Page 75 of Bending The Rules

I rolled my eyes, and tossed the phone down on the desk, intending to ignore it until it buzzed again.

“Do you know if you’re coming back yet? I want to talk to you about something. – LL Cool J”

I hated the way the second text perked me up. Still, I swallowed the little bit of excitement, and typed out:

“Hey, it’s going fine. What did you need to talk about? I’m not busy right now.”

“I’d actually prefer to have this conversation in person, see your face if possible. Will you be back home?”

I let out a deep breath as my mind ran through the possibilities of what he might want to discuss. I didn't want to get my hopes up, but I knew Justin wasn’t the type to make something bigger than it was, not usually. If he wanted to see me in person, it was important.

And with everything that had happened between us… I could only think of one thing important enough that he would want to talk about it in person.

A tiny smile crept onto my face, and I bit down on my lip to try to hold it back. I clicked on my computer screen to open a new browser window, then picked up my phone again to type.

“Yeah,”I typed, hoping I wasn’t going to end up regretting it.“I have another meeting and then I’m coming back. See you in three days.”

- & -

I was nervous as hell.

Excited as hell.

Scared as hell.

Tired as hell, after a twenty-hour trip home, and ready to see what Justin wanted to talk about. We’d been in touch over the last few days, but no amount of prodding had gotten him to give me any hints as to what this seemingly important conversation would be about. The most I’d gotten was an “I miss you” that could be interpreted so many ways I didn’t bother building my hopes around it.

I was just ready to hear what he had to say.

I found my hotel room mostly as I’d left it. I was still on the fence about the office space being here, but if Ididdecide to stick around, I was going to have to find an apartment. I wasn’t supposed to see Justin for another few hours, so I spent a little time taking inventory of what I had, and making a rough plan for getting it moved to… wherever I ended up.

With that on my mind, I undressed to take a shower I badly needed after such a long flight. I was just getting ready to step into the spray of hot water when a knock came at the door. I quickly found, and wrapped myself in a robe, then went to the peephole to look out.

My eyes went wide when I saw that it was Justin.

Shit, I muttered to myself, glancing at my reflection in the mirror on the wall. Ilookedtired, and fresh off a long plane ride, but this was Justin. He’d seen me in much worse states than this. I pushed out a breath, hoping to relieve myself of some of the fluttering in my chest, then opened the door.

“Hey,” I said, stepping aside to let him through the door. “I wasn’t expecting you for another hour or so.”

“My bad.” He pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and gave me a sheepish, sexy grin. “You texted and said you’d made it to the hotel, and I just… I don’t know. Impatience got the best of me. It looks like you were in the middle of something though, so—”

“It’s fine,” I smiled. “Have a seat. What did you want to talk about?”

“Anxious, huh?” he teased, passing me to drop into a seat at my suite’s bar counter.

I shrugged, wrapping my arms around myself. “Well, yeah, a little. I’m kind of dying to know what so important that you needed to see me in person to talk about it. What is this about?”

“Us,” he said, and that little bubble of hope swelled in me again. “I know we had a rough patch for a few years, that hasn’t been mended very long…”

I nodded. “That’s true. But we bounced right back from that… like it was nothing.”

“Right. But I don’t want to make another mistake like what happened before, with us not being forthcoming with each other, you know. Just putting it all out there, making it all plain.”

“I don’t want that either.”

He grinned. “Good. So… what I’m getting at right now, is that… no matter what happens between us, I want us to always be able to fall back on Rule #9. We’re stuck with each other, even if the other shit doesn’t go as planned. We’ve got twenty years in this friendship thing… nothing should be able to touch that.”

“I…” I swallowed hard, willing myself to stay composed. “I understand that. And… I agree.”

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