Page 7 of The Bad Boy Rule

My eyes widen, and I glance down, realizing that my nipples are hard and pebbling beneath my top, and immediately cross my arms over my chest with a scandalized gasp.

Jesus, this just keeps getting worse and worse and worse. I’m so beyond ready to leave and hopefully, with any luck, never have to see this dick again.

I steel my jaw before asking, “What’s your name? So I can be sure to tell Summer that I’d rather choke and die than ever share the ice with you again.”

Without turning, he calls over his shoulder, “Saint. Devereaux. She’ll know exactly who I am.”

“Oh? Nice to meet you,Satan.I’m Lennon. Rousseau. Hopefully, you’ll forget it before you make it out of the building.”

Even though he’s got his back turned, I lift my middle finger to send him off.

THREE

LENNON

The entire walk home, I replayed the last two hours in my head, and by the time I get to my apartment fifteen minutes later, I’m even more annoyed than I was at the rink.

I’ve never met someone so… rude and condescending. Completely unprovoked.

Like seriously, who does this guy think he is?

I slam the front door shut behind me and drop my pink quilted skating bag down onto the floor with a loud sigh, toeing off my tennis shoes by the welcome mat.

“Maisie, you home?” I call out for my best friend as I make my way down the hallway.

When I walk through her bedroom door, passing through the strings of brightly colored beads that hang from the top of the frame, I spot her on her latest thrifting find—a vintage, oversized velvet reading chair that looks like it’s straight out of the seventies. She’s lying on her back with her head dangling over the edge, her wavy blonde hair cascading beneath her like a waterfall as she holds a worn paperback above her face. She almost had a heart attack when we found it at one of our favorite antique places in the French Quarter.

I’m not surprised in the least to find her here, sprawled out on a chair, book in hand. If there’s one thing about Mais, no matter where she is, she’s likely got a romance novel within arm’s reach. Almost always a paperback because she refuses to read on an e-reader or an iPad, saying that there’s absolutely nothing that could ever replace the feel or the smell of old pages.

One of the things that we both wholeheartedly agree on.

“Ah…Fabio’s Revenge. That’s a new one. Sounds suspenseful,” I say, eying the yellowed, worn pages of the book with the bodice-ripper cover featuring a half-naked guy clutching a girl in a torn ball gown.

She tosses the book down beside her on the art deco–printed chair and flips over to her stomach with a wide grin, waggling her pale blonde brows suggestively. “I found this used bookstore outside of campus when I stopped in between my creative writing class, and there was a wholeboxof these, Len. Literally a gold mine.”

As many things as we have in common, there are twice as many things that we are complete opposites about. And I think that’s exactly what makes our friendship work. It’s always been easy with her, and in the fifteen years that we’ve been friends, I feel like there’s no one who knows and understands me the way that she does.

Maisie has always been my safe place to land. She’s the one who keeps all my secrets and is honest even when it hurts. She tells me when I’m wrong and would defend me with her dying breath, even if I was wrong. We’ve always had each other’s backs, and now that we’re at OU and roommates, I can’t imagine what my college experience would be like if I didn’t have my best friend with me.

Certainly less exciting.

Suddenly, her brow pinches tight. “What’s going on? You look… annoyed.”

See? Uncanny ability to read me like a book. Almost two decades of friendship will do that to you.

Sighing, I flop down onto her bed and peer up at the ceiling she’s covered in retro floral wallpaper. “Probably because I just met the biggest asshole ever at the ice rink.”

I hear rustling, and then she’s bounding onto the bed and flopping down next to me, propping her head up on her arm. “What happened?”

“God, you should’ve been there, Mais,” I say, sitting up from the mattress and crossing my legs. “I showed up to the rink for my ice time, which is supposed to be mine for an hour, and there was a guy there. Which, I thought, was no big deal. Clearly, there had just been a mix-up. Except he was the biggest prick ever and rude to me for absolutely zero reason. I mean, a grade A asshole. Seriously. But then again… he was a hockey player, so I can’t say I’m entirely surprised. “

“Did you get his name?”

My shoulder lifts in a shrug when I think back to our parting words. “Saint? Devereaux? Satan is more fitting, therefore I’m only referring to him by that from here on out. I don’t think I could’ve handled another second around him before I ended up in a jail cell.”

It’s not as if he was exactly conversational when he was too busy being an ass.

When Maisie’s breath audibly hitches on his name, my brows lift in confusion.

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