Page 11 of The Bad Boy Rule

He nods, his lips twitching. “Yeah, so rumor is she has some kind of pact to stay a virgin until she gets married or something. It’s like this unspoken thing that everyone knows about. Got a whole-ass promise ring and all. Heard it from a couple guys who tried to hook up with her. So if you’re looking for an easy hookup, she’s not it, man.”

A virginity pact?

This whole thing just got a lot more interesting.

Alright, Lennon Rousseau, you have my attention.

FIVE

LENNON

When Friday finally rolls around, I’m dreading it. Something I never thought I’d say.

Is it possible to loathe someone you’ve met once and only spoken a handful of sentences to?

I’m fairly sure the answer to that is yes, because the last thing I want to do is willingly spend any length of time around Saint Devereaux, yet due to the joke that is currently my life, it looks like that for the foreseeable future, I have no other choice.

Turns out, therehasbeen a mix-up with our ice time, and there is no additional time available.

Nothing.

Nada.

Zilch.

Despite nearly begging Summer for quite literallyanythingelse. I was willing to take whatever scraps she would give me if it meant that I wouldn’t have to be around him again.

But as sympathetic as she was for the mistake on her part, she didn’t have anywhere for either of us to go.

So, my only option? Share the time slot with the devil himself or… lose it.

And Ican’tlet that happen.

If I don’t use the rink at school, then that means that, once again, I’m going to have to give up skating. That feels cruel to think about when I’ve only just gotten it back. I can’t afford private ice time at a club rink, especially because this is something I have to keep from my parents, and dumping likely a thousand dollars a month into anything is going to flag them, without a doubt.

The majority of this week was spent trying to come up with a plan, something,anything,as a solution to what I didn’t even think was going to be a problem that has turned into a much larger one in a very small span of time.

And I came up with exactly… nothing.

It looks like I’m just going to have to suck it up and deal with it. Honestly, my plan is to ignore him entirely and focus on what I came to the rink for—training.

I’ve spent too long letting the things I want take a back burner to the plans my parents have laid out for me.

They’ve dictated every aspect of my life for as long as I can remember.

What I wear, the friends I hang around with, the plans for my future, my extracurricular activities, the classes I take… even who I dated.

And now that the veil has been lifted, I see just how much control they had and how little I did.

It’s never aboutmyhopes,mydreams,myambitions. So getting back on the ice is the next step in reclaimingme.

I can’t even imagine what’s going to happen when I tell them that I’m going to be stepping down as the president of the Social Club, New Orleans’s highly esteemed club comparable to the Junior League. A leadership role they’ve been preparing me for since I was practically in diapers, the perfect stepping stone and resume builder for a future New Orleans socialite… and trophywife. The more I think about my parents’ lives being my future, the more sick to my stomach I feel. The truth is, I’m not sure what I even want my future to look like. I just know that it isn’t being my father’s puppet on a string.

My phone chimes, the sound pulling me out of my thoughts. The screen is lit up, unopened notifications and the time glaring back at me.

Shit.

If I don’t leave now, then I’m going to be late, and I refuse to be late after last week.

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