Chapter Eighteen
Maverick
“Why’d they leave?” Mitchell asks as we watch Rocky and her friends leave. “Aren’t they going to the same place we are?”
“I guess they don’t want to ride with us.”
“Weird.” My brother looks over at me. “Is Rocky still pissed off at you because of the party you had here without telling her?”
“No.”
“Something else?”
“No. I don’t know. Why are you asking so many questions?” I shoot him a look.
“Calm down, I’m just being a good brother. Jagger isn’t here to ask his thousand and one questions, so it’s my responsibility to make sure everything is okay.”
“Everything is fine.”
“You sure?” He assesses me closely. “You’ve been acting weird as hell lately.”
“Everything is fine, Mitch. I’m just focused on hockey and school.”
“Really? Cause Mom told me something about Rocky and—”
“She what?” I blink. “Do you have nothing better to do than to discuss my private life?”
“Private life?” He laughs, throwing his head back. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize you had a fucking private life. What are you, an A-list celebrity? I’m your brother, you asshole. Why didn’t you tell me about Rocky?”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“That’s not what Mom said.” He raises an eyebrow.
“You are such an old lady. Why are you gossiping with Mom?”
“Oh, yeah.” He scoffs. “You gossip with Mom all the freaking time. It’s how I know about this, to begin with.”
“Well, according to Mom, you’re lusting after Misty and haven’t done anything about it.”
“Mom said that?” His jaw drops. “She said lusting?”
“She didn’t say lusting, but it was clear enough that’s what she meant.”
“Well, I’m not.” He frowns. “Why are you discussing that anyway?”
“See? It’s not cool. Stop talking about me behind my back.”
“You act like we’re talking bad about you. We discussed you in passing.”
“In passing.” I roll my eyes. “What does that even mean?”
“It means stop being so damn weird about it and talk to me.”
“I’m not being weird.” I squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them, my brother’s green eyes are still on mine. “I don’t even know what’s going on, okay? We kissed this morning and then she acted like it was the end of the world and basically told me to fuck off and that she didn’t want to be with me.”
“What?” Mitch looks as confused as I feel. “Rocky said that?”
“Yes.”
“Hm.” He shakes his head. “No wonder you’re acting strange.”
“I just need to speak to her and pray things go back to normal.”
“Is that what you want?” Mitch searches my face.
“Yo, let’s go,” Colson shouts from somewhere in the house. “Ubers are here.”
“I just want my friend back,” I say as my brother and I walk toward the door.
“Even if that means you’ll have to pretend you’re not falling for her?”
“Yep.”
“That’s wild, Maverick.” Mitchell shakes his head.
“Life’s wild.” I shrug a shoulder. “I’m just trying to live mine in peace.”
Peace is bullshit. I’m watching Brian and Rocky from the far side of the room and I’m hating every excruciating minute of it. He keeps touching her. She keeps laughing. They keep drinking. I keep thinking about this afternoon, how I had her in my lap, how perfect she felt against me, how easy it would have been for me to fuck her right there. I don’t regret stopping it from happening, but I definitely regret how I reacted to everything afterwards. I should’ve stayed. I should’ve demanded a conversation. I should’ve explained myself and why I didn’t fuck her when she gave the okay. I should’ve told her a million things, but I didn’t because even though I know I give the best advice out of my friend group, I can’t seem to take my own.
“You’re really just going to keep staring at her?” Mitchell asks, standing beside me.
“I don’t understand why they serve drinks at these events.”
“Says the guy drinking a beer.” He chuckles.
“Yeah, well, according to my count, Rocky has had at least five shots. She doesn’t even drink normally, so you know this won’t end well.”
“And you’re going to babysit her all night like it’s your job,” Mitch says, shaking his head. “Maybe she wants to be with Brian. Maybe she wants to let loose and go home with him.”
I shoot him a glare. “I dare him to try.”
“Are y’all going to the after-party with us?” Ashley asks, walking over to us.
“What after-party?” I ask.
“Oh, Rocky didn’t tell you?” Ashley frowns before her face shifts into an “oh shit was I not supposed to say anything” expression that makes my already heated blood start to simmer.
“Is it Reese’s party?” Mitchell asks.
“Yeah.” Ashley smiles. “So, you did know about it. I mean, duh, of course you did.”
“I guess we’ll see you there,” I say. I wait for her to walk away before turning to my brother. “I guess we know where Brian and Rocky are going next.”
“So, what’s the play here? We’re going to follow them around all night?”
“You have anything better to do?” I look around for show.
“No, asshole.” He rolls his eyes. “But just so you know, I did talk Misty into going on a date with me.”
“Oh wow. A date.”
Mitch chuckles, shaking his head. “I would say you need to get laid, but from what I heard you got laid today.”
“Today?” I stop walking and glance over at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“When I got to your place Colson said you were in your room playing the new J Cole CD with someone.”
“Okay?” My frown deepens.
“You only do that when you want to block out the noise.”
“What?” I laugh, and once I start, I can’t stop because of the ridiculousness of this conversation. “First of all, my door was open and I had Ray and Erwin in there with me listening to the album, so unless you guys are accusing me of having a gay threesome, nothing happened. Colson said this?”
“Yes.” He raises his eyebrows.
“Colson’s an idiot then.”
“I mean, you said it, not me.”
Reese lives in an apartment in the same building as my brother. Same floor, too. It’s two to three guys per apartment and they seem to share everything and never get sick of each other. Even though I live with Colson and we play together, this feels like too much. It’s like taking the locker room home or something. Some of my coaches actually call the baseball players “the locker room bros” as a joke. I’m standing on the balcony with my brother and a few of our friends, but I’m not really contributing much to the conversation tonight because I’m too hyper-focused on what Rocky is doing. She’s still hanging with Brian. They’re still touching and talking and laughing and I don’t know how much longer I can just stand here without intervening. I swing my attention back to Mitch, who’s talking about some assignment Misty is doing and how she’s interviewing everyone, when the door opens and Rocky appears.
“Mitch,” she whispers. “I need your key.”
“For what?” Mitch frowns.
“I have to pee and I don’t wanna use the bathroom here because it’s gross.” She looks at the rest of us before looking at Reese. “No offense, Reese.”
“None taken.” He chuckles. “It was probably someone at the party though because I keep my shit clean. No pun intended.” He cringes.
“I’ll take you.” Mitch walks over.
“No, I’ll take her.” I step aside and block him slightly.
“Okay.” My brother hands me his keys and shoots me a warning as
if to say don’t fuck this up. I grab the keys and turn to Rocky, who starts walking beside me.
My brother is two doors down. When I open the door to his apartment, it smells like it was just cleaned, and I know that’s the case since Ms. Ana just went to our house yesterday and she cleans ours back-to-back. Rocky rushes inside and goes straight to the guest bathroom. I walk around, hands in my pockets, as I wait. The view of the city is nice from this building. I turn around when I hear Rocky’s heels against the wood floors behind me.
“It’s such a nice night,” she says, walking over and I can’t control the way my heart pounds against my chest with each step she takes.
“It is.” I turn back to the windows briefly, then look at her again. “I’ve been hoping to talk to you all day.”
She side-eyes me. “Okay.”
I’m thankful my hands are still in my pockets because I’m dying to touch her. For ten years I’ve been nothing more than her friend and now suddenly I want, need, more. It’s insanity, yet here I am, a lunatic falling for my friend.
“I guess I should apologize for flipping out on you earlier,” she says.
“I’m sorry I kissed you.” I lick my lips and keep my eyes straight ahead so she can’t see the lie in my eyes.
“It’s okay. Truly. I overreacted.”
“You didn’t.” I turn to her. “If you didn’t want me to kiss you, or touch you, you should have reacted that way. There’s no other way to react.”
“I didn’t say that.” She bites her lip and looks away.
“How’s this thing with Brian going?”
“It’s going.” She smiles. I love to see her smile, but I hate that he’s the reason for it. “How’s the thing with Rebecca?”
“Could be better.” I shrug a shoulder. Could be better if it was her I liked, I should say, but don’t. “You still haven’t given me more rules to follow. You know, to woo her off her feet.”
“Ah, well, flowers,” she says, checking one off the list. “Words. Women like words. But you have to mean them. You can’t go around saying things you don’t mean.” She shoots me a look. “What else . . . touch, women like to be touched, but not overboard like grabbing her ass in public without having that level of comfort, you know? Just hand-holding kind of things. Breakfast. Or any meal, really. Food is always good. Loyalty.” She searches my eyes. “It’s important that you’re not fucking around behind our backs. Listen to her when she speaks, even if she’s talking about things that bore you. And finally, make her feel like she’s important.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.” She smiles with a shrug.
“Okay.”
“Okay.” She turns and starts walking toward the door.
“So, you’re going home with Brian again?”
“Huh?” She glances at me over her shoulder.
“You said you went home with Brian last night and things are looking like they’re going well between you two, so I guess I assumed . . . ”
“Oh. Nah. I need to sleep in my bed tonight.”
“I don’t know when you want to leave, but I’m getting ready to head out,” I say, hoping against all odds that she’ll leave as well.
“I’ll come with.”
And suddenly, all is right in the world again.
Chapter Nineteen
Rocky
Evidentially, tequila makes my head spin and does not make me sleepy, but somehow, I feel like I’m finally falling asleep, when I hear my bedroom door open and shut and feel the bed dip beside me.
“Rocky,” Maverick whispers.
“Hm?”
“You looked beautiful tonight.”
“What?” I blink in the dark and turn to face him. “What are you talking about?”
“You looked beautiful tonight.”
“Okay. Thanks. Why didn’t you say this earlier?” I yawn.
“Because I’m an idiot.”
“Agreed.” I laugh, propping my face on my hand. My blinds are open, so my room has an orange glow from the streetlight and I can sort of see Mav. “I take it you couldn’t sleep?”
“No.” He sighs heavily and mimics my pose.
“What’s up?”
“Do you really regret the kiss?”
My heart bumps my chest a little harder. “What?”
“The kiss. Do you really regret it that much?”
“No, but you obviously did.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because you apologized last time and when I got here, you were in your room with someone, playing that J Cole album.”
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, falling onto his back. He looks up at me. “Are you serious right now?”
“Yeah.”
“I was with Erwin and Ray. Colson’s a fucking moron. That’s how rumors start.”
“Oh.”
“You thought I was with a girl?” He sits up rapidly. I do the same.
“Yeah.”
“After I kissed you like that? After I touched you? After you were all over me? You thought I’d go and sleep with someone else?”
“Yeah.” I shrug. “Why wouldn’t you?”
“Rocky.” He shakes his head. “You’re my best friend. Before anything else, you’re my best friend.”
“I know,” I whisper, licking my lips and nodding. “Is that why you wouldn’t go further?”
“I . . . ” He exhales heavily, glancing away momentarily. “Yes and no.”
“Yes and no? This should be good.” I cross my arms.
“I don’t mean it in a bad way.” He brings a hand up, his thumb caressing the side of my face. “I just don’t want to do anything to hurt you.”
“But what if I don’t care, Maverick? What if I want to put myself in a position to get hurt? It’s my choice.”
“As your best friend, I would never let you do that.”
I close my eyes and relish the feel of his calloused fingers on my face. He’s never touched my face like this before. Not really anyway. Maybe once, back when we were sixteen and I fractured my ankle and he was trying to calm me down while the paramedics arrived at the soccer park. Still, it feels different this time. Probably because of that damn kiss that he regrets so much.
“Rocky.” The way he says my name, uneven and uncertain, makes me open my eyes and look into his again. “That kiss? It was magical, but if we go any further, it would change everything.”
“It doesn’t have to change anything.”
“You know it will.”
“It might not.” I bring a hand up and cusp it around his wrist. “If I were any other girl, you would have kept going.”
“But you’re not any other girl. You’re you.”
“I’m starting to think that’s not such a good thing right now.” I glance away briefly. “You know how you hear about people who practice kissing with their best friends because they know that things won’t go too far?”
Mav raises an eyebrow. “Yeah.”
“So, I was thinking we could do something like that.”
“You want to be my booty call?”
“Maybe.”
He chuckles. “You can’t be my booty call, Rocky.”
“Why not?” I frown. “I’m serious. You have other booty calls.”
“Yeah, because I don’t care about them. It’s a mean thing to say, but I don’t. I didn’t even do that until recently. You know that.”
“Because you were still hung up on your ex,” I say.
“I was not hung up on my ex.” He chuckles. “Do you realize how ridiculous this entire conversation is?”
“I do.” I press my lips together. Maverick searches my face. “I want you.”
“Why now?”
“I don’t know. Why’d you kiss me? Why’d you hold my hand? Why now?”
“I don’t know.” He folds his hands on his lap and looks at me. “Okay, I do know. I’ve liked you forever, Rocky. You’ve always been the prettiest, smartest, funniest girl in my book, but
I love that I get to keep you forever, you know? I don’t know if I can keep a girlfriend forever, but you, my best friend? Definitely.”
“So, hook up with me and pretend it never happened.”
He laughs. “You’re serious about that.”
“I am. I never wanted to lose my virginity before, because of well, you know.”
“Because you’ve been waiting for someone worth giving it to,” he says, reciting back my exact reason.
“Exactly.”
“And you think you’ve found that in me somehow? The guy who swore he’d never become a manwhore, yet somehow did.”
“You’re not a manwhore, Mav.” I roll my eyes. “Sure, you’ve hooked up with more girls this year than ever, but you’re just doing normal college stuff.”
“I don’t deserve you.”
“I don’t care. I’m not asking you whether or not you deserve me. I want to do this with you and get it over with so that at least I know the first man I slept with was someone I trust and love.”
“Why not wait for someone you trust and love for real?”
“This is for real.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Because. I’ve waited and nothing has happened.”
“What about Brian?”
“What about him?” I frown.
“You stayed at his place the other day.”
“I lied.” I bite my lip and glance away. “I was at Leyla’s.”
“Why would you lie about that?”
“Because I didn’t want to sound like a loser.”
“Wow. You think not sleeping with someone will make you sound like a loser? Who are you and what have you done with my friend?”
“Mav.” I groan. “Are we doing this or what?”
I watch as he thinks about it. I can practically hear his thoughts, everything he’s trying to weigh out in his head. If we do this, our friendship will change. We both know that. If we don’t, I’ll lose my virginity to some frat boy and it won’t be memorable. He knows that too. It’ll boil down to which one he’d rather live with and I’m really hoping the answer to that is as simple for him as it is for me. I’d rather do this with him than anyone else because even if our friendship changes, it won’t be broken. We’ve been through too much together for that to ever happen. He brings a hand back up to my face, beckoning my eyes to his, and I know before he says anything that his mind has been made up.
The Rulebreaker Page 8