washing machine heart

penelope garcia and her parties

Time flew by as the group of young people battled the heavy tasks of impending graduation, exams, difficult classes and more often than not, hanging out with eachother. They would attend parties on some stranger's house, get drunk, end up back at Penelope's and drink even more. They even went to a couple of concerts, went to dinner almost every night, and sometimes had picnics in the cold bite of winter in the middle of a night in the nearest park.

It was still strange to Emily how close they had all gotten once again, being friends with Elle was weird. All she wanted to see was her happy but she wasn't sure how she could be constantly surrounded by Emily and JJ being affectionate. They tried to avoid overdoing it, but Elle had reassured them that she didn't mind. "Emily, it's fine, I swear." The curly hair girled reiterated for the 50th time, shaking her head as she smiled.

Despite the reassurance, Emily tried to keep her affection towards JJ to a minimum. She would hold her hand, kiss her cheek, and sometimes hug her when it felt right, but still she couldn't help but feel guilty every time JJ cast a look in their direction.

What Emily didn't realize is that Elle wasn't completely alone, watching her ex be all over her old best friend.

"Who ya textin'?" JJ skipped over to Elle from across the room, sitting next to her on the couch in Penelope's room during one of their parties. "You got a pretty big smile on your face."

The curly haired girl looked up with wide eyes, her face immediately filling with a heavy blush. "Doesn't matter. You don't know them."

The blonde gasped, jumping into hugging Elle. "Girlllll, who is it? Come on, you have to tell us! We are your best friends!" This shout drew the attention of the rest of the room, including the quiet girl sitting in the corner of the room, Tara. She sat there with a smug smile, watching them carefully.

Elle's gaze flickered over to her, but then returned to JJ as everyone else crawled over to her. "You have someone, Elle? Since when?"

"Listen, guys..." She began, but quickly dropped her voice as Tara stood up from her position.

"I didn't know you were dating anyone. Who is it, Elle?" The quiet girl teased, alarming everyone else. She rarely spoke, much less joked with anyone in the group. Spencer observed her behavior with a raised eyebrow, casting a look to his boyfriend who grinned in response immediately understanding his implication.

Emily jumped next to the two girls on the couch, Elle in between them. She cast her dark eyes down to the contact she was currently texting and bit her lip. "Baby? You guys must be serious, with those pet names."

Elle groaned, setting her phone down and burying her face in her hands. This action allowed JJ to sweep up her phone, looking through the texts for a moment. "I can't wait to be alone with you tonight, I just want to hold you. I know Tar, I miss your sweet kisses." She burst out laughing at the flirting, before it quickly dawned on all of them who exactly "Tar" was.

Penelope turned to her best friend with a gasp. "You guys are dating?" The quiet girl looked down with a slight blush, bringing her hand up to rub the back of her neck.

"Okay, guys, please, stop embarrassing us..." Elle groaned, taking her phone back and burying it in the pocket of the jeans she was wearing. "Yes, we are dating. I don't know, we got to talking at night once Penelope was asleep and got to really know eachother, and I don't know, it kind of just happened. I hate you guys." She chuckled slightly, her eyes turning to look at Tara. They sparkled.

In that moment, Emily no longer felt insecure about being touchy with her girlfriend, she recognized absolute adoration in love in Elle's eyes, knowing she didn't care anymore because she had someone she could be with at night. She reached over to gently touch JJ's hair.