Page 57 of The Rule Book

I shift onto my side, tucking my hand under my pillow to look at Derek. He’s lying on his back, that arm with the tattoo I can’t make out above his head still hidden from view, eyes closed. “Were you scared? That day on the field when your ankle snapped?”

He winces lightly and I regret saying it so bluntly like that. His eyes open and they connect with mine, face angled toward me. “I was terrified.” He pauses and looks at the ceiling again. “I can still hear the sound it made. The bone literally snapping. I was convinced that was it for me. That…I would never play football again and it was all going to be gone before I was ready.”

What I don’t tell him is that I was in the stands for that game. ThatI saw him hit the field and not stand up and I thought I was going to be sick. And then those torturous moments where I had to watch him get carted off on a stretcher and then anxiously refresh my phone over and over again to find out what sort of injury he had—it was hell. I wanted to be there for him. I wanted to hold his hand.

And I guess it’s that memory that has me reaching for his hand under the comforter now. When I bump the back of my knuckles against his, his eyes jump quickly to mine, and for a moment he’s frozen. I’m barely breathing myself. And then all soft and sweet, he inches his fingers over mine, until our hands are tangled up.

I close my eyes again and let the dazzling heat between us lull me into a restfulness I don’t enter easily.

“Nora…we need to talk about what happened before the bloody nose on the boat.”

I grumble a sound with my eyes closed. “Do we have to?” All my adrenaline has worn off and now I regret the vulnerability dump.

“Yes. We do.” And then he turns my hand over so it’s palm up. With his index finger, he starts painting lines over each finger. I tingle with every stroke. “Please tell me.”

It’s…hot. And somehow also sweet. And also a very, very bad idea. But it works to distract me from my fear of telling him the truth.

“The week after we broke up, I came to your apartment. You were just getting back from a date and it sounded like you guys were having a lot of fun, so I ducked around the corner.” His finger pauses, likely knowing what’s coming given what I admitted to him on the boat. “And then I saw this gorgeous woman in an impressively tiny dress kiss you. Right on the mouth. And you kissed her back…so I left.”

I still don’t open my eyes. I can’t bear to see whatever look is on his face. Pity, maybe? Embarrassment? Whatever it is, I don’t want tosee. I just want to lie here and immerse myself in the feel of his fingers tracing my skin like nothing bad has ever happened.

“Why did you come to my apartment?” he asks, his voice softer than velvet.

I breathe in and decide there’s no time like the present for the truth. “Because I…missed you too much and wanted to see you. I felt like I’d made a big mistake and wanted to fix it.” I pause when the rush of pain hits me all over again. “Even though I had no right to feel hurt since I was the one who broke up with you—it stung so bad to realize how easily you moved on from me. How easily replaceable I was.”

He breathes out heavily and then his finger moves to my palm. Drawing a pattern now.

“But then,” I continue, “I decided that you were okay, and you had moved on and were happy, so it was something I should do too.”

He’s silent so long that I finally get curious and crack my eyes open. His expression is not one of pity or embarrassment—it’s something completely different. It’s something like relief.

It’s now that I realize the shape he’s been drawing on my palm is a heart.Over and over again.Just like he used to.

“You left a second too soon, Nora.”

“Why?” My heart is thumping against my ribs.

“Because if you’d stayed—you would have seen the truth of just how not over you I really was. How not over you I…” He stops himself.

“You what, Derek?”Say it. Whatever it is, say it!

He breathes out one long breath, his finger still moving over my palm, branding me with a shape I’m not even sure he knows he’s making. “That night, you didn’t stay long enough to see me pull away from her and tell her I couldn’t invite her in because I wasn’t ready to move on from my breakup yet.” He pauses as my mind franticallytries to grab onto this new information like it’s a piece of driftwood in the ocean.

“I couldn’t do it,” he continues. “I couldn’t move on from you that quickly…I didn’t sleep with her, Nora. Or anyone else for a very, very long time. Two years, to be exact. Even though I tried to make it look like I was thriving in the media so my friends and family wouldn’t worry about me, I wasn’t thriving. Because without you, I was lost.” A sad smile breaks in the corner of his mouth. “You weren’t even close to easily replaceable to me.”

Derek’s hand moves away from my palm, sliding to my wrist and gently tugging. My body responds without hesitation, scooting closer and closer to him. I know I should be hearing warning bells, but they’re nowhere to be heard in my head. Someone has ripped them out and buried them under the sand.

He turns onto his side facing me, and his hand glides around me, settling low on my back. I arch into him, feeling a swirl of heat settle in my core, spreading outward. My eyes close when I feel his breath against the side of my neck, smell the scent of his bodywash fresh on his skin, and before I can tell myself to stop, my leg is hooking around his thigh. His hips press into me and I suppress a groan. His mouth lowers to my neck with the most patient, soft kiss, but his hand slides down further to gently squeeze my ass. I don’t know what’s happening and I don’t care because Derek’s hand is—

A loud, firm knock sounds at the door and I catapult off Derek and completely out of the bed like we were about to be caught in some sort of forbidden tango.

“Housekeeping!” someone yells through the door.

Derek is lying there shocked at my sudden spooked-animal stance until his laugh cracks the air. I use the interlude where he’s having the time of his life to sweetly yell through the door that we don’t needhousekeeping today, and then I go back to the bed, where I throw a pillow at Derek’s laughing head.

He wipes at his eyes. “The look on your face!”

“Stop it!” I say, laughing a little myself. “It’s been a traumatic day for me, okay? And that,” I say, gesturing toward what we were just doing in the bed, “was a mistake!” Because it was. It had to be. No matter how much fun I have with him, how much I love his smile, the way he lights me up like a firework, the way I respect him for pausing his day to take a photo with every single person who recognized him, how he took care of me even when he supposedly hated me, how much he…wait, I’m losing my train of thought. Where was I going with this?Ah yes, mistake.

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