Beautiful Broken Rules (Broken, Series #1)(105)

I tried to think about the last time I was in Jaxon’s room. It had been the day before that awful party where I freaked out and ran away from him with Devon. I remember he had the one picture of all five of us together sitting on the couch that I had taken by setting the timer on my camera. But all of these other pictures definitely hadn’t been here. Why the hell would he frame all of these pictures of me and hang them up in his room? The more I sat here and thought about his actions, the madder I got. This was just hurtful. He needed to stop looking at pictures of me and playing my mixed CD every damn night, where I basically poured my heart out to him through songs. He wanted this break-up, I didn’t.

I left his room and went down to Cole’s room. His door was closed, so I waited and listened outside the door to make sure I wasn’t about to walk in on something I couldn’t un-see. When all was silent, I entered the dark room. I noticed Quinn was still snuggled up next to Cole sleeping. When the light from the hallway streamed in, they started shifting around.

“Em?” Cole’s scratchy voice asked.

“Sorry, Coley, I just needed to grab my clothes.”

“Emmy, where did you go? When I woke up last night and you weren’t here, I figured you had gone home,” Quinn asked, lifting her head up.

“That * Jaxon came in here, grabbed me out in my sleep, and dumped me in his bed!” I shoved my palm in front of her face so she could read his written note.

“What are you talking about? Why would he do that?” Cole sat straight up, trying to read my palm as well.

“Months ago, he asked me not to sleep in your bed or Jace’s. He left me this freaking note on my hand saying ‘his rule still stands.’ I don’t know who he thinks he is. Now all I want to do is sleep in yours and Jace’s bed every night.” I paced back and forth.

Shaking his head, “Wow, he’s got it bad.”

“He’s about to have it real bad.” I grabbed my clothes and stomped out of the room.

I actually hoped he was in the living room, because I was about to tear him a new one. Talking about it with Cole and Quinn had only riled me up more. Jaxon didn’t have any right to break up with me, in public nonetheless, and then try to control where I sleep at night. It only made me want to go around and sleep with every guy he has ever spoken to at this school. I knew I wasn’t capable of doing that, but he sure made me want to. I reached the end of the hallway with my hands in fists.

When I stormed into the living room, Jaxon was on the couch. Why would he put me in his bed, when he would just have to end up sleeping on the couch? He was lying on his stomach with his arms extended out under his pillow. On the rare occasion that I would wake up before him, I always found him like this. It became a game for me to see how long I could kiss his back before he woke up. Sometimes I could kiss a line up and down three times before he would start stirring. I had loved that uninterrupted time to explore his muscular back. With my fingers, I enjoyed tracing the lines of his tattoo that spread across the back corner of his shoulder.

I lost track of how long I stood there staring down at him sleeping. I hadn’t allowed myself to really look at him this past month. Anytime I started to, he would catch me, so I forced myself to stop. My anger fizzled as I listened to the rhythmic in and out of his breath. I would get furious with him later. It didn’t look like he was sleeping peacefully anyway; he had a pinched expression in his eyes that I wanted to reach down and smooth out.

As I stood in the hallway entrance to the living room watching him, warm hands slid over my shoulders.

“Whatcha’ doing, pretty girl?” Jace whispered in my ear.