Beautiful Broken Rules (Broken, Series #1)(18)

“That’s because you didn’t, dummy. Jax carried you down here and put you in bed. He covered you up and everything. He even asked me if you needed to be up at a certain time this morning, so he could set the alarm on your phone. I was pretty impressed. He was so sweet. You didn’t seem to mind either, with your hands wrapped around his neck and your face buried into his shoulder.” She smiled mischievously.

“Oh no, did I drool on him? Please say no. You didn’t hear me snoring, did you?” I smacked my palm to my forehead. I shouldn’t have let myself get so comfortable in his arms last night.

“No, I don’t think you did. He seemed to be happy carrying you. He’s totally hot, right?” she asked while grabbing two coffee mugs from the cabinet.

“So gorgeous, Quinn! I can’t believe there are two of them.”

“Did you know he calls you Emerson? How did he even know that was your name?” she questioned me.

“He found out in Journalism, we had to keep up a dialogue for the whole class period. How did you know he called me that?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot, when he carried you to your bed, he saw your textbook on the side table and he said he was going to borrow it to study last night. He asked, ‘Can you let Emerson know I borrowed it?’ I didn’t even realize he had called you that till after he left,” she confided.

“Crap, I hope I didn’t miss something that we were supposed to study,” I grumbled.

“Cole’s worried about you sleeping with them, you know,” she said nonchalantly.

“Why is he worried? He doesn’t care who I sleep with. It’s not like they would ever move out of the apartment because I slept with one of them.”

“He’s not worried about them moving out, he’s worried about us moving away, if there were ever any bad blood,” she said while shrugging her shoulders.

“I’ll reassure him we aren’t moving anywhere.” Cole had never gotten worried when I slept with his friends. I don’t get attached to guys and I don’t let them get attached to me. I always do well with continuing a friendship after their three times are up. He was being silly. “So did you and Cole have this conversation while you were snuggling up in his lap last night, or was this conversation later in the night when everyone else went to bed?” I teased her.

I saw her flush a bit before she turned to grab the French vanilla creamer from the fridge. At some point last year, I noticed Quinn and Cole starting to act different around one another. She started to care whether she had makeup on before he came over and he started not approving of every guy she dated. I have a strong suspicion they both really like each other more than friends would. Quinn still dated guys and Cole still slept around, so I didn’t really know what to think. I’ve never deliberately poked fun at Quinn about it before, just tried to subtly bring it up. I just didn’t understand, if they liked each other, why didn’t they just get together? They’re perfectly normal, non-ruined adults, unlike myself.

“Don’t say stuff like that, Emmy, we’re friends. You lay on Cole all the time,” she said defensively while avoiding my eyes.

“The difference is when I sit up, Cole doesn’t get frustrated and he definitely doesn’t rub my back like he was doing with you last night.” I winked at her.

“You’re delusional. I’m going to go get ready. I have to tutor three students today at nine-thirty. Hurry and get ready so we can ride together.”

Nice deflection, Quinn. “I’m ready now, I’ll be down at the guys’ place, come get me when you’re leaving,” I told her as I reached for the door with my coffee.