Rule (13 page)

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

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

“So what’s the deal little girl?”

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

“Is he still calling you?”

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

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

“Well that’s good isn’t it?”

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

“I guess.”

“You want to go back?”

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

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

“I know that, but it is what it
is.”

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

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

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

“Don’t you?”

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

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

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

“Really?”  His incredulous voice
had me bristling up.  “I don’t know the entire ins and outs of your
relationship with Remy,” I interjected automatically, “We were just friends,
best, best friends.”  But Rome went on like I hadn’t even said a word, “but I
do know that when you thought no one was looking you watched Rule like a hawk. 
I know that every time he came stumbling home drunk, reeking like sex and cheap
perfume from whatever teenage tramp he talked into letting him in her pants you
looked like he had kicked you in the gut.  I know that every Sunday you looked
the same way when you brought him home, so Shaw are you really going to try and
tell me that the choices you make don’t involve Rule?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Why don’t you tell him?”

“Ahh you’ve met your brother,
right?  Mr. I’ll bang anything with big boobs and a negative IQ, Mr. I’ll do
what I want when I want.  Rule doesn’t need to know because it won’t change
anything.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No.”

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

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

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

“Clever.”

“I try.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Good.”

“Just good?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’ll keep the music down.”

“No worries have a good night.”

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

I stuck my tongue out at her and
went into my room.  I flopped face first on the bed and swore under my breath
when I heard my phone ringing from my purse normally I would have ignored it
but it was playing Twisted Sister’s ‘We’re not gonna take it’ and I knew it was
my mother and if I didn’t answer she would just keep calling back until I did. 
Her time was deemed just that valuable.  I rolled over and dug it out.

“Hello mother.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Language young lady!  I don’t know
where you think all those smarts you have came from, but I’m neither foolish or
blind, I know that this has to do with that Archer boy.  It always does.”