Page 34 of Bending The Rules

“Justin!”

“What??” he asked, laughing. “You know that shit is hot, don’t front.”

“Oh it’s… something. Are you going to watch, or are you gonna help, Juvie?”

“I guess I can help,” he said, from closer behind me than I expected him to be. He brushed against me – Accidentally? – reaching around me to get to the heavy box, which he easily hefted with one hand. “Your little boyfriend isn’t going to be mad about us spending all this time together, is he?”

“He’s not my “little boyfriend”.”

“My bad.” Justin’s big hands pulled three of four books at once from the box, and planted them on the shelf. “Yourfiancé.”

Instead of responding, I just shook my head. I didn’t know why I wasn’t speaking up, correcting Justin about Russell and I no longer being engaged. I knew that if I asked him not to, he wouldn’t say anything to my mother, so it wasn’t about the news getting back to her. And it couldn’t be about me being embarrassed, not wantinganyoneto know – otherwise I wouldn’t have told Aviva.

Maybe I just didn’t wanthimto know.

But… why?

From what I could tell so far, we were easily falling back into our former vibe. And once upon a time, Justin was the one person on earth who I toldeverything.So why was I being cagey about this?

Our hands brushed as we reached for the same book, and when I looked down, his ringless hands reminded me that Justin was divorced now. That little fact triggered my realization of a strange phenomenon…

We were single at the same time.

Justin and I wereneversingle at the same time.

Through high school, through college, and beyond, one of us wasalwayswith someone. That was something we had in common – serial monogamy. It was a habit I didn’t break until I moved away and started Scattered Seeds, which meant I was constantly traveling. I didn’t have a lifestyle that supported monogamy anymore. When Russell came along, with a similar lifestyle, we just… made it work.

I’d wondered, more than once, how Justin and I had avoided the trap that most “friendships” between men and women fell into, of trying to be something else, and ruining their bond as friends. Long ago, I’d decided it was partly because we never really had the opportunity to look at each other “like that”.

That wasRule #99: Friends Don’t Eye-Fuck Friends.

In addition to the rule, there was also just common respect. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t let my mind travel down the path of romantic thoughts with Justin while either of us was involved with someone, and vice-versa. That would just be asking for trouble.

But neither of us were involved withanyonenow.

Maybe that’s why all my horniest thoughts were coming to the front now. Maybe they weren’t new – maybe they’d always been there, just suppressed by the boundaries of friendship and the unspoken law of not going after someone who belonged to someone else.

I bit my lip to keep from gasping.

What if that’s why Justin seems so unaffected?

“You alright?” he asked, and I nodded, not interested in telling him anything contrary to that. For now, at least, letting him think I was engaged was harmless.

It was also my last line of defense.

Seven

“Mama… this is the height of randomness, don’t you think?”

I was in the attic of the home where my parents had raised me, helping pack. This packing had been going on – off and on – for weeks, but I imagined that no one could pack up more than thirty years of love, life, and family in a short period. Because of the way I lived now, I didn’t own many material things. I’d sent artifacts from all over the world back to my parents, but I didn’t have a place of my own to put anything, since I wasn’t settled anywhere.

When I moved from one country to another, everything I owned fit into two suitcases and a carry-on. I sold or donated things to make room for new items in my wardrobe, kept digital copies of all of my files so that the hard copies weren’t weighing me down – my staff kept them in their personal office spaces. Kept my hair short so I didn’t need many tools and products, kept my diet simple so I didn’t need much cookware.

So even though I logically understood that a home that had been lived in for thirty-plus years would have lots of… stuff… the sheer amount of it still blew my mind.

Complicating matters was the fact that my mother hated to get rid of anything.

“Why on earth do you even have acrib, mama?” I asked, running a hand over the sleek, cherry-toned wood. “When I came to you guys, I wasn’t a baby.”

---