Rule #1

by T. A Richards Neville

  I burn through an hour in the gym, slightly more relaxed after putting my body through it.

  West and Kempy trade-off uneasy glances when I ask if they’re heading out. Despite my trepidation over seeing Kimberly, my stomach still demands food.

  “We’ll catch a ride with Bowers.” West bends to pick up his Warriors T-shirt from the mat. He balls it up to wipe across his sweaty brow, then launches it at the side of Kempy’s face.

  Kempy swerves too late, and the damp shirt slides down his cheek, to the floor. “Dickhead.”

  “See you later, then.” I toss my duffel bag over my shoulder and head out. It’s cold and dark outside, and I jog to where I parked the truck, cranking the heat as soon as I’ve got the door closed.

  I stop off at the store on my way home and buy a few things for dinner. We need to go grocery shopping, but I’ll get round to that another day.

  Back at the apartment, I dump the food on the table and drop my bag in my room without unpacking it. “Kimberly!” I call out, heading down the short hallway. I rap my knuckles twice on West’s bedroom door.

  “Come in,” Kimberly calls out from the other side.

  Opening the door, I step inside, moving slow. I suppose because I’m hoping she’s dressed in more than silk underwear and she’s come to her senses while I’ve been out.

  “Hey,” I say. She’s sitting in the middle of West’s bed with her legs folded beneath her, and she isn’t doing anything. Just looking at her fingernails. Messing with a jagged edge, peeling off the chipped black polish. My hope for the silk underwear’s flown out the window, though. She’s dressed exactly the same as West described.

  I tread carefully with her.

  Smoothing a hand over my jaw, I cross the small space from the door to the end of West’s bed and sit down. “While you’re here, could you at least wear clothes around the place? This is my spot, and if you’re staying, then you need to respect that other guys live here, too. You can’t be making them uncomfortable. Strolling around the place wearing…” I let my gaze roll over her. What even is that? “What you’re wearing now.”

  Kimberly’s eyes dart to my face, eyebrows heavily furrowed. So much for treading lightly.

  I let some time pass, banking on her being the next to speak. I’ve cleared the elephant from out of the room, but fuck if I know where to go with this next.

  “So you aren’t throwing me out?” She picks at her long nails, not looking at me.

  “You knew I wouldn’t. Isn’t that why you trekked all the way down here without asking me first?”

  She says nothing, just quirks an eyebrow and makes a soft huffing noise.

  Kimberly’s been toeing this slippery slope since she turned fourteen. Our parents were murdered in a botched carjacking ten years ago, one of the biggest stories to come out of Colebrook because that shit just doesn’t happen. I lived with my dad’s dad, Grandpa Joe, until I was thirteen, when I left Colebrook to move in with my mom’s sister, Stephanie, and her husband, Paul. They already had two kids of their own, plus Kimberly, all under one roof.

  It sucked ass at first, but the high school in Berlin offered the best hockey program in the area, so that was where Grandpa Joe insisted I go. I fought it, kicked up a fucking stink, but he’s always been a hard-ass—didn’t shed a single tear at his son and daughter-in-law’s funeral—and he wouldn’t hear a word of it. Packed my shit up in under an hour and drove me to Berlin himself. Mumbled the quickest, emptiest good-bye in history, tipped down his newsboy hat, and got back in his red, rusting 1989 Dodge Ram and peeled back down the driveway.

  That was the only time, the only day, I hated my pops. He wasn’t just my grandpa. Since my parents died, he was my only real friend, my hockey coach, the man that fed and clothed me, made sure I always had a hockey stick in my hand and a puck on the end of it. It wasn’t ever the greatest equipment, but he’d drum into me it wasn’t what you played with, it was how you played with it. If I wanted to be the best, I’d figure out a way to get the best out of what I had, and I’d make it work. If I didn’t want to be the best? Then I could go ahead and blame the hand-me-down CCM stick and tattered Bauer skates that smelled like dead animal and were permanently damp inside.

  Moving in with Aunt Steph was like moving to another fucking universe. Three-hundred-dollar composite stick? No problem. Here, take two for when the first one breaks. Skates pinching? No worries, we’ve got you. Here’s a brand-new pair forty minutes before you faceoff. Oh, you lost a glove? Nothing a quick stop at Davey’s Hockey Hut won’t solve. They bought me new water bottles after every other game, mine left behind in rink locker rooms all over North America and Canada.

  I never really understood why they did it. Still not sure I understand now. It isn’t like they’ve got money flying outta their asses. Uncle Paul works seven days a week sometimes, running his landscaping and carpentry business. He’s the family handyman, juggling full-time work with the pee-wee hockey team he coaches at the local rink. Aunt Steph owns a busy beauty salon. So busy, she’s opened a second shop outside of town. They’ve got money, but they’ve been grinding for every penny. Makes me feel like shit anytime they spend any of it on me. They aren’t my parents, I shouldn’t be their problem. Coming to Maine for school on my athletic scholarship felt like a break on the purse strings for all of us, even though Steph and Paul would never say it out loud. Could be all in my head, but I hate being a burden on other people.

  “Hey, Ro?”

  I look at Kimberly. Her hands are still now, but there are flakes of nail polish on West’s quilt. His problem for letting her stay in here.

  “Yeah?” I say.

  “What would you do if you didn’t have hockey?”

  There’s a question I don’t like thinking about the answer to. A life without hockey? It’s not a life. Not one I want to be in. I moved to Maine for an engineering degree I don’t want to one day have to use.

  “I don’t know.” I’m trying to be honest. Really, I have no idea. No hockey’s never been raised as a possibility for me. As soon as my pops realized I could shoot the puck, that was it. The rest is history.

  Kimberly smiles, but it’s dripping with sadness. Tough as hell on the outside, barely holding on on the inside. “You’re lucky.”

  Not sure what to say to that. I am lucky. But I’m not sorry for what I’ve got.

  I leave her alone, closing West’s bedroom door. I’m restless now, the food I bought losing its appeal. Switching on the TV, I sit on the couch and watch the screen, ESPN NHL highlights playing without me paying attention to what’s being said about the latest games.

  Movement catches in the corner of my eye, and I turn my head toward it.

  Kimberly leans her shoulder and her head against the wall by the hallway, folding her arms in front of her. I’m up out of my seat before the first tear falls, and I pull her into my arms, her head settling on my chest.

  I’d known it was coming. I just really hoped I was wrong.

  I duck my head against the wind as a rogue gust sweeps through the trees and slings my hair into my face. Powerwalking through the quad, my face stuck in my phone as I skim-read my book on Manga, my body’s jerked the other way.

  I’m so lost in my own world, and rushing to get to the studio, it takes me a handful of seconds to register who’s stopped me. Roman’s hand’s on my wrist, and he uses it to draw me into his orbit before he lets it go.

  Clutching my sketchbooks and my phone to my chest, I use my free hand to push the hair from my face. The wind blows it right back, and Roman laughs at my misfortune.

  “Hi,” I say, one hand pinning my wayward hair at the top of my scalp.

  Roman’s gaze bounces across my face, his narrowed the tiniest bit, like he’s searching for something in my expression. “Hey.”

  “What?” I frown, my hand slipping from my head. My hair tumbles back around my face and over my shoulders for the wind to have at freely.

  “Nothing,” he finally says, but the w
ay he’s looking at me, and the breezy way he says it, makes me think it’s anything but nothing. I move my hand across my face, searching for something that could be giving him that strange look. I don’t feel anything that shouldn’t be there.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’m late, so…”

  “You working on that comic? What is it… Black Pearla?”

  “How do you know about my comic?”

  Roman smiles. “I’ve been reading it. It’s decent, B. Your artwork’s incredible, but you probably already know that.”

  I could hear it every day for the rest of my life and still have trouble believing it. I’m my own harshest critic in everything I do, my drawing especially. There are too many amazing, talented artists out there to become complacent and start slacking. I’m trying to up my game every time I put pencil or ink to paper. Whenever I open Procreate on my iPad.

  “You liked it?” I hug my sketchbooks tighter to my chest, like anything from now is riding on his answer.

  “What I’ve read and seen so far, yeah, I like it.”

  My face heats. My whole body’s warmed up. “Thank you.”

  “That your only talent? Drawing? Or are you holding more tricks up your sleeve?”

  “I’d like to think I’m multitalented.”

  Roman laughs, his broad smile parting to his blunt white teeth. The tooth I first thought is chipped is definitely chipped, and only on him could it make him more handsome. “What else can you do?”

  With hardly any thought behind it, I blurt, and sounding pretty damn proud of myself, “I tend to know all the lyrics when I’m listening to rap music. If I’m on point, and it’s a really good day, you’d struggle to tell the difference between me and Eminem.”

  Roman looks briefly terrified and a lot entertained. “Oh… wow. Yeah… Wasn’t expecting that, B. Could I maybe hear that sometime? Do me like a mixtape or something? A little dedication at the beginning? Some kinda shoutout.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t think so. The world’s not ready for that side of me, and neither are you. I might put someone out of business.”

  “Probably for the best,” Roman agrees.

  And then I remember I’m late, and my painting workshop is about to start without me.

  “Guess you’ll see me around, huh?”

  Roman flashes me another grin. “On BET by the sounds of it.”

  For the next two hours, I lose myself completely in my project, slipping out of the moment on occasion when flashes of Roman’s face slip into my subconscious and turn my insides all fuzzy without any explanation. I don’t like when it happens, and I focus harder on the lesson and the TA. But the more I push him out the Roman-shaped hole at the back of my mind, the harder he fights for a way back in. The less I want to see him, the more he shows up.

  His presence hasn’t lessened any by the end of the day, and my mind drifts while I curl up on the other end of the couch from Maddie, only half paying attention the new romance series we’ve started binge watching. It’s Friday, and I got a head start on my homework as soon as I got home. Anything to keep busy.

  “We should go out tomorrow night.” Maddie lifts her head from her hand, looking across the couch at me.

  I’m working the day shift tomorrow, so I guess we could go out. “Okay.”

  Maddie shifts from where she’s sitting, shuffling over and realigning her body so she’s right next to me. “Why are you so glum tonight? You look sick of your life.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yes.” Maddie frowns. “And I don’t like it. You wanna go out now?”

  I don’t even have to think about it. “Not really.”

  “Then are you going to cheer up?”

  “I am cheered up.”

  She squares me with a look like she knows I’m full of it. “This is me you’re talking to. Don’t lie or I’ll put you in a chokehold.”

  I meet Maddie’s blank stare with one even blanker.

  I could tell her what’s bothering me, but I can barely admit it to myself. Saying it to someone else is out of the question.

  “Are you mooning over Luke?” she asks me, a faint smile tugging at her mouth.

  “Who?” I ask.

  She gives me an open-mouthed look, then rolls her eyes. “Luke Cole. Insanely hot football player. Catch up, Brooke. He kissed you, remember? How can anyone forget that? It was a phenomenal event. A benchmark in history. He is so fucking cute I wouldn’t even know where to start. And do you know what else? He just kissed you.” She makes this sharp cutting motion with her hand between us to strengthen her point. “Just kissed you. How alpha is that? I’d give up my firstborn for Colin to grab me in front of everyone and lay one on me.”

  “What if your firstborn’s with Colin?” I question with a smile. “Then what would you do?”

  Frustrated for a fleeting second, Maddie slaps my leg. “Don’t talk about me and Colin making babies. I can’t handle it.” Her body sags, and she tosses her head back onto the throw blanket hanging over the back of the couch. “Our babies would be so beautiful. I literally hate whichever girl gets to marry him.” In a brusque move, she turns her head to face me. “We’re obviously crashing that wedding, right? We can’t ever let that go ahead.”

  I nod seriously. I’ve got her back. “Of course.”

  She resumes her mopey disposition. “Good.” Then she turns to look at me again, hope sparking in her wide, blue eyes. “Maybe he’s gay?” Her hope shapes the form of a question, but it sounds more like her wish. She’d rather a man have him if she can’t. I can’t find the logic there at all, because it still wouldn’t be her. She’s in so deep, even if I had the longest rope in the world, it wouldn’t be long enough to pull her out of the Colin pit she’s sunken into.

  I feel like I should warn him, but my loyalties are with Maddie. And however crazy my best friend is, I’m sure I’m just as crazy. We’re sidekicks, loyal supporters to each other’s bad ideas, and I wouldn’t have been able to pull off some of my worst, regrettable moves without her.

  A commotion outside the neighboring bar to Champ’s pulls my attention from the Colin-inspired story Maddie’s been telling me since we got in the Uber. That was more than fifteen minutes ago, and the story with no ending is still going strong. I’m convinced she’s now just making stuff up so she can continue to say his name to me.

  “You have to let me in. I just showed you my ID.” The petite, ash-brunette with the loose, highlighted curls and pretty hazel eyes fumes in front of the bar’s bouncer. She’s a mouse compared to him. Little and large. Scary and cute.

  His gaze scales the top of her head, a reflection of boredom on his face. “Show me your passport or try your luck somewhere else.”

  “Right.” The girl crosses her arms and glances around her, looking incredibly miffed. “Because it’s normal to carry a passport everywhere you go. I’m not trying to leave the country. Just get a damn drink.”

  The bouncer steps aside for a huddle of girls, nodding at the ID they provide without him asking for it. Unlike this younger-looking girl in the short, strapless black dress and killer heels, they actually look over twenty-one.

  Something inside me sympathizes with her, though, and I reach out ahead of me and put my hand on Maddie’s forearm, catching her attention before she gets any farther along the sidewalk.

  “One sec,” I say.

  Maddie’s expression crumples with confusion, and I veer off toward the girl, ducking between her and the bouncer to grab her hand and move her away from the potentially hostile situation.

  “There you are,” I say to the girl, smiling at the bouncer as I steer her away from him. Then when I’m back next to Maddie, “He was never going to let you in. Stardust doesn’t take any chances when it comes to age. Are you with anyone?” It didn’t look like she was. She took on that argument all by herself.

  “No,” she says. “And that guy’s a dick. Like, what more does he want? A DNA sample? I showed him my ID.”

  I arch my eyebro
w. “Which is fake, right?”

  The girl slides her gaze uneasily from me to Maddie. “Maybe. But he didn’t know that.”

  “Uh, yeah,” Maddie says. “I think he kinda did. That’s why you’re out here”—Maddie points to Stardust—“and not in there.”

  “Why don’t you come with us?” I suggest. “We could just go to Champ’s,” I say to Maddie, her immediate look of horror solidifying the awful proposal. Our itinerary involved anywhere but the bar where we work. “She’ll get in no problem with us.” I look at the girl. “How old are you?”

  “Eighteen.” The word slips from her lips without hesitation.

  “Fine.” Maddie turns away, and I know she isn’t happy I’ve altered our plans with no prior warning. “But you’re buying me a cocktail. A pink one with lots of vodka in it. I want gold leaf, too.”

  “Thanks,” the girl says, hurrying after us as we make a detour to Champ’s.

  Just as I thought he would, the guy working the door smiles and lets us in. No questions. Working in this shit hole definitely has its perks.

  “What’s your name?” our new companion asks when we’re inside.

  “I’m Brooke, and that’s Maddie.”

  “Cool, I’m Kimberly. And you just saved my ass back there.”

  “How come you’re out alone?” I ask. “Did you lose your friends or something?”

  Kimberly smiles, her cheeks tinged with pink. “Yeah, or something.”

  Maddie tosses me a look, and I mirror the concern she shows.

  Lisa isn’t working tonight, so another barmaid and friend of ours makes our drinks, and we find a booth quickly. Preston will be working tonight, what with him not understanding the meaning of a day off, and he might not be so accommodating to the stowaway we’ve taken under our wing and brought into his bar.