Page 58 of Rules in Love
Fuck, you’re staring at her boobs. Blink and look away. Say something.
“Sorry. I was just…”
“Thinking of melons.” She smiled, ducking her head to chase my eyes.
A knock on the door and a remarkably chipper Jason shouting at the top of his lungs saved me.
“We are starving. Meet you two in the restaurant. Buffet breakfast is on the business!”
We looked at each other glumly. “Time to head back, I guess.” Scarlett sighed and rubbed her palm down my thigh as she slipped from the bed. My favorite nightie in the world earned further admiration by taking its sweet-ass time to fall, and I got the briefest glimpse of her lovely cheeks before she covered them with her hands. “You go ahead and get your hands on those melons, Finn. Me and mine will meet you there.”
She sashayed away, and I watched every step she took like the besotted fool I was, torn between doing what was right and what I wanted.
Finn
“You’re so damn obvious, Finn. Jocie picked it up the minute she saw you two together. I had my suspicions. But since your work trip, you haven’t shut up about her and have fluttered around like a lovesick puppy.”Stare straight ahead. Tap to the music, and she might stop talking.
“The fact that you’re a nervous wreck before dinner and a movie are just confirmation. You’re gonna hurl in front of her and make a fool out of yourself. I’m gutted I won’t see it.”
Okay, you can’t leave that alone.
“You’re projecting now, sis. I’m not the one who blew chunks over everyone at every school Christmas concert and dance recital ever. That was all you.” This was true. Evie had been a nervous chucker for years. I cry. Evie pukes. I was never sure which I’d prefer.
“Whatever. All I know isyou”—she emphasizedyouwith a poke in my arm—“are a goner. And if Scarlett ever drops her standards and gives you a chance, boy, are you gonna be whipped!”
“Put a sock in it, Evie. I’m trying to concentrate on the road.” Horror head’s merciless—perhaps, on-point—teasing had begun as soon as I arrived home from Tarrytown, and a week later, it had yet to cease. Until today, I’d been able to take it in good humor or ignore it because I was high on life, and I probablyhadfluttered. The house concept was progressing, and Scarlett and I continued solidifying our relationship—I mean, friendship. She’d also ordered sushi for lunch three times. I very much enjoyed all the yum-yum sauce and finger-licking.
Resisting those sweet and salty lips for eight to nine hours in the office was hard, especially with the memory of their pillowy softness still so fresh, but it was achievable. I found respite at home in my nightly routines. Even though I thought of her constantly, of waking with her ass pressed against me and the smell of her hair as she lay in my arms, I could distract myself with family life. Tonight’s dinner and movie farewell for an undeserving asshole removed that small window of breathing time. It was going to be Tarrytown all over again. I had ogled her satin boobs, spilled my guts, cried, and jacked off twice in the shower. That couldn’t happen tonight.
Thank God Teddy is tagging along.
Still, Evie was way off base with the nervousness thing. Yes, I may have showered and dressed an hour earlier than required, then paced the house while dusting several hundred times. But that didn’t mean I was nervous. I was apprehensive at best. And I wasn’t going to chuck. I also wasn’t going to lean over, open the car door, and push her out like I wanted. Iris would be disappointed.
Dinner together after dance class was part of our Thursday-night routine, and Iris loved routine as much as I did. We always went for pizza atRubirosa. It was the restaurant owned by the family of Iris’s friend, Cole, and they had the best slice in the neighborhood. Tonight’s altered schedule added to my apprehension—notnervousness. The pizza was being picked up on the way home, not eaten in, and this was the first dance class I’d missed since Iris started. It was also her first day of the new school year, and she walked directly from school with the cool mums of her new friends, Olivia, and Grace, and didn’t want her dorky old dad hanging around. Those were her exact brutal, cut-me-to-the-bone words this morning. Words that became another weapon in my sister’s already hefty arsenal. “Iris was right to call you dorky. Who gets nervous about dinner and a movie? She’s never called me dorky. She thinks I’m cool.”
“That’s not what I’ve heard. She told me you were a dork and smelled like a stinky stink butt. She just didn’t want to tell you because you’d cry like a baby.”
“She did not say that.” Evie snorted.
“I swear she did. And she called you a sooky sooky la la, too.” That one had us both laughing. Evie especially.
“God, I haven’t heard that expression for years. Shelby and Nate used to call you that when you’d hurt yourself surfing and cry.”
“I did not cry.” I probably did cry. “What assholes. Bloody Nate could talk—he was always sooking to me about you, but did I tease him? Nope.”
“Nate was sooking about me? Why would he be sooking about me?” Evie squawked about three octaves higher than usual.
I shook my head and rolled my eyes.And this woman is calling me pathetic.“Uhh…because he liked you and was madly in love with you?”
A sharp blow was delivered to the side of my sizable head. “What? Nate liked me? Loved me? Since when?”
“Since we were like…born. You’re honestly telling me you didn’t know?”
“No, I didn’t know! Why would I know? How did you know? Why would you know and never tell me?”
“I knew because I was his best friend, my girlfriend was his twin, and he talked about you constantly. But we made a deal when we were fifteen. Neither of us would go near the other’s sister. We all know I broke that deal, and Nate didn’t. That was part of the reason he was so upset when Shelby and I got together.”
My sister was at a loss for words. It was a rare occurrence, one I had experienced only a handful of times throughout my life, and I can honestly say I found it entirely refreshing. She remained quiet as she slipped from the car and into the rain to sign out Iris while I waited in the parking lot. Serene silence would not be long-lasting. A still-flushed Evie and an overtired, overhyped Iris returned. Her blow-by-blow account of the cute dog they saw walking to class and Cole’s epic backflip and sick dance moves took care of that. No one else could get a word in. Almost.
