Age Gap

Ch 22

Mrs. Timber and Quinlan stood under the porch light at the entrance to their home. They watched as Lincoln finished buckling his seat belt before turning to them. The mother and daughter waved to their guests. The white haired boy smiled at them and waved back. Soon Lori started the van allowing them to roll into the night. Quinlan wished she could have also rode away with her white knight.

"*Sigh*, well..." Mrs. Timber interrupted the orchestra of crickets filling the night. "I'm tired. Time for bed don't you think?"

"Yeah..." Quinlan moved one of her many curls behind her ear. "Craziest day of my life, honestly."

"Mmmhmm, I bet it was." The mother nodded to her daughter's statement. "But before you end it, please go forgive Cristina."

"Forgive her?" The teen perked up a brow. "She's done nothing wrong. She's even the one who calmed me enough to call Lori."

"It's not that she's done anything wrong, she thinks she's done something wrong."

"What could she have done?"

"She has a crush on Lincoln." The woman told Quinlan bluntly.

"Oh... that." QT almost chuckled at the silliness of it.

"You knew?"

"She couldn't have been any more obvious." She had a big grin on her face. "It was really cute. I knew I'd have to talk to her about it sooner or later but I thought I'd let it go for awhile. Hehe. Maybe it's my fault for teasing her about passing Lincoln up... A bit of irony and all."

"I guess it's not that unusual for a little sister to have crushes on their older sister's boyfriends." Mrs. Timber admitted. "Most of the time they'd be their sister's age, not theirs."

"I'm going to hear a lot more jokes like that aren't I?"

"A few here and there... I'll try to be around more."

"It's okay Mom... we know how busy you two are."

"Your a good kid, sweetie."

"Thanks Mom."

This is where the two of them parted ways. Mrs. Timber went back to her room for a well deserve rest. Quinlan took a moment to check herself in the mirror before heading into Cristina's.

Cristina's door was unlocked and, upon entering, QT could see the young girl sat curled up in her bed. Her eyes were tinged with red only causing the older sister to feel a pain in her chest. As the door clicked behind her, the youngest Timber looked up.

"Oh... hey Sis." Cristina's hand quickly swiped underneath her nose. "D-did everything go well?"

"Yeah, it did." Quinlan moved to sit on the side of her little sister's bed. "It did... because of you."

"You mean because of Lori." The Timber girl gave a rebuttal.

"No." QT shook her head. "Because of you, sis."

"No you don't," the girl curled up more.

"I sure do." the teen moved in and pulled the pitiful girl into a hug. "I was a wreck when Mom told me to go to my room... If you didn't come and sort me out, I could have lost everything... so it's because of you that everything is okay now."

"You wouldn't be saying that if you knew-"

"That you have a crush on Lincoln?" Cristina's head darted up and looked her sister.

"You knew?!"

"Of course, I did silly." The teen smirked, "I could see the puppy-dog eyes a mile away."