Quinn Baldwin was pretty much the opposite of Jane Bailey Knowles in every way. Right down to his name. She knew boys named Quinn didn’t even notice girls called Jane. Forget about dating them. Just like she’d been convinced that jocks didn’t date band nerds. And seniors didn’t date freshmen.
It was a small but comforting list of reasons why Quinn never gave her the time of day. Then that spring Quinn had started dating Cassie Hart—a freshman theater geek proving jocks did date nerds.
Cassie was something else too, besides being the opposite of Quinn on the social ladder and popularity charts of Sidney High. While Bailey had been embracing her mother’s theory that she’d grow out of herbaby fat, Cassie had hit high school and become a legit anorexic, as in officially diagnosed and in therapy for the condition.
Bailey was shattered. Quinn dating Cassie left only one reason why after all of the time she’d spent in this house Quinn had shown no interest in her whatsoever but had noticed Cassie right away.
It was proof, in her mind that guys like Quinn might date a freshman nerd, but they didn’t date chubby girls.
Her heartbreak and disappointment lasted until his graduation. That was when he’d turned down a football scholarship, joined the Navy and moved to California, dumping Cassie before he left.
Since his graduating and leaving town couldn’t possibly hurt more than his dating Cassie had, his moving away had been a relief.
No longer would she have to see Quinn pressing Cassie up against the lockers, kissing her in the three minutes between classes until the bell rang and she stumbled late into class with lips swollen and eyes glazed.
And without Quinn in school as a daily distraction and a reminder she wasn’t good enough, Bailey thrived during her final three years of high school.
She was still battling her obviously mislabeledbaby fat, but she became the best player in the band, taking on multiple instruments like she was born playing them.
Her grades put her at the top of all her academic classes, including the advanced placement ones.
Even her social life, both live and on social media, improved. That might have been aided by her finally being old enough to get a good after school job so she could afford to buy her own clothes. Ones that fit.
She graduated high school, dropped the name Jane forever in favor of using her middle name and moved to the city for college—where she failed out the first year.
But she was a survivor. She didn’t need a degree to earn a good living. To make a name for herself.
In the past eight years she’d proven that.
But even today, inside her still lived that insecure little girl whose grandmother had said she would have such a pretty faceif she could just lose thatbaby fat.
Now here she was, back in this town surrounded by those memories.
Her grandmother had passed and her mother had moved to a warmer climate where she spent her days too busy playing cards with her new friends to worry much about her daughter in New York. But all the memories remained.
Just as most of the kids from school had also remained.
She was back to being surrounded by the people who knew her as Jane, the band geek and the klutz who couldn’t get to class without tripping on the stairs or her own two feet.
And of course, Quinn was back too to witness her return to geekdom…and the fact she couldn’t walk across a room without falling over something.
Humiliation had no expiration date.
“I need to get dressed,” she mumbled and pivoted toward Josie’s bedroom.
She was almost there when she remembered the oven timer.
She pivoted back. “The cinnamon buns—”
Quinn held up one hand to stop her as she, still embarrassingly in nothing but a towel, took a step toward the kitchen. “No. Go. Get dressed. I’ll get them out of the oven.”
“Oh. Okay. Thank you. And it’s fine if you, you know, wanna eat some. I mean, of course, why wouldn’t you? Ha. That’s what they’re for. Right?” She was babbling. Sounding nothing like the woman who spoke to ten million followers on social media multiple times a day.
Dammit. She’d dated Axel Black—until he’d cheated on her. She’d had her picture onPage Six. Her name mentioned inRolling Stone. It was in connection to Axel but still, it was her. Her name. Her picture.
But five minutes with Quinn Baldwin, plus one epic naked fall not just in front of him, but on top of him, had her feeling like an insecure ninth-grader again.
She still hadn’t recovered from the embarrassment by the time she came out of Josie’s bedroom fully dressed a few minutes later. It was possible she might never recover.
