Making the Rules (The Rules #1) (6 page)

Chapter 9

Three Days Later

Kendal

Prepare for end of life? How the fuck did someone do that?

I hadn't told Damon or anyone else about my conversation with Dr. Lewis. I just couldn't handle the sympathy that would come from such a conversation, especially from Damon. Bethany had ignored me on Tuesday when she showed up for her TA duties, which was fine. It was easier than having to talk about bullshit when the real stuff that mattered sat on the tip of my tongue.

I needed to get the dark emotions rolling inside of me out, but I wasn't quite sure how.

Having lunch with Damon and dinner with the pretty young nurse from the hospital would help. Maybe.

Eliza was waiting outside of my office as I approached that morning, a smug look on her face.

"There you are." She lifted her watch and tapped it. "Late. Late. Late."

"I'm fashionably late." I shrugged and dangled my keys between us. "Move and let me open the door. You can come in and give me hell while I take a load off."

"You do look like a man with a lot on his mind." She moved back as I got the door opened and unloaded my stuff.

I turned and motioned for her to take the seat across from my desk. "I'm a single thirty-one-year-old professor with a pretty face and a motorcycle. Why wouldn't I have a lot on my mind?"

She laughed and dropped down across from me. "You missed our department meeting yesterday. Why?"

"Ahh shit. Did I really?" I turned and looked up at my calendar. The meeting was written in red handwriting and circled four times. "Did I write that?"

"No, I did." She chuckled. "Yesterday while you were out of your office, after you missed the meeting."

"I did it on purpose." I gave her my full attention as I rested my forearms on my desk. "I couldn't handle another room of people staring at me."

"I get that." She tilted her head to the side a little. "Tell me what's up with you and Heather. Are you seeing her?"

"What? Hell no." I leaned back in my chair and tried to figure out where Eliza was going with the conversation.

"You should. She's beautiful, young, funny..."

"We fucked in college. A lot." I blurted it out before I lost my nerve. "Like more than you'd want to know about. We're both pretending not to know each other, but I fucking can't stand seeing her, Eliza. It's like having someone dig up your worst memories and slash them in your face over and over."

"Oh. Wow." She crossed her legs and stared at me for a few seconds before speaking again. "She talks so highly of you."

"She wants to get together again."

"Like, sex?"

"No, well, I don't know. Whatever she wants, I'm not that boy anymore. I'm a different guy altogether. That bastard was buried when I got my diploma." I brushed my fingers over my lips wondering why the hell I felt comfortable enough to blurt out my darkest shit to a colleague, especially an older woman like Eliza. She was all I had at the moment and it was eating me alive.

"I see. Have you told her all of this? That you're not at all interested anymore?"

"Yes." I stood and slipped my hands into my pockets before I started to pace the small space behind my desk. "She's not going to take no for an answer."

"She said that?"

I glanced over at Eliza. "Yes. She did."

"Go tell Mark, Kendal. That's sexual harassment."

I snorted. "Very funny. As if anyone would take my word over hers."

"All of us would." She stood as well.

"No, you would, but no one else would. I have two strikes against me. One more, whether it's my fault or not and all my years of working hard to come teach right here at UT are gone. Lost." I started to pace again as I studied the carpet beneath me. "She's going to cut my legs out from underneath me unless I give in to her."

"And you really believe this?"

"Hell yeah. I'm half tempted to just give in, but some part of me believes in love. What she and I would have..." I pointed to myself and to the door, "it wouldn't be anything but two people using each other. I just can't do it."

"Good for you. Most men would fall over themselves to get a woman like Heather to notice them."

I snorted. "And they would soon realize the error of their ways."

"Maybe." She walked to the door and paused. "You need to talk with Mark, Kendal. This isn't something to play around with."

"Maybe so. I'll think about it."

"Is there someone else? Another woman who has your attention?"

Dana fluttered by my mind, but I released it quickly. She was a young nurse with a boyfriend who was headed halfway across the country in a year. She was off limits too. It was almost concerning how bad the idea of not getting to invest any of myself in her felt. She wasn't a pupil who needed training or instruction.

No, she seemed like a woman who needed a man. A good one. Something I wasn't.

"Kendal?" Eliza spoke softly.

"Hm? Oh, sorry. No, there is no one else. I'm not that lucky, my friend. Not yet at least."

*

"Wait a minute. You're letting this slutty bitch run all over you because why?" Damon pressed his hands to his face and let his head drop back.

The sun sat high in the sky as we lounged by the pool at the back of his bachelor pad. I could have spent the day laying there, doing nothing, but Damon seemed to be incessant on giving me advice. It must have been to keep him from taking any himself.

"Dude... she's not
running all over me
." I rolled my eyes and leaned back, closing my eyes and trying to remember why I'd come over in the first place.

"Yes, she is. Put her over your knee and spank her fine ass, or turn her in for being the slut she is." He was resorting back to being the asshole he was in college. Bethany's lack of influence on him was frightening.

"I'm not a twenty-year-old kid with nothing to lose, Damon."

"Do you wanna fuck her?"

"Yes, of course I do. I have a dick. Jeez." I grabbed it for good measure.

He busted out laughing and stood up. "Have I apologized for being so insensitive the other day?"

"No, but there is no need. You're a jerk. I get it."

"Come on, man. Don't do that." He turned toward me and rolled his shoulders. "I'm going nuts without her, Kendal. I need to get her back."

"Then go get her."

"She's gotta come back. Don't you know how this works? I'm not chasing her down after she left her damn ring on my nightstand. How desperate would that be?"

"How desperate are you?"

"Not that much." He walked toward the house. "I'm getting a beer. You want one?"

"Yes." I let my eyes move across the perfectly manicured lawn and felt grateful that money wasn't the solution to my problems. Here Damon had everything and his life was just as fucked up as mine, just in a different way.

"Why aren't you sleeping with Heather again? The woman is willing to do anything in the bedroom."

"You sleep with her." I took the beer as he growled.

"I'm not sleeping with anyone but Beth."

"You don't have Beth."

"It's temporary." He shrugged and popped the top on his beer. "She's going to come around."

"You need to grow the fuck up." I tossed the top to my bottle at him. "She's not one of the usual whores you take home, Damon. She's a sweet girl with a great heart."

"You getting sweet on her?"

"And if I was?" I was more than willing to toss him around the yard a little if he wanted to get aggressive with me. It would do us both some good for sure. Even at thirty-one, we were both fit enough to give the other a run for his money.

"Shit. You'd be a better match for her." He lifted his beer to his lips.

"Then let her go."

"Never. Are you kidding me? She makes me feel alive, even now. I can't remember hurting this bad since walking in on my mother and that fucker she was cheating on dad with. Emotions... all of them are welcomed in my life. I hate the devastation of loss fucking me up right now, but it's still mine to own. I love her."

"You guys are idiots." I drank deeply of the cold beer and closed my eyes. "I'm not sleeping with Heather."

"And you're a good man for it. Now, who are you sleeping with?"

"No one. It's been two years, and no one." I got up, not wanting to get in a discussion about sex with the king of cum himself.

"We need to take you out, man. Seriously? How are you surviving?"

"Just fine." I shrugged and finished the beer.

"You always have been a horrible liar."

"Yeah, I know." I tossed the bottle in the pool just to hear him bitch about it.

"Come on, asshole." He got up as I laughed.

"There is this one girl. She's an intern at the hospital."

"An intern?" He handed me his beer and picked up the pool net to fish out my bottle. "How old is this intern?"

"I don't know. Twenty-four maybe?"

"Cradle robber." He smiled over his shoulder.

"You've no room to talk."

"I'm a single man. What are you talking about?" He tossed the wet bottle at me, spraying my button down and slacks with a handful of water.

"I deserved that." I finished his beer and pitched it into the pool and he growled loudly. Why pissing him off felt so good was beyond me, but boy did it.

"Tell me about this girl. Does she know CPR because I'm seriously considering drowning your ass if you throw another thing in the pool?" He worked on getting the bottle out as I sunk back down into my chair.

"She's beautiful, man. Long black hair, full lips, hazel-colored eyes, big round bottom and thin waist." I groaned loudly and closed my eyes.

"Don't come in my pool chair, dude. I've seen enough of your shit in my day. We're grown up now, remember?" He snorted as I smiled.

"You miss it." I tossed the bottle in my hand at him and he caught it.

"No, I miss my woman. I just have to move past my pride and figure out how the hell to get her back."

I nodded and checked my watch. "I gotta get back. I need to grade some papers before my date tonight."

"Hold up. Date tonight? The nurse?" He walked back toward me and offered me a hand.

I swatted it away and got up. "Yeah, the nurse."

"Why’ve you been up at the hospital so much lately? Mandy not doing well?"

"No, man. She's not." I shrugged. "Dr. Lewis said to start preparing for-"

The air in my lungs left me as I struggled to make out the rest of my sentence.

"Hell no, Kendal. When did you talk to him?"

"On Tuesday." I glanced down at my hands and took deep breaths through my nose. "I can't even imagine life without her."

"Shit, dude. Why didn't you call me?" He gripped my shoulders tightly before dragging me into a tight hug. "We’ll get through this, okay? I'm right here. I'd do anything you need me to. You guys need more money? You can have all of mine."

"No." I pushed at him and forced the hot lump in my throat back down. "We need more time. You got any of that?"

"I wish, man. If I did... it would be yours." He gripped my shoulder and gave me a sad smile. "How long?"

"I don't know. I didn't have the balls to ask."

"I wouldn't have either."

*

I spent the rest of the afternoon grading papers, grateful for the solitude. Diving into my work was the best thing for me as I tried to ignore all the shit swirling around above my head. It was only a matter of time before everything came crashing down. I only hoped that it wouldn't happen all at once.

Seeing Dana later that night was the small ray of light I needed in the day, though I knew where things would lead. I didn't honestly care that she had a boyfriend, or that she was moving. I wanted to make her laugh, to see her smile, to hear her story. She was nothing more than a stranger to me and yet her kindness to my sister had me wanting to push our awkward friendship into something more.

What did she taste like? Sound like when she cried out in orgasm?

"Stop it," I growled under my breath as my cock throbbed in my slacks. I reached down and pressed my hand against it. Pleasure shot through my center and embarrassment stained my skin. Even if Dana let me take her to bed, how long would I last? Not long seeing that I'd been denying myself the touch of a woman for fucking ever.

"You always talk to yourself?" Heather.

I was grateful the bitch was behind me as I worked from the opposite side of my desk. I pulled a folder into my lap and turned slowly, giving her a pleasant, professional smile.

"Hi, Dr. Turner. What can I do for you?"

"Such a loaded question, Kendal." She moved into the office and pulled the door toward her before stopping. "Mind if I come in for a few minutes?"