Rule #1

by T. A Richards Neville

  “You been practicing that stroke?” I ask, my voice airy. I’m disappointed I’ve lost, though. It doesn’t happen often.

  Booker’s perched on the edge of a booth seat, his snicker alerting me to the fact him and his teammates are still here.

  “Torre!” he obnoxiously bellows, coming to life from latching onto another innuendo. “So glad I hung around this sweaty dump to witness your epic downfall. Welcome to the dark side. Plenty room for one more loser over here.”

  “Funny,” I say, leaning on my stick, “since the last game I beat you at you sunk the cue ball on the first break. And you literally just called yourself a loser.”

  “I let you win,” he fires back pathetically. We both know that’s not true, but whatever. I’ve had all the Booker I can take for one night. He’ll just go on and on if I don’t shut him down now.

  “Who taught you to play?” Roman slots his cue stick onto the wall rack.

  “My dad,” I say. “He bought me one of those multi-functional games tables for my fourth birthday and dedicated the golden years of my childhood to transforming me into a master of tabletop sport. Well, until you came along and tarnished my outstanding record.” My trail of thought wanes when Roman pulls his hoodie up over his back, the snug white tee underneath riding up over a tan, washboard stomach, his oblique muscles thoroughly defined.

  My eyes instantly seek out Maddie. I might be somewhat of a tomboy, but I still have a fully functioning vagina. It’s reminding me how well it’s functioning this very second.

  Maddie’s staring as Roman adjusts the hem of his T-shirt, sadly tugging it back into place over the waist of his black jeans. Striking while the iron’s hot, Maddie slides out from the booth and makes her way over to the pool table. Placing her hands on the side rail, she graciously hoists herself onto it and tightly crosses one knee over the other, her slim, freshly bronzed legs now unfortunately between me and Roman.

  To Roman’s credit, his eyes don’t dip once, and Maddie’s body is on point. I’ve got no idea how she stays so skinny. All she eats is junk food, and ten-thousand times more than the recommended daily allowance of MSGs.

  Typical.

  With a rapid flair of her arctic blue eyes, Maddie silently—albeit drunkenly—conveys the reason she’s really here.

  I look to my left, where Colin O’Shae is standing at the bar with a bottle of beer in hand, locked in conversation with one of his sidekicks, Hunter Matthew.

  Colin’s been on Maddie’s radar since she first cast eyes on him during freshman orientation week, and we’re sophomores now. He’s stocky, dirty blond, and pays Maddie zero romantic attention. I think all the cold air he’s blowing her is the whole reason she’s so into him. Colin’s a gamer, casual soccer player, and he’s in his second year of an engineering major whilst juggling a part-time job on a commercial construction site that Maddie’s dragged me to more than once to spy on him while he was elbow deep in concrete and muck.

  I admit, stalking’s scary weird, but I’d be lying if I said Colin was the first time we’d done anything like that. Friends since elementary school, we’ve become master sleuths over the years when it comes to the more serious crushes.

  “I wish he would just look at me,” Maddie quietly whines, her sigh slumping her slim, bare shoulders. Lately, she’s the definition of lovesick, and Colin needs to buy a clue.

  “Here’s an idea,” I say. “Why don’t you go over there and say hello?”

  She scorches me with an as if look. “Yeah, right. I want him to come to me. Why doesn’t he like me, Brooke? What am I doing wrong?”

  “He’s friendly to you,” I offer. We’ve been through this so many times, I’m fast running out of inspirational wisdom. I’ve always got a couple drops left in the tank for my BFF, though. “And he always says hi. You have each other’s phone numbers and you’re Facebook friends.”

  “How do you know he doesn’t like you?” Roman weighs in.

  West returns from the bar with a tray full of shots, and we all take one. Once the tray’s empty, West thrusts it into the torso of the next guy who walks by, his arms cradling the plastic to his chest from reflex.

  “Thanks, man,” West says, bringing his hand down on the guy’s shoulder. “Appreciate that.”

  Maddie downs her shot and shivers from the afterburn. “Gross. And If Colin liked me, I’d know it. Sure, he’s nice to me, but he’s nice to everyone. That’s Colin, a nice fucking guy.”

  “Colin?” West glances over his shoulder, searching for who we’re all talking about. “Colin O’Shae?”

  “Oh my god, yes! Do you know him?” Maddie practically squawks.

  “Everyone knows Col.”

  “Col.” Maddie sighs, her hands covering her heart oh so dramatically. “Tell me how. Right now.” There’s a noticeable tremor in her voice from the rush of excitement. She sounds like a crazy bitch, but that’s what Colin does to her. Turns her totally batshit.

  “He was in the same CET class as Roman before King dropped it. Think they’re taking the same ethics elective now, and we’ll usually play some PS4 if he’s online.”

  “Tell me everything!” Maddie demands, West clueless to the crazy he’s willingly walked into.

  “I can tell you one thing about him you’ll really want to hear.” The corner of Roman’s mouth curls with his impish smile, sucking Maddie into his captivating vortex with those beautiful eyes. “His girlfriend’s right over there.” He pinpoints the location with the lifting of his eyes and the most subtle of chin tilts. He looks smug as anything.

  Maddie sobers, her Bordeaux-red lower lip jutting out like she’s lost all control of her body parts. “He has a girlfriend? You’re lying,” she quickly accuses, while also aggressively checking out the direction to which Roman hinted at.

  “Anyway.” Roman shifts his attention to me, dismissing Maddie, Colin, and the other girl entirely. “Back to my payment...”

  “How about installments?” I’m only partially joking. I work a part-time waitressing job at a dive sports bar on the wrong side of town called Champ’s. A weekly paycheck for twenty hours of my services and as many tips as I can wrangle from the perverted cheapskates who drink there. Champ’s is famous for its young, half-dressed waitresses. The college and pro sports games routinely shown on the big screens a close second, and that spot is narrowly shared with the spicy wing roulette platter and happy hour beer pitchers.

  “Uh, hello,” Maddie says, sticking her face in front of mine. She’s so drunk I’ll have her tucked up in a cab in the next ten minutes. “What about me? Brooke, we need to go over there so I can see her with my own eyes. I’m obviously not happy about this.”

  “Obviously.” It’s kinda difficult not to laugh, but somehow, by the powers of God above, I manage it.

  I give Roman an insincere shoulder shrug, and then slot my cue stick on the wall rack next to his. There’s a group of guys heading this way who look like they want the table we’re hogging.

  “Hold up,” Roman says as my arm brushes against his. Tropical green and brown eyes peer down at me, and that’s all it takes to keep me exactly where I am. “You’re not getting out of this. A bet’s a bet, and you just lost.”

  “So I’ll see you here next weekend for the rematch,” I say, faking confidence. I’m anything but around this guy, and I can’t show him that.

  Roman’s lips tip up at the corners, and for an overwhelming second straight out of nowhere, I wonder what it would be like to kiss lips like his. They’re sculpted, pillowy perfectness.

  Then that bitter voice in my head reminds me that Roman doesn’t kiss girls like me, so I’ll probably never have that luxury of finding out. It’s just as well, really. A guy as good-looking as him is sure to bring nothing but grief to a girl’s life.

  “How do you know her?” I ask West for the second time in the space of seconds.

  The Drunken Barrel is as crowded as any other weekend, but one face in particular hasn’t showed yet. I’m starting to thin
k she’s made other plans. Deliberately.

  “Who?” West asks distractedly, while he plants fucking crops for the farming game he’s obsessed with on his phone.

  “I don’t remember her name. The chick from last week with the attitude and the pool skills. Would you put that thing down for a minute? You’re starting to piss me off. You actually waste money on that crap?”

  “Nah, only if stock gets mad low. But I keep on top of the goods, so don’t watch that. It’s all under control.”

  I rub my fingers over my browbone. “So, what’s her name, Farmer Dumbfuck? I mean, if it’s not too much fucking trouble.”

  “Whoa.” West lowers his phone, an idiot smile plastered on his idiot face. “What, are you into her?”

  “I’d just like to know her name before you start feeding the chickens and milking the cows.”

  “It’s Brooke. And this is a decent game. I told you, you need to download it. We could join teams and double our investments.”

  “Hard no, and how do you know her? I’ve seen her around plenty, but never with you.”

  “She drew my tattoo.” West clenches his fist, flexing his left forearm and biceps, showing off the three-dimensional Black Widow spider suspended from a thin thread of blood-slicked web. He got the ink two weeks ago over three two-and-a-half hour sessions. That’s how much painstaking detail’s been put into it.

  “No shit? She drew that? I live with you. How did I not know this?” I grab his wrist, studying the ink on the inside of his arm up close. The tattoo takes up most of his forearm, the realistic-looking spider burrowing into West’s skin with razor fangs like it’s tearing away and eating his flesh. It looks sick as hell, but cool as fuck. Completely original, too. “She just drew this for you?”

  “You bet, sugar tits.”

  “She an artist or something?”

  “Art major. I clocked some of her stuff on my Insta feed, so I sent her a DM about drawing me a tat, and she said cool, she’ll do it.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that. Oh shit,” he squeezes in a low voice from the corner of his mouth. “One guess for who’s on her way over. Duck.” West’s gaze drops faster than a toupee in a strong wind, and I don’t need to look to see who he’s talking about.

  Jennifer Dawson’s on a one-woman mission, her hourglass figure poured into a hot-pink bootie dress and missing a pair of shoes. The girl’s barefoot. Piles of honey blond hair scooped over one shoulder, her green eyes artfully trained on me.

  In Jen’s case, less is definitely more. The volumized curls in her hair and the heavy, smudged eye makeup do nothing for her, but she seems oblivious to any of that. She’s a friend, though, and lately, has been tactfully expressing how she’d like to turn that into more. Sending her girls over to feel me out, and just generally acting weird around me.

  I’m not going to sit here and lie; I’ve thought about it. But I prefer her as an ally, without all the awkward shit and cringey pet names. And Jen’s been showing signs of potential stage-five clinger. Like her coming over here now. She knew I’d be here, she looked for me, and now she’s found me. It’s like I can never get rid of her anymore, and the dodging and chasing’s getting old. I like the girl, but mostly in measurable doses.

  Without shifting my brain into gear, I bolt out of my seat and act like I haven’t seen her when I clearly have. I walk to the bar and put my back to her, taking my phone from my back pocket and pretending like I’m busy.

  “Well, well, well. Of all the bars in all the towns in all the world, you had to walk into mine.”

  Turning my head to the soft, undemanding voice, I take in the mint green waves of long hair as I realize who’s standing beside me.

  “Close,” I say, pushing my phone back into my pocket now I’ve stumbled upon something more creative to spend my time on, “but not quite. Nice try, though.” I reach out and run strands of her pastel hair through my fingers. Then tuck it behind her ear for some empty reason I’ve got no explanation for. “What happened to the caramel?”

  “You don’t like this?”

  “I do. It’s, ah, different.”

  Her smile’s Disney character-ish. “Good different?”

  Definitely. Her eyes look even darker now. More intense. “For sure. Suits you.”

  Brooke’s eyes are big and smoky brown. Rich in depth of color. I smile when she does, the rosy blush in her cheeks from my compliment making me smile harder. Her reaction’s cute. Innocent in a surprisingly sexy way.

  “Hey, can I ask you something?” she turns to me and asks.

  “You just did, but sure. Go for it.”

  “Did you mean what you said last time? That you saw me when you lifted your blackout blind. Like, that was a joke, right? That didn’t actually happen.”

  She sounds terrified of her chances, and I’m no rush to pull her out of her misery. “Does it bother you that I’ve found out you’ve been following me?”

  Those big brown eyes bug, and a scowl settles over my features when a wasted frat boy trips over his own feet, knocking into Brooke and sending her tumbling into my chest.

  I promptly stabilize her, stopping her from hitting the deck. The frat loser stumbles back the way he came, his head bobbing like it’s loose.

  “Oh, Jesus. I’m sorry.” In my arms, Brook’s flustered, looking up at me through sooty lashes and glancing around for the drunken culprit. She fits me quite nicely. “But I’ve never followed you in my life. Last weekend was the first time I’d even seen you.”

  I cradle her lower back with my right arm, discreetly pulling her into me without her noticing. “Whatever you say, B. That’s your story and you’ve got every right to stick to it. Good for you. A stubborn streak. I dig it.”

  A flash of pink satin through the crowd stirs my impulsive side into action. Fast, opportunistic thinking. There isn’t time to decide whether this is genius or incredibly dumb, but I go with it. It’s not like it would be the first poor decision I’ve ever made. More like the thousandth.

  Fuck it.

  “Ah, B, about that bet… you ready to cash in?”

  Brooke’s expression crumples. She really must be hard up for cash. “We agreed on a rematch—”

  “Forget the rematch. I’ve got something else in mind.” I’m running out of time, so I throw it all out there and hope at least some of it gets returned. “Just roll with it, okay? And don’t argue with me.”

  I don’t give her any time to agree or disagree when I spin her away from me and lift my arm from her waist to her shoulders, draping it behind her neck and openly claiming new territory. We stand against the bar, and I crack a half-hearted grin when there’s one last foot of sweat-soaked air separating me from Jennifer Dawson.

  Jen eyes a confused-looking Brooke tucked away neatly under my arm, her wavering smile not quite sure what to make of us together.

  “Hey, Mr. King.” There it is, that weird pet name she’s recently christened me with. “Missed you after the game earlier. How’re you getting home later?”

  Jen lives in the same student village as me, and we usually Uber home or split a cab if our paths cross on a night out. I share a three-bedroom spot with two of my teammates, Weston L’Heureux and Jackson Kemp. Jen’s in the building adjacent to ours, hence why we ended up shifting from neighborly to friendly.

  Oh, and there’s one other thing that may have propelled us into the uncomfortable transitional phase we’re in right now. The small incident on the unlit breezeway between apartment buildings where I took Jen’s virginity sophomore year, consequently unloading all this unwanted attention on myself.

  “Cab,” I say to Jen, clearing the memory of us. “We’ll look for you when we’re leaving.”

  At the mention of ‘we’, Jen’s eyes slice to Brooke. On the outside, Jen’s candy-coated, but inside isn’t as sweet, and she isn’t always as nice as she thinks she’s acting.

  She ignores the hint that I want her to leave and hangs around instead. Some of my
teammates crowd the stairs, and Jen basks in their attention when they swarm the bar and hurl outrageous drinks orders at the overworked staff.

  My roommate, Kempy, demands a Butterbeer with extra head, and when he’s denied, asks for Duff Beer Light instead. When the words Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster are tossed at the baffled bartender, I zone my idiot teammates out. Their childish requests could go on for some time.

  Easing Brooke a downward look, she stares back at me, the humor we both share widening her eyes. “Okay,” she says, “what the heck was that with the girl?”

  I lean in, wisps of mint hair feathering my lips. My excuse is the god-awful song the DJ’s belting out, obviously immune to his own bad taste in music. “She’s clingy. If she keeps catching us together like this, she’ll soon get the message and back off.”

  Brooke looks miffed. Or maybe she thinks I’m slow. “Like a fake relationship? I don’t think so.”

  “Whoa,” I say, settling her down with a squeeze on her shoulder. Otherwise, she’ll bail. “No one’s asking for any kind of relationship. Real’s torture enough. I haven’t got the time or energy to fake it. Just be seen with me is all I’m askin’.”

  Brooke still doesn’t look interested in buying this once-in-a-lifetime bargain I’m offering. “Why?”

  “Her behind me burning holes in the back of my head. We’re cool and everything, but she wants to be more than cool, if you catch my drift. That conversation never goes well, and she isn’t the best listener, so I figure I’ll let her down this way and keep things as they are. Remember…” I pick up the hair from Brooke’s collarbone, paying attention to how her eyes flutter closed from my touch. “You’re in debt to me, B. It’s this or the hundred. And I want this.”

  “Man, it’s fucking cold.” I blow into my cupped hands, the temporary heat fading as quickly as it barely warmed me up.