Quality Assurance Read online

  "Hi," Quinn said, looking baffled.

  "Um, I was in the area," Josh said, blatantly lying. He'd put himself in the area. "I thought I'd drop by and say hello." Josh paused, then added, "And see if you needed any help unpacking?"

  "Oh, um, come in?" Quinn said, which wasn't an answer, but it was an invitation that Josh wasn't going to turn down.

  "Thanks," Josh said, stepping inside when Quinn moved back, opening the door wide for him.

  The stairway had a few new, small paintings hung in it—bland, generic landscapes—and Josh wondered if Quinn had bought them or if someone had bought them for Quinn. Probably the latter, Josh decided as he climbed the stairs. Quinn didn't seem the type to bother, based solely on how long it was taking him to unpack.

  "Would you like something to drink?" Quinn asked, pushing absently at his sleeves as he stared at the living room. It was a wreck. Books and movies and knickknacks were scattered everywhere, like Quinn had simply decided that he had to empty all his boxes at once. There were empty boxes and packing and padding materials stacked haphazardly against the left wall, adding to the overall clutter.

  "Coffee, if you have it," Josh said. Quinn nodded absently, heading toward the kitchen.

  The kitchen was gorgeous. There was a huge plate glass window behind the sink and counter that overlooked a perfectly manicured lawn edged in trees brilliantly colored with fall foliage. The appliances were all a gleaming, untouched-looking black, and, in complete contrast with the living room, the entire room was neat and tidy.

  "Um, so how long do you think it will take before Elena and Carrie and Ashley leave us alone?" Quinn asked, grabbing a bag of coffee and a filter from the cabinet above the indecently clean coffeemaker. Did Quinn never use his kitchen? Probably everything was so new the shine hadn't worn off anything.

  "A few weeks, I hope," Josh said, shrugging. He hadn't thought about it, but they never did tease him for too long over any one guy. Especially if he told them to knock it off. He should probably do that, if only for Quinn's peace of mind. "If you want, I can tell them to drop it. They mean well, but they don't get upset if I tell them to back off."

  "Wouldn't it be easier to do that than to ignore it?" Quinn asked, frowning at the bag of coffee before dumping in some grounds.

  "I didn't want to make them too suspicious," Josh explained, trying not to be hurt that Quinn wanted him to tell the girls that they weren't interested in each other. "Especially since Elena knew I came out here last week."

  "Oh, right," Quinn said, picking up the coffee pot and moving to the sink to fill it with water.

  "I'll talk to Elena and ask her to tone it down," Josh said, leaning against the counter top, out of Quinn's way.

  "Thanks." Quinn poured the water into the coffeemaker, then stared at it, his brow furrowing. He stabbed a button finally, making the display light up green. "Um, and you don't have to help me unpack. I'm almost done."

  "I don't mind," Josh said. He didn't. It gave this visit a purpose other than him being a gawking moron who wanted to get into Quinn's pants.

  The smart move was to walk away and pretend the whole thing had never happened. Quinn seemed so normal; it would be easy to pretend he was an introverted, quiet young man with absolutely abysmal taste in clothing if Josh didn't know any better.

  "I only have books and movies left. I've been sorting them out all morning," Quinn said as he crossed to the other side of the kitchen to grab a pair of matching mugs from another cabinet. They were plain white with a solid dark blue line around the rim as their only decoration. "It's not exciting."

  "It's better than cleaning my apartment for the sixth time," Josh said, shrugging. "I really don't want to spend any more time with Elena or Ashley for a few days. The girls are great, but they take a lot of energy to keep up with."

  "I don't?" Quinn asked as he set the mugs in front of the coffeemaker.

  "Nah, you're quiet. I like it," Josh said, hoping he wasn't sticking his foot in his mouth with that.

  Quinn smiled at that then asked, "Milk?"

  "No, I take it black, thanks," Josh said as Quinn pulled out a quart of milk. Quinn didn't take his coffee black, Josh noted, then rolled his eyes at himself. He was hopeless.

  "So you came because you were bored but didn't want effusive company?" Quinn asked, busying himself with pulling out a container of sugar.

  "Well, yeah, but I like your company," Josh said, fighting the urge to fidget. He should've stayed at home, he decided. There was much less capacity to embarrass himself there.

  "Okay," Quinn said, looking pensive as he set the little plastic container of sugar on the counter.

  "What?" Josh asked, wondering if he should just go.

  "Hmm?" Quinn asked, focusing on Josh again.

  "You looked… confused," Josh said, shifting nervously. "Should I not have dropped by? I can go."

  "No, it's not—" Quinn burst out, then cut himself off, frowning. "I just—I don't get it. You know what I am, but you're not… you don't care?"

  "Nope," Josh said, wondering if that was what all Quinn's anxiety was about. "I mean, you don't seem like you're about to pounce and bite me at any given moment. And you're a nice change from the girls."

  "I won't," Quinn said firmly, meeting his eyes without flinching. "I wouldn't, not ever, not now."

  "Not now that I know you're a vampire?" Josh asked, filling in the rest of that caveat. Did that mean Quinn would've bitten him again had the first memory erase worked?

  "Um, not now that I know you and work with you," Quinn said. "It's… awkward, drinking from people I know and knowing that they don't know."

  "… good point," Josh conceded. "Though, hey, can you use your—" Josh made an obscure hand gesture because 'green-eyed luring tricks' wasn't something he wanted to say out loud, "—memory tricks anytime? That could come in handy if you screwed something up."

  "Not really," Quinn said, turning as the coffeemaker reached the end of its brew cycle and began to gurgle. "I can only do it so often before it begins not to work on my end? So I can usually only use it on my…"

  "On the people you bite?" Josh filled in when Quinn didn't finish his sentence.

  "Right," Quinn said, passing him a steaming mug. He turned back to the counter, adding an obscene amount of sugar and milk to his mug.

  "So are there werewolves and other stuff out here, too?" Josh asked curiously, holding his mug but not trying to sip it yet. He liked being able to taste things; burning his tongue on hot coffee would be detrimental to that.

  "No, that's weird," Quinn said, putting the milk back in the fridge. He turned back toward Josh, smiling, and Josh grinned.

  "No, seriously," Josh said, pleased that Quinn was teasing him. "I'd like to know if I stand a chance of being wolf-bitten on the next full moon, you know?"

  Quinn shook his head, still smiling. He leaned back against the counter in front of the coffeemaker, cradling his mug of coffee between both his hands. "There could be, I suppose. My mother was never clear on it, but I've never run into any werewolves. You're probably safe."

  "Zombies? Magic? Weird supernatural stuff like ghosts?" Josh queried, taking a tentative sip of his coffee. It was strong. Really strong. No wonder Quinn had heaped his with tons of milk and sugar.

  "No, no, and maybe ghosts? Though I've never run into one," Quinn said with the little smile that meant he was teasing again. "They have those ghost hunter shows on TV, though. They're always running into ghosts and 'unexplained phenomenon.'"

  Josh snickered, shaking his head. "No, I don't watch that crap. I watch different crap: pirates and wars and shit. The history channel is much better."

  "I'll stick with my ghosts," Quinn said dryly, drinking some of his coffee. "We can sit, unless you'd prefer to hang out in here."

  "Sitting's good," Josh said. Quinn nodded, moving to lead the way back to the living room. They settled on the couch, Josh on one end and Quinn sitting gingerly at the other end, as though worried he was going to spi
ll his coffee on the couch.

  "I'm getting more furniture next week," Quinn said, setting his mug down on the sturdy wooden coffee table. "I wanted to get most of my stuff unpacked and out of the way first."

  "Makes sense. More room to maneuver," Josh said, wondering what else Quinn planned to get. He'd have to drop by next weekend to see how everything looked then.

  "I'm almost done, really," Quinn said, glancing at the stacks of books and DVDs piled all over the room. Josh snorted because there was stuff everywhere. 'Almost done' was optimistic.

  "Well, I'd be closer, but then I decided I wanted my books organized by author and my DVDs by title…" Quinn said sheepishly, looking around the room. "Once I'm done with that, it'll go faster."

  "You're more ambitious than I am," Josh said. "I don't even keep my books separate from the DVDs. Everything goes on the same bookcase."

  "Heathen," Quinn said. "It's mostly the books I could never find at home—before I moved—so I'm sorting them properly this time."

  "I don't have that many books. They all fit on a single bookcase," Josh said, standing and setting his cup down on the coffee table. He wandered over to the nearest box, frowning at the contents—a bunch of plastic and paper wrappings but no books. "Where can I start?"

  "There are full boxes against the wall," Quinn said, startling him because he'd followed Josh without Josh hearing him and was much closer than Josh had thought. "But I really am nearly done. You don't have to help."

  "I don't mind," Josh said, giving Quinn a smile over his shoulder. "Unless you'd rather I not mess with anything. There might not be much left, but it'll go quicker with both of us, right?"

  "No, you can, um, mess with things," Quinn said, frowning at the sea of book stacks. "DVDs and videos are over there—" He gestured to the far corner where DVDs were stacked into neat piles around the TV stand. "Books start with As over there and end with Zs over here."

  "Cool," Josh said, moving across the room to where Quinn had indicated the 'to be sorted' books waited. "Are you sorting hard backs from paperbacks?"

  "Probably when I put them on the shelves, but not right now," Quinn said, shrugging as he picked his way across the room to join Josh at the boxes. "I don't want too many stacks."

  "That would get tricky," Josh agreed. He pulled open a box and fished out a stack of books, passing them to Quinn before pulling out his own stack. "Oh, hey, I know this book," Josh said, tapping the spine of the third book from the top of his stack. "This was good. I like the end—"

  "I'm in the middle of that one," Quinn interrupted before Josh could continue. He smiled sheepishly, shifting his books to one arm. "Sorry. I hate being spoiled."

  "You're good." Josh brushed it off, heading toward the nearest stack of books to check the authors' names. "You'll have to let me know when you finish it."

  "I will. It's good so far? I like the count," Quinn said, setting two books next to a tower of others halfway across the room.

  "So did I," Josh said, then grinned and added, "At first."

  "Stop that," Quinn scolded, rolling his eyes.

  Josh only grinned and focused on sorting out the books he held. He got briefly distracted when the cover of another book caught his eye, but he put it in its proper place without comment because the cover looked neat, but the blurb on the back promised mediocrity.

  Quinn's taste in books was all over the place. He had science fiction, fantasy, contemporary, and a few non-fiction books on supernatural phenomenon. The non-fiction books were all by the same author, and Josh studied them for a while, curious despite himself.

  "You can borrow one if you want," Quinn said. He'd started putting books on the shelves, starting with the hard covers. They'd sorted through the remaining boxes quickly, and then Josh had kept himself busy by browsing through the stacks of books.

  "Uh, sure, if you don't mind?" Josh said, picking up the one that looked most interesting and studying the cover again.

  "No, it's fine. I don't read them much," Quinn said, grabbing another few books to shelve.

  Josh settled on the couch, cracking open the cover of the book. It was about ghosts in a bed-and-breakfast in Connecticut. Perhaps the inn or author was in the same area of Connecticut that Quinn was from, Josh thought as he flipped past the intro and started to read.

  The book started out simply, and the author was pretentious, but it was interesting to speculate whether it really was a ghost, especially in light of Josh's recent exposure to real supernatural phenomenon. He was only about halfway through the book when the doorbell rang, startling Quinn into fumbling the books he was holding. The chime was more obnoxious on the inside, Josh thought, shrugging when Quinn glanced at him in confusion.

  "I'll be right back," Quinn said, still frowning in confusion as he picked his way through boxes and stacks of books to the stairwell.

  Josh wondered if he should follow. He didn't think any of the girls would show up here, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to leave Quinn to their machinations if it was one of them at the door. On the other hand, if it was one of them, and they found Josh here, there would be no getting them to back off later.

  He'd stay here, Josh decided. That was the safe, not nosey option. For all he knew, it was Quinn's neighbor asking for a cup of sugar or some other staple household good. Pretending to focus on the book in his lap, Josh steadfastly ignored the low murmur of voices he could hear from the stairway and tried to wait patiently for Quinn to return.

  Flipping a few pages, Josh studied a picture of a dimly lit bedroom for a moment before deciding the white blur was probably a camera trick and not a poltergeist or ghost. The door shut downstairs, followed immediately by two sets of muffled footsteps, and Josh straightened up as Quinn reappeared at the top of the stairs. He didn't look happy at all, which was odd. Josh had seen him upset and miserable, but never angry, and that was the closest thing Josh could peg the look on his face as.

  The man behind him was Quinn's polar opposite. He had sunny blond hair, a smattering of freckles across his nose, and he was smirking as though Quinn's annoyance was the most amusing thing he'd seen all week. He was dressed well: his khaki slacks were perfectly creased, he was wearing honest-to-goodness leather loafers, his polo shirt was tucked into his pants, and he was wearing a belt that matched his shoes perfectly.

  His smirk widened into a full-out smile when he spotted Josh sitting on the couch, and Josh wanted to throw his book at the man, never mind that in any other setting he'd probably be giving the man a good ogle. Except there was something funny about him, something Josh couldn't peg. It made him uneasy and he wanted to move away, put some distance between himself and the stranger.

  "Josh, this is my brother, Astor," Quinn said stiffly. Josh wondered if Quinn was unhappy that Josh was here to meet Astor, or if he was upset that Astor was visiting. "Astor, this is Josh."

  "It's a pleasure to meet you," Astor said smoothly, his voice rich and dark, like a good stout beer. "Quinn hasn't mentioned you—"

  "He's a coworker," Quinn said, cutting Astor off. "He dropped by to help me sort some stuff out."

  "It's been two weeks, Quinn," Astor said, his voice noticeably cooler. He moved deeper into the room, staring disdainfully at the stacks of books and empty boxes. "You're still unpacking."

  "Yes," Quinn said shortly, crossing his arms. He shot Josh an apologetic look—so this was a surprise visit then. Josh debated for a second. Should he stay or should he go? Probably go. Quinn didn't seem the type to fight with siblings in front of guests, and he obviously wasn't happy with Astor.

  "I should go," Josh said, setting the book aside and standing.

  Quinn hesitated, but then nodded, saying, "Sorry. I didn't expect other guests."

  "It's fine," Josh said, shrugging. He didn't look at Astor but grinned at Quinn. "Thanks for indulging me. I'll see you around."

  "You're welcome," Quinn said, relaxing enough to offer him a smile. "Um, see you Monday, probably."

  "Yeah, probably," Jo
sh said, feeling self-conscious as he headed toward the stairway. Was Astor watching him? Why the hell was he lurking so creepily? Josh stalwartly refused to look that way, sure he didn't want to see whatever look was on Astor's face.

  "You should stay," Astor suggested, his voice back to that deep, heady tone. Josh's steps faltered, and he looked—

  —only to find Astor giving him a predatory, green-eyed look. Fuck, he was going to get bitten again.

  "Astor!" Quinn snapped, looking furious as he crossed the room to where Astor was standing in quick, fast steps. He knocked over a stack of books but didn't slow in the least. He smacked Astor across the face, hard enough that Josh flinched, but thinking was suddenly a lot easier, and he glared at Astor. He'd had his fill of being bitten, and the green-eyed bossy tricks were only hot on Quinn.

  "You didn't leave that much venom, Quinn," Astor said. His hair was mussed, but otherwise he looked unaffected by Quinn slapping him. He stared coldly at Quinn, ignoring Josh, and Josh wondered if that was his cue to get the hell out of dodge. "And you said nothing about anyone you didn't want to share."

  "I don't want to share," Quinn said, glancing worriedly over his shoulder at Josh. "I don't… he's not…"

  Josh hesitated. Astor likely wouldn't let him just leave, not without trying the memory trick on him, even if he was currently focused on Quinn, staring disdainfully as Quinn fumbled over his sentences. Josh wanted to punch him because he was Quinn's brother; he should have more patience.

  "Leave him alone," Quinn finally said, frowning pensively. "You've checked on me. You can go now."

  "Mother will want to know more than that you're alive and are attached to a human," Astor said coolly. He gave Josh a dismissive look, as though he found Josh to be lacking in some measure. "Wipe him and send him on his way so we can get the rest of this over with."

  "It doesn't work," Quinn said, pushing up his sleeves irritably. "I screwed it up the first time I did it, and now it doesn't work."

  "You don't get to test that," Josh said when Astor looked at him again with interest. "In fact, you get to stay over there."