Breaking the Rules: A Brother's Best Friend Romance: The Rules Duet: Book 2 (The Dating Playbook)

by Mariah Dietz

  “Hey,” I say, unzipping my coat and shaking off the excess water.

  “It’s like that scene in Forest Gump when he was talking about the rain coming from all sides, isn’t it?” she asks.

  I chuckle more out of courtesy than genuineness. I don’t have the mental capacity to think of Forest Gump or the scene she’s referring to. I certainly don’t have the aptitude for small talk—not when my thoughts are so frayed, tangled, and bitter.

  Greta is near the entrance, trying to eat a muffin in two bites because she’s always on the go, watching me with too much concern.

  “Raegan,” she says when I try to look away. “You want to help me? I need to prep some fish for the penguins.”

  I don’t want to, but I also don’t want to go out and explain for the billionth time that our Giant Pacific Octopus, Snoopy, isn’t a squid. And though everything seems backward at this moment, my path here is still clear, promising an opportunity for a job in a few weeks. “Yeah. Sure.” I hang my jacket and purse, changing my rain boots for my work ones, which have a permanent fish stench. I can feel her watching me, likely noticing they are all too slow and forced, my distractions eating into each task.

  She smiles as I move to meet her, waiting until we clear the door before asking, “Everything okay?”

  I nod. “Yeah. Just tired.”

  “Well, I’ve got some good news for you.” She brushes her shoulder against mine, her eyes wide, shining with an excitement that silences the gloom I’ve been nursing like a bad mixed drink. “Lois called, and she saw K pod this morning,” she says, referring to one of the three orca pods we track and report on.

  I stop, chills racing down my arms faster than the rain falling outside. “Seriously?”

  She nods, her smile growing as she wraps her arm around my shoulders, pulling me against her in a hug. “She said she saw them, and all of them were accounted for.”

  I lean my head back, the news spreading through me like a wave, crashing over the thoughts that have formed like lines carved on the shore, erasing some entirely and filling others, so they aren’t as prominent and jagged. “That’s amazing.”

  “And they were heading for the Sound.”

  My shoulders fall with relief. We’ve been so worried that they were going to move, forced out by the constant growth in the area.

  We hit the back kitchen where the scents of fish and ice flood my nose, and though it stinks and promises a gruesome sight, it fills me with a sense of serenity that I cling to with every ounce of being.

  I fall into a rhythm that calms me further, repeating the same steps I’ve completed a thousand times while Greta tells me about recent arrests her husband, who works for the Fish and Wildlife Department, has made. Her entire life revolves around the sea and justice, and it makes me envious in a way I wish I could stay here with her all day, hiding from my truths in her reality.

  My mom swears she can sense bad news. She says before it happens, her right knee gets sore. I wish I had some strange sixth sense. It maybe would have prevented me from stepping out into the main lobby and finding Grandpa and Camilla shaking out umbrellas and arguing about having to pay to come in and see me.

  Sophie, the lady at the front desk, is new and doesn’t know me from a stranger on the street, her conviction for making my grandfather pay even more intense than her realization of the many staring at the scene they’re causing.

  I quickly make my way over to them, a bucket of penguin food in my hands. I only stepped out here because Joe asked if I’d see how Sophie was doing and ensure the line wasn’t backed up after overhearing a disgruntled customer.

  “Hi, Grandpa. Hi, Camilla,” I say, my voice too loud and chipper in an attempt to end their conversation.

  Grandpa turns to look at me and then faces Sophie again, pointing a wide and wrinkled index finger at me. “My granddaughter,” he says. “You see her uniform, right? The one that says she works here.”

  I place a hand on his shoulder, urging him to step away from the growing line behind us as I try to send a peace offering to Sophie with a pleading smile. She eyes me like my smile is a Trojan Horse, looking away almost instantly.

  “I can’t reach your mom, or Paxton, or your dad,” Grandpa tells me. “The news has been talking all day about a story, accusing him of having an affair with a student. They said there’s video evidence and that two other girls have come forward, alleging they also had affairs with him.” His blue eyes are stormy, a brightness shining at the edges like flashes of lightning, revealing his anger as he looks at me, waiting for me to dismantle the accusations. “What’s going on?”

  Leave it to Grandpa to memorize my schedule. He’s the only one who knows I volunteer here every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings, though it’s the first time he’s taken advantage of this knowledge.

  I glance back at the crowd of patrons and then at Grandpa. “You guys want to go get some dinner?” I ask.

  Grandpa’s eyes grow brighter, firing more lightning. “I want some answers. That’s what I want.”

  Camilla places a hand on his. “Cole,” she says. “Let’s take her to get some chowder.”

  He struggles to swallow back his objections, but then Camilla squeezes his hand, her perfectly shaped and painted red nails a bright contrast against my grandfather’s pale and weathered skin. Slowly, he nods. “Okay.” He nods again. “Let’s grab a bite to eat.”

  I find myself nodding as well, pushing the thought past approval and into a realization but suddenly stop, the pail of creamed herring in my hand suddenly feeling like a lead brick, and my boots seeming smellier in the clean lobby. “I need to have someone feed the penguins for me and change my shoes. I’ll meet you back here in just a moment, okay?”

  “We’ll go get the car,” Camilla says, bestowing a kind smile on me. In some ways, it was hard for me to accept Camilla when Grandpa began dating her. My grandma had passed away before I was born, and Grandpa spent most of his time at our house. While I was in elementary school, he picked me up every day and took me home. We’d make snacks, watch cartoons, and he’d help me with homework or play stuffed animals. By middle school, I didn’t need anyone to be home with me, but Grandpa still came, and occasionally he even helped with my homework, but he’d pepper in stories about his childhood and my grandma. When he began dating Camilla, he started to disappear from our lives, fading one day at a time until he only came around once a week. Mom insisted it was good for him—that Camilla made him happy. I was glad he was happy, but he’d never seemed unhappy before, and thus began a long sequence of internal debates about whether another human really can impact our lives and happiness.

  Grandpa takes her hand still holding his, and reverses their order, then moves to hold the door open for her.

  The bucket of penguin food gets heavier with each step into the back where I find another volunteer and ask them to feed the penguins. It’s a job we all love because the penguins are friendly and comical, especially when it’s time to be fed.

  I poke my head into Greta’s office, her door already propped fully open. It’s one of the many details about her that makes me love having her as a boss—she’s always approachable and never makes herself seem more important than anyone else. “Greta, I’m really sorry. My grandparents are here. Would you mind if I go have dinner with them? I should be back in about an hour.”

  “Why are you apologizing? That’s great. Go. Have a good time.”

  I smile to keep myself to keep from apologizing for apologizing. “Thanks. I’ll be back soon.”

  I trade my fishy rain boots for my every day rain boots and pull my jacket back on. With my purse in my hand, I make my way back out into the lobby, where Sophie waves me over. She hands me two new annual passes. “For next time,” she says.

  I stare at her for several beats, wondering if she heard Grandpa’s tirade. I work to remember the conversation and pause when I recall him discussing having seen the story on the news.

  The news
.

  My dad made the local news for having an affair.

  The news my neighbors watch.

  The news my friends and their parents watch.

  The news my co-workers watch.

  The news students and faculty members at Brighton watch.

  That grayness that I’d woken up feeling turns a bit darker as it creeps back through me, filling all the spaces it had missed before as I get my first reminder of just how far this scandal is going to reach, and how it’s only going to get bigger and worse.

  I clear my throat and force a smile. “Thanks.”

  I make it out the doors, tears stinging the back of my eyes, and then Grandpa rolls down his window from where he’s successfully blocking traffic while waiting for me. He waves to catch my attention, and I swear, my right knee starts to ache.

  23

  Lincoln

  I fall against the locker room bench with a heavy sigh, my breaths still labored as sweat trails from my hairline across my face. I’m too tired to wipe it away just yet. We spent the past three hours running, and running, and then running some more. I’m reasonably certain it was Coach’s attempt at trying to get Paxton to focus and cease the continued whispers and jokes that kept circulating the field. With the news announcing the affair last week, it’s spread like wildfire, making the first page of the student and local newspapers, even reaching national news this morning.

  “Your dad fucks up, and now we have to pay for it?” Ian stops in front of Pax.

  “Get out of his face,” I bark.

  “I’m not gonna play for a captain who’s on his goddamn period and can’t deal with his family issues. I’m not here for that.” The challenge is clear in his tone, then he glances around the locker room, waiting for others to join forces with him.

  My muscles protest as I stand, planting my palm against Ian’s chest and shoving him back several inches. “Then go. If you can’t put up with the hard work it takes to be the number one team in our conference—” I shrug, “—then leave. We don’t want you. Winning takes hard work. It means extra practices, extra conditioning, and extra weights, and if today was too much for you, well then, there’s the door.”

  Ian stares at me, an internal battle happening behind his eyes—one I understand. I hated today. I know we’re in good enough shape that we didn’t need to be pushed like it was the first couple of weeks of the season, but on the other hand, I also realize that we’re only as strong as our weakest link, and with Paxton’s head being everywhere but on the field, he’s been our weakest link for days, something he can’t continue in order to remain captain and starting quarterback. This was coach’s attempt to save him, not sacrifice anyone.

  Maybe Ian believes my line of bullshit. Maybe he realizes this was a final attempt to wake Paxton up before our game. Whatever his realization is, he reaches forward, his palm slapping mine with a handshake that says he’s back to toeing the line.

  Arlo stares at me a moment, his disbelief evident. He’d expected this reaction but from even more players when Pax showed up ten minutes late today. I purposefully turn my attention to my locker, rifling through the crap I need to clean out of it, yet delaying it for another day. I grab my shower bag and head to wash off.

  Twenty minutes later, I’m pulling into the parking lot of Beam Me Up, parking next to Rae’s Honda. She’s barely been at the house in the past week, slipping in and out like a ghost—a ghost who’s avoiding me.

  Rain cascades down my windshield like a curtain. Locals joke that we don’t have a fall or a spring, just a rainy season. They’re not wrong. Once the rain begins, it’s a constant for months.

  A man on his laptop sits in the back corner, a bulky set of headphones on his ears. Rae is near the back, restocking a display shelf. Two other baristas, one with dark hair, the other an unnatural shade of white blonde, are behind the counter, quietly giggling until they notice me. The dark-haired girl turns, cocking her head in a way that confirms she knows who I am or at least wants to.

  “Welcome,” she says, smiling. “What can I get you today?”

  I nod in the direction of Rae. “I’m good. Thanks.” At my words, Rae turns around, her expression the opposite of the brunette who was eager for my attention. Instead, I catch the scowl on her face before she turns back to the shelf she’s filling with Thanksgiving-themed gifts.

  I bite. I can’t afford not to.

  With my hands shoved into my hoodie, I walk toward her.

  “I’m working,” she says without turning to face me again.

  “Why do you work?” The question pops out before I can filter it.

  Her frown deepens as she faces me. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to talk about Paxton.”

  She starts to carefully align pumpkin frosted sugar cookies into a wire basket. My thought would be just to pile them in, but she’s carefully lining them all up. “What about him?”

  “He’s distracted.”

  “And?”

  “Does there need to be an ‘and’?” She moves onto arranging turkey-shaped cookies.

  The brunette at the counter continues to eye me, the end of a pen between her square white teeth and red lips. She winks at me.

  Raegan sighs quietly. “I’m working, and my co-worker over there who you’re exchanging googly eyes with called out last week with syphilis. I heard her talking about it tonight.” She cuts through the tape of an emptied box with a razor blade, collapsing the sides before cutting open the next.

  I shrug. “Penicillin kills that shit.”

  She balks. “That’s disgusting.”

  “So is your assumption that I’d fuck her in the backroom.”

  Her eyes grow in size and color, a rebuttal surging through her thoughts but stopping at her lips. It makes me want to object and yell and lie all at once. Instead, I narrow my stare on her and make demands that we both know I’m in no position to make. “This place is dead. Let’s go. I’m tired of you avoiding me like we’re in the goddamn second grade.” I lean forward for the next bit, her perfume invading my senses like a well-trained army, lowering my defenses, and catching me by surprise. “Don’t label what we did as wrong or bad. It wasn’t either one.”

  Raegan remains frozen, the swell of her lips so damn distracting I can’t see anything else. “I’m not labeling it as anything more than an experience. You guys are always griping about girls sticking around after the fact, so you should be relieved I’m not one of them.”

  She starts to move, but I’m faster, grabbing her waist. Her blue eyes flash with surprise and hints of lust and anger that burns brighter as my fingers dig into the flesh beneath her black shirt. “You’ve never been one of them. I never compared you to anyone.”

  “Don’t tell me you grew a conscience overnight. Call me a cynic, but I’m not buying it.”

  “Because it’s me or because of your dad’s mess?”

  Anger gains ground with that question. She raises her chin, her eyes narrowing. “Because you were making out with someone else the night before we…” her words fade as she looks away.

  “Jealous?”

  Clearly, that was the wrong question because she attempts to push away from me, her dark blue nails a flash on my gray team sweatshirt. “Get over yourself.” She rights herself, composure slipping over her like a uniform, changing her disposition and expression. “You’re trying to work me out of your system,” she says it like a revelation—an understanding.

  I want so badly to tell her she’s wrong, but the chance that this is true keeps me from replying.

  I expect anger due to my silence. Revulsion. A slap across my cheek to stain my skin until morning. Instead, she calmly rakes her eyes over my face, searching for something I’m too afraid to clarify because she’s silently considering something.

  “Can you get off work?”

  “Now?” she asks.

  I glance around at the empty coffee shop. “Yeah.”

  “I’m supposed to work until ten. I
need to finish setting this up.”

  “What do you have left?”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” I tell her, “I’m tired of this, and I want to take you somewhere.”

  The skin between her eyes creases, like she’s trying to make sense of my intentions. “Where?”

  “Somewhere we don’t have to talk about things or worry about anyone or anything. Just go have fun.”

  “I don’t know…”

  I spin before she can continue with a line about obligation, heading toward the two girls at the front counter who try and pretend like they haven’t been watching us. I lean forward, smiling at the blonde who watches me with parted lips, intentions bright in her gaze. “Hi. I’m Lincoln.” I extend my hand to her and then the girl with dark brown hair. “I’m Raegan’s friend, and I really need her help with a situation. Do you think it would be all right if she took off early?”

  “Yeah,” the blonde says instantly without looking to her co-worker for input. “I mean, sure.” She takes a fleeting look at her friend as though to confirm.

  “Great.” I pat the counter before they can reconsider and turn back to Rae, who’s watching me, amusement shining in her eyes, though she doesn’t smile. “You need help moving this stuff?”

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “Offering to help you.”

  Raegan shakes her head. “I mean, why are you really here?”

  I study her blue eyes and the gentle lift of her lips. “Because we’re friends,” I tell her. The term seems nearly as honest as it does a lie. It’s difficult for me to recall ever thinking of her as a friend, though this year, she’s one of the few people who I can be real with. I grab the pile of cardboard she broke down. “Where do these go?”

  She stares at me another moment, the skin between her eyes still bunched, but she grabs the rest of the things she was using and nods in the direction of their backroom. “Over this way.”