RULE
Jay Crownover

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London, SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Harper 2013

Copyright © Jennifer M Voorhees 2013

Cover photograph © Rekha Garton/Getty Images

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014

Jennifer M Voorhees asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 978007536290

Ebook Edition © May 2013 ISBN: 9780007536283

Version: 2016-04-29

Dedicated to everyone who listened to me complain about needing a new life plan all year long. Also to those who encouraged me to just do what I do best. I try to write what I know, just a more romantic and idealized version of it, so this is also for all the real-life tattooed boys who have been in and out of my life over the years and served as inspiration for my heroes.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1: Rule

Chapter 2: Shaw

Chapter 3: Rule

Chapter 4: Shaw

Chapter 5: Rule

Chapter 6: Shaw

Chapter 7: Rule

Chapter 8: Shaw

Chapter 9: Rule

Chapter 10: Shaw

Chapter 11: Rule

Chapter 12: Shaw

Chapter 13: Rule

Chapter 14: Shaw

Chapter 15: Rule

Chapter 16: Shaw

Chapter 17: Rule

Epilogue: About eight months later

If this story had a soundtrack this is what it would be

Keep reading for Built

Keep reading for Jet

About me

About the Author

Also by Author

About the Publisher

CHAPTER 1
Rule

At first I thought the pounding in my head was my brain trying to fight its way out of my skull after the ten or so shots of Crown Royal I had downed last night, but then I realized the noise was someone storming around in my apartment. She was here, and with dread I remembered that it was Sunday. No matter how many times I told her, or how rude I was to her, or whatever kind of debauched and unsavory condition she found me in, she showed up every Sunday morning to drag me home for brunch.

A soft moan from the other side of the bed reminded me that I hadn’t come home alone from the bar last night. Not that I remembered the girl’s name or what she looked like, or if it had even been worth her while to stumble into my apartment with me. I ran a hand over my face and swung my legs over the edge of the bed just as the bedroom door swung open. I never should have given the little brat a key. I didn’t bother to cover up; she was used to walking in and finding me hungover and naked—I didn’t see why today should be any different. The girl on the other side of the bed rolled over and narrowed her eyes at the new addition to our awkward little party.

“I thought you said you were single?” The accusation in her tone lifted the hair on the back of my neck. Any chick who was willing to come home with a stranger for a night of no-strings-attached sex didn’t get the right to pass judgment, especially while she was still naked and rumpled in my bed.

“Give me twenty,” I said, my eyes shifting to the blonde in the doorway as I ran a hand through my messy hair.

She lifted an eyebrow. “You have ten.”

I would have lifted an eyebrow back at her tone and attitude but my head was killing me, and the gesture would have been wasted on her anyway; she was way past immune to my shit.

“I’ll make coffee. I already invited Nash but he said he has to go to the shop for an appointment. I’ll be in the car.” She spun on her heel, and, just like that, the doorway was empty. I was struggling to my feet, searching the floor for the pair of pants I might have tossed down there last night.

“What’s going on?”

I had temporarily forgotten about the girl in my bed. I swore softly under my breath and tugged a black T-shirt that looked reasonably clean over my head. “I have to go.”

“What?”

I frowned at her as she lifted herself up in the bed and clutched the sheet to her chest. She was pretty and had a nice body from what I could see. I wondered what kind of game I had thrown at her in order to get her to come home with me. She was one I didn’t mind waking up to this morning.

“I have somewhere I need to be, so that means you need to get up and get going. Normally my roommate would be around, so you could hang out for a minute, but he had to go to work, so that means you need to get that fine ass in gear and get out.”

She sputtered a little at me. “Are you kidding me?”

I looked over my shoulder as I dug my boots out from under a pile of laundry and shoved my feet into them. “No.”

“What kind of asshole does that? Not even a ‘thanks for last night, you were great, how about lunch?’ Just ‘get the fuck out’?” She threw the sheet aside and I noticed she had a nice tattoo scrawled along her ribs that curled across her shoulder and along her collarbone. That was probably what had attracted me to her in my drunken stupor in the first place. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

I was a whole lot more than just a piece of work, but this chick, who was just one of oh so many, didn’t need to know that. I silently cursed my roommate, Nash, who was the real shit here. We had been best friends since elementary school, and I could normally rely on him to run interference for me on Sunday mornings when I had to bail, but I had forgotten about the piece he was supposed to be finishing up today. That meant I was on my own when it came to hustling last night’s tail out the door and getting a move on before the brat left without me, which was a bigger headache than I needed in my current state.

“Hey, what’s your name anyway?”

If she wasn’t pissed before, she was downright infuriated now. She climbed back into a supershort black skirt and a barely there tank top. She fluffed up her mound of dyed blond hair and glared at me out of eyes now smudged with old mascara. “Lucy. You don’t remember?”

I slimed some crap in my hair to make it stand up in a bunch of different directions and sprayed on cologne to help mask the scent of sex and booze that I was sure still clung to my skin. I shrugged a shoulder at her and waited as she hopped by me on one foot putting on heels that just screamed dirty sex.

“I’m Rule.” I would have offered to shake her hand but that seemed silly so I just pointed to the front door of the apartment and stepped in the bathroom to brush the stale taste of whiskey out of my mouth. “There’s coffee in the kitchen. Maybe you should write your number down and I can give you a call another time. Sundays aren’t good days for me.” She would never know how true that statement was.

She glared at me and tapped the toe of one of those awesome shoes. “You really have no idea who I am, do you?”

This time, even against my throbbing brain’s wishes, my eyebrow went up and I looked at her with a mouthful of toothpaste foam. I just stared at her until she screeched at me and pointed at her side. “You have to at least remember this!”

No wonder I liked her ink so much; it was one of mine. I spit the toothpaste in the sink and gave myself a once-over in the mirror. I looked like hell. My eyes were watery and rimmed in red, my skin looked gray, and there was a hickey the size of Rhode Island on the side of my neck—Mom was going to love that. Just like she was going to fall all over herself about the current state of my hair. It was normally thick and dark, but I had shaved the sides and dyed the front a nice, bright purple, so now it stuck up straight like a Weedwacker had been used to cut it. Both my folks already had an issue with the scrolling ink that wound around both my arms and up the side of my neck, so the hair was just going to be icing on the cake. Since there was nothing I could do to fix the current shit show looking back at me in the mirror I prowled out of the bathroom and unceremoniously grabbed the girl by the elbow and towed her to the front door. I needed to remember to go home with them instead of letting them come home with me; it was so much easier that way.

“Look, I have somewhere I have to be, and I don’t particularly love that I have to go, but you freaking out and making a scene is not going to do anything other than piss me off. I hope you had a good time last night and you can leave your number, but we both know the chances of me calling you are slim to none. If you don’t want to be treated like crap, maybe you should stop going home with drunken dudes you don’t know. Trust me, we’re really after only one thing and the next morning all we really want is for you to go quietly away. I have a headache and I feel like I’m going to hurl, plus I have to spend the next hour in a car with someone who will be silently loathing me and joyously plotting my death, so really, can we just save the histrionics and get a move on it?”

By now I had maneuvered Lucy to the entryway of the building, and I saw my blond tormentor in the BMW idling in the spot next to my truck. She was impatient and would take off if I wasted any more time. I gave Lucy a half grin and shrugged a shoulder—after all it wasn’t her fault I was an asshole, and even I knew she deserved better than such a callous brush-off.

“Look, don’t feel bad. I can be a charming bastard when I put my mind to it. You are far from the first and won’t be the last to see this little show. I’m glad your tat turned out badass, and I’d prefer you remember me for that rather than last night.”

I jogged down the front steps without looking back and yanked open the door to the fancy black BMW. I hated this car and hated that it suited the driver as well as it did. Classy, sleek, and expensive were definitely words that could be used to describe my traveling companion. As we pulled out of the parking lot, Lucy yelled at me and flipped me off. My driver rolled her eyes and muttered, “Classy” under her breath. She was used to the little scenes chicks liked to throw when I bailed on them the morning after. I even had to replace her windshield once when one of them had chucked a rock at me and missed while I was walking away.

I adjusted the seat to accommodate my long legs and settled in to rest my head against the window. It was always a long and achingly silent drive. Sometimes, like today, I was grateful for it; other times it grated on my very last nerve. We had been a fixture in each other’s lives since middle school, and she knew every strength and fault I had. My parents loved her like their own daughter and made no bones about the fact that they more often than not preferred her company over mine. One would think with all the history, both good and bad, between us, that we could make simple small talk for a few hours without it being difficult.

“You’re going to get all that junk that’s in your hair all over my window.” Her voice—all cigarettes and whiskey—didn’t match the rest of her, which was all champagne and silk. I had always liked her voice; when we got along I could listen to her talk for hours.

“I’ll get it detailed.”

She snorted. I closed my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. I was all set for a silent ride, but apparently she had things to say today, because as soon as she pulled the car onto the highway she turned the radio down and said my name. “Rule.”

I turned my head slightly to the side and cracked open an eye. “Shaw.” Her name was just as fancy as the rest of her. She was pale, had snowy white-blond hair, and big green eyes that looked like Granny Smith apples. She was tiny, an easy foot shorter than my own six three, but had curves that went on for days. She was the kind of girl that guys looked at, because they just couldn’t help themselves, but as soon as she turned those frosty green eyes in their direction they knew they wouldn’t stand a chance. She exuded unattainability the way some other girls oozed “come and get me.”

She blew out a breath and I watched a strand of hair twirl around her forehead. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye and I stiffened when I saw how tight her hands were on the steering wheel.

“What is it, Shaw?”

She bit her bottom lip, a sure sign she was nervous. “I don’t suppose you answered any of your mom’s calls this week?”

I wasn’t exactly tight with my folks. In fact, our relationship hovered somewhere around the mutually tolerable area, which is why my mom sent Shaw to drag me home each weekend. We were both from a small town called Brookside, in an affluent part of Colorado. I’d moved to Denver as soon as I had my diploma in hand, and Shaw had moved there a few years later. She was a few years younger than me, and she had wanted nothing more than to get into the University of Denver. Not only did the girl look like a fairy-tale princess, but she was also on track to be a freaking doctor. My mom knew there was no way I would make the two-hour drive there and back to see them on the weekends, but if Shaw came to get me, I would have to go, not only because I would feel guilty that she’d taken time out of her busy schedule, but also because she paid for the gas, waited for me to stumble out of bed, and dragged my sorry ass home every single Sunday and not once in going on two years had she complained about it.

“No, I was busy all week.” I was busy, but I also just didn’t like talking to my mom, so I had ignored her all three times she had called me this week.

Shaw sighed and her hands twisted even tighter on the steering wheel. “She was calling to tell you that Rome got hurt and the army is sending him home for six weeks of R and R. Your dad went down to the base in the Springs yesterday to pick him up.”

I bolted up in the seat so fast that I smacked my head on the roof of the car. I swore and rubbed the spot, which made my head throb even more. “What? What do you mean he got hurt?” Rome was my older brother. He had three years on me and had been overseas for a good portion of the last six. We were still tight and, even though he didn’t like all the distance I’d put between me and my parents over the years, I was sure that if he was injured I would have heard it from him.

“I’m not sure. Margot said something happened to the convoy he was in when they were out on patrol. He was in a pretty bad accident I guess. She said his arm was broken and he had a few cracked ribs. She was pretty upset so I had a hard time understanding her when she called.”

“Rome would have called me.”

“Rome was doped up and spent the last two days being debriefed. He asked your mom to call because you Archer boys are nothing if not persistent. Margot told him that you wouldn’t answer, but he told her to keep trying.”

My brother was hurt and was home, but I hadn’t known about it. I closed my eyes again and let my head drop back against the headrest. “Well, hell, that’s good news I guess. Are you going to go by and see your mom?” I asked her. I didn’t have to look at her to know that she had stiffened even more. I could practically feel the tension rolling off her in icy waves.

“No.” She didn’t say more and I didn’t expect her to. The Archers may not be the closest, warmest bunch, but we didn’t have anything on the Landons. Shaw’s family crapped gold and breathed money. They also cheated and lied, had been divorced and remarried. From what I had seen over the years, they had little need or interest in their biological daughter, who, it seemed, was conceived in order to get a tax deduction rather than time spent in a bedroom. I knew Shaw loved my house and loved my parents, because it was the only semblance of normalcy she had ever experienced. I didn’t begrudge her that; in fact I appreciated that she took most of the heat off me. If Shaw was doing well in school, dating an affluent undergrad, living the life my parents had always wanted for their sons but had been denied, they stayed off my case. Since Rome was usually a continent away, I was the only one they could get to so I took no shame in using Shaw as a buffer.

“Man, I haven’t talked to Rome in three months. It’ll be awesome to see him. I wonder if I can convince him to come spend some time in D-town with me and Nash. He’s probably more than ready for a little bit of fun.”

She sighed again and moved to turn the radio back up a little bit. “You’re twenty-two, Rule. When are you going to stop acting like an indulgent teenager? Did you even ask this one her name? In case you were wondering, you smell like a mix between a distillery and a strip club.”

I snorted and let my eyes drift back shut. “You’re nineteen, Shaw. When are you going to stop living your life by everyone else’s standards? My eighty-two-year-old grandma has more of a social calendar than you, and I think she’s less uptight.” I wasn’t going to tell her what she smelled like because it was sweet and lovely and I had no desire to be nice at the moment.

I could feel her glaring at me and I hid a grin. “I like Ethel.” Her tone was surly.

“Everybody likes Ethel. She’s feisty and won’t take crap from anyone. You could learn a thing or two from her.”

“Oh, maybe I should just dye my hair pink, tattoo every visible surface of my body, shove a bunch of metal in my face, and sleep with everything that moves. Isn’t that your philosophy on how to live a rich and fulfilling life?”

That made me crank my eyes back open and the marching band in my head decide to go for round two.

“At least I’m doing what I want. I know who and what I am, Shaw, and I don’t make any apologies for it. I hear plenty of Margot Archer coming out of your pretty mouth right now.”

Her mouth twisted down into a frown. “Whatever. Let’s just go back to ignoring each other, okay? I just thought you should know about Rome. The Archer boys have never been big on surprises.”

She was right. In my experience surprises were never a good thing. They usually resulted in someone getting pissed and me ending up in some kind of fight. I loved my brother, but I had to admit I was kind of irritated he hadn’t, one, bothered to let me know he was hurt, and, two, was still trying to force me to play nice with my folks. I figured Shaw’s plan for us to ignore each other the rest of the way was a winner, so I slumped down as far as the sporty little car would allow and started to doze off. I was only out for twenty minutes or so when her Civil Wars ringtone jarred me awake. I blinked my gritty eyes and rubbed a hand over the scruff on my face. If the hair and the hickey didn’t piss Mom off, the fact I was too busy to shave for her precious brunch might just send her into hysterics.

“No, I told you I was going to Brookside and won’t be back until late.” When I looked across the car at her she must have felt my gaze because she looked at me quickly and I saw a little bit of pink work its way onto her high cheekbones. “No, Gabe, I told you I won’t have time and that I have a lab due.” I couldn’t make out the words on the other end but the person sounded angry at her brush-off, and I saw her fingers tighten on the phone. “It’s none of your business. I have to go now, so I’ll talk to you later.” She swiped a finger across the screen and tossed the fancy device into the cup holder by my knee.

“Trouble in paradise?” I didn’t really care about Shaw and her richer-than-God, future-ruler-of-the-known-universe boyfriend, but it was polite to ask when she was obviously upset. I hadn’t ever met Gabe, but what I’d heard from Mom when I bothered to listen was that he was custom-made for Shaw’s future doctor persona. His family was as loaded as hers; his dad was a judge, or lawyer, or some other political nonsense I had no use for. I was sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the dude wore pleated slacks and pink polo shirts with white loafers. For a long moment I didn’t think she was going to respond, but then she cleared her throat and started tapping out a beat on the steering wheel with her manicured fingers.

“Not really, we broke up but I don’t think Gabe really gets it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, a couple weeks ago, actually. I had been thinking about doing it for a while. I’m just too busy with school and work to have a boyfriend.”

“If he was the right guy you wouldn’t have felt that way. You would have made the time because you wanted to be with him.”

She looked at me with both blond brows raised to her hairline. “Are you, Mr. Manwhore of the Century, seriously trying to give me relationship advice?”

I rolled my eyes, which made my head scream in protest. “Just because there hasn’t been one girl I wanted to hang out with exclusively doesn’t mean I don’t know the difference between quality and quantity.”

“Could have fooled me. Gabe just wanted more than I was willing to give him. It’s going to be a pain because my mom and dad both loved him.”

“True that; from what I’ve heard he was pretty much custom-made to make your folks happy. What do you mean he wanted more than you were willing to give? Did he try to put a rock on your finger after only six months?”

She gave me a look and curled her lip in a sneer. “Not even close, he just wanted things to be more serious than I wanted them to be.”

I laughed a little and rubbed between my eyebrows. My headache had turned into a dull throb but was starting to be manageable. I needed to ask her to swing by a Starbucks or something if I was going to get through this afternoon.

“Is that your prissy way of telling me that he was trying to get in your pants and you weren’t having it?”

She narrowed her eyes at me and pulled off the freeway at the exit that took us toward Brookside.

“I need you to stop by Starbucks before going to my parents’ house, and don’t think I didn’t notice you aren’t answering my question.”

“If we stop we’re going to be late. And not every boy thinks with what’s in their pants.”

“The sky isn’t going to fall on us if we show up five minutes behind Margot’s schedule. And you have got to be kidding me—you strung that loser along for six months without giving it up? What a joke.”

That made me flat-out laugh at her. I laughed so hard that I had to hold my head in both hands as my whiskey-logged brain started screaming at me again. I gasped a little and looked at her with watery eyes. “If you really believe that he wasn’t interested in getting in your pants, you aren’t nearly as smart as I always thought you were. Every single dude under the age of ninety is trying to get in your pants, Shaw—especially if he’s thinking that he’s your boy. I’m a guy, I know this shit.”

She bit her lip again, conceding I probably had a valid point as she pulled the car into the coffee shop’s parking lot. I practically bolted out of the car, eager to stretch my legs and get a little distance from her typical haughty attitude.

There was a line when I got inside, and I took a quick look around to see if I recognized anyone. Brookside is a pretty small town and usually when I stopped by on the weekends I inevitably ran into someone I used to go to school with. I hadn’t bothered to ask Shaw if she wanted me to grab her anything because she was being all uppity about having to stop in the first place. It was almost my turn to order when my phone started blasting a Social Distortion song in my pocket. I dug it out after ordering a big-ass black coffee and took a spot by the counter next to a cute brunette who was trying her hardest to not get caught checking me out.

“What up?”

I could hear the music in the shop blaring behind Nash when he asked, “How did this morning go?”

Nash knew my faults and bad habits better than anyone, and the reason we had maintained our friendship as long as we had was because he never judged me.

“Sucked. I’m hungover, grumpy, and about to sit through yet another forced family function. Plus, Shaw is in rare form today.”

“How was the chick from last night?”

“No clue. I don’t even remember leaving the bar with her. Apparently I did a huge piece on her side so she was a little pissed that I didn’t remember who she was, so ouch.”

He chuckled on the other end of the line. “She told you that, like, six times last night. She even tried to pull her top off to show you. And I drove your dumb ass home last night, drunko. I tried to get you to leave at, like, midnight but you weren’t having any of it, as usual. I had to drive your truck home and then take a cab back to get my car.”

I snorted and reached for the coffee when the guy behind the counter called my name. I noticed the brunette’s eyes follow the hand that wrapped around the cardboard cup. It was the hand that had the flared head of a king cobra on it, the snake’s forked tongue making the L in my name that was inked across my four knuckles. The rest of the snake wound its way up my forearm and around my elbow. The brunette’s mouth made a little O of surprise so I flashed her a wink and walked back to the BMW.

“Sorry, dude. How did your appointment go?”

Nash’s uncle Phil had opened the tattoo shop years ago on Capitol Hill when it mainly catered to gangbangers and bikers. Now with the influx of young urbanites and hipsters populating the area, the Marked was one of the busiest tattoo parlors in town. Nash and I met in art class in the fifth grade and have been inseparable since. In fact, ever since we were twelve our plan was to move to the city and work for Phil. We both had mad skills and the personality to make the shop bump with business so Phil had no qualms apprenticing us and putting us to work before we were both in our twenties. It was killer to have a friend in the same field; I had a plethora of ink on my skin that ranged from not-so-great to great that chronicled Nash’s evolution as a tattoo artist, and he could state the same thing about me.

“I finished that back piece that I’ve been working on since July. It turned out better than I thought and the dude is talking about doing the front. I’ll take it, because he’s a fat tipper.”

“Nice.” I was juggling the phone and the coffee, trying to open the door to the car when a female voice stopped me in my tracks.

“Hey.” I looked over my shoulder and the brunette was standing a car over with a smile on her face. “I really like your tattoos.”

I smiled back at her and then jumped, nearly spilling scalding hot coffee down my crotch as Shaw shoved the door open from the inside.

“Thanks.” If we had been closer to home and Shaw wasn’t already putting the car in reverse I probably would have taken a second to ask the girl for her number. Shaw shot me a look of contempt that I promptly ignored, and I went back to my conversation with Nash. “Rome is home. He got in an accident and Shaw said he’s got a few weeks of R and R coming to him. I guess that’s why Mom was blowing my phone up all week.”

“Kick ass. Ask him if he wants to roll with us for a few days. I miss that surly bastard.”

I sipped on the coffee and my head finally started to calm down. “That’s the plan. I’ll hit you up on my way home and let you know what the story is.”

I flicked my thumb across the screen to end the call and settled back into the seat. Shaw scowled angrily at me and I swore her eyes glowed. Really. I have never seen anything that green, even in nature, and when she gets mad they are just otherworldly.

“Your mom called while you were busy flirting. She’s mad that we’re late.”

I sucked on more of the black nectar of the gods and started tapping out a beat on my knee with my free hand. I was always kind of a fidgety guy and the closer we got to my parents’ house, the worse it usually got. Brunch was always stilted and forced. I couldn’t figure out why they insisted on going through with it every single week and couldn’t figure out why Shaw enabled the farce, but I went, even when I knew nothing would ever change.

“She’s mad that you’re late. We both know she couldn’t care less if I’m there or not.” My fingers moved faster and faster as she wheeled the car into a gated community and passed rows and rows of cookie-cutter minimansions that were built back into the mountains.

“That’s not true and you know it, Rule. I do not suffer through these car rides every weekend, subject myself to the delight of your morning-after nastiness because your parents want me to have eggs and pancakes every Sunday. I do it because they want to see you, want to try to have a relationship with you no matter how many times you hurt them or push them away. I owe it to your parents and, more important, I owe it to Remy to try to make you act right even though lord knows that’s almost a full-time job.”

I sucked in a breath as the blinding pain that always came when someone mentioned Remy’s name barreled through my chest. My fingers involuntarily opened and closed around the coffee cup and I whipped my head around to glare at her.

“Remy wouldn’t be all over my ass to try and be something to them I’m not. I was never good enough for them, and never will be. He understood that better than anyone and worked overtime to try and be everything to them I never could be.”

She sighed and pulled the car to a stop in the driveway behind my dad’s SUV. “The only difference between you and Remy is that he let people love him, and you”—she yanked open the driver’s door and glared at me across the space that separated us—“you have always been determined to make everyone who cares about you prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. You’ve never wanted to be easy to love, Rule, and you make damn sure that nobody can ever forget it.” She slammed the door with enough force that it rattled my back teeth and made my head start to throb again.

It has been three years. Three lonely, three empty, three sorrow-filled years since the Archer brothers went from a trio to a duo. I am close to Rome—he’s awesome and has always been my role model when it comes to being a badass—but Remy was my other half, both figuratively and literally. He was my identical twin, the light to my dark, the easy to my hard, the joy to my angst, the perfect to my oh-so-totally fucked up, and without him I was only half the person I would ever be. It has been three years since I called him in the middle of the night to come pick me up from some lame-ass party because I had been too drunk to drive. Three years since he left the apartment we shared to come get me—zero questions asked—because that’s just what he did.

It’s been three years since he lost control of his car on a rainy and slick I-25 and slammed into the back of a semi truck going well over eighty. Three years since we put my twin in the ground and my mother looked at me with tears in her eyes and stated point-blank, “It should have been you” as they lowered Remy into the ground.

It’s been three years and his name alone is still enough to drop me to my knees, especially coming from the one person in the world Remy had loved as much as he loved me.

Remy was everything I wasn’t—clean-cut, well dressed, and interested in getting an education and building a secure future. The only person on the planet who was good enough and classy enough to match all the magnificence that he possessed was Shaw Landon. The two of them had been inseparable since the first time he brought her home when she was fourteen and trying to escape the fortress of the Landon compound. He insisted they were just friends, that he loved Shaw like a sister, that he just wanted to protect her from her awful, sterile family, but the way he was with her was full of reverence and care. I knew he loved her, and since Remy could do no wrong, Shaw had quickly become an honorary member of my family. As much as it galled me, she was the only one who really, truly understood the depth of my pain when it came to losing him.

I had to take a few extra minutes to get my feet back under me so I sucked back the rest of the coffee and shoved open the door. I wasn’t surprised to see a tall figure coming around the SUV as I labored out of the sports car. My brother was an inch or so taller than me and built more along the lines of a warrior. His dark-brown hair was buzzed in a typical military cut and his pale-blue eyes, the same icy shade as mine, looked tired as he forced a smile at me. I let out a whistle because his left arm was in a cast and sling, he had a walking boot on one foot, and there was a nasty line of black stitches running through one of his eyebrows and across his forehead. The Weedwacker that had attacked my hair had clearly gotten a good shot at my big bro, too.

“Looking good, soldier.”

He pulled me to him in a one-armed hug and I winced for him when I felt the taped-up side of his body clearly indicating some injury beyond the busted ribs. “I look about as good as I feel. You look like a clown getting out of that car.”

“I look like a clown no matter what when I’m around that girl.” He barked out a laugh and rubbed a rough hand through my spiky hair.

“You and Shaw are still acting like mortal enemies?”

“More like uneasy acquaintances. She’s just as prissy and judgmental as always. Why didn’t you call or email me that you were hurt? I had to hear it from Shaw on the way over.”

He swore as we started to slowly make our way toward the house. It upset me to see how deliberate he was moving and I wondered if the damage was more serious than what was visible.

“I was unconscious after the Hummer flipped. We drove over an IED and it was bad. I was in the hospital for a week with a scrambled noggin, and when I woke up they had to do surgery on my shoulder so I was all drugged up. I called Mom and figured she would let you know what the deal was, but I heard that, as usual, you were unavailable when she called.”

I shrugged a shoulder and reached out a hand to steady him as he faltered a little on the stairs to the front door. “I was busy.”

“You’re stubborn.”

“Not too stubborn. I’m here aren’t I? I didn’t even know you were home until this morning.”

“The only reason you’re here is because that little girl in there is bound and determined to keep this family together regardless if we’re her own or not. You go in there and play nice; otherwise, I’ll kick your ass, broken arm and all.”

I muttered a few choice words and followed my battered sibling into the house. Sundays really were my least favorite day.

CHAPTER 2
Shaw

I closed the bathroom door with a soft click and turned the lock. I collapsed against the sink and ran shaking hands over my face. It was getting harder and harder to be Rule’s chaperone to these family gatherings every Sunday. I already felt like I was getting an ulcer, and if I had to walk in on him and one of his disgusting bar bimbos again, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it out of his apartment without committing homicide.

I turned around to splash some cold water on my face and lifted the heavy fall of blond hair off my neck. I needed to get it together because the last thing I wanted was for Margot or Dale—or Rome for that matter—to notice that something was off. Rome was one of the most observant people I had ever met and I had a feeling that even drugged up and in pain he wouldn’t miss a thing when it came to his younger brother and sister, since by association I had technically been lumped into the category of surrogate little sister.

It was getting harder and harder to spend time around Rule and not just because looking at him reminded me of everything that I no longer had—which was the problem Margot and Dale struggled with, not that the insensitive ass had any empathy for his parents. My struggle was that Rule was complicated; he was brash, mouthy, careless, thoughtless, often cranky, and generally an insufferable pain in the ass. But when he chose to be, he was charming and funny, artistically brilliant, and more often than not, the most interesting person in the room. I have been head over heels in love with both sides of him since I was fourteen years old. Of course I loved Remy, loved him like a brother, like the best friend and consummate protector he had been, but I loved Rule like it was my mission in life. I loved him like it was inevitable, like no matter how many times I was shown what an awful idea it was, what a bad match we were, what a callous asshole he could be, I couldn’t shake it. So each and every time I had to have the fact that he didn’t even think of me as more than a carpool driver shoved in my face it tore a little bit more of my battered heart apart.

Because my own family was such a mess, there was no way I would be half the person I was today without everything the Archers had done for me. Remy had taken me under his wing when I was a friendless and lonely teen. Rome had threatened to beat up the first boy who made me cry because I liked him and he didn’t like me back. Margot had taken me shopping for homecoming and prom dresses when my own mother was too busy with her new husband to care. Dale had taken me to the University of Denver and the University of Colorado–Boulder and helped whittle down the choices logically and rationally when it came to picking a college. And Rule, well, Rule was a constant reminder that money didn’t get you everything you wanted and that no matter how perfect I tried to be, how hard I worked at being everything to everyone, it still wasn’t enough.

I blew out a breath that I felt like I had been holding for more than an hour and took a piece of Kleenex to wipe away the black smudges from under my eyes. If I didn’t get down to the dining room fast Margot was bound to come looking for me and I didn’t have a reasonable excuse as to why I was currently freaking out in the bathroom. I fished a hair tie out of my pocket and pulled my hair into a low ponytail, slicked on a sheer coat of gloss, and gave myself a silent pep talk, reminding myself that I had done this a million other Sundays and that this one was no different.

Just as I was stepping into the hall my phone rang and I had to struggle to hold back a groan when I saw that it was Gabe calling again. I sent the call to voice mail and wondered for the hundredth time in the last month why I had ever wasted a second of my time on his pompous ass. He was overly entitled, overly grabby, overly superficial, and more interested in my last name and the fact that my parents were loaded than he was in me.

I wasn’t even interested in dating him—wasn’t interested in dating anyone—but my parents had forced my hand. As usual, under their pressure, I folded and ended up spending more time with him than I wanted to. I had managed to tolerate him for a lot longer than I thought I would be able to. After all, Gabe was way more interested in himself than in me. It wasn’t until he had started pushing for sex—making me uncomfortable by grabbing and touching things I didn’t want his hands anywhere near—that I cut the cord. Unfortunately, neither he nor my parents seem to have gotten the message and I have been inundated with calls, texts, and emails for the last two weeks. Gabe was easy enough to dodge; my mother not so much.

I was shoving the phone into my back pocket when a quiet voice stopped me. “What’s going on with you, little girl? I’ve been gone for over eighteen months and all I get is a hug and a peck on the cheek before you disappear? Where are the tears? Where’s the hysterics that I’m home safe and sound? What’s working in that complicated brain of yours? Because I can tell something is on your mind.”

I hiccupped a little laugh and let my forehead fall onto the strong chest in front of me. Even battered and bruised Rome was the kind of guy who stood between the people he loved and anything that might possibly hurt them. He patted the top of my head and laid a heavy hand on the back of my neck. “I missed your pretty face, Shaw; you don’t know how good it is to be home.”

I shuddered a little and wrapped a careful arm around his waist so that I could give him a squeeze and not hurt him. “I missed you, too, Rome. I’m just stressed out. School is crazy right now, I’m working three or four nights a week, and my parents won’t get off my back about this guy I just broke up with. You know I love it when we’re all together. I thought your mom was going to have a heart attack when she called to tell me what happened to you. I’m so glad you’re okay. I don’t think this family would be able to handle losing another Archer son.”

“No, probably not. I can’t believe she still has you playing chauffeur for my idiot brother.”

I hooked my arm through his and we started to make our way to the dining room. “It’s the only way he’ll come. If I have to miss it because of school or because something comes up he just blows them off. Half the time when I get to the apartment he doesn’t even know what day it is and has to scramble to get out the door. Today would be a prime example of that. If I show up he feels obligated to come with me no matter what or who he’s in the middle of doing.”

Rome swore under his breath. “It wouldn’t kill that kid to play nice with Mom and Dad once a week. He shouldn’t need you to be his babysitter.”

I shrugged my shoulders because we both knew that all the Archer brothers had a role. Remy had been the good son, the straight-A student, the future Ivy Leaguer. He was also the one saddled with the role of keeping Rule out of jail and running interference when his twin got into trouble that he couldn’t talk his way out of. Rule was the wild card, the one who lived life to the fullest and made no apologies to those he might offend or hurt along the way. Rome was the boss and the twins adored him and followed his lead through good and bad, because lord knew with the way the three of them looked, there was lots and lots of bad thrown their way. With Remy gone it wasn’t a surprise to anyone that Rome had become even more protective of his remaining brother and that I had fallen seamlessly into the role of trying to keep Rule on some kind of straight and narrow path.

“It’s the least I can do for Margot and Dale. They’ve always done so much for me and asked for so little in return. Suffering Rule’s wrath once a week is a pretty easy sacrifice to make.”

Something flashed in his eyes, which were so much like his brother’s that it sometimes hurt to look into them. Rome wasn’t anyone’s fool and it wouldn’t surprise me if he knew more about all the things I kept locked up than he let on.

“I just don’t want you being the target of Rule being Rule. Mom needs to get over her shit and so does he. Everyone is grown now and life is too short for you to be constantly playing the peacemaker between those two.”

I sighed and lowered my voice as we got to the entrance of the dining room. The table was already set and everyone was already in his regular seat. Dale was at the head of the table, Margot on his right, with an open spot for me. His left side was open for Rome, and Rule had taken the seat at the opposite end of the table as far away from both of his parents as he could get. “They need to move past the fact that he’s never going to be Remy, and he has to stop intentionally cramming that fact down their throats. Until one side gives and learns how to forgive it’s always going to be this way.”

He pressed a superlight kiss to my temple and gave me a little squeeze back. “I don’t think any of them realize how lucky they are to have you, little girl.”

I let him go and went to take my seat between Margot and Rule. I tried not to wince when Rule sent a narrow-eyed look in my direction, knowing Rome and I had more than likely been whispering about him. I slid into my spot and flashed Dale a smile as he started passing the typically lavish food around. I was about to ask Rome what he planned to do with his time off when Margot had me snapping my head around in shock.

“Would it be too much of a stretch to expect you to come to brunch in a shirt that buttons and in a pair of pants that don’t look like they came from a thrift store? I mean, your brother has several broken bones and was in a horrific accident and he still manages to look more put together than you, Rule.”

I had to bite my tongue to stop from snapping at her to lay off him. Mostly because family gatherings were supposed to be informal and fun. I knew good and well that if I had shown up in jeans and a T-shirt she wouldn’t even have blinked, but because it was him she viewed it as a direct attack on her.

He picked a couple pieces of bacon off the platter I handed to him and didn’t even bother to respond to her. Instead, he turned to Rome and asked what his plans were while he was home. Rule wanted him to come to the city for a week and spend time with him and Nash. I saw Margot’s mouth tighten at the dismissal and Dale’s eyebrows pull down in a frown. I saw varying degrees of the same look every Sunday we were here. It hurt my chest because even in a rumpled shirt and torn jeans Rule was the kind of guy who owned whatever look he was wearing. It was the same thing with the mass amounts of tattoos that covered him from head to toe and the array of metal that dotted his face here and there.

There was no denying Rule was a good-looking guy, probably too good-looking, to be honest, but he was complicated, and the beauty he possessed was buried and camouflaged under things that weren’t easy to look past. Of all the brothers, he has the clearest, most arctic blue eyes, and his hair, even when it’s decorated with purple or green or blue, is still the thickest and the shiniest. Even with every color under the sun dancing across his skin, of the three of them, Rule had always been the one the girls gravitated to. Just like the brunette at Starbucks this afternoon. Her name was Amy Rodgers, and I had spent all four years of high school being tormented by her and her cheerleader cronies. She dated jocks and boys who bled blue, not guys who rocked Mohawks and had their eyebrows and lips pierced, but even she couldn’t resist all that was Rule Archer in his magnetic glory.

“And what’s going on with your hair, son?” Dale asked. “A color actually found in nature might be a nice change of pace, especially since the whole family is together and we’re all lucky to have your brother home in one piece.”

I groaned inwardly and silently took the bowl of fruit Margot handed me. Now that they had teamed up on him there was no way he was going to stay quiet. Normally, he ignored his mom and shot sarcastic one-liners at Dale, but being interrupted and attacked from both sides while he was trying to catch up with Rome wasn’t going to fly. Rule had a short fuse on a good day but corner him when he was hungover and being reluctantly civil at best—the fur was, no doubt, going to fly. I shot Rome a panicked look across the table, but before he could interject, Rule’s voice snapped out like a verbal backhand across the face.

“Well, Pops, purple is found all throughout nature so I don’t know what you’re talking about, and as far as my clothes are concerned, I figure we’re all lucky I bothered to even put pants on, considering the condition Shaw found me in this morning. Now, if you’re both done criticizing every move I make, can I continue my conversation with my brother I haven’t seen in over a year, considering he nearly got blown up by a roadside bomb?”

Margot gasped and Dale shoved his chair back from the table. I let my head fall forward and rubbed between my eyes where a headache was starting to throb.

“One afternoon, Rule. One freaking afternoon is all we ask of you.” Dale stormed out of the room and Margot wasted no time bursting into tears. She buried her face in her napkin and I reached over to awkwardly pat her shoulder. I cut a look at Rule but he had climbed to his feet as well and was headed toward the front door. I shot a look at Rome, who just shook his head and lumbered to his feet. Margot lifted her head and looked at her eldest with pleading eyes.

“Tell him, Rome. You go tell him that this is not how you treat your parents. He has no respect.”

She pointed a shaky finger at the door. “You tell him that this is unacceptable.”

Rome looked at me, then back to his mom. “Sure, Mom, I’ll tell him, but I’m also going to tell you that you had no reason to lay into him like that. Who cares if he wants to wear jeans and have hair like a goddamn Smurf? What matters is that he’s here and he made an effort. Shaw took time out of her life, her busy schedule, to make that happen for you and Dad. You waited exactly three seconds before purposely picking at the scab, both of you.”

Margot gasped but Rome wasn’t done. “You and Dad need a wakeup call. I could have just as easily come home in a body bag instead of a cast. You’ve already lost one son; you need to appreciate the ones you have left, regardless of whether you agree with the choices we’re making or not.”

The tears came harder and she leaned her head on my shoulder. “Shaw loves coming to visit on Sunday; we should just stop asking her to bring Rule, because clearly he doesn’t want to be here. I’m done trying to make him be part of this family, it just hurts too much.”

Rome shook his head and both of us sighed. He followed his brother out of the room as I continued to pat Margot on the shoulder. This woman had been kind to me, treated me as a daughter when my own mother had no use for me, so what I was about to say to her came from a place of refusing to watch another family collapse in on itself.

“Margot, you and Dale are wonderful people and good parents, but you have to stop living in the past. I’m not going to come see you on Sundays anymore, not unless you figure out how to accept Rule for exactly who he is and love him anyway. I miss Remy and it was tragic how he died, but you are never going to turn Rule into him, and I can’t stand by and watch you continue to try. My parents have been forcing me into a mold that hasn’t fit me for years and I only wish I had enough will to refuse them the way Rule does.”

I climbed to my feet and had to fight back my own tears when she looked at me with shock and dismay.

“If Remy was here none of this would be happening. You and he would still be happy together, Rule would never have started acting so awful, and Rome never would have gone off and joined the stupid military.”

I had to take a few steps away because there was so much wrong with what she was saying that it nearly floored me. “Margot, Rule was always a handful, he just never bowed to your and Dale’s dictates. Rome was enlisted way before the accident. And I’ve told you a million times Remy was my best friend—we didn’t have feelings for each other like that. I think you need to consider talking to a professional because you’re rewriting history and, while you’re doing it, you’re losing a pretty terrific son.”

“You can’t honestly believe that? Rule is just as awful to you as he is to me and his father.”

I bit my lip and rubbed my temples harder. “He isn’t awful; he’s just harder to love. Remy made it easy for you guys, and Rule never has, but he deserves the effort, and until this family can see that, I have better ways to spend my time. If I wanted bickering and bitterness I would just go home. I love you and Dale, but I see what you’re doing to Rule and I will not be a part of it anymore. Rome was right; you need to appreciate the family you have and not spend your life comparing them to the family you lost. Remy was my whole world, Margot, but he’s gone and Rule is here.”

She crossed her arms and flopped her head down on the table. I knew there would be no getting through to her so I walked to the front door. I wasn’t surprised to see Dale leaning against the kitchen counter, watching me with serious eyes.

“She isn’t going to do well without you coming by. You’re an important part of this family.”

I tucked a few loose strands of hair behind my ear and gave him a rueful smile. “So is your son.”

“Margot isn’t the only one who needs to remember that, and you have to admit that hair is ridiculous.”

I laughed for real this time and walked over to give him a hug. “She needs help, Dale. Remy’s been gone for a while and all she wants to do is push Rule to take his place. That isn’t going to happen, we all know that.”

He kissed the top of my head and set me away from him. “I don’t know why you’re always defending that boy. He’s got a hot temper and a wild streak a mile long. You’re a smart, beautiful girl; you have to know how Rule’s story ends.”

“I don’t believe in skipping ahead, Dale. I read the book all the way through. Tell Margot to give me a call when she calms down, but I’m serious about Sundays. Until it’s an actual family gathering, until Rule stops being vilified for just being who he is and not who you want him to be, I’m not coming. This just hurts too much.”

“Fair enough, little girl, but if you need anything you know we’re just a phone call away.”

“I know.”

“You know he wouldn’t appreciate you falling on the sword for him.”

“Maybe not, Dale, but it’s my sword to fall on and even if nobody, including Rule himself, can see it, he’s worth it. I think so and I know Remy always thought so. You might want to try to remember that the next time he shows up with pink hair.”

I made my way to the driveway and paused when I saw the brothers with their heads bent close together. Rule looked mad and Rome looked sad. It was heartbreaking and impressive all at the same time. Rule saw me first and pulled away. They said something to each other in low tones and bumped fists. Rome pulled Rule into a one-armed hug and made his way over to me. I received the same treatment with the addition of a kiss on the cheek.

“I’m gonna put as many fires out here as I can over the next week or so and then make my way to the city. I’ll hit you up when I can.”

“Try to convince your mom to get some help, Rome, please.”

“I love you, little girl. You try to keep that jackass out of trouble for me.”

I brushed a kiss across his cheek in return. “I always do.”

“I didn’t know it was this bad, Shaw. I’ve missed so much by being away.”

“Families are like anything else, they take work, patience, and people willing to make it work. I’m so very glad you came home, Rome.”

I moved away after another hug and tossed my keys at Rule. “I have a headache. Can you drive back to the city?”

I normally never let him anywhere near my car; he has a lead foot and no regard for other drivers on the road, but I wasn’t going to make it. I felt the headache growing into a migraine and all I wanted to do was close my eyes, crawl into a soft bed, and pull the covers over my head. I got into the passenger seat and curled into a ball.

Rule didn’t say anything as he turned on the ignition and headed toward home. He left the radio off and didn’t even try to bother with forced pleasantries. I knew he wouldn’t apologize for the scene; he never did, so I didn’t even bring it up. I was drifting in and out of a little nap when Gabe’s ringtone started to trill from my pocket. I swore, which was something I rarely did, and turned the stupid thing off. By now my stomach was in knots and I was seeing spots in front of my eyes.

“He calls you now more than when you were dating.” Rule’s voice was low and I wondered if he had any idea how much my head was hurting.

“He’s a pain. I told you he didn’t get it.”

“Is it a problem?” I cracked an eye open because it was really out of character for him to show any concern for me.

“No. I mean it’s only been a couple weeks and I think he misses the idea of me more than actually being with me. I keep thinking he’ll get bored or find someone else and just go away.”

“Make sure you let somebody know if he becomes an issue. No girl should have to deal with that noise.”

“I will.” We lapsed back into silence again until he cleared his throat. I’d known Rule long enough to know he was working his way up to something and I just needed to wait.

“Look, I’m sorry about this morning. I’m sorry about a lot of Sunday mornings. You don’t need to keep seeing me at my worst; in fact, it’s not your job to see to me at all. I’m done with forced family fun time. It’s not doing anything but driving the knife in deeper, and I see that now. This drama has been building for years and it’s not fair that you’re still stuck in the middle of it without Remy to back you up. He loved you to death and I’ve done a piss-poor job honoring that.”

I was in too much pain to argue the semantics of my relationship, or rather nonrelationship, with Remy to Rule yet again. No one in the Archer family seemed to get that we were friends, best friends and nothing more. The legend of our relationship had turned into a monster that I just couldn’t combat, especially when the tiny amount of food I had eaten at brunch was suddenly crawling back up my throat. I lurched forward and grabbed Rule’s arm. It probably wasn’t the smartest move since we were going ninety-five on the freeway, but I was about to toss my cookies in a car that cost more than some people made in a year.

“Pull over!” Rule let out a string of curse words and hastily weaved around a minivan to the shoulder of the road. I got the door open and practically fell on my knees as I lost everything in a violent stream on the asphalt. Warm hands pulled my ponytail out of the way and handed me a ragged bandanna. When I could finally breathe again, I took the bottle of water he handed me and sat back on my heels while the world tilted in a bunch of different directions.

“What’s wrong?”

I sloshed the water around and spit it out on the ground away from the tips of his black boots. “Migraine.”

“Since when do you have those?”

“Since always. I need to lie down in the back.”

He pulled me to my feet with a hand under my arm and I realized it was the first time in years he had ever deliberately touched me. We never hugged, never brushed against each other, never high-fived or shook hands. We were strictly in a hands-off type of relationship, so my system almost revolted at the contact. I groaned as he practically shoved me back into the car. I am short, so stretching out along the backseat wasn’t a big deal. Rule got back behind the wheel and looked at me over his shoulder. “You gonna make it the rest of the way?”

I threw an arm over my eyes and placed a hand on my roiling belly. “It’s not like I have a choice. Just be ready to pull over again if I scream at you.”

He pulled back into traffic and was quiet for only a minute before demanding, “Does everyone know you get migraines?”

“No. I don’t get them very often, just when I’m stressed out or not sleeping well.”

“Did Remy know?”

I wanted to sigh but I just answered, “Yes.”

He muttered something I couldn’t hear and I felt him, rather than saw him, look back at me. “He never told me. He told me everything, even crap I had zero interest in hearing—he never shut up about you.”

He was wrong, so very, very wrong, but that was Remy’s secret and even though he was gone I still would go to my grave with it. There was a lot Rule and Rome never knew about their brother, things that he was scared to share, things he battled with on a daily basis. The fact that I had migraines and was irrevocably in love with Rule didn’t even scratch the surface.

“He probably just forgot about it; like I said, I don’t get them very often and when you guys moved to Denver and I still had to finish high school, he probably just forgot they happened because we didn’t hang out as much anymore. They’ve been worse the last few years.” I didn’t have to explain it was because Remy was gone and all the stress he balanced out for me was now my own to deal with.

“That seems like kinda a big deal to slip his mind.”

“Contrary to what all you Archers have stuck in your head there was a lot more to Remy than our friendship and what was or was not going on with me.”

He snorted loudly. “Yeah, right. Remy was a different person after he found you. He was always a good guy, always the best of all of us, but once you came along it was like he finally found his purpose. You gave him someone to care about without any of the bullshit baggage the rest of us had. You made him better.”

My heart squeezed so tight in my chest I thought for a second everything inside me was going to turn inside out. “Well, he saved me, so we made each other better.”

We fell into an uncomfortable silence again until the car stopped in front of his apartment complex. He turned in the seat and looked down at me. I peeked at him from under my arm. The blue in his eyes was all but swallowed up by the paler silver and gray. “Can you get back to University Park or do you need me to take you? I can have Nash follow us since he’s home from work.” It was a nice offer, one I was surprised he extended, but I had had my fill of Archers for the day, and the drive from Capitol Hill to University Park wasn’t that bad on a Sunday in the early evening.

“I’ll make it. It’s not that far.” I scrambled out of the back and had to lean on the door frame while he got out of the driver’s seat. We were standing so close I could see the pulse in his throat thumping under the hummingbird tattoo he had there. “Thanks, though.”

He exhaled and rubbed his hands roughly over his face. He took a step back and made sure I was looking him dead in the eye when he told me, “I’m serious about Sunday. Don’t show up here next week expecting me to play nice. I’m over it.”

I snapped a salute with two fingers to my brow and let my body collapse in the seat he had just vacated. “Message received. My services as chauffeur slash buffer are no longer needed, which means I probably won’t be seeing you around. Try to take care of yourself, Rule, seriously; somebody has to.”

I shut the door before he could say anything else and didn’t even wait until he moved away from the car to put it in reverse and pull away from the apartment complex. It was a short drive to my own apartment that I shared with my best friend, Ayden.

I had met Ayden freshman year when we shared a dorm room together. She was a chem major, worked at the same sports bar I did, and totally had the patience to deal with all my endless neurotic crap. Her family background was no picnic, either, so I loved that I could always rely on her to be there for me. She was also smart as hell and it had taken her exactly zero seconds to figure the reason my social life was boring and that I could never commit to any of the guys I dated was because I was hung up on Rule Archer. So when I came stumbling in hurting, with tears in my eyes, she put me to bed without questions and closed the blinds in my room while she fetched me some painkillers and a giant glass of water.

The bed depressed when she climbed up next to me as I kicked my peep-toe heels off and tugged my belt through the loops on my slacks.

“It was bad today?” Ayden was from Kentucky and her Southern drawl rolled over me like a soothing balm.

“He was with some skank again, he had a hickey the size of Alaska on his neck, my mortal enemy from high school hit on him at Starbucks, and it took Margot and Dale less than a minute to insult his clothes and hair and remind him he is not now nor will he ever be his dead twin brother. Luckily, this time they left out his job and disregard for manners, but he blew his top and stormed out. They’ve all decided it’s best we no longer come up on Sundays, making this the second family I’ve been a part of that can’t figure it out and just love and appreciate one another. To top it all off, Gabe has been blowing up my phone all day and I can’t think of anyone I want to talk to less. So yeah, it was really fucking bad today.”

She brushed a hand over my hair and laughed softly. “Girl, the situations you find yourself in.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Did you give him the key to his place back?”

I moaned a little and buried my head in the pillow. “No. I totally spaced out, but it’s not like I’m in any hurry to walk in on him and two girls at once again. Honestly I’ll be super glad to never have to see Rule’s pierced junk again.”

She snickered a laugh at me and rolled over onto her back so that she was staring at the ceiling. Ayden’s hair was as black as mine was blond and cut in a funky short pixie style. She had big whiskey-colored eyes and a heart that was pure gold. Besides Remy, she was the best friend I’d ever had. I loved her for not making me have to lay it all out for her to sift through—she just got it. While she might not understand how I spent my time equally loathing and loving a person who viewed me as nothing more than a nuisance, she never condemned or criticized me for it.

“That boy, he is a handful.”

“I don’t know, maybe the space will be good for me. Maybe time away from the whole family will finally give me the breathing room to kill the way I’ve always felt about him. I can’t spend the rest of my life walking away from other people just because they aren’t Rule.”

“Well, I can’t say I’m sorry to see Gabe go, but you do deserve someone who treats you amazing and loves you in all the right ways. You’ve earned it, because no one I’ve ever met in my whole life loves as freely and gives as much as you do. Seeing as those parents of yours might as well be carved out of ice, that’s just a damn miracle. You’re a good girl, Shaw, and at the very least you deserve a good guy.”

I folded my hands together on the bed and laid my cheek down on them. My head was slowly starting to stop throbbing and all I wanted to do was take a nap and maybe work on processing everything that had happened today.

Ayden was right; I did deserve a good guy. I knew what one looked like, knew what one acted like, in fact I had been best friends with the ultimate good guy. Remy embodied everything any sane girl would want in a boyfriend and yet I had never had those feelings for him, not once. I remembered clearly the first time he had taken me home with him. I was fourteen and having a really hard time fitting in with all the preppy, rich kids my first year of high school. I know now that image and brands mattered, but back then I just wanted to wear jeans and my hair in a ponytail. Remy had been sixteen and captain of the football team. He found me crying outside the girls’ locker room one day after a particularly nasty verbal beat-down from Amy and her crew. He didn’t make fun of me, didn’t ask questions or get all weird because I was a freshman and he was a junior. He just bundled me up and carted me home with him because I was sad and alone and he didn’t want me to be either of those things ever again. He told me he could tell by my eyes that I was a kind person, that I needed someone to look out for me, and from that minute on he decided he would be the person to do it. I remembered all the warm and fuzzy feelings that came with that moment, remembered the gratitude and overwhelming joy I felt at finally having someone see how worthy and deserving of unconditional love I was, but what I remembered most was everything inside me going upside down when Rule walked into the kitchen and tilted his chin at me and asked, “Who’s the chick?”

My heart stopped beating, my lungs felt like they were going to collapse, my skin was suddenly too tight all over my body, and I couldn’t form a rational thought or a coherent sentence. Back then I chalked it up to a silly teenage crush; all the Archer boys were good-looking and had qualities that made them larger than life. Every girl I knew had had the prerequisite infatuation with a bad boy at one time or another. Of course, they normally grew out of it when they realized the bad boy was just an ass and they deserved to be treated better. But as time went on and things changed, my feelings never did even though it was clear they were never going to be returned. Rule only saw me as Remy’s little tagalong; a spoiled little rich girl, and then as we got older, as Remy’s girlfriend. That sucked because I had never been any of those things and as a result I sabotaged relationships, turned down guy after guy simply because I didn’t want a good guy—I wanted the one who was damaged and blind to the way I felt.

I was a good girl. I was loyal and honest and I worked hard and invested a lot of time and energy in building a secure future for myself. I stayed out of trouble and went out of my way to try to be the polished and perfect daughter my parents wanted me to be, and the successful, driven woman the Archers had given me the confidence to be. What I never spent any time being was the person that I actually felt like I was. She was locked somewhere deep inside me, suffocating and still holding on to the hope that Rule would notice she was alive. It was exhausting, and in the vulnerable moments when I was brutally honest with myself, I had to admit I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep it up.

CHAPTER 3
Rule

It was a crazy busy week at the shop. I think mostly because we were right in the thick of tax refund time and people had extra money to spend. I was booked with back-to-back appointments all the way through Saturday and even went in on my day off to work on a guy’s sleeve I had started a few months ago. Nash was just as booked as I was. When Saturday night rolled around we were both ready to let loose and tie one on. Sunday morning went about the same as last week, only this time when I walked the girl to her car I didn’t have to worry about Shaw bursting in on a scene I didn’t want her to see. I called Rome to see when he was going to come to town, but apparently things at home weren’t any better after last week so he wasn’t ready to leave Mom on her own yet. I wanted to care, wanted to feel bad for her, but I just couldn’t muster it up.

I was getting ready to crack open a beer and plop in front of the flat-screen to relax and watch the game, when Nash came out of his room pulling on a hoodie and a black ball cap over his shaved head. He was a few inches shorter than me, built a lot stockier, but in all actuality was a hell of a lot better looking. He kept his black hair shaved close to the scalp because he had twin tattoos on the sides of his head. His bright, bright eyes looked more purple than blue and always stood out starkly against his much darker complexion. He didn’t have as much metal in his face as I did, just a hoop through the center of his nose and both ears sporting obsidian gauges. For whatever reason, he kept his hands and neck free of ink, which always made me laugh because of the stuff permanently marked on his head. We were a matched set, so when we went out together it was usually a given we wouldn’t have to come home alone. Nash was a much nicer guy than I was; he just looked several degrees more badass.

“Jet and Rowdy are at the Goal Line watching the game. They wanna hang out if you’re down.”

Rowdy worked at the shop with us and Jet was the lead singer of a local metal band we liked—they rounded out the group that Nash and I traveled in. Going to the bar to watch the game sounded a lot more fun than brooding on the couch by myself, so I put my beer back in the fridge and shoved my feet into my black boots.

Nash drove a fully restored ’73 Dodge Charger. It was a monster of black, chrome, and motor. I was pretty sure everyone in the apartment complex knew whenever we were coming or going because it was just that loud and thunderous, but it was a cool ride. I knew it meant a lot to him because he had done the rebuild mostly by himself. Nash’s background was a little sketchy, but since my own was less than stellar I never really pushed him to talk about it. I knew his dad had died when he was really young and that his mom had remarried some rich asshole who, to this day, Nash refused to have anything to do with. Phil, the same Phil who let us make his shop our own, had been integral in getting Nash to adulthood without a criminal record and a whole pack of illegitimate kids.

The bar was in lower downtown, or LoDo as most people actually from Denver called it. It was a popular hangout for mostly locals and industry people, and since I hadn’t been around on a Sunday in years I forgot how packed it could be when the Broncos played. The guys had a table in the back right under a massive flat-screen and already had a pitcher of beer waiting. Fist bumps and head nods for greeting went around the table and a raucous cheer went up in the packed bar as the Broncos scored.

“What up, fellas?” Nash poured us a round as we settled in. Rowdy wiggled his eyebrows up and down and motioned to a spot over his shoulder toward the bar.

“Isn’t this better than family time? Nobody wants to see Mom dressed like that.”

The girls who worked in the bar were all dressed in sexy sports-themed uniforms; some were supersexy cheerleaders, and some were in really small jerseys and hot pants that laced up like football pants. My favorites were the tiny referee outfits that barely covered their bottoms.

“No, they sure don’t.” It was nice to just chill and spend time with the guys on a Sunday when normally Sundays were the worst part of the week. It was way better than getting torn to pieces by my parents just for breathing. I felt a twinge of guilt at my selfishness, but I knew enough beer would squash it.

Jet looked up from the plate of nachos he was steadily demolishing and pointed a finger over his shoulder toward the bar. “Wait until you see the chick waiting on us. Dude, just dude, there aren’t even words.”

Jet’s band, Enmity, was pretty big in the local scene and I knew from firsthand experience he had his pick of groupies and rock chicks to choose from. If he was impressed by a chick, then she was probably a dead ten and I couldn’t wait to check her out. We chatted and pounded the pitcher away in under thirty minutes and the guys were getting louder and rowdier, but we were having a good time. We needed another round sooner than later, but I had yet to see the elusive Waitress of Hotness. Suddenly the hair on the back of my neck went up and I snapped to attention. There was a blonde making her way toward the table. Her hair was so blond it was almost white and it was in twin pigtails on either side of her head. Her startled green eyes were looking at me from under razor-straight bangs. Her mouth was a bright slash of red against a pale face I was as familiar with as my own. She had on the requisite referee outfit, complete with ruffly little black shorts and fishnet stockings. She also was wearing a pair of black boots that looked a hell of a lot like my own, only girly, and they went up seriously awesome legs to rest below her knees. While I struggled with recognition and my idiot friends leered at her, Nash climbed to his feet to enfold her in a bear hug.

“Hey, girl, what are you doing here?” Shaw gave a little squeal as she returned my roommate’s hug, but her eyes never left mine.

“Uh … I work here. I have for a while. I normally have Sundays off, but since my schedule changed and it’s busy I picked them up. What are you guys doing here?”

I knew the question was directed at me, but I was still too stunned at how different she looked to respond. Nash left an arm around her shoulder and pointed at our friends. “The guy with the chops is Rowdy—he works at the shop with me and Rule. The guy shoving his face full of nachos is Jet—he sings for Enmity and we grew up together. Guys, this is Shaw—she grew up with Rule and his brothers.”

I watched with a mixture of awe and repulsion as my friends practically fell over themselves to shake the hand she extended. I still hadn’t said anything and it was starting to get awkward, but she just smiled and picked up the empty pitcher and told us she would be back with another in a few minutes. All four sets of eyes followed the swish of her hair and the ruffles on her ass as she walked away. I wanted to punch everyone, including myself, in the face. As soon as she was out of earshot Rowdy turned to me and reached across the table to smack me upside the head. I swore and glared at him, but made no move to retaliate.

“What the fuck was that for?”

He shook his head and pointed a finger at me. “That’s the girl you complain about driving home with every weekend? That’s the girl you whine endlessly about walking in on you when you’re acting the fool? That’s the girl you dodge calls from and avoid like the plague? Geez, Rule, I never knew you were gay.”

Nash snickered and Jet busted out in a full belly laugh. I flipped Rowdy off and narrowed my eyes.

“Shut up. You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“No? I have eyes and that chick is killer, so either you’re blind or stupid, because if I was cooped up in a car with her for two hours every week I’d be thanking God—not bitching about it.”

Nash shook his head. “I can’t believe you didn’t know she worked here. Do you really just ignore everything she says to you?”

I glared at him. “You didn’t know, either, and you talk to her when she comes over on Sundays.”

“I ask her if she wants coffee, not how she makes a living. Dude, admit it, you suck.”

I was going to argue but he kept going. “And she is hot—she’s always been hot. You just don’t like her so you can’t see it. She looks good in all that fancy crap she’s normally in, but man, in that uniform …”

“I like her fine.” I refused to comment on her hotness or lack thereof because it was weird. Of course I had eyes in my head so I knew logically she’s a beautiful girl, but she always seemed so cold and so untouchable that I never really thought of her as attractive—more like an impressive work of art that was meant for viewing in a museum than for everyday enjoyment.

“Don’t lie. You two can’t stand each other.”

I shrugged a little. “She’s like family. You know how I feel about my family.”

Jet lifted an eyebrow. “I wish my family had members who looked like that.”

I rolled my eyes. “Knock it off. Stop being a creeper.”

She came back with not one pitcher but two and a plate of wings. She smiled at Nash and the other guys but when her bright gaze landed on me, the shutters came down. “The wings are on me. I just can’t help myself from trying to make sure you eat on Sundays.” She turned away with a flip of one of her pale pigtails and moseyed over to another table full of middle-aged guys in ill-fitting jerseys. I narrowed my eyes when one of them put his hand on her ruffle-covered butt. Clearly used to it, Shaw flashed her killer grin and easily sidestepped the groper. It was such a different way to see her that when she walked past the table again, clearly intent on ignoring me, I reached out and grabbed her arm.

Her eyes flashed emerald sparks as she looked at the tattooed fingers I had wrapped around her wrist. I was surprised when a jolt of electricity shot all the way up to my shoulder at the contact. I lifted both eyebrows at her and gave her a nasty sneer.

“Do your parents know you work here? What about Margot? I have a hard time believing any of the adults you try so hard to impress know that you’re prancing around here half-naked.”

She scowled at me and shook my hand off. “No, my parents don’t know because they’ve never asked, and Margot knows I work in a sports bar but she doesn’t know what the uniform looks like, and I’m not even close to being half-naked. Leave me alone, Rule. My roommate works here, too, and she’s giving me the look that means she’s about to call in the troops. Unless you want to be carted out of here by three very big bouncers you’ll keep your hands to yourself and your trap shut. I like Nash, he’s always been nice enough to me, but I have no problem getting you and the rest of your friends eighty-sixed if you continue to piss me off.”

We glared at each other in a hostile standoff until one of her other tables flagged her down.

“Just one weekend,” she muttered so low I almost didn’t hear her.

I frowned. “What?”

Those eyes blazed so much at me I couldn’t even pick out one solid emotion. “Just one weekend I wanted a break from dealing with you.” She flounced away from me and for the first time since I had met her I realized that maybe spending time with me was as much a pain for her as it was for me. When I turned back to my friends they were all looking at me with a mixture of pity and awe. My scowl darkened even more as I chugged back my full beer in one swallow.

“What?” I could hear the surliness in my tone.

“Dude, what’s the deal with that?” Rowdy was the one who asked the question, but Nash and Jet both looked like they wanted to ask the same thing.

“What are you talking about?”

Nash lifted up his beer to hide a smile. “You both looked like you either wanted to box each other or tear each other’s clothes off and go at it right in the middle of the bar. What gives with that? I thought she bugged you.”

“She does. She’s rich and spoiled and we don’t agree on anything; we never have.”

Rowdy gave me a look that outright called bullshit on my claim. “I know what I saw and there is no way you wouldn’t take her if she offered it up to you.”

I wanted to yell at him that he was wrong, so very wrong, because before she was any of the things that annoyed me and got under my skin, she was Remy’s, and there was nothing in heaven or hell that would make me forget that. Pulling in my temper, I poured another beer and lapsed into a moody silence. I wasn’t attracted to Shaw. I was just seeing her in a new environment, seeing her in something other than her fancy outfits that cost more than I made in a month.

We were almost to the bottom of the second pitcher when, silently, Shaw dropped off a replacement and a really pretty girl with supershort dark hair suddenly appeared at the edge of the table. She was tall and had eyes the color of Jack Daniel’s, a mouth that would give Angelina Jolie a run for her money, and a body that was meant to stop traffic. She was wearing the same uniform as Shaw; only instead of kick-ass boots she had on a pair of spike heels that probably made her taller than Nash and Jet. There was nothing on her lovely face that came across as welcoming.

Jet sat up straighter and Rowdy, who was by far the drunkest of all of us—he had started adding shots of tequila twenty minutes ago—almost fell off his stool when she posted up at the table between the two of them. Her gaze was trained directly on me, though, so I met her look for look until she finally spoke. She had a soft Southern twang and I could swear I saw Jet fall in love on the spot.

“You’re Rule.” It wasn’t a question so I just nodded. “I’m Ayden Cross. I live with Shaw.”

I wasn’t sure why that was supposed to matter to me so I kept silent while my best friend whipped his head around to glare at me. I was being kind of rude, but I was buzzed and still pissed at Shaw, so I didn’t really care.

“I don’t know what your deal is, but leave her alone. She doesn’t need you screwing with her head anymore, so just back off.”

I blinked because I honestly had no clue what this babe was talking about. “I don’t mess with Shaw.”

She narrowed her eyes and pointed a finger at me. “I know exactly what you do and don’t do, Tattoo Boy. I adore Shaw. She’s sweet, nice, and the best roommate ever. You need to just go do your troubled, bad-boy act somewhere else, she doesn’t need it …” It looked as if she was gearing up to lay into me even more, but something caught her eye and suddenly her eyes were glowing with gold fire. “Oh my God! I cannot believe that asshole had the nerve to show up here. I need to go get Lou.” She spun on her heel and marched through the crowd, leaving me reeling. I had no clue what she was talking about but clearly something had crawled up her butt. I looked over my shoulder and felt every protective cell I had suddenly come alive.

Shaw was standing by the bar. It was crowded but her white-blond hair was unmistakable. She looked stressed and freaked out while a guy in a white polo shirt crowded her into the edge of the bar. He had a hand on her shoulder and was leaning down into her face. Whatever he was saying to her made her look like she wanted to punch him in the nuts or puke on his shoes. I’d never seen a look of panic on her face like that before; she was normally so cool and unflappable. Against my better judgment I was climbing to my feet. I wasn’t the type to give two shits about a damsel in distress, and this damsel, I knew for a fact, could take care of herself. But she looked like she was struggling and, despite how I felt about her, I was going to intervene.

“I’ll be back in a second.”

Since I’m tall and have a good portion of visible skin covered in designs that cry “don’t mess with me,” I didn’t have to worry about people in the crowded bar moving out of my way. When I got close enough her eyes snapped to me and I was pretty sure I saw relief flood into their sparkly green depths. Polo Shirt leaned in even closer to her, and I thought I heard him say something about how things were going to look when he went home alone over winter break. I saw her stiffen and try to pull away, but Polo Shirt just moved in closer to keep her pinned against the bar.

“I don’t care what my mother told you, Gabe. We’re over. I have no interest in going to Aspen with you or your family. Stop calling me and stop showing up where I’m at.”

“Baby, we’re meant for each other and once you stop being stubborn you’ll see how great we could be together.” I hated guys who called girls “baby.” Baby was what you used when you didn’t remember the girl’s name or you were just too lazy to come up with your own nickname for her.

She wiggled a little more and I noticed the way the guy’s eyes followed the deep vee of her revealing outfit.

“Let go of me, Gabe. I didn’t want to be with you like that when we were dating, and I sure as hell don’t want to be with you like that now. Leave me alone.”

Polo Shirt got red in the face at her blatant rejection. He was about to lean even farther into her, about to put his other hand on her, when I reached out and grabbed her wrist and tugged her free. Polo Shirt was a good four inches shorter than me so I tucked Shaw’s small frame under my arm and glared at him over the top of her head.

“Sorry I’m late, Casper.” Without missing a beat she put an arm around my waist and practically collapsed into my side. I had used the nickname to tease her when we were younger because her hair was almost white and I knew she hated it. Now it sounded intimate and personal, like we had some kind of secret Polo Shirt wasn’t in on.

“No problem. I’ve got an hour or so left of my shift. Can you hang out until I’m off?” Her eyes were pleading with me to play along but I was too busy wondering why my side felt like it was on fire where we touched.

“No problem. Who’s your friend?”

Polo Shirt was glaring at me and turning an alarming shade of red. He didn’t even give Shaw a chance to respond.

“I’m her boyfriend, Gabe Davenport. Who are you?”

Shaw went stiff next to me and I felt her fingers clutch the back of my shirt.

“Gabe, this is Rule Archer. Rule, this is Gabe, my EX-boyfriend, only he’s having a hard time getting the ‘ex’ part down.”

“Shaw, get away from him. What are you thinking? You can’t possibly think anyone is going to believe you would go from me to someone like him, can you? Just look at him, he’s a mess.”

I was immune to the “someone like him” tactic—I heard it all the time—but apparently Shaw wasn’t. She bristled like a wet cat and made a move like she was going to poke the guy in the chest. I wrapped her back up against my side and subtly tried to calm her down by rubbing a hand up and down her bare arm.

“I’ve known Rule most of my life, Gabe. I couldn’t care less what he looks like because he isn’t anybody’s puppet, and the same thing cannot be said about you. Don’t think you can stand there and judge him or me, not when you’re practically stalking me and trying to bully me into a relationship by manipulating my parents because you know they like you. Ayden is here and you can bet your ass if she saw you she’s going to go get Lou. Lou doesn’t like to see his girls upset so unless you want a scene I’m sure you’ll never live down, go away and don’t come back. You can call my mom, talk to my dad all you want, I don’t want to be with you and nothing is going to change that.”

He looked like he was gearing up to keep fighting but there was a sudden surge toward the bar, knocking Shaw even farther into my embrace and I took full advantage by pulling her small frame completely in line with mine. The girl was rocking some serious curves and I wondered what in the hell I had been smoking to miss it right up until now.

“We got a problem, bro?” I asked him. She pulled away from me slightly with a scowl and put her hands in the center of my chest to get a little space.

“Yeah, bro, we do. But now isn’t the time or the place. I don’t have time to mess around with a peon like you. Shaw, I’ll see you later. This isn’t over.”

He shoulder-checked me and glared as he pushed around us. I gave Shaw a squeeze and let her take a step back but kept my hand loosely at her waist. I was watching Polo Shirt walk away and trying to catch Nash’s eye over her head. She let out a breath that fluttered against my throat and sent a chill running across my skin.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. That guy needs to get a clue.” Nash finally looked up and I jerked my head toward the door, where Polo Shirt had just exited. He gave me a slight nod, stood, and said something to Rowdy and Jet, which had the two of them climbing to their feet as well. I saw Shaw’s dark-haired roommate hanging by the door with a mountain of a man. She gave my friends an odd look as they filed out the door but didn’t say anything. I dug my Amex out of my wallet and put it in Shaw’s hand. Her luminous eyes were watching me curiously.

“Close our tab out on that, will ya? I’ll be back in just a second.”

She took the card and fell back a step. I tried not to notice what it did to her breasts when she crossed her arms over her chest.

“Where are you going?”

“To run an errand.”

“Leave Gabe alone, Rule. He isn’t like you and Rome. He was born to be a politician—threats and intimidation don’t mean anything to someone like that. Just forget about him. The idea that I would leave him for a guy with tattoos and purple hair is enough of a blow to his ego to get him to leave me alone for a while, trust me. Besides, I’ll talk to Lou, the bouncer. If I tell him that Gabe is harassing me they’ll eighty-six him for good.”

“Look, Rome would kick my ass to Nebraska if he found out some douche bag was giving you trouble and I didn’t say something, plus I hate a guy who thinks he can just do whatever he wants to a girl because he has an in with the parents. I’ll be back in a second; just close our tab and hold on to the card in case you have to bail one or all of us out of jail.”

I thought it was funny, but she didn’t even crack a smile. She was just looking at me like I had suddenly grown another head. I needed to get a move on before the asshat left.

“It’ll be fine, Shaw. Seriously, I got this.”

I set her fully away from me and moved around her to follow the guys out the front door. The pretty roommate caught my eye and lifted a brow. “Maybe you have redeeming qualities after all, Archer.”

I flipped her off, because, well, that’s what I do. I made my way to the edge of the block, where Nash and the boys were leaning against a white Lexus. A very nervous-looking Polo Shirt was pacing back and forth in front of them threatening to call the cops, waving his iPhone around and asking repeatedly if they had any idea who his dad was. I tucked my hands in my front pockets and cocked my head to the side. I could see why Shaw’s parents loved this guy. He was all right looking, if you went for a dude who looked like Banana Republic threw up all over him. He actually had coloring similar to mine, dark hair minus the purple and spikes, and light blue eyes, but he oozed entitlement and vanity in a way only the idle rich can. He was custom-made to be the husband who had a piece on the side while the pretty wife smiled for the cameras during election time. While my relationship with Shaw tended to be tumultuous at best, I knew on a soul-deep level that she deserved better than whatever this slimeball was selling.

“Hey, Polo Shirt, slow down a minute. I just wanna talk to you for a second.” He was in the middle of telling Nash that he was going to sue him for this or that and that his dad was a judge so they would throw the book at him when he finally noticed I had joined the party. He lowered his wildly flailing arms and glared at me.

“I know who you are, you know. Shaw might think she’s clever but she has a picture of you and your brothers in her room on her nightstand. Her parents have told me multiple times about her unhealthy attachment to you and your family. Her father has even threatened to stop paying for school for her if she keeps showing such questionable judgment in who she spends time with. This little encounter might just seal the deal.”

I had to give the creep credit—on my own I am a fairly intimidating guy, but he was surrounded by guys who were just as big and a hell of a lot more used to physical violence than he obviously was, but the little puke held his ground. “I don’t know what her fascination with a freak like you is, but it’s time for her to outgrow it. She belongs with someone like me, not someone who can’t go through a metal detector without clearing out his face.”

Nash snickered and Rowdy laughed outright. I just shook my head a little and lifted my mouth in a twisted grin. “I think she belongs with someone more interested in getting into her pants than into her daddy’s wallet. Shaw’s a good girl and she has a good head on her shoulders. The fact she wouldn’t let you even round first base in six months is pretty telling, bro. From the sounds of it, you would have better luck taking her folks on a date than her. Look, she’s like family, and I don’t like it when people mess with my family. This is a friendly little chat because we’re on a public street and I’m feeling generous. Next time it won’t be public and my generosity has a time limit. Leave her alone, end of story.”

He looked like he wanted to argue, wanted to say something back, but the mountain of a human being who was clearly the bouncer for the bar came around the corner. Lou looked at the guys leaning on the car and then to the heated Polo Shirt and shook his head.

“Enough. You four go back in. Ayden told me what was going on so your tab is on me. You”—he pointed a meaty finger at Gabe—“you are no longer allowed at the Goal Line; consider yourself eighty-sixed. If Shaw doesn’t want you here, I don’t care how much you got in your wallet or what kinda pull your old man has, this is my house and you aren’t welcome. Next time you want to get all up on one of my girls or put your hands on them, you won’t have to worry about these guys because I’ll make sure they never find your body, understand?”

Even I didn’t question that this monster meant business, so Polo Shirt gulped and nodded his head slightly. My boys pushed off the car and Nash “accidentally” shoved into him as they made their way over to where I was standing. Gabe swore and jumped into his car. He pulled away from the curb and flipped us all the bird as he squealed into traffic. The bouncer looked me up and down and flicked his impassive gaze over our motley crew.

“You friends with Shaw?”

I mean we weren’t friends, exactly, but it was as close as any other explanation so I shrugged and answered, “Sure.”

He nodded. “I’m Lou. I look out for the girls who work here. Shaw and Ayden just happen to be two of my favorites. They’re good girls and they work hard here—they aren’t here just to show their asses and get into trouble—I respect that. I don’t let anyone mess with those two; in fact, I take it personally when someone tries to.”

I wasn’t sure why he was telling me all this but, frankly, he was one scary mother so I kept my mouth shut and just kept making eye contact.

“Shaw is a sweet kid but she tries to do too much by herself. If that asshole keeps bothering her she’ll just suffer it in silence.” Now he was looking at me pointedly, so I lifted an eyebrow. “I wanna know if something needs to be done about him.”

“Shaw and I aren’t exactly close—she wouldn’t tell me something like that. You might want to have this talk with her roommate.”

“I’m having it with you, son.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, but just as I was about to say something sarcastic, the door to the bar opened and the middle-aged guys in the jerseys came spilling out and got between us. Lou gave me one last direct look, which I took as him meaning business, and went back inside. I looked back at my friends and sorta threw my hands up in the air.

“Is this what I miss when I go out of town on Sunday?”

All three of them burst into laughter and Jet decided it was time for us to move on to another bar and I ran inside to get my card from Shaw. The guys pitched in ten bucks each for me to give her as a tip and I wound my way back to the bar, where she was talking to another waitress with honey-gold hair and dressed in a cheerleader uniform. Shaw stopped midsentence and looked at me through narrowed eyes. I grinned at her and handed her the money. “Your bouncer friend picked up our tab, but the boys wanted to make sure you got taken care of.”

She handed me the Amex card back. “What did you do to Gabe?”

“Nothing.” She sighed and I didn’t even try to not watch the way it stretched her tiny little uniform across her chest.

“Well, thanks for intervening; I don’t know what his problem is.”

The cheerleader was having sex with me with her eyes, and while I was normally a fan of hot chicks doing that to me, I barely even registered her because Shaw was bending over to get her drinks, and the ruffles on her butt were suddenly the only thing I could see. She was short, so I’d never really thought about her having such great legs, but they were toned and curved just right. Given enough time, I could work up some seriously awesome fantasies involving those legs and those boots and nothing else.

“His problem is you’re hot, richer than hell, have parents who are connected out the ass, and you wouldn’t put out. You not only left him physically hard-up but blue-balled his visions of playing golf with your dad at the country club and sitting next to your mom at the Republican convention. You dismantled everything he was trying to build.”

She flipped one of her pigtails and picked up a tray full of drinks. “I gotta get back to work. You think we can ever have a Sunday not filled with drama and fights?”

I ran a hand over my messy hair and shook my head ruefully. “Sundays have never been a great day for me. I’ll catch you later, Shaw.”

“Bye, Rule.”

I made my way back out of the bar thinking that this had probably been the first time since I had met Shaw when she was just a kid that I had ever seen Shaw be Shaw. It made me a little nervous that when she didn’t have all her guards up and all her haughty defense mechanisms in place, she seemed so fallible, so undeniably human, so approachable, and so … attainable.

CHAPTER 4
Shaw

I counted the pile of money in front of me for the fifth time. I was having a hard time concentrating for a few reasons: first, the bar had gotten busy so I had stayed two hours past my shift and I was dragging; second, there were ten other girls all trying to cash out and the chatter was like a swarm of bees buzzing about purses and boys; third, Ayden kept watching me like a hawk, looking for something, but I didn’t know what; and finally, Loren Decker, my post-high-school Amy Rodgers, wouldn’t stop talking my ear off about Rule.

Loren was a living, breathing centerfold and was what happened when mean girls left high school and entered the real world. She was vapid, boring, and made more money than most of us combined when she was on the schedule because her job was to be flirty and come across as easy—things that were hardly a stretch for her. For some reason she was dying to get every single detail I possessed about Rule. She wanted to know how I knew him, how come he had never been in the bar before, how old he was, what he did for a living, if we were dating, if he had a girlfriend, if he liked blondes, and so on and so forth. It was endless, exhausting, and I think it bothered me that yet another bimbo was just tripping over herself to fall on him. Although I knew my feelings for Rule were my burden to bear alone, I wasn’t about to offer up my slutty coworker on a platter. So I just kept grunting responses and evading all the personal questions, which unfortunately didn’t stop her from rambling about how good-looking he was.

“I mean I don’t normally go for guys with all those tattoos and piercings like that, but oh my God, those eyes! Have you ever seen anything like them? They’re like minty toothpaste or something, so pretty! And his body, I bet he works out. I mean, I normally like a guy with a six-pack, but that tall, lean thing totally works with his look. What kind of girls does he normally go for? Are you sure he doesn’t have a girlfriend? Seriously, Shaw, I just want to lick that hoop he has on the side of his lip, like, so freaking bad. I can’t believe you’ve been friends with someone that sexy and haven’t gotten a piece. That’s, like, against nature.”

I hadn’t gotten a piece of anyone, ever, not that she needed to know that. Guys had tried and I had been tempted, but every time I was close to sealing the deal my brain short-circuited and reminded me that they weren’t who I really wanted and I shut down like a light going off. I looked up at her and narrowed my eyes.

“Lore, I’m trying to do my cash-out, can this wait?”

“Just give me his number,” she insisted.

I was close to losing it and ready to shove the pile of ones down her throat. Ayden must have sensed the storm brewing, because she settled in the seat next to me and leveled a dark look at the blonde. There was just something about Ayden that made people pay attention to her; whatever it was, I loved her for it.

“Lore, give the girl a break. It’s not like they’re besties. If you wanted to ask him out you should’ve done it while he was here.”

She made a face that probably made guys buy her things, but made me want to roll my eyes. “I would’ve but he was too busy checking out Shaw’s ass—that’s why I asked what was going on between them. I mean, he didn’t even give you a hug or anything when he left, but you looked at each other like you were about to start making out any second.”

Startled, I looked up at Ayden. Since when did Rule, who normally ignored me or pretended I didn’t exist, start checking anything on me out? She lifted her eyebrow.

“If Shaw runs into him anytime in the near future I’m sure she’ll pass it along that you want his number or she can just give him yours if he’s interested. Now, let’s talk about something really important: What do you want to do for your birthday? It’s only two weeks away.”

I groaned and gave up on trying to get an accurate count. Instead I just handed the money to Ayden and started sorting and stapling the credit card slips, which took far less brainpower. I hated my birthday. Normally, it was a fight between which parent and stepparent I was going to spend an awkward dinner with—when they bothered to remember, that is. Last year I just got a card from Dad with a check for a grand in it and a call from my mother with a promise of something when she found time—there was never time. Ayden had ended up taking me for sushi and to see some stupid romantic comedy, and the day passed, lackluster and unremarkable. Even the Archers tended to be low-key on my birthday. I think it reminded them that another year had passed and that Remy was still gone. Rome always sent me something from whatever part of the world he was in and, to date, his were always my favorite gifts. I guess since I was turning twenty this year I should try to make a big deal about it; I just didn’t want to.

“Why don’t we go dancing?” Loren suggested, and I looked at her like she had grown a third head. I didn’t really socialize with the girls from work, but not because I didn’t like them. Some of them were really sweet, and most of them were just like me and Ayden—struggling to pay bills and balance college, but they were usually also into drinking, partying, meeting guys, going out, and doing all the things that just didn’t register for me. Granted, I needed the actual income far less, but it gave me peace of mind every time either of my parents tried to use the fact they paid the bills for me as leverage to get me to do something they wanted. I didn’t need any more people in the world thinking I was fundamentally broken, so I just avoided those kinds of social interactions.

“Uh … I don’t dance.”

Ayden scowled at the blonde. “Plus, who invited you?”

She blinked heavily lashed eyes and wrinkled her nose. “I thought maybe since it’s your birthday Mr. Tall, Dark, and Tattooed would be around. I’m telling you ladies, I’m in stage-four lust and it can only be cured by Rule.”

Ayden and I shared a look and I went back to my stapling. “No, my birthday isn’t a big deal so Rule won’t be around. I like to keep it low-key.”

“You mean boring.”

I wasn’t friends with Loren; in fact I wasn’t even particularly fond of her, so I was about to tell her to stick it where the sun didn’t shine—which was pretty out of character for me—but Ayden just kept on talking like Loren wasn’t even there.

“Come on, Shaw, let’s do something fun. You know your parents are just going to stress you out, and you only turn twenty once. It needs to be fun and exciting.” She had a glimmer in her amber eyes and I knew she was cooking something up that I would be hard-pressed to talk her out of. I shoved the piles of paper into the drop bag and took the money Ayden handed me and did my tally. We always made good money, but for whatever reason today had been very profitable. I pulled my hair out of the ties and raked my nails across my scalp.

“Let’s talk about it later, okay? I just want to find Lou to walk us out, in case Gabe decided to show back up, and head home.”

She hooked her arm through mine and we made our way to the main entrance. “Do you think he would have the nerve to do that? I mean, Rule and his friends seemed pretty intent on getting the point across that he back off and Lou told him to scram or he was gonna kill him.”

“I don’t know, Ayd. He’s acting crazy. I never would have thought he would show up here and try to be all grabby and in my face. I don’t know what’s going on anymore. I mean, it isn’t like we had some great romance and I left him heartbroken or anything. We were lukewarm on our best days. Rule thinks he’s embarrassed that I dumped him, plain and simple.”

“He’s probably right.”

I made a face as Lou escorted us to my car. We said good-bye and headed home. I was trying so hard to make decisions that were best for everyone: I wanted Rule to have the love and support of his family, I wanted Margot to get help and stop vilifying her son, I wanted Gabe to get over his deal and just move on, and mostly I wanted to stop feeling so responsible for it all.

The next week went by in a blur. I had two tests, picked up an extra shift at work, and was doing a very complicated game of Dodge-the-Ex. Gabe also went to DU and even though he was prelaw and typically on the other end of campus, he seemed to be popping up around every corner and called me at least twice a day. I was considering getting a new number, but it seemed like such a hassle that I just sent his calls to voice mail and got really good at pretending I didn’t see him.

Rome called and said Margot wasn’t doing any better. She was flat-out refusing to go see a grief counselor and was now blaming Rule for the fact that I refused to come to Brookside on the weekends. According to Rome she was insisting Rule had somehow brainwashed me and turned me against her. He wasn’t comfortable leaving her alone just yet even though Rule was harassing him to come to Denver and hang out. I could tell he was feeling the familiar tug I often felt of being caught between his brother and his mom. I was bummed he wasn’t going to be around on my birthday, but he had so much on his plate I didn’t say anything.

When the weekend rolled around I was tempted to give my Sunday shift away just to avoid one more weekend of drama, but the bar was busy, and if Rule came in with his friends I didn’t see him. It was still weird not having to wrangle him for family brunch every Sunday, but when my shift was over and there hadn’t been any headaches or accusations or hurt feelings, I breathed my first sigh of relief in what felt like years. I was feeling so mellow I let Ayden talk me into skipping a study group and going to grab Mexican food instead. It was the first time in forever that I just felt like me and I almost didn’t know what to do with myself.

Since it was the start of a new semester and I felt like I was drowning in homework, I gave away my Friday and Sunday shifts, and I wasn’t scheduled Saturday since it was my birthday and everyone at the bar knew that Lou just loved me and would murder anyone who tried to make me work on the day I turned twenty.

By the time Friday afternoon rolled around, I still hadn’t heard from either of my folks so I figured I was off the hook for forced family time. I did receive a text from Margot asking me to reconsider this Sunday for my birthday. I had replied that I would gladly come if Rule was invited as well and hadn’t heard anything back. Ayden was being secretive about what she had planned and it was making me nervous. I would’ve been happy with sushi and the movies again but she kept insisting that we needed to branch out, have an adventure and do something new. Those words and her take-no-prisoners attitude seemed like a recipe for disaster, but I was trying to stay positive because she was only trying to be nice to me.

I was walking out of my anatomy class and texting one of the girls from work to remind her that she was working my closing shift that night when I bumped into someone and immediately recoiled in fear and irritation. Gabe was standing in front of me looking as wrinkle-free and immaculately groomed as always. His dark hair looked like he had been running his hands through it nonstop and when he reached out to steady me I scrambled back so fast that I almost fell backward onto my ass.

“What are you doing?” I wanted to sound indignant and hostile, but my voice cracked and I had to clear my throat to regain my composure. His blue eyes searched mine intently and I wondered how I had ever found him attractive—now he just weirded me out.

“Uh … you aren’t returning any of my calls and you’ve been really hard to pin down lately.”

“That’s because I don’t want to talk to you or see you. Get out of my way.”

“Shaw, wait.” He held up a hand and dug something out of his pocket and held it out toward me. “I know your birthday is tomorrow and I just wanted to get you something to say I’m so sorry for how I’ve been acting. I was just crazy that you might have moved on to that freak, but your mom explained that it isn’t like that between the two of you. Here, take it.” He shoved the velvet box toward me and I backed away like he was holding a live snake in his hand.

“I’m not taking that from you. I’m not taking anything from you. Leave me alone, Gabe, I’m serious.”

“Look, Shaw, you can’t honestly believe there can ever really be anything between you and that guy. Your mom told me you’ve been carrying a torch for him for years and that he’s never even looked twice at you. You’re just not his type—you’re too good for him and he knows it. Just give me another chance; we make so much sense together.”

I wanted to punch him, but I just let the ice that traveled through me at his words coat all the anger I felt starting to build.

“No.” I didn’t say anything else, just “no,” because I didn’t need to explain myself or my feelings or the fact that I knew most of what he said about Rule was true. I wasn’t too good for him; I was just too ME for him to see me as anything other than he always had, and I made peace with that years ago. I took a few more stumbling steps backward and then turned on my heel and broke into a full-on jog to get away from him. I think he called my name, but I didn’t care; I just bolted. He was starting to really freak me out and the fact that my own mother was giving out the most intimate details of my life to him just made me want to vomit. I couldn’t believe that a woman who didn’t even bother to make note of when I was moving out of her house for college had noticed how I felt about Rule. If Gabe didn’t knock it off I was going to have to look into not only changing my phone number but also possibly get a restraining order against him.

When I got home the apartment was empty, so like a dork I made sure all the doors were double locked and that the deadbolt on the front door was closed. I hid out in my room and did homework and wallowed in the self-pity that was threatening to drown me. I didn’t consider myself an overly outgoing or optimistic person; it came from years of being overlooked at home and socially awkward at school. For a while Remy had managed to pull my head out of the privileged shell I normally cowered in. I had thought for sure that when I left Brookside and went off to college I would come into my own, but instead Remy had died and I was still trying so hard to be all kinds of things to people who just didn’t seem to appreciate my efforts.

I dressed nice and minded my p’s and q’s so that my parents wouldn’t totally forget I existed. I babysat Rule and put up with his awful behavior because I wanted Margot and Dale to remember that he needed and deserved their love just as much as Remy had. I wore a ridiculous outfit to work and put up with silly girls and drunk customers because Ayden deserved a solid roommate she could rely on. And mostly I acted like interacting with Rule, watching him plow his way through the greater population of young adult women in Denver, didn’t bother me and didn’t kill something inside me. And doing all these things day in and day out was starting to turn the little bits that were really me into a shadow.

I knew the reason I had initially agreed to go out with Gabe was because he, in a very vague sense, reminded me of Rule. He had dark hair and light eyes, and although he was preppy and clean-cut, he still had a little bit of mischief in him that just got past my normal reservations. I had known within the first few dates there was no spark—there never was. I was always looking for something, or rather someone, that wasn’t there. Gabe was polite and comfortable until he realized I didn’t want things to get physical. Six months was a long time to string someone along, I knew that, but it didn’t justify the bizarre obsessive behavior he was showing now, and it was just one more burden I felt I had to shoulder.

I was so ready to just let it all go. I changed into a pair of sweats and curled up on the bed to watch some Netflix. Knowing that Ayden wouldn’t be home from her shift until after two, I was left to pout alone. I should be out and about, should have a phone full of friends I could call to spend a rare Friday night off with, but I didn’t, and that was just sad. All I needed was a couple of cats and a pint of ice cream to make the pathetic picture complete. Sometime after my second romantic comedy and Chinese delivery I vowed to fully embrace whatever Ayden had in store for me for my birthday tomorrow because what I was doing now was depressing. My roomie was right; I needed some fun, needed to lighten up, and I was on board with however she decided to make that happen. I fell asleep watching yet another dorky girl get a fantastic makeover because for whatever reason the guy she longed for couldn’t see how beautiful she was under her glasses and messy hair.

I woke up the next morning to happy birthday texts from Rome and my father. As usual, there was nothing from my mom and I hated to admit I was sad that Margot didn’t send one. I decided to make breakfast and headed to the kitchen. I was surprised by a beautiful bouquet on the kitchen table and recoiled when I saw who the card was from. I was seriously going to have to do something about Gabe.

Ayden was an early riser and she went running every morning no matter how late she got in from work the night before. She motioned to the flowers with her mug and scowled. “They were on the porch when I got back from my run.”

“I think I might have to get a restraining order.”

“Isn’t his dad a judge or something?”

I sighed. “Yeah.” Getting Gabe to back off might be harder than I thought. “Do you want me to make breakfast?”

She shook her dark head and her eyes glittered at me with excitement. “No, I have the best birthday planned for you in the history of birthdays. First, we’re going to Lucile’s.”

I loved Lucile’s. It was a popular Cajun restaurant in Washington Park and probably one of the few places outside of New Orleans where you could find an honest-to-god beignet.

“Yay! Sounds good. What else is on the docket for today?”

“Shopping.”

I made a face because I hate shopping. I lived in a ridiculous uniform for work and expensive, name-brand clothes that my parents insist I wear because I’m supposed to be dressing for the job I want and not the job I have—apparently doctors of any sort don’t walk around in jeans and T-shirts even when they’re off the clock.

Seeing my face, she grinned evilly. “No, we aren’t going rich-girl shopping, we’re going normal, everyday college-girl shopping. We’re going to the mall, we’re going to my favorite thrift store, we’re going to that cool vintage store on Pearl Street, and you, my friend, are not allowed to spend more than fifty bucks on any one thing. There will be no two-hundred-dollar heels, no five-hundred-dollar cashmere sweater sets, and no perfectly tailored slacks that are hand-stitched by blind monks in the Andes or whatever. We’re just going to be two normal friends spending a day blowing our tips on useless crap.”

That actually sounded like fun and something I’d never done. “And then,” she said, her whiskey-tinted eyes widening dramatically, “we’re going to the salon and getting our hair done and mani-pedis. One of the girls in my inorganic chemistry class has this great hair—she looks like Rainbow Brite—she swears by this place. So we’re going to get all pretty, put on our new, normal-girl clothes, and go have dinner at that Brazilian place we’ve both been dying to try.”

It sounded awesome—all of it sounded awesome. I was about to launch myself at her in a huge hug of gratitude when she held up a hand. “I’m not done.” She disappeared into her room for a minute and came back out with a card in a pink envelope. “Then you are going to take this very cool, very necessary birthday present I got you, and come out with me. I don’t mean out to Dave and Buster’s or Old Chicago, I mean out out. I will cram a good time down your pretty little throat if it freaking kills me.”

I opened the card with mild trepidation. I didn’t know what she meant by out out. Inside the card was a shiny wrapped present that at first glance looked like a credit card. After I read her sweet birthday wishes I carefully pulled the paper off and gasped when I saw what was looking back up at me. “Ayd, I can’t use this.”

The ID had my face on it, my birthday—only one year older—and looked exactly like a Colorado driver’s license. In fact, it looked so much like the one in my wallet there was hardly any difference.

“Oh, yes you can. You’ve spent twenty years being everybody’s good little girl, and I’m sick of you killing yourself over it. Most girls your age go out, sneak into clubs, kiss boys, have sloppy one-night stands, get into ridiculous, drama-filled fights with their girlfriends, and you, Shaw, you don’t do any of that. Tonight you are taking that ID and coming out with me and you will act like every idiot twenty-year-old I know. We’re going to drink too much, act silly, and have fun—you deserve it. I can’t remember the last time I saw you smile or laugh. You’re letting your soul wither away trying to be someone you’re just not and I can’t stand by and watch it happen anymore.”

“I turn twenty-one next year.” I’m not sure why I thought that was a valid argument to all her more-than-accurate points, but for some reason it’s what popped out of my mouth.

She shook her dark head. “Who cares? You’re twenty today and you’re living like you’re fifty.” It stung because on the last trip to Brookside, Rule had said pretty much the same thing. With a sigh I remembered my resolution last night to just turn myself over to Ayden’s plan, to for once just let go. I tucked some hair behind my ears and squared my shoulders.

“Okay.”

Ayden looked up under raised eyebrows. “Okay?”

“Yep. Let’s do this. Let the birthday fun and debauchery commence.”

She squealed loud enough to make my ears hurt and rushed around the table to wrap me up in a hug that squeezed the life out of me. “Trust me, Shaw, you will never forget today.”

And she was right, because by the end of the night this birthday would prove to be life changing.

Breakfast was amazing. We stuffed ourselves so full of fried goodness that by the time we hit the mall I needed to do a few laps just to keep moving. I tried on a million pairs of jeans and ended up buying quite a few. I grabbed a pair of Chuck Taylors that I’d always wanted but had never had the nerve to buy because they would immediately be deemed inappropriate. I stocked up on boring old T-shirts and tank tops. At the thrift store I scooped up an awesome old-school leather jacket and a couple Western-style shirts with pearl buttons that I knew would look awesome with my new skinny jeans. At the vintage store I went a little crazier because I just fell in love with all the fifties- and sixties-style dresses. I looked like a character out of Mad Men in a few of them and like Bettie Page minus the height in a couple more. I bought a pair of heels that were peacock blue and had sequined feathers on the side and a sweet pillbox hat that I probably would never wear but adored. More important, I laughed with Ayden for hours while we tried on one thing after another. I felt like a giant weight was off my chest. It was fun, plain and simple, and the fact I had forgotten what that felt like was just sad.

At the salon I got a hot pink mani-pedi and, just for kicks, had them add little black stars. It was cool and totally unlike the normal pale and pearly colors I went for. The lady doing it had bright green dreadlocks and a tattoo across her forehead so I was thrilled when she grinned at me and told me she approved. Everyone who worked at this salon had a cool, rock-and-roll kind of vibe. I normally would have felt out of place and reserved, but they were all so nice and friendly that it was impossible to do anything but relax and have a good time. The guy in charge of my hair was a big, obviously gay African American with a shiny bald head with a big eye tattooed on it. He was dressed head to toe in leopard print and was wearing shoes that certainly cost more than mine. He was sweet and told me my hair was gorgeous and suggested I just put some layers in it to give it body and life. I was all on board and even asked him if he could do something new with the color. My hair was so pale I normally avoided dying it simply because it would just be too extreme. His dark eyes gleamed in excitement when I asked for something kicky, but still respectable.

What I got was my normal ash blond with a shadow of chestnut brown underneath. It was awesome and different but understated enough not to be alarming. My favorite part was that he had bisected my superstraight bangs in half and added the darker color to one side. It was trendy and hip and so different from what my hair normally looked like. I hugged him hard in glee on my way out. He hugged me back, more than likely because I tipped him enough to take a weekend trip, but who cared, I looked awesome.

We ran back to the house to get dolled up for dinner. I put on one of my new outfits, a supertight pencil skirt and a sheer blue top with a black cami underneath. I curled my new hair, put on more makeup than I normally wore, and decided, just for the hell of it, to wear my awesome black boots that looked like something a Harley-Davidson model would wear. They gave my look a certain edge that I was feeling after a day of letting the real Shaw off her perpetual leash.

At the restaurant, Ayden’s slinky red dress, which made her long legs look endless, had our waiter practically drooling into our water every time he stopped by to refill our glasses. She made me try out my new ID by ordering a drink, and it worked like a charm. Before I knew it we were both feeling no pain and having a great time bouncing from club to club in LoDo and hitting the hip dive bars in Capitol Hill. I was surprised that I didn’t even need to show the fake ID at most places—turns out a tight skirt and exposed cleavage work just as well.

I was laughing hysterically at Ayden doing an impression of some guy flailing around on the dance floor. We had drawn a fair amount of attention everywhere we’d gone and had had to pay for very few drinks. At the moment a guy from CU–Boulder was telling me all about his illustrious football career, or rather he was telling my boobs about it since I don’t think he had looked up from the girls once. Ayden was rolling her eyes and trying to avoid some guy in a banker suit who was offering to do her taxes for free if she gave him her number. It was silly and fun and I didn’t have to work hard at the flirting or being charming. I was well on my way to being wasted, so conversation was out. All I had to do was smile and sit prettily on the bar stool, two things I was apparently getting really good at. Another cosmo, which I definitely didn’t need, had just appeared before me and Mr. Football was leaning even closer to me when some sixth sense, or maybe it was my fight-or-flight response, suddenly kicked into overdrive.

I lifted my head and swiveled around on the stool, practically kneeing the leering football player. I looked around, craning my neck to see what had my skin suddenly feeling too tight, but all I saw was the regular bar crowd mixing and mingling. The football player was trying to get my attention back by running a finger up and down my bare arm; I guess it was supposed to be sexy, but now I was drunk and unnerved and I wanted him to get lost. I was suddenly ready to go, and looked around for Ayden so we could get a cab and get out of there. Before I could find her a warm hand slid under the heavy fall of my hair and settled on the back of my neck. A deep voice growled in my ear, “How in the fuck did you get in here, Casper? And what did you do to your hair?”

The football player’s eyes went huge because, well, Rule was Rule. Gone was the purple hair spiked up in a crazy mess. Now he had it all shaved on the sides and bleached out into a startling white Mohawk that was several inches tall. He had on a tight black shirt with a flaming skull in a Viking helmet on it, showing off both sleeves of tattoos, a pair of black jeans with a hole in the knee, and his heavy black motorcycle boots. He should have looked sloppy and unkempt next to the V-neck-sweater-wearing footballer, but he didn’t. He looked hot and rumpled and clearly not someone to be messed with. The footballer pushed away from the bar in a hurry and vanished into the crowd.

I was drunk, admittedly probably not the best state to try to go toe-to-toe with Rule, but I liked my hair and he wasn’t going to rain on all my birthday vibes, especially since he clearly didn’t even remember what day it was. I shook his grip loose and sucked back the tart drink in one swallow.

“What are you doing here?”

He lifted an eyebrow at me and took up the same spot the football player had vacated, looking down my low-cut top. “This bar is right around the corner from the shop—Nash and I stop by all the time after work. I just finished with a client. I know they ID at the door, how did you get in?”

I flipped my hair over my shoulder like I had seen endless annoying girls do, only I practically fell off my stool because that last drink was letting me know just how bad an idea it had been to chug it. I grabbed the edge of the bar and Rule reached out a hand to steady me. I felt like it burned where he gripped my upper arm. Definitely should have listened to my flight response a minute ago. I put a hand on my forehead because it was warm and I suddenly felt clammy. “I need to go.” It was too hot, too loud, and if I didn’t get out into some fresh air, like now, I was pretty sure I was going to puke everywhere.

I tried to climb to my feet but the room started to spin around like crazy and I had to grab on to Rule’s biceps just to stay upright. I was so glad I opted for my boots instead of heels—I would have ended up on my face otherwise.

“Who drove?” Rule’s voice was coming from far away and he smelled really good. With a sigh I leaned into him and buried my nose in his throat. He was so tall I had to use my leverage on his arms to reach. “Seriously, Shaw, how did you get here?”

“Ayden and I, we took a cab.”

“Where is she?”

“With a banker. I need to go home.” I felt my boozy legs start to wobble and he locked a heavy arm around my waist to keep me anchored to his chest. It was nice. Not bothering to think about it, I wrapped both my arms up around his neck. He felt as good as I always knew he would.

“Her roommate is running around somewhere; wanna see if you can grab her? I’m gonna walk her to our place.” I wasn’t sure who he was talking to but a familiar voice rumbled an affirmative. The next thing I knew I was being half marched, half carried out the front door of the bar. The cold January air made me snap my head back and Rule moved me from the front of his body to his side, securing me with an arm around my shoulders. I hooked an arm around his lean waist and cuddled into him. I knew logically it was the vodka making me act crazy, but I couldn’t stop it.

“We’re only three blocks from my place. I’ll pour a gallon of coffee down your throat and shove some chips or a frozen burrito in your face and get you a cab. You’re even paler than normal and if you try to get in a car right now you’re gonna puke everywhere. Why are you drunk and dressed all sexified tonight anyway?”

I shivered a little as the wind breezed across my bare legs. I turned my cold nose into his ribs and inhaled. He smelled like the antiseptic from the shop, like cigarettes from Nash, like the hair product in his Mohawk, and underneath it all the warm, earthy smell that was just Rule. In the six years I had known him, I’d never been this close to him for this long. It was enough to send my sex-deprived and alcohol-soaked system into overdrive.

“You think I look sexy?” That seemed like the important part of the conversation. We stopped at a stop sign and he looked down at me with exasperation clear in those pale eyes.

“Shaw, every guy in the bar was circling you like you were bait in the water during shark week. You know you look good, what I think shouldn’t matter. What should matter is why you’re suddenly dressing, looking, and acting like a different person. What’s going on with you?”

I wanted to scowl up at him but that seemed too hard, especially when his T-shirt rode up in the back and my arm was brushing against nice, warm skin. I stumbled off the curb as we made our way down another block and his familiar Victorian apartment building came into sight. He pulled me in tighter to his side and I didn’t even try to hide the soft sigh that fell out of me.

“Everyone thinks I need to act a certain way—you, my parents, your parents, the girls from work, Gabe. Everybody always wants me to be this, do that, walk this line, toe that line and I’m sick of it. Maybe for just once I just want to act how I want and feel how I want to feel without someone judging me and expecting something from me in return.”

He was quiet as we walked up the front steps to the apartment. Maybe he was trying to translate my drunken speech because even I could hear that I was slurring between my chattering teeth. He pushed the door open and twisted the lock. It was warm inside so I shook off my jacket and pushed my shaking hands through my hair. I turned my blurry eyes on him and almost swallowed my tongue. He was leaning back against the door watching me with hooded eyes. He wasn’t throwing sarcastic barbs at me or ignoring me, he was just watching me. I blew out a breath and tasted the tartness of the cranberry juice across my tongue.

I took a few unsteady steps toward him. He was so tall that I had to stand on the very tips of my toes to reach his ear. I put a hand on his shoulder and one on the door beside his head and whispered, “It’s my birthday, Rule.”

I expected him to move away, to gently shove me to the side, but he uncrossed his arms and placed his hands on either side of my waist. Those pale eyes flared for a second and his mouth twisted down, making the hoop on the side of his mouth glint at me. “I’m sorry, Shaw. I had no idea.”

I shrugged it off and moved a step closer to him. “It’s okay—my own family didn’t even remember it.” I pressed so close to him that my chest was flat against his. I could feel that the close proximity was having an effect on him. If I hadn’t had to concentrate on my balance since I was on my toes I might have grinned at that. All I had ever wanted in life was to affect him, to get him to feel something, anything, other than simple tolerance for me.

“I know what you can do for me to make this officially the best birthday ever.” I wanted to sound sure, to sound sexy and sultry, but I’m pretty sure I just sounded horny and drunk. I didn’t care. I was here—the real me—the one who wanted him so desperately and always had. There was no chance at putting her back in her cage now.

I didn’t think—didn’t reason—just used the grip I had on him to pull myself up even taller and plant my mouth solidly over his. The ring in his lip was shockingly cold against my own; the rest of him was undeniably hot and hard. It was everything I had ever wanted, and even though he didn’t kiss me back, I still ranked it up there as the best birthday gift ever. I went to settle back down on my booted feet when something shifted, something changed, and Rule went from a passive recipient to something else entirely.

CHAPTER 5
Rule

Shaw was drunk—really, really drunk. She was also dressed like something out of a retro fantasy and had on those boots that make me want to drool. I had been grumpy and moody all week—my friends had noticed, my clients had noticed, the chick I’d walked out on on Saturday night noticed. I couldn’t put my finger on it. At first I thought it was Rome; I was pissed he wouldn’t just tell Mom to grow the fuck up and get over her shit. I wanted him to spend time with me, to have some good times before shipping back out to the desert, but he wasn’t ready to give up hope that he could fix our fractured family, and I didn’t want to fight with my brother, the freaking war hero. I thought maybe I just needed to get laid, but the hot blonde I went home with on Saturday had started to annoy me in the car on the way to her place. By the time we got to her room the last thing I wanted was to see her naked, so I bolted. Sunday came and went and my mood got darker. The guys suggested going to the Goal Line, thinking maybe I needed a dose of verbal ass-kicking from an ice-cold blonde to get me out of my moodiness, but I refused and instead spent the day brooding and playing Call of Duty. I had no idea what my problem was, but now, with Shaw all but plastered to the front of me, I was starting to get an idea.

I hadn’t been able to get the sight of Shaw and her ruffle-covered ass out of my head for days. Call me shallow, call me a chauvinistic pig, but there was just something about seeing her all sexed up and barely dressed that had made me look at her in an entirely new light. It was like being introduced to her all over again; the prim and proper little lady that Remy had worshipped overtaken by a sexy coed that had me up at night thinking X-rated thoughts.

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