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“It’s okay.”
“It’s not. How’s Adam holding up?”
Jules sighed. “As well as can be expected, but he’s talking to me about it, so we’re working through it. This kind of loss isn’t an easy bounce-back, no matter how long he had to come to terms with it.”
She knew. And she even liked Adam enough to be genuinely sorry he was going through this. He was a good man, and he made her best friend so deliriously happy it was a wonder Jules didn’t spend her days walking around on little clouds and singing at the top of her lungs. “I’m sorry.”
“I know. I am, too.” She shook her head and started typing something on her phone. “But we are, once again, getting off topic. Back to DeathCon—what if there was an alternative?”
“Alternative?” Aubry stopped panicking enough to send her best friend a suspicious look. “How can there be an alternative? I don’t like this alternative you speak of.”
“Hmm?” Jules looked up from her phone. “We’ll figure something out. I know how you feel about people, especially people in crowds, but you can’t miss this opportunity. No matter how much you kind of hate everyone.”
She did, but it didn’t stop that comment from stinging, just a little. “I don’t hate you.”
“That’s because we’re lady soul mates.” Jules glanced at the door, making the small hairs on the back of Aubry’s neck stand up. She was definitely up to something.
Aubry narrowed her eyes. “Maybe we should talk about that alternate option now.” She did not like the way her friend seemed so calm.
“In a minute.”
She straightened but was temporarily distracted by the front door of the café opening. Adam walked through, sending Jules a downright devastating smile as soon as he saw her. He always did that. It didn’t matter if he’d been gone an hour or a full day, he always looked at Jules like she was the best thing he’d ever seen.
Aubry was not jealous of her best friend for having that kind of relationship. She most definitely was not.
Then Adam stepped aside and he walked in. Quinn. She froze, almost overwhelmed by the sheer size of him, even across the room. He was well over six feet tall and had a physique that would have been seriously attractive if not attached to his particular personality. She knew the second he noticed her, because his brows slanted down for half a moment before his face relaxed into a grin. He never snapped at her, never snarled, but he said the most unforgivable crap.
“Hey there, sweet cheeks. Looking good.”
Like that. Sweet cheeks. What the hell was wrong with him? She hunched down into her seat and stared at her computer, but the screen just served to remind her of the opportunity her issues were forcing her to miss. If she was a normal, well-adjusted woman, she’d have no problem shooting back an email accepting the honor that the invitation signaled. For fuck’s sake, they were going to comp her a room. That wasn’t something they did for just anyone.
Too many people. Not enough space.
The feeling of claustrophobia was only accented by Quinn ambling across the room to the table and looming over her. “Stop hovering,” she snapped.
“Now, don’t be mean. I know for a fact I don’t stink.”
No, he didn’t. He smelled of some kind of cologne that made her think man. The kind that would have advertising with a guy who looked like Quinn up on the back of a horse, cowboy hat firmly in place, probably a lasso in his hands and a determined looked on his face.
He dropped into the seat next to her, draping his arm over the back of her chair. He didn’t touch her, though. For all the casual intimacy he showed with everyone else, he never touched her.
Probably because I threatened to rip off his arm and beat him to death with it last time he did.
She shut her computer, all too aware of the heat she could feel emanating from his body. He was like a human-sized forge. She realized she was staring at his chiseled jaw line and jerked her gaze away…right to Jules’s considering face.
Heat spread across her face and she realized, to her horror, she was blushing. Oh my God, what’s wrong with me?
Jules didn’t give her a chance to recover, either. She leaned forward. “I think you two can help each other.”
It took a second for her words to penetrate, but Aubry was already shaking her head. “No, absolutely not.”
While, next to her, Quinn said, “Jules, I think you’re swell, but you need to be committed if you think for a second I’m going anywhere with this crazy woman.”
She spun to face him, forgetting her rule about touching, and poked him in the chest. “Me? No one’s crazy enough to go anywhere with you.”
