Page 28 of Bending The Rules

I’d been at dinner with one of our friends from college, Nikita, when I got Justin’s text inviting me to lunch. I was beyond excited to text him back – more excited than a friend should be, and Nikita had called me out on it.

“Who has you smiling like that?” she’d asked, eyebrow raised.

I quickly tapped out an affirmative response to the text, then put my phone face down, and picked up my drink. “What are you talking about?”

“Girl, your face looked like the emoji with the big hearts over the eyes over whatever text you just got. Was that your fiancé?”

“No,” I said, maybe a little too quickly, but she didn’t seem to notice. “It was Justin, asking if I wanted to grab lunch tomorrow.”

Her eyebrow went higher. “And it made you smile likethat?” Nikita wrinkled her nose, and my mind raced for an explanation. Before I had time to respond anyway, she shook her head. “I guess I get it though, you guys are back on good terms now. You’re just excited to be back with your bestie.”

“Yeah,” I said, weakly. “Glad we got it figured out.”

Nikita nodded. “I am too. You were both so quiet about whatever the hell happened. I remember pressing Justin about it, since you ran off to Dubai, or France, or wherever the hell you went. I thought if I knew what he’d done to make you so mad, I could help smooth it over, but he wouldn’t tell anybody anything. Not even Rich, or EJ.”

“Really?”

“Really. I mean, after you were gone, obviously we found out that he’d signed with Lion Literary, so we all assumed you were pissed he went to a different publisher. But we kinda thought there was more to it than that.”

I shrugged a little. “Yeah… but it’s past us now. No need to dwell.”

After that, our conversation went on to other things, but I had Justin on the brain. I’d gone to sleep excited, woken up excited, and now… it was time.

For what felt like a first date.

And in a way… itwas. Inappropriate sexual feelings aside, I really was embarking on a journey of getting to know my friend all over again. So much could change in seven years – if we’d been speaking over that time, we would have grown and changed together, but he could be a completely different person now.

One time, when asked, I’d described Justin as strong, clever, arrogant, witty, kind, and earnest. Were those things still true? Would the Justin I was meeting for lunch line up with the Justin I knew back then?

There was only one way to find out.

I checked my appearance in the mirror one final time, then grabbed my purse to head out. In the elevator, I took a deep breath, feeling… nervous.

Lunch with an old friend is nothing to be nervous about.

I repeated that to myself a few times on the way down, and then again as I stepped off the elevator, into the lobby. I was on my way out of the front door of the hotel when a familiar face entered my line of sight, stopping me in my tracks.

As I was going out, Russell was coming in.

His handsome, caramel-toned face spread into a smile as he approached me. “Hey gorgeous,” he said, pulling me into a hug. “I was just coming to see if I could entice you into having lunch with me.”

I stepped away from his embrace, and ran my tongue over my lips. “Russell, what are you doing here?”

He grinned. “I just said that… asking you to lunch.”

“No, I meanhere,” I said, widening my eyes. “When we talked the other night at the signing, I had the understanding that you had a flight to Canada to get on.”

“And I got on the flight… and then came back.”

“Why?”

“Because I thought it was clear that we need to talk. Things between us aren’t… settled.”

I scoffed, shaking my head. “I thought yousettledthem just fine when you told me this wasn’t working out, and left me in Cape Town.”

“I think I made a mistake,” he said, looking me in the eyes as he closed his hands over one of mine. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, since the night of the signing.”

“Which was completely inappropriate,” I told him, slipping my hand away. “I wasworking.”

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