Page 15 of The Off-Limits Rule: Extended Edition

“Drew told me, over lunch this afternoon. So I thought I’d come by and…” My words trail off when she starts running her fingers through the back of my hair. She begins at the nape of my neck, then runs them up the entire curve of my head—over and over. I think there’s a purpose to this other than to turn me on, but at the moment I can’t tell what it wouldbe.

She shifts her gaze from my hair to the mirror, where our eyes meet, and she smiles softly. “Go ahead, I’m listening. Just checking the angle of your cut to see what your stylist normally does.”

If bystylistshe means the burly dude covered in tattoos at the barbershop who slaps a cape on me too tight and then tells me to sit down and shut up while he trims my hair, then yeah, I have one of those. He provides nowhere near as pleasant an experience as Lucy, though.

She finally releases her fingers from my hair, and as she busies herself preparing her scissors, comb, and spray bottle, I attempt a few other awkward conversation topics—all of which Lucy promptly shuts down with short, single-syllable answers, and I realize she’s giving me the cold shoulder because of my text freeze-out. I only know her from our afternoon on the boat together and our brief text exchange, but that’s enough to understand that a quiet Lucy is not a happy Lucy.

As much as I don’t want to, I have to bring up the elephant in the room. “Listen, about your text a couple weeks ago…”

She freezes, scissors hovering frighteningly above my ear—please don’t chop it off—and grimaces. “Oh no. Please, let’s just forget I ever sent it. Okay? Okay. Good.” Pink is clawing up her neck now, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t likeit.

“You have nothing to be embarrassed about. I’m the one who should be embarrassed.”

Lucy grabs a spray bottle and starts dousing me. Less on the hair, more on the face. I feel like a troublemaking cat that’s just been reprimanded. “Oh, oops. Here, let me wipe that off.” She smooshes a plush towel into my face, patting over and over again, seemingly trying to absorb all my words (or smother me to death).

“It’s dry, Lucy.” She keeps patting, so I finally reach up and grab the towel, tossing it onto the workstation.

Quick as lightning, she brandishes a hairdryer and turns it on full blast. “YOUR HAIR WAS TOO WET. GOTTA DRY IT A BIT,” she yells above the noise.

I can do nothing but sit stunned, watching my hair twist and fly around my head, wondering how long she’s going to make me sit here like this. She lifts both her eyebrows at me with an overly bright smile, and I’m certain she will go to terrifying lengths to avoid talking to me about this.

Sitting forward, I grab the cord of the hairdryer and yank it out of the wall. Consuming silence follows, and Lucy’s eyes dart to the spray bottle again. Oh geez, we’re going to be here all day repeating this cycle.

Before her fingers can touch the spray bottle, I wrap my hand gently around her wrist, bringing her to a stop and forcing her to look at me. “Lucy, will you listen to me? I’m sorry about not responding, and I really regret it. I’m not very good at heartfelt, honest texts, so I wasn’t sure how to respond to you. But I had fun jumping off the cliff with you, and I definitely want to do it again.”

Her eyebrows are still pinched together in discomfort, but her shoulders ease a little. “Okay,” she says quietly, then says it again one more time as she releases the last bit of stress from her body. “But now can we just forget I ever sent it?”

“No,” I say, daring to run my thumb across the side of her wrist.

“Why?”

I smile. “Because I liked it.”

She swallows and looks skeptical. “You did?”

“Yeah…I did.”

I like that Lucy wears her thoughts and emotions on her face so openly that I can always know what’s going through her head. I like that she was so nervous to see me again that she ducked down and hid behind a cart.Who does that?And Ilovethat she smiles when she runs her fingers through my hair. The list of reasons why I like Lucy Marshall seems to grow every time I’m around her.

Basically, I’m in so much trouble.

Our spell is broken when Lucy’s phone starts buzzing on her station. She peeks at it, then looks at me with a sheepish smile. “It’s my son FaceTiming me. Do you mind if I answer really quick? I haven’t gotten to talk to him all day.”

“Of course not. Go right ahead.”

Lucy positions her phone in front of her face, pulls a wide smile over her pink lips, and then swipes to answer the call. I can tell the moment the picture connects, because her face beams. “Hi, baby!”

“Hi, Mom!” That must be Levi. “Grammy wants to know if you’re coming to get me soooooooon.”

Lucy laughs. “Honey, you’ve got to pull the phone away from your nose so I can see you. There! Wait. Ah—no, don’t spin!”

I can hear her little boy cackling like a villain as he, apparently, spins with the phone. Lucy contorts her face to look as if she’s onthe world’s most intense ride and the g-force is too much to handle. I’m mesmerized. I don’t want to look away for even a second. I haven’t been ready to pursue a serious relationship again since Janie, and honestly, commitment has been all too easy to avoid. Every woman I’ve met lately seems nice but completely forgettable tome.

That is, until Lucy. She’s incredible, and seeing her here, talking to her son and making him laugh with her ridiculous faces, not giving a crap about what anyone else in this salon thinks…it’s taking me from attraction to full-blowncrush.Like I might leave here and research cheesy putt-putt golf places because, somehow, I get the feeling she’d actually enjoy going and wouldn’t pretend to be too cool for it. She might even want to bring Levi—and I’d want her to because I think it would be really fun to see her with him.

Gosh, I need to have a conversation with Drew. Man to man, complete intentions laid out on the table between us. That’s the only way I would ever pursue something with his sister. The problem is, I don’t know if she’s ready for that yet after her breakup and move. And she has a son, which means I need to proceed with even more caution and know my own feelings are for sure before I approach Lucy about it. A woman like her comes along once in a lifetime, though, so I don’t plan on dragging my feet.

So what do you do when you’re not in love with someone yet, but you can feel the potential for it, but you also can’t date her because she’s definitely commitment material and her brother might murder you?

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