Page 49 of The Off-Limits Rule: Extended Edition

“Why do they keep doing this to me?!” Lucy says with overly dramatic, slurring words, shoving her whole face into the cushion and sloshing a tiny bit of wine onto her T-shirt. I’ve lost count of how many glasses she’s had now, and her raised blood-alcohol level is showing.

I laugh and tighten my grip on her foot, liking how freely I get to touch her when it’s just us. “Should we start another one and see if they finally kiss?”

Lucy’s head pops up and her glasses are askew, eyes a little glazed. I right the frames on her face and can’t help the sappy smile I feel on my mouth. I can’t remember the last time I felt this comfortable and happy. Is this why all my friends with girlfriends and wives always disappear? I thought it was because their women wouldn’t let them go out anymore. Turns out, it’s that the men don’t want to leave.

“No. They’re never going to kiss. This show is one nevvvver-ending tension torture device.” Her words stick in a few places, but she finally manages to get it all out. And then her gaze swings toward the TV, smile slowly fading. “ ‘Sides, it’s not good to watch stuff like this.”

“Why not?” Lucy sets her wineglass precariously on the arm of the couch and then reaches up, tugging her hair free of her bun. Wild auburn locks fall down around her shoulders, and I stare in amazement at how beautiful she is even when she’s in this state. But it’s not just Lucy’s skin, hair, and eyes that contribute to herbeauty. It’s every smile, every laugh, every little thing she does for her son and did for me when I was sick. It’s all of it. I meant it when I said I thought Lucy was the complete package. She’s too good to be true.

She gathers her hair and pulls it to the side, sectioning off three pieces and stumbling over her own clunky hand coordination, attempting to braid it. She’s doing a poor job and has very clearly tipped over into I’ve-had-too-much-land. “Because it’s not real. In life, the guy doesn’t wait a hundred years for the most romantic moment to kiss the girl. He sleeps with her right away, gets her pregnant, and leaves her sorry ass with a baby.”

The vessels of my heart constrict at the sight of Lucy. A brokenhearted woman is bad enough, but a brokenhearted woman who’s a little drunk, slurring, and spilling her wine as she tries to balance the glass and tame her hair…it’s too much. She looks like a wounded baby bird, and all I want to do is scoop her up, take her home, and protect her until her wings heal.

First, I take Lucy’s wine from the armrest and place it on the coffee table because she’s had enough. Then I scoot a little closer and move her hands so I can pick up where she left off. Her eyes meet mine, and with an overly dramatic breathy flair, she says, “You know how to braid?!”

I laugh and continue to move my hands through her soft locks, overlapping strands and moving slowly as I go. Being this close to Lucy and keeping things strictly friendly is the equivalent of jumping off a roof with the hopes of defying gravity. “I have several female cousins. Any time we would get together for the holidays, they would teach me stuff like how to braid hair and paint nails.”

“And you wanted to learn?”

I give her a half smile. “Around age thirteen, I realized if Iknew how to braid hair, I’d be a hit at summer camp. And everyone knows summer camp is where teenage dreams are made.”

“And were you? A hit?”

I meet her eyes and wag my eyebrows playfully. “I definitely made some dreams come true.”

Lucy laughs and shoves my arm. I pluck her hair tie from her fingers and wrap it around the end of the braid. When I look back at her face, I find her watching me closely, head leaning against the couch, legs still draped over my lap. “Jamanji was an ass.”

A laugh shoots from my mouth, and I lay my head back against the cushion, eyes level with Lucy’s. “Who?”

“The woman you loved,” she says with a slur.

“Janie.”

She frowns and shakes her head a little. “No, I’m Lucy.”

“No—not you, drunky. My ex’s name is Janie.”

“Ohhhhh. Yeah, that’s what I said.” Lucy shrugs her bare shoulder, drawing my eyes to the sharp line of her collarbone and velvety skin. I reach over to pull her T-shirt back up to cover her.

A soft smile tugs the corner of her mouth, and the next thing I know, Lucy is running her finger across my eyebrows. “You have pretty eyes,” she tells me in a dreamy voice.

I’m trying not to laugh at her, but it’s difficult. “Thank you. So do you.”

“But yours make me want to go to Tahiti. I have a screensaver that looks like your eyes.” I think she’s trying to tell me she has a screensaver with a body of water from Tahiti on it, not that she has an up-close photo of my eyeball, but I’ve been wrong in life before. “Jackie is a spud for giving up your Tahiti eyes.” She places the warm palm of her hand on my now scruffy jaw and looks deep into my eyes. “I wouldn’t have given them up. I would have said yes.”

My mouth opens, but I’m not sure why, because it’s not as if I have any words to let out. I don’t know what to say, what I should say…what she’ll remember in the morning of her own words or of my reply. Luckily, she doesn’t even seem to want an answer.

Instead, she smiles and shuts her eyes, letting her hand slowly sink down my shoulder and then arm, stopping to land on my biceps. I notice her dark lashes fanning across her cheekbones, her delicate nose and soft silky skin, thinking how sweet and innocent she looks.

That is, right until she squeezes my biceps and says, “You know what I think about sometimes?” Her eyes pop open and meet mine, looking a little wild all of a sudden. “S-E-X.” She spells it like that somehow makes it less sexual.

I expel a breath like someone just punched me in the lungs. “What?” I ask with a jarred laugh.

She jolts upright and adjusts her glasses, swaying a little to the side. “You know…intercourse.” She whispers the word this time.

“Yeah, no, I can spell. I knew what you meant the first time. I’m just trying to figure out why we’re talking about it right now, out of nowhere.”

“Because,” she says in a dramatic tone that could rival the greatest stars on Broadway, “did you know it’s been over four”—she holds up three fingers—“years since I’ve been with anyone?”

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