He kissed me back just as lightly before drawing away. “Let’s get you home.”
I followed him from the bedroom, only to smell something really, really good coming from the kitchen. “Oh my God.” I squeezed his arm. “What is that smell?”
He winked back at me. “Saturday mornings with Zwinn. Come and see.”
After drawing me to the opening of the kitchen, he paused beside me and looped an arm around my shoulder. “They cook pancakes and bacon together every week. It’s kind of cute.”
Cute? It was freaking adorable. Quinn and Zoey had their backs to us as they stood at the griddle, one pouring batter in, one flipping pancakes. They talked in hushed tones, and their heads were intimately close. Every couple of seconds, one would touch the other.
I could see them in fifty years still doing this very thing, cooking together and just...reveling in ordinary things, as long as they did them with one another.
“It’s like greeting card precious,” I whispered up to Oren. “I think I’m going to cry.” He snickered and passed me an imaginary tissue. I pretended to accept and wipe my face. “Thank you.”
Zoey turned then. “Oh.” She jumped, and Quinn glanced over. “Caroline! You’re still here.”
“We slept in,” I confessed, though neither of us had once mentioned taking me home last night. I think we both knew I wasn’t going anywhere until morning.
“Since you’re already this late, why don’t you stay for breakfast? We always make plenty.”
I glanced up at Oren, and he answered for me as he stepped into the kitchen. “Sure. She needs to understand why I’m not willing to let either of you move out of this apartment.”
Zoey crinkled him a confused look. “O...kay.”
So we ate breakfast with Zwinn, and it was nice. Oren cracked his usual off-color jokes, and Zoey updated me on her life since I hadn’t seen much of her lately.
“My biological father keeps asking me to visit him in California where he’s staying this summer. But…I don’t know.”
“I say fuck him,” Oren spoke through a mouthful. “The asshole did nothing while he knew you were being raised by an abusive douchebag. You don’t owe that dick shit.”