Dinner Disasters: Drake and Quinn

Epilogue (Drake): Over The Years

A week after Quinn and I ate at the tea place, I was at her door, picking her up for a dinner date. My girl loved pizza so I always found new places for us to try out every week. I swear she'd eat pizza every night and I'd join her just because it made her happy. But she promised we'd only eat pizza twice a week -- once at whatever new place I found that week and once at her favorite pizza place in town.

"I'm hungry," she said, accepting my quick kiss as she barreled out the door. "I need pizza. STAT!"

"Found a highly-recommended place from someone at work, Quinn. You won't believe how close it is."

I grabbed her left hand as we walked to my truck, and I almost stopped walking.

Play it cool. Play it cool.

There was no ring on her left hand.

OK, maybe she lost it. Maybe she took it off to shower or do the dishes and forgot to put it back on.

But once we got to the restaurant, I saw that the olive leaf ring was on her right hand. I hadn't done a fucking cartwheel since we were forced to learn in PE in elementary school, but I felt like doing several in the restaurant as Quinn chattered on, as if she hadn't just rocked my world and made my life. If you're paying to read this, you shouldn't be. It was stolen from groveltohea on wattpad, and you can go read it there for free. Instead, I forced myself to remain in my seat and not...I don't know...float away on cloud fucking nine. Once we got our pizza, I gave Quinn the big news.

"So, guess who quit today?"

"Who?" she asked, wide-eyed, leaning forward. She loved tea being spilled.

"Jessa. Her captain's been on her ass since he got the call from my captain and has pretty much made her life difficult. He has a buddy who's captain at another station five hundred miles away, so he strongly suggested she take the job there, start fresh, forget about all the shit she's pulled and maybe become a somewhat decent person. Word has it he reduced her to tears because he didn't hold back with how unimpressed he was with her and the way she'd been fucking with my life. So today, she turned in her notice and she's moving in three weeks."

"She's going to move?"

"Yep."

"Oh, good. I don't know if you ever noticed, but I was never a fan of hers."

I grinned at her sarcasm. "You don't say."

I never said a word about the ring being switched to her right hand. But the second I got home after our date, I started putting plans into motion. 

The next weekend, I took Quinn to her favorite pizza place, the place where we had our very first pizza date. We were seated in a booth that looked out onto the street, and I tried to keep her from looking out the window, afraid she'd recognize some of the cars parked there or the people sitting in the cars.

"I'm surprised it's not busier," she said as we walked in.

"I think there's a big game tonight," I lied. Fortunately, Quinn wasn't into sports and had no idea.

We'd put in our order as soon as we were seated -- she had no idea it would be a very special order -- and then I just needed to time things. Our waiter gave me the heads up, and I sent a text to Quest, telling Quinn it was someone asking if I could pick up a shift.

Seven cars peeled away from where they'd been parked on the street and a fire engine slid neatly into the parking spaces they'd vacated. The firefighters rolled down the huge sign I'd had made just as the waiter brought out our large, special order pie.

They blasted the siren and Quinn startled and looked out the window to see the sign hanging off the side of the engine.

Quinn, will you make all my wishes come true and marry me?