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“You’re not very nice,” I tell him.
“And you’re really grumpy when you have a hangover.”
“I think it might be your fault. If it weren’t for you tempting me with an experiment, I wouldn’t feel like this right now.”
He puts a hand over his heart, mock-wounded in the hallway. “Tempting you. Wow. I offered a lime adult slushy. You said yes. That’s consent, brain.”
My ears go hot. “That’s not—I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No?” He leans a little into my space to pull the jacket zipper up one inch because I only did it half way up. He doesn’t even look like he’s doing it on purpose. It’s almost an absent taking-care-of-me move. “You can blame me over bacon and eggs. I’ll allow it. I’m very generous like that.”
There’s something in his voice I can’t name. Not quite teasing. Not quite the easy friendship we’ve started to develop. More like he’s watching for a reaction but pretending he isn’t.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re waiting for something.”
His smile ticks smaller. “I am waiting for something, Quinn. You to walk toward the stairway so we can go get breakfast. Unless you’d rather I carry you. That can also be arranged. I’d only bring it up like once a week tops for the rest of the semester.”
“Do not carry me.”
He tries and fails to hide as his smile grows again. “So you do want my arm.”
He holds out his forearm for me to hold onto, and I take it because the alternative is possibly falling down the stairs wearing yesterday socks. This close, I can smell his body wash and the smell he only seems to get after sleeping. He pats my hand now on his arm and beams at me. My stomach flips again.
“You’re being weird,” I mutter.
“And you’re being cute,” he says. He tilts his head a little, studying me. “Even if you’re grumpy.”
Cute.
It washes over me and skitters to a stop somewhere in the vicinity of my heart. I stare at the stairwell wall so he can’t see whatever my face is doing. Probably broadcasting my stupid crush.
“People aren’t cute when they have a bomb ticking down in their skull.”
“You are,” he says, like it’s a fact and not his opinion.
“So you’re a sadist? You like seeing people’s pain?” I say, my voice taking on a sarcastic edge I don’t normally use.
“I don’t like the pain. I like you. Now walk.”
TWENTY-NINE
DANIEL
Quinn’s drunken confession lives rent free inside my head now. Even two days later as I’m lacing up my skate, I think about it. Not that he’s acting any different. He obviously is either acting like he doesn’t remember what happened, or he actually doesn’t remember.
Either way, I’m going to let him. It’s better for both of us this way.
“What are you smiling about, jackass?” Blue asks as he drops down next to me.
I glare at him. I’ve been low-key pissed at him since he insinuated that Quinn was fucking his step-brother. Even if I know it’s not true. There is no way Quinn is as innocent as he is if he’s sleeping with someone.
"Don't tell me you're still mad about Saturday night," Blue rolls his eyes. "I was saving you the heartache. I saw the way you looked at him."
“The fuck you did.”
