It was hard to understand anything she was saying. I still wasn’t sure what had just happened between her and Quinn, but he’d been so upset, more upset than I’d ever seen him before.
Through all Cora’s tears, I finally understood that he’d seen something on her phone he was never supposed to see. So I grabbed her phone, and then I saw something I never wanted to see.
“Oh my God, Cora. You…you’re cheating on Quinn? Quinn?” I stared at her, wondering when she’d lost her freaking mind. “How…how…how could you?”
“I love him, Zoey. I swear I do. Quinn is the best boyfriend I’ve ever had. I don’t want to lose him. What do I do?”
“How about not having sex with other men?” That’d be a good start.
She huffed out a sound of irritation. “Those were just flings. Quinn’s the real deal. No one’s ever been as good to me as he is. I really do want to marry him. But I like sex. What’s so wrong with that?”
“Oh my God, Cora. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Marriage means monogamy. And you...you just lost the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”
I turned away and left her in Jenny’s Crab Shack too, with Quinn’s engagement ring a little buttery but tucked safely in my pocket.
I cried a little bit, wandered around town a lot, refused to return to my apartment where Cora was. About an hour after everything fell apart, Caroline called, frantic.
“Oren just showed up here with a black eye and really upset, mumbling something to Noel about how Quinn will never forgive him for what he did. What the heck happened?”
“I don’t…I don’t know. I’m not sure. Cora cheated on Quinn, and they broke up.”
“What? Cora cheated—Wait. Oren wouldn’t possibly be stupid enough to...not with Cora? Would he?”