Read Online Take the Long Way Home by Judith Arnold - Free Book Online

shallow,
self-involved guy determined to maintain his position at the top of
the school’s social pyramid, anyone who strayed from the normal
posed a threat.
    “You were kind of scary,” he allowed, hoping
she wouldn’t be insulted.
    She laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”
    He sipped his beer. The old
Quinn would have assured her that he was. He would have smoothed
out the moment, sidestepping the treacherous path of honesty. But
he was a better person now, or at least he was trying to be. “I
didn’t really know you in high school,” he said, stating the
obvious. “But you were…different. You were the Other. Just by being
different, you were a challenge to all of us who were trying so
hard not to be
different.”
    Her smile faded, her expression growing
reflective as she leaned back in her chair and regarded him. She
said nothing.
    “What?” he asked.
    She shrugged. “Just…you’re kind of deeper
than I expected.”
    Okay. She was doing honesty, too. This
dinner could wind up being disastrous, or very interesting.
Possibly both. “You thought I was a dumb jock?”
    “Well…yes.” Her smile softened the
insult.
    He smiled, too. “I was a
jock. Not as dumb as I came across.” Another sip of beer. “Not as
dumb as I thought
I was.”
    The waitress arrived with
their orders—long, thick cylinders of toasted bread heaped with
mountains of chunky lobster salad, baskets of French fries
glistening with salt and oil, and bowls of cole slaw. Maeve’s eyes
widened with delight as she surveyed the feast. “I am so hungry,” she said,
then popped a fry into her mouth, chewed, and sighed
happily.
    He suppressed a laugh. In all the years he’d
known Ashley, he had never once heard her admit to being hungry.
She was always foisting half her meal on him, urging him to eat her
fries, passing him chunks of her sandwich. He’d appreciated her
slim figure, but he’d always suspected there was something more
than weight-watching behind her refusal to acknowledge her hunger.
It was as if she thought admitting she wanted to eat was
unladylike, or unclassy, or unattractive.
    Maeve wrapped her hands around her sandwich
and lifted it off the plate. Chunks of lobster spilled out of the
bread as she took a bite. She chewed, swallowed, and released
another contented sigh. “So,” she said, “tell me how smart you
are.”
    It almost sounded like a dare. If she’d
thought he was dumb, he’d thought she was meek. Obviously, they’d
both been mistaken. “I’m a doctor,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound
boastful.
    She looked impressed. He shouldn’t have been
so pleased by that. “I didn’t know doctors worked such lousy hours.
Aren’t you supposed to be on a golf course?”
    He chuckled and dug into his lobster roll.
“I’m a resident in orthopedics at Mass General. The hours are
better than last year, when I was a first-year intern. But they
still suck.”
    “I always figured you’d be playing football
professionally,” she said.
    “A lot of people figured that,” he agreed.
“At one time, I did, too.” He washed down a few fries with a
swallow of beer. “Fate, in the form of a three hundred twenty pound
tackle, had other plans for me.”
    She shook her head. “A tackle? Those are the
guys who knock people over, right? I don’t know much about
football.”
    He found her ignorance refreshing. “Lots of
people knock lots of people over in football. This particular
tackle knocked me over. Fifth game of the season at Michigan. First
game I’d started. I was a freshman, but our starting quarterback
was having a lousy season, so the coach thought he’d shake things
up by putting me in. I was having a decent game until I got
sacked.” At her perplexed look, he clarified. “That’s when someone
from the other team knocks the quarterback over. This tackle
dislocated my patella—my kneecap—and broke my tibia. That’s the
shin bone.”
    She winced. “It must have been painful.”
    “It didn’t