For Real (Rules of Love, Book One) (23 page)

“You know, this is just like that scene in
Titanic
. But without the nudity. And the ship sinking and all.”

He glances up at me and back to the paper.

“Actually, the ship sinking happened after the nude drawing. So those two things aren’t really related.”

“You’ve seen
Titanic
?” I don’t know a whole lot of guys that would sit through that.

“Listen, I wasn’t allowed to watch anything growing up, so when I got free, I watched EVERYTHING. That includes
Titanic.
” I snort again. I wonder what else he’s seen. I’m about to ask, but he shushes me. Things are extra funny now and it’s hard to keep the giggling to a minimum. Stupid whiskey.

“Will you stay still?” Jett finally says, but he’s laughing at me. It’s more fun to make him mad than stay still. But then I relax into it and watch him work. I could do that all day.

Things are quiet and calm, but then the door bangs open.

“Your fucking phone is blowing up because of her damn friends. Whoa. I hope I’m not interrupting something,” he says when he sees what we’re doing. Well, we’re not even doing anything. It could have been a lot worse.

“We were just about to ravage each other,” I say as he starts to back out of the room. “Want to watch?” Whiskey makes words fall out of my mouth.

Javi puts his hands up.

“Noooo thank you.” Jett takes the phone and Javi closes the door.

“Holy shit. I don’t know how your friends got my number, but they’ve ALL called and texted me, asking if I knew where you were.” He shows me the phone and I roll my eyes.

“I left my phone at home when I stormed out.”

“Well, what do you want to do about it?”

I don’t really care.

“Just message them back that I’m fine, but don’t tell them you’re with me because then they’ll come here.” I don’t want to see them yet. I don’t want to deal with them yet, either.

“Okay. If that’s what you want.” He clearly thinks I should confront this, but they’re not his friends. Or former friends. Unless something changes drastically, I’m done with them.

“That’s what I want. Now go back to drawing me,” I say, resuming my pose as he sends the messages on his phone.

He gives me a look, but turns the phone off and then sets it down.

“Whatever you say, Mona Lisa.”

I fall asleep while Jett is drawing, and he wakes me up as he’s putting the blankets over me. I mumble something, but he shushes me and tucks me in.

Hours later I wake up with my head aching a bit. I’m alone in Jett’s bed. Where the crap is he? I get up and grope for some of my other clothes so I can change out of my jeans. I slip on a large t-shirt and a pair of holey shorts and stumble out into the living room. Jett’s on the couch in his shirt and boxers.

“Come to bed,” I say, poking him. He opens his eyes and blinks at me.

“We don’t have to do that now that Javi knows.”

“I don’t want to sleep alone and I don’t want to argue, so just come to bed, asshole.” I grab his hand and tug and he gets up and follows me back to his room. I shove him toward the bed and he gets in and I climb in after him.

Much better.

Within moments I’m asleep again.

“Let me see it!” I say the next morning when Jett and I get up. I’m feeling a lot better, and the headache is gone, thankfully. We both have classes, but there is no way I’m going today. Not happening. I have NEVER played hooky before. I always thought people who did that didn’t give a shit about their education, or respect how much money it was costing, but I need a break today. Just one day.

Jett agrees to my plan easier than I thought he would, but he won’t agree to let me see the drawing he made of me last night.

“Show me,” I whine, resting my head on his shoulder.

“It’s not done yet. When it is, I’ll show you.” He rubs his hand in my hair, messing it up even more than it was already messed from sleep.

“Asshole. So if you’re not going to show me, what are we going to do today?”

“I have a few ideas. Do you have any ideas?”

“We should do something fun. Something we wouldn’t normally do. We should also go out somewhere. Less chance that my friends will show up here to track me down. And I’m going to wear my new Batman shirt.” I’d left it here last time.

“You can absolutely wear your shirt.” He smiles and pauses before he continues. “You sure you don’t want to see them?”

“No, I absolutely do not.”

“I get it if you don’t want to forgive them.” Despite mussing my hair a second earlier, he starts smoothing it out again.

“It’s not really about forgiveness. It’s about them knowing that they can’t treat me that way. Or anyone. No one should have to feel the way they made me feel and I’m pissed that I even let it happen in the first place. I should have put a stop to it a long time ago. But it was gradual and they were my friends. It’s crazy what you let people get away with when you care about them.” Even more than being mad at them, I’m mad at myself. I’ve never thought of myself as a doormat, but I’d been doing it for years and justified it. They treat me that way because I let them.

Well that shit stops now.

“I think we should do something bad. Not illegal bad. Just maybe a little against the rules,” I say.

“Okay then. Rule breaking it is. Come on, get in the shower.”

“Why, do I stink?” He wrinkles his nose and nods. I have half a mind to stick his face in my armpit, but I don’t.

When I get out of the shower and dress in the bathroom, I can definitely smell something delicious.

I open the door and Jett is sitting on the couch with two fast food bags.

“Breakfast to go. Get ready, princess, time is wasting.” I don’t know how he had time to get dressed, fix his hair and get breakfast all while I was in the shower, but I have the feeling Javier might have had something to do with it. Speaking of him, he’s MIA.

“Come on, come on,” Jett says, grabbing my hand and the fast food bags and tugging me out the door.

“We should probably take your car since I know you hate mine.”

“No, no. We’re living on the edge today. Let’s take yours.”

“Living on the edge. I like it.” He holds the door open and I get in. Then I peer into the bag. Looks like sausage, egg and cheese croissants, hash browns in one and two cups of coffee in the other.

“I added the cinnamon and nutmeg,” he says with a smile.

“Thanks, Fake Boyfriend.” I pull out one of the sandwiches and hand it to him. He sticks it in his mouth as he starts up the car and backs out of the driveway.

“Okay,” he says after taking a bite out of his sandwich. I munch mine. It’s greasy and fabulous and just what I need. “So I got a lot of ideas for today from movies. So they’re not original, but they are kind of awesome.”

I take out the coffee cups and put them in the cupholders. They rattle around a little and slop on the floor. Pretty sure Jett doesn’t care. In fact, he hits the gas and starts speeding.

“This is the first rule we’re breaking. Speeding! Oh shit, a cop.” He slams on the brakes and goes back down to the speed limit.

“Nice try,” I say as he keeps glancing in the rearview at the cop car. I can’t see it, but he can, so he keeps exactly to the speed limit, even when we get out on the highway. I finish my first sandwich and start on my second. I also keep holding Jett’s sandwich up for him to bite into, because he needs both hands to drive and shift.

We finish both our breakfasts when he takes an exit off the highway and then we’re driving through a small town. Despite it being so close to the college, I’ve never been here. He keeps looking around as we drive down the main street, all the while muttering to himself.

“Aha!” he exclaims, yanking the car over onto a side street and then pulling into a parking lot. I look at the brick building next to the lot. A library. Still not picking up what he’s putting down.

“Come on.” He gets out and waits for me to open my own door. I do and he reaches for my hand, and then we’re running toward the library, up the steps and through the double doors.

“Slow down!” I have short legs.

“Can’t slow down.” With that he starts running again, much to the shock of the woman at the desk in the entryway.

“Sorry!” I call at her as Jett tugs me toward the stairs. We dash up those too and then he stops at the top of a balcony that looks out over the lobby. It’s a beautiful library and reminds me a little bit of
Beauty and the Beast
. Lots of wood and thick red rugs and lamps.

“What are we doing here?”

“We are breaking the rules,” he whispers. “You know how you’re not supposed to yell in a library?”

“Yeah,” I whisper back.

“Well, we’re going to break that rule and then we are going to run away.” I look down. It’s early, so there are only a few patrons in the library, and a few on the computers to one side of the room. Other than the woman at the front desk, no one has noticed us looking down at them.

“Ready?” he says, his eyes bright.

“What are we going to yell?”

“How about our safe words?”

I really, really don’t want to yell that in a library, but what the hell? I’m an uptight person. I know this. Maybe what I need is to loosen up a bit.

“One,” I whisper.

“Two,” he continues.

“Three,” we say together.

“Perspicacious!”

“Necrophilia!” As soon as we do it, I have a fit of the giggles and Jett tugs my hand back into the stacks of books.

“I can’t believe we did that,” I whisper. I hear footsteps on the stairs, and I have the feeling that we’re about to get thrown out. Jett puts his finger to his lips and we duck down behind the stacks as the lady from the front desk starts looking for us. We sneak around her and head for the steps, dashing down as quick as we can and out the door. A few people stare at us, and I wave as we run back to Jett’s car as if we’ve robbed the place. Sure, it’s childish, but sometimes doing something childish is the best.

We’re both breathing hard as Jett peels out of the parking lot and gets back on the road. And then we both have a fit of the giggles.

“That was so stupid, Jett.”

“I know. But I thought we should start out dumb and work our way up to awesome.”

“Good plan.” My stomach hurts from laughing as Jett starts speeding again to our next destination.

“I know this is your day, but can I make a suggestion?”

“You’re not going to want to go back to the library and dance on the balcony, are you?”

“No, Judd Nelson, that’s not my idea. My idea is to go to a store that sells furniture and hop in one of the beds and take a nap. Come on, it would be hilarious.” His look of skepticism is not encouraging.

“Okay, we’ll do that, as long as we take pictures of it.”

We end up taking pictures of ALL of it. Sleeping in the bed at the furniture store, racing carts, prancing around in stupid hats, going to a bookstore and rearranging some of the titles in odd places, buying tickets for one movie and sneaking into another. In addition, we bring in our own lunch, which includes several chicken sandwiches, fries and two sodas. It’s the most fun I’ve had in a longer time than I’d like to think about. We also leave cranes everywhere we go, and take pictures of those as well.

I don’t worry about my friends or what they’re thinking of me, or my classes, or my family, or anything like that. It’s just Jett and me and we’re young and having fun.

I realize something else when the two of us are sharing our fries at the movies.

I care about him. A lot. I’m not sure if you could call it love, but it’s something real close to that. Or at least it’s the closest to love I’ve ever come.

This is one of those times when you need a best friend, but I’m on the outs with mine right now, so I keep it to myself as Jett and I drive back to his place. We’re going to stay in tonight and Javi is going to join us for dinner. Jett hasn’t mentioned my friends all day, but I know that I need to at least tell them where I am. Like they don’t know.

Jett helps me carry the groceries into his apartment and Javier cheers us as we walk in.