Читать книгу The Marked Men Series Books 1–6: Rule, Jet, Rome, Nash, Rowdy, Asa - Jay Crownover - Страница 15

“Stop looking at me like that.” I fiddled with my hair and adjusted the scarf I had around my neck. Rome was looking at me like he was trying to see inside my head and I didn’t like it one bit. I ignored his calls all day Sunday because I was still trying to get my head around the fact that I had drunkenly demanded Rule take my virginity and I had been sore—from both the booze and the bed acrobatics. I had a test Monday and had to work a closing shift, and on Tuesday I did a volunteer shift at the children’s hospital and suffered through an ungodly dinner with my father and his new wife. Rome had been forced to wait until today to take me on my belated birthday dinner. Ever since I’d sat down he had been peering at me intently and I had to keep checking to make sure that the scarf was covering the lovely hickey Rule had left Saturday night. I’d gotten enough flak from Ayden about it and I didn’t need Rome joining in on the “Shaw Is an Idiot” bandwagon.

“It’s the hair. It’s nice but I’m just used to the all blond. You look different, more mature.”

“Thanks, I like it.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in jeans, either.”

“I went shopping for my birthday. I decided that the pearls and heels didn’t need to be worn every time I left the house. I have plenty for when it’s time to play society maven for the folks.”

“Speaking of birthdays, I brought this from Mom and Dad.” He handed me a little bag and I set it on the table between us.

“Your mom won’t talk to me; I tried to call her the other day.”

“She’s having a hard time now that you laid down the law. She always viewed you as an ally in the ‘Rule Needs to Get His Act Together’ war. She just doesn’t see what she’s doing to him, to us.”

I sighed. “I know. That’s why I had to stop.”

“This is from me.” He gave me a gift certificate to my favorite bath and body store. I smiled and gave him a big hug. I just love this guy; he looks like a warrior, but he has such a good heart.

“Thank you, Rome, this is so sweet. I’m so glad you’re home.”

“Me, too, little girl. I tried to get Rule to come out but he had a late client. He was grumbling about having to draw yet another Harry Potter tattoo or something. I guess I forget he actually works.”

I peeked inside the bag—it was a picture. Margot had found one of the very first pictures taken of me and Remy and put it in a lovely silver frame. I was so small and awkward and Remy was so tall and handsome—we looked ridiculous. It was a sweet gesture and it brought tears to my eyes. I showed it to Rome and slid it back into the bag.

“I miss him every day,” I said.

“I do, too. I miss the way he made everyone act right.”

I laughed a little and sipped some of my iced tea. “Yeah, he was good at policing the way everyone treated each other. He didn’t tolerate any of the silliness we tend to allow.”

“Rule said he’s run into you a couple times, how was that?”

I cleared my throat and willed the scarlet blush that had been accompanying Rule’s name all week to stay at bay. “Kinda weird. He came into the bar I work at with a bunch of friends on a game day. It’s strange to interact with each other like normal people.”

He nodded and I noticed the waitress openly checking him out when she dropped off our dinner. “He told me you’ve been having some issues with your ex.”

I groaned and gave my head a shake. “He has a big mouth.” Among other things, but I wasn’t going to let my dirty mind go there.

“So what’s the deal, little girl?”

I made a face and shoved a bite of pasta into my mouth. “Rule already talked to him, so did the enormous ex-marine who bounces at the bar. Gabe’s just a spoiled guy who isn’t used to rejection. He’s having trouble hearing me say no.”

“Is he still calling you?”

I didn’t want to lie so I tried to change the subject. “What did the doctor say about your shoulder?”

He narrowed his eyes at me and picked at his own food. “He thinks I need to up my physical therapy and if that doesn’t work I might need a second surgery; either way I’ll be home longer than I thought.”

“Well, that’s good isn’t it?”

He shrugged and I got the impression that he wasn’t as excited about the prospect as I was.

“I guess.”

“You want to go back?”

“I want to finish my tour; I don’t want my tour to end like this. I hate leaving my platoon hanging. I’ve been in the army for six years, Shaw; I don’t really know how to do anything else.”

“You have a whole lot of people who love you, Rome. Getting out of the army and being safe shouldn’t be what scares you.”

“I know that, but it is what it is.”

We lapsed into a minute of silence before he went back to Gabe. “What did Rule say to the ex?”

I lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “I dunno. He told him to leave me alone and Gabe immediately jumped to the conclusion that the reason I dumped him was because of Rule. Everyone always thinks that everything I do is because of Rule. It gets old.”

Rome stared at me with eyes that looked so much like his brother’s. I could tell by the twist in his mouth that I was not going to like what he had to say.

“Isn’t it?”

I glared at him and poked at my plate. “No.”

“Rule convinced Remy to move to Denver as soon as they graduated so you decided to move here, too. Rule acts like an ass, making things with Mom and Dad impossible, so you decided to play peacemaker and drag him home every weekend. Rule acts and everyone has no choice but to react and we’ve all been doing it for years, you included.”

“I didn’t break up with Gabe because of Rule.” That wasn’t entirely true but I didn’t need Rome trying to pick it apart.

“Really?” His incredulous voice had me bristling. “I don’t know all the ins and outs of your relationship with Remy—”

I interjected automatically, “We were just friends, best, best friends.”

Rome went on like I hadn’t even said a word. “But I do know that when you thought no one was looking you watched Rule like a hawk. I know that every time he came stumbling home drunk, reeking of sex and cheap perfume from whatever teenage tramp he talked into letting him in her pants, you looked like he had kicked you in the gut. I know that every Sunday you looked the same way when you brought him home, so, Shaw, are you really going to try to tell me that the choices you make don’t involve Rule?”

I sighed and pushed the plate away, my appetite suddenly gone. “What do you want me to say, Rome? My life has been entangled with the Archer boys for as long as I can remember. How much truth do you really think you can handle? I mean, some of it just isn’t anybody’s business. You want to hear that from the second Remy brought me home I loved him but that I was in love with Rule? Do you want to hear that Remy knew and took that secret to his grave? Do you want to hear that I spent years and years being sad and alone with only Remy and you guys as friends, but it was okay because you guys were all I needed? Do you want to hear that every day my heart broke a little more because Rule had no idea I was alive? Do you want to hear that without your mom and dad I would have probably been forced into some boarding school and then some hallowed Ivy League college just so my parents didn’t have to deal with me? Come on, Rome, what do you really want to know?”

By the time I was done my voice was bitter and I had twisted my napkin into a little ball on my lap.

“Why did Remy keep you so close if he knew you were all tangled up by Rule? He had to know that wasn’t a match that was going to happen. Rule doesn’t do anything that takes work, and as much as I love you, little girl, you aren’t easy.”

These were the questions that I wished Remy were around to answer. I sighed. “He had his reasons, one of which was to keep me as far away from my family as he could. He didn’t want me to turn into a Stepford daughter, even though he was only partly successful. Sometimes I still don’t feel I can get out from under all their expectations.”

He tapped his fingers on the table. “So you’ve been in love with my brother since you were fourteen?”

I snorted. “Pretty much, and everyone else in the world seems to know it but him.” I tried really hard to keep the memories from Saturday night at bay.

“Why don’t you tell him?”

“Uh … you’ve met your brother, right? Mr. I’ll Bang Anything with Big Boobs and a Negative IQ? Mr. I’ll Do What I Want When I Want? Rule doesn’t need to know because it won’t change anything.”

Rome shrugged his good shoulder and winked at the waitress as she dropped off our bill. “I don’t know, maybe it would be good for him to know. He’s lived his life as a substitute for Remy for so long, maybe it would wake him up to know someone as good as you, as kind and loving as you, has feelings for him and has for a long time. I know deep down he’s a good guy, he just buries it under so much bullshit it can be hard to find.”

My plan was to avoid Rule until hell froze over. I didn’t regret sleeping with him; in fact, it had lived up to every expectation I had ever had of sex and, in all truthfulness, my ideas of sex with him. There wasn’t any other person I could have imagined giving my virginity to. While I wish I had been sober and that it had been based more on emotion than physical attraction, the deed itself had been amazing and worth any twinge of remorse I had. I knew my relationship with Rule would never be the same and I had to be okay with that. I refused to be the girl who pined after him, who stalked him and called him a hundred times a day. I decided the morning after it was all said and done that I was lucky it had been as nice as it was and if that was all I was ever going to get from Rule it was going to be enough.

“No, his knowing wouldn’t change anything; it would just make me feel worse. We both know I’m not his type and I’ve dealt with enough rejection from people who are supposed to love me to last a lifetime. Rule and I can just go on being uneasy companions when we’re forced to spend time together and that’ll just have to be how it is.” Rome didn’t need to know that things were bound to be even more strained and awkward between us now.

“Dinner with your dad was that bad this year?”

“He got married again; she’s twenty-five.” I rolled my eyes. “She spent the entire dinner telling me why I should rush the sorority she was in last year before she graduated. Dad spent the whole dinner trying to tell me that I needed to give Gabe another chance. He wrote me out a check for a grand after implying he would double it if I took Gabe back, so it was more like extortion and torture than dinner.”

He chuckled without humor. “No word from your mom?”

“No.”

“I don’t know how someone as softhearted as you came from those two.”

“Me, either. I’m just glad I only have to deal with them in limited doses anymore. Being a constant disappointment is exhausting.”

He lifted a dark eyebrow. “My little brother probably knows a little bit about that.”

“Clever.”

“I try.”

“What happens at birthday dinner stays at birthday dinner—right, Rome?”

“I’m not going to say anything. If he hasn’t noticed it after all this time it’s not my job to hit him over the head with it, but I do think there is a good chance the two of you might be really good for each other. Opposites attract and all that.”

The problem with that was I didn’t think Rule and I were really all that opposite. I mean, yes, he had ink from the top of his Mohawked head to his booted toes, and he was all metal barbells where I was pearls and antique cameos, but we were both people trying to live beyond the boundaries everyone else seemed to want to set for us. We both had deep, painful issues with our parents and we both loved the other Archer boys beyond measure. We both desperately wanted to be seen for the value we had without other people’s expectations of what we should or shouldn’t be doing, and after Saturday, I now knew we both wanted sex to be just a little bit rough and just a little bit dirty. Yeah, not as opposite as one would think at first glance.

“I’ve been trying to keep Rule from living in the dark ever since Remy died. It’s only gotten worse, not better, and he just can’t keep going down that path if there’s never going to be an end,” I said.

Rome sighed as we got up and headed out into the chilly air. “At the end of the day, little girl, we’re all each other has, so no matter how tough it gets for any of us we just have to power through and keep it together.”

I gave him a hug and rubbed my cold hands together. I clutched the picture close to my chest and shivered as the bitter night breeze got past my scarf. “That’s easy for you to say because you’re an ocean away. Most of the time it’s just me and Rule in an uneasy truce, with your parents breathing down our necks and mine ignoring me.”

“You said it yourself, Shaw—you’re not a kid anymore. You can figure this out. I have faith in you.”

That was just Rome. He was the protector, the one who ultimately wanted what was best for all of us. I told him to call me before he headed back to Brookside and made my way back to the apartment. It was a rare day that Ayden and I both had off so she was sprawled in the living room with books everywhere. She was studying so intently with the radio up so loud I don’t think she heard me come in. She had been giving me crap all week about Rule. While she was all for me sowing wild oats and making decisions that made me happy—and believe me, he had made me oh-so-very happy—she knew that my feelings for Rule were more complicated than I tended to let on and was convinced I was courting an even more thoroughly broken heart.

I tiptoed behind her and tapped her on the shoulder, making her shriek and whirl around. The reaction was so dramatic it made me double over in laughter. I flopped on the couch with a groan and took off my coat and scarf. She scowled up at me as she reached over to turn down the radio. “Not cool. How was dinner?”

“Good.”

“Just good?”

“He grilled me about Rule; he seems to think we can fix each other or some nonsense like that.”

“Speaking of the troublemaker, have you heard from him?”

I shook my head. “No. I know how he works, Ayd. Do you know how many sad, bewildered girls I’ve seen him ditch the morning after? I refuse to be one of them.”

“Yeah, but you guys know each other; you were kinda friends.”

I shrugged a shoulder. “That doesn’t matter to him. Women have always been interchangeable. It’s been that way since we were young.”

I ran a hand through my tangled hair and stifled a yawn. I had been studying extra hard because midterms were right around the corner and the extra weekend shift at work was starting to wear on me. Add in the fact I was waking up in the night all hot and bothered and I was a tired girl.

“I think I might go curl up with a book and crash out early.”

“I’ll keep the music down.”

“No worries, have a good night.”

“You, too, and hey, at least the hickey is starting to fade.”

I stuck my tongue out at her and went into my room. I flopped face-first on the bed and swore under my breath when I heard my phone ringing from my purse. Normally, I would have ignored it but it was playing my mom’s ringtone—Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” If I didn’t answer she would just keep calling until I did. Her time was deemed just that valuable. I rolled over and dug it out.

“Hello, Mother.”

“Shaw, I’m sorry it took me so long to get back to you about your birthday. We were in California. Jack had a business trip and since it’s so cold here I thought the kids would like the beach.”

I guess phones don’t work in California. “No problem.”

“I talked to your father. He said you seemed distracted and out of sorts. We discussed it and I really think whatever game you are playing with Gabe has to stop. You’re a mature young woman now, Shaw; you need to start making smarter life decisions. Flitting from boy to boy will just not stand any longer.”

She didn’t even tell me happy birthday. “I’m not interested in Gabe, Mom, not at all.”

“Interest is frivolous. He comes from a good family, he has a planned out future; those are things that a young woman of your lineage needs to look for in a partner.”

I blew a hiss out through my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut. “So those are the things that drew Dad to Marissa? She comes from a good family? She has a secure future? Or maybe he just likes her big ole double-Ds and the fact she does whatever he says. Come on, Mom, you’re being ridiculous. I most certainly am not going to spend time with a guy who makes my skin crawl just because you like him.”

“Language, young lady! I don’t know where you think all those smarts you have came from, but I’m neither foolish nor blind. I know that this has to do with that Archer boy. It always does.”

I rubbed my forehead where I felt the beginning of a migraine starting; she brought them on faster than anything else. “So what if it does?”

“Oh, Shaw, when are you going to outgrow this silly crush?”

“Mom, I’m starting to get a headache. Can this wait until another time?”

She was silent for a long minute and I could feel the waves of censure over the phone.

“I’m going to invite the Davenports to dinner. You need to be there.”

“No. Not if Gabe is going to be there.”

“Yes, you will be there. Do not forget your father and I pay for your tuition.”

Great, more parental extortion. Boy was I lucky. “Yeah, fine, whatever.” I didn’t even say bye; I just chucked the phone under the other pillow and hit the lights. I had no idea how Rome thought I could fix anyone, be good for anyone, when I didn’t even have control over my own life and it was making me physically ill.

I spent the rest of the week and weekend being a good college student. I studied every chance I got, finished my lab project, got a head start on one of my papers that was due at midterm. I even managed to squeeze in some time to help Ayden study since she was struggling with I-chem and I had breezed through it. I was working on a piece for one of my prerequisite classes, a speech on why assisted suicide should be legal—superfun stuff—but the apartment was too quiet and I was tired of ignoring my phone every time it rang, fearing it would be one of my parents or Gabe. So I packed up my laptop and went down to Pikes Perk to finish it. Ayden had texted that I should just come to the bar because it was slow, but I needed a less stimulating environment and a coffee shop full of hipsters seemed to be just the ticket. I had a pile of research in front of me and a caramel latte cooling by my elbow. I was so into what I was doing that I didn’t notice the chair across from me at the little round table get pulled back until the metal legs scraped across the floor.

In fact, I was so intent on the paperwork spread out before me it wasn’t until a familiar hand with a snake tattoo and a name across the knuckles pushed shut the top of my computer that I realized I had company. I blinked in surprise and looked up to find those arctic-colored eyes watching me intently. He was still rocking the Mohawk, but now it was a shocking red and he looked ridiculously good in a tight long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans that were a little baggy. I didn’t bother to hide the fact that I was openly checking him out.

“What if I hadn’t saved any of that?”

“We’ve met, remember? I know you well enough to know you probably save after every sentence.”

It was every paragraph, but whatever. “This is kind of out of the way for you. What are you doing here?” I hadn’t seen him or spoken to him in exactly ten days. The idea that he had purposely sought me out just seemed too far-fetched, so I scolded myself not to read into his sudden appearance.

“I actually went by the bar. I ran into your roommate and she told me you were probably here working on homework. Shaw, we need to talk.” I had never heard him sound so serious. It made me nervous. I needed something to do with my hands so I picked up my drink and tried to hide behind it.

“I don’t think we do.” I was halfway certain he was going to say something that was going to make me want to chuck the lukewarm coffee at his head.

He raised the eyebrow that had the double silver bars in it and leaned forward so that he was resting his elbows on his knees and staring directly into my eyes. There were interesting shadows dancing and flashing in the silver depths of his eyes that I didn’t know what to make of, but he had never looked more enticing than he did in that moment.

“Come on. You really think things can go down like they did and we just pretend like it never happened?”

“Why not? It’s what we’ve been doing and it seems to be working just fine.”

“Shaw.” He sounded exasperated. “We are not going to have seriously awesome sex—especially since it was your first time—and not talk about it. First off, I want to know what you were doing with Remy for all those years if you weren’t sleeping together. That just doesn’t make any sense. I also want to know why you took off the next morning; you didn’t even give me a chance to try to talk to you.”

I set the coffee down and pushed some of my hair out of my face. I leaned toward him so that I was almost in the same position he was. We were so close I could see each of his eyelashes as they brushed against his cheek when he blinked.

“I told you guys until I was blue in the face that Remy and I were just friends. We never, ever had any kind of romantic relationship. Our friendship was deep. It was powerful and intimate in a way Neanderthal males fail to understand, but it was never physical, and I can’t believe you thought I would stick around afterward just to have you rush me out the door the next morning. I’ve seen you in action more times than I care to admit Rule; I wasn’t going to be another one of your morning-after headaches. I have more pride than that.”

“But you were going to hold on to your virginity for twenty years and then just give it up to me for no apparent reason?” He sounded slightly put out, which made me grin.

“I had my reasons, Rule.”

“And those would be?”

“For me to know. Look, I didn’t ask you for anything after, I don’t expect anything from you, so can’t we just get over it?”

“No, we can’t.”

I reeled back a little bit and frowned at him. “What? Why not? We’ve known each other forever; this is just a thing that happened.” I flipped my wrist in a way I hoped was dismissive and went stock-still as he grabbed my hand in his much larger one. I stared, fascinated, as the tattooed digits linked with my own.

“See, this thing that happened”—his voice dropped a few octaves and I was suddenly acutely aware that the coffee shop was full, and that for whatever reason, we had garnered enough interest from the fellow patrons who were watching our interaction with rapt attention—“it wasn’t just some insignificant event that we can just ignore; believe me I tried. I went out Friday and met a smoking-hot redhead.”

I felt my face fold into a scowl as I tried to pull away from him. He smiled at me and used my trapped hand to pull me even closer. “Sadly, it took maybe five minutes to realize that I was trying to use one girl to get another off my mind, so I thought Saturday I would try for a blonde or maybe a brunette—hell, maybe both—because my head was all twisted up by a chick it shouldn’t be.”

I tugged on my hand but he just pulled me even closer, so that he was practically whispering in my ear, and I was almost sitting on his lap. I had to use my free hand to brace myself on his hard thigh. It was way too intimate, way too familiar, to touch him this way when I was trying to put distance between us. “So Nash and I went out, and there were redheads and there were brunettes and there was even a superhot chick who looked kinda like Pink, but you think any of them did it for me? No, Shaw, not one, because they fucking weren’t you. Ever since you walked out on Sunday all I’ve been thinking of is you. Now why is that?”

His words made me shiver from the inside out. “Because it was new, because we have history, and it makes it harder for you to keep me faceless and nameless. I don’t know, Rule.”

He lifted a hand and ran his thumb across the rise of my cheek. It made my breath catch and my heart start to trip over itself.

“Whatever the reason, it matters, Shaw. It matters a lot.”

“What are you trying to say, Rule?”

“I don’t know. All I know is other girls aren’t you and that isn’t cutting it for me. I think we need to figure out what’s going on between us.”

I shook my head a little and a silver flare lit up his pale gaze. “I’m not going to be one of many. Like I said, I had my reasons for letting things happen the way they did, but if you think I’m signing up to be a bed filler because no one else is fitting the bill right now, you are sadly mistaken. I know you, Rule; I’ve known you since you first figured out girls were more complicated than boys, and you’ve never wanted to put the work in.”

The feather-light sweep of that thumb across my cheek almost had me melting into a puddle at his booted feet. “So this time I will. We’ll hang out, do shit together. I mean, we’ve known each other forever but I honestly don’t really know anything about you. Come on, Shaw, what do you really have to lose?”

Not my heart, because he already had it even though he didn’t know it. “So you want to, like, date?”

He laughed. “I’m not really the dating type, but I swear that while we’re trying to figure out what’s going on I’ll keep it in my pants. No screwing around, no other girls. I owe it to you and to me to see what’s here or if it was just a fluke.” He sounded so sincere; he looked serious and determined to make me believe what he was saying.

I cleared my throat and bit my bottom lip a little. Sure it was what I had dreamed of—Rule suddenly realizing I was a girl and wanting to be with me. Granted, in my fantasy, it always came with his profession of undying love and devotion. In reality, his curiosity and promise to at least feel things out was probably as good as I was ever going to get. I didn’t know how much I trusted him, but I had always, always wanted him, and it just wasn’t in me to turn that down when it was being offered up on a silver platter.

“If we do this—hang out, spend time together—your parents, my parents, Rome, none of them are going to like it very much.”

“Who cares?”

I guess I did, but I always was the only one to worry about that stuff.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

I breathed out a soft breath and as it whispered across his mouth he briefly closed his eyes, so I did the only thing that was left to do. I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his. It wasn’t with the same desperation as it had been the last time; there was no panic that he would change his mind, no years upon years of pent-up desire and frustration, no regret that it was only going to be a one-night thing—just the sweet press of my lips against his and the soft bite of his lip ring into my lower lip.

Kissing Rule would always be uniquely different from kissing anyone else. There was just something about it that put it in a class all its own. I felt his lips turn into a grin as audible sighs from several of the tables around us were heard. He pulled back and tapped a finger on the tip of my nose.

I sat back in my chair and cleared my throat. “Well, then.”

He barked out a laugh. “Yeah, at least that part of it seems to be a no-brainer.”

I shifted in my seat and motioned absently to the work still sprawled across the table between us. “As nice as this little visit was, I have to finish this presentation.”

A quick flash of disappointment blazed across his eyes but he hid it behind his easy grin. “When do you work this weekend?”

“I work all weekend, but I’m first out on Saturday night. I just have to be in by ten on Sunday morning.”

“Busy girl.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“So, this hanging out thing might be harder than I thought?”

He said it lightheartedly but I knew Rule; he was an instant-gratification kind of guy. If my tight schedule made it hard for us to spend time together, I had no illusions that he would wait around for me to be free—he would move on to something easier and more manageable.

“I’ll be out around ten on Saturday and usually I’m out by seven on Sunday. The Sunday shift is optional. I just picked it up because we stopped going to Brookside and I figured I might as well make a little extra money.”

“My buddy Jet is playing at Cerberus this weekend, why don’t you grab your roommate and come hang out Saturday night?”

“What kind of music is it?” Cerberus had a pretty rowdy reputation in town. It was located in the warehouse district and had been shut down more than once for one thing or another. It wasn’t the kind of place I would normally consider spending time. In fact, it was the kind of place I normally avoided at all costs on the off chance I would run into someone I knew and they would rat me out to my parents, but if I was going to commit and try to spend time with this boy I had wanted forever, then my horizons were going to have to expand.

“Metal.”

I snorted a little. “Ayden is from Kentucky. She likes Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood. I don’t know that I could wrangle her into that.”

“They’re actually really good; they went on tour with a pretty famous band last year. Besides, Ayden seems like a pretty cool chick. I bet she would go just to be your wingman. If she doesn’t come, just come alone. I won’t leave you hanging.”

“What about Rome?”

“He has to go to Fort Carson for the weekend. He has to set up meetings with his VA counselor. He’s having a rough time since he isn’t healing as fast as he thought he would be.”

“That’s too bad.”

“I’m not going to hide this from anyone, Shaw. If you want to play those kinds of games maybe you need to rethink whether this is something you really want to do or not.”

I grabbed his forearm and let the tips of my fingers dig into the body of the snake that was marked there. “No, I’m not going to hide. Just don’t make me look like an idiot, Rule. This matters.”

“It matters to me, too, Casper.” He climbed to his feet so that he was towering over me. He bent down and pressed a soft kiss to the crown of my head. “By the way, you look good in jeans. Come to the show Saturday.”

“All right.” I watched him walk out of the coffee shop and it wasn’t lost on me that so did every other girl in the place. I stifled a sigh and ruefully shook my head. I went to flip the top of my computer back open when the girl sitting directly across from me caught my eye. She was a little bit older than me, had long dreadlocks that were a startling ocean blue, and she was staring at me in open envy. I had to blink a little bit because I was so used to being the one who looked at the girls crawling out of his bed like that. She gave me a sheepish grin.

“You’re going to have your hands full with that one.”

Considering I wasn’t even a hundred percent sure what we were doing, I had no doubt she was right. It wasn’t like he asked me to be his girlfriend or even out on an honest-to-God date. He just said he wanted to hang out and spend time together. That wasn’t defined or clear and I didn’t even know what that meant to him. I appreciated that he told me he was willing to keep it in his pants, that he was aware that whatever was happening between us was important enough to try to figure out without the complication of other girls involved, but I was acutely aware that old habits tended to die hard, and Rule was not known to practice restraint. I huffed out a breath. “You’re telling me.”

The girl laughed a little. “He actually tattooed a giant lotus flower on my friend’s leg; she spent all three sessions trying to get him to ask her out on a date. I guess I can tell her he has a girlfriend so it’ll make her feel better.”

I picked my coffee back up and tried to get my head out of the Rule fog it had descended into and back into good-college-student mode.

“I’m not his girlfriend.”

“Really? It sure looked like it.”

“We’ve known each other a long time; it’s complicated.”

She winked at me and gave me a saucy grin. “Oh, honey, when they look like that and exude that kind of ‘do-me’ vibe, it always will be.”

Well, there it was. If a perfect stranger could plainly see after only five minutes of watching us together that it was always going to be a battle to keep things with him on the level, what chance did I have of making anything between us work? With that depressing thought I went back to assisted suicide and tried to cheer myself up.