Rule #1

by T. A Richards Neville

  The room and Steph become distant, and I watch her through an emotionless filter. How her lips move, how quickly she blinks through her tears and licks them from her lips. She’s crying for me, not her. I’m the only person left who would miss him.

  She could have already told me and I just never heard her, but I ask coolly, “How?”

  “A neighbor found him outside, at the back of the house. They think it was a heart attack. He doesn’t carry a cell phone around, so…”

  So he died alone in the snow outside, in pain, the next house over more than a mile away.

  “How long before anyone found him?”

  “No longer than twenty-four hours.”

  Twenty-four hours?

  “Fuck.” I put my head in my hands and draw in a deep breath, because all the oxygen’s soaked into the foundations.

  His body, face down in the snow while he clutches his dying heart, scorches my eyelids.

  I let out a noise that’s part animal, stand up and punch the wall. My fist goes right through the drywall, and I hear Steph crying behind me. She’s got no fucking right. No one has. She didn’t even fucking know him. If he could hear her wailing now, he’d tell her to shut up and get a grip on herself.

  I can’t be here for this. It’s too much.

  Charging into my room, I pull on whatever clothes I find first. A T-shirt from on top of the laundry hamper and sweatpants, shove my feet into a pair of Timberlands and grab my keys.

  West and Kempy are up, asking what’s going on by the time I come out from my room, but I don’t stop for either of them. I’m in my truck following the signs for the interstate before I realize I’ve made the decision.

  It dawns on me when the drive’s almost done that I didn’t even pick up my wallet or a jacket, and I open the glove compartment, raking around inside for the money stash and tub of loose change I keep in there. My fingers land on the rolled-up notes, and I close the compartment.

  I’m aware of my own heartbeat as I bump and skid over the snow path, knowing my pops’ house is at the end. Even as I’m getting out of the truck and jogging up to the house, I expect to see him. Maybe not inside, but out here somewhere, chopping wood or fiddling around under the hood of his Dodge Ram. But the energy’s all wrong, the lights are off inside the house, and the doors are all locked.

  He’s not here. Of course he isn’t.

  I go round back, past his rusting truck—which is locked, because I try the handles—my boots sinking into the snow as I search for where the EMTs, or whoever the fuck was called out after twenty-four goddamn hours, found his body. He must have been freezing. Animals could have even gotten to him after that much exposure without protection.

  My anger swells the longer I search the white snow reflecting moonlight from the clear sky. It isn’t snowing now, but it obviously has since anyone else was back here. I’ve driven out here with only half a story, and I’ve got no idea what day he died, what time, or when he was actually found.

  I trudge back to the house, my heavy footsteps sinking into the soft ground. Stick my hand in the snow-crusted dirt inside the dead planter hanging next to the back door and dig out the spare silver key.

  I’m careful pushing open the door, like I could disturb someone inside.

  There’s no one inside I remind myself.

  I stand on the mat with the door shut until my eyes adjust to the darkness, and the creaking hinges and floorboards settle into silence.

  Then I slump to the floor, leaning my back against the door, and I wait.

  Wait for it to fucking sink it that he isn’t coming back, and I really am here by myself.

  Dust motes dance inside streaks of washed-out sunlight across the stained linoleum floor. Time’s slowed all the way down since I got here, and I stare at nothing, my eyelids heavy over my drugged gaze.

  I’m one blink from falling asleep when banging at the front door snaps me awake.

  I’ve got no intentions of answering it, but then the mail flap lifts, and a voice says, “Roman? Are you in there?”

  That’s Brooke’s voice, but I don’t get up right away, just in case I’m hearing whatever I want from sleep-deprived delusion.

  “Roman? Your truck’s outside, so I know you’re here somewhere.”

  Definitely Brooke.

  I push up off the floor, my legs stiff from cold and not moving for so long. The linoleum’s wet from snow melting off my boots, and I quickly wipe them off on the mat, so I don’t get the hallway carpet wet.

  I open the door to Brooke and then walk into my bedroom, leaving her to do what she likes. I’m too tired to talk to her or hold a conversation, and I stretch out on the bed on my back.

  A coldness settles around me I’m only now starting to feel, like life’s slowly feeding back into my bones and limbs. It must have been days since the heat was on in here, and there’s a dampness in the air that chokes me up, cuffing my throat like I can’t breathe. I don’t cry, though. I don’t even think I’d know how to.

  Brooke blocks the doorway, folding her arms over her chest and giving me this look like I’m the sorriest motherfucker on the planet.

  I don’t like it.

  I let the air out of my lungs and stare at the ceiling. Fabric rustles as Brooke strips out of her coat and unzips her boots, then she lies on the bed next to me and slides her hand across my chest.

  I grab her hand in mine, her fingers icy in my palm. Slipping the hand from behind my head, I push it under Brooke’s shoulders and bury my fingers in her soft hair.

  Her heart pounds against my ribs, and I move my gaze back to ceiling when a tear tracks down her cheek and dampens my T-shirt.

  “You’re lucky he can’t see you doing that.”

  Brooke laughs through more tears, her body shuddering against mine. “Don’t I know it.”

  The morning stretches forward in long minutes and warped hours, and we only leave the bed when one of us needs to use the bathroom.

  “Did you drive here?” I ask Brooke. I’ve dodged the question for hours, but we can’t stay here all night, and I need to figure out how she’s getting home.

  “Stephanie dropped me off and then she went home. West called me after you left, and he sounded worried on the phone. Him and Jackson were going to come looking for you, but Steph said she’d bring me, and if you hadn’t thrown me out after five minutes, she’d leave us to it.”

  “I need to apologize to her.”

  Brooke hums in agreement. “You definitely scared her charging off like that.”

  I empty my lungs with a labored sigh.

  In a matter of hours, for the second time, my entire life has been flipped on its head without warning.

  A stinging wind dragged in from the coast whips at my exposed cheeks, and I pull my hood tighter around my face to stop my skin from chafing.

  I’ve brought my makeup to work with me, but I don’t own foundation expensive enough to conceal third-degree windburn.

  “Is it eleven yet?” Maddie peeks out from her hood to ask, blinking furiously against the lashing gusts.

  With frozen fingertips, I make a painstaking task out of pulling my phone from my pocket. “Not yet. Ten more minutes.”

  “Good enough.” Maddie sets her sights on an older couple walking toward us, the woman staggering drunkenly into her husband. “Happy New Year, guys.” Maddie puts the last of her flyers in the man’s hand, smiling broadly as the top few slip off and flutter to the ground.

  She grabs my hand and pulls me into a brisk walk.

  “We’ll go straight into the locker room and Preston won’t notice we’re a tiny bit early.”

  We slip through the bar unnoticed. Maddie’s brought a pot of silver glitter that she dusts over both our chests and arms. I touchup my makeup, covering my reddened cheeks with a sweep of bronzer and plumping my dry lips with cherry flavor Chapstick.

  Maddie attacks my face with a final dusting of glitter, and I blow if off my eyelashes, actually seeing stars that I furiousl
y blink away.

  Maddie turns from the mirror to look at me. A light frown pinches her dark eyebrows. “Should I ask Bally to make us some fries? We can share a basket. I’m starving.”

  I’m also starving, but I couldn’t think of anything worse than loading my mouth and my belly with greasy, starchy potatoes. “No, thanks. You get some, though.”

  “Nah.” Maddie looks forlorn. “I’ll eat after.”

  Our shift doesn’t end for another hour, but Preston surprises us by announcing he’s letting us off early, so we can celebrate the ball dropping. We surprise him even further by smothering him in a double-sided hug, relieved not to have to shove through the packed bar begging for email signups when all anyone wants to do is get so hammered they black out.

  We stay at Champ’s seeing as we’re already here, and because the drinks are so cheap it’s also where a significant portion of Northvale students have descended, looking to get drunk on dollar shots and strange tasting pale ale.

  I don’t trust my eyes the first time I think I see him, and I double back through the show of faces, sure it’s him on a second look. He looks like he’s been here a while, too, and that’s not like him at all.

  “Roman’s over there,” I say in Maddie’s ear, the music threatening to drown me out.

  She searches the crowd, and it doesn’t take her long to spot him on the other side of the bar. “Oh yeah.” She gives me an attentive look. “Didn’t his grandpa just die?”

  “On Friday.” I pull my thumbnail from between my teeth when I realize I’m nibbling on it. “Oh my god.” My arm drops slowly to my side as Jen coasts up beside Roman and puts her hand on his shoulder, her face coming close to his, lips nearly touching, as she speaks to him over a centimeter’s distance, her chest pushed up against his.

  The worst part? He doesn’t look at all uncomfortable around her. He spent the entire day with me on Sunday and now he looks just as cozy with someone else, proving I’m that easy to switch out.

  Jen’s wanted him all this time, and her persistent chasing has paid off, because it looks to me like she’s finally getting him.

  “Brooke, should you not be hauling your ass over there and fulfilling your fake girlfriend duties? She’s all over him and he’s swaying like he’s on board the Titanic and it just hit the iceberg. You can’t leave him with her.” Maddie shivers. “How much is the girl touching him? Is he even awake?”

  I’m not denying Roman’s been hitting the liquor—hard—but it takes plenty of talking myself into breaking the pair up, and even as I’m striding over to them, ungraciously nudging people out of my way, I feel like I should have stayed where I was and left Roman to handle himself. He’s a grown-ass hockey player. But he’s also a loose cannon, and when he goes off, I’d rather not be in his firing line. I’ve seen how he is with Kimberly, and there’s nothing stopping him turning on me in the same way.

  I’m knocked from behind, and I go tumbling into an unsuspecting body, his drink shooting from his glass and soaking an innocent bystander’s lovely white dress.

  The girl cusses up a storm, showering me and the guy I bumped into with glowering looks while rubbing the front of her dress and worsening the watery brown stain across her chest and stomach.

  I spare her an apologetic look before moving on, but I’m stopped dead in my tracks by the person who caused this entire debacle. I’m so stunned by Luke standing over me, I can’t even summon a reaction.

  “You! You lying shitbag!” Maddie takes over the reactions for me, squaring up to Luke even though she’s half a person shorter. “Why are you telling all your scumbag friends my friend slept with you when you know that’s absolute bullshit?” She shoves him in his arm, his solid frame unbudging. “Bloody liar.”

  Luke’s looked at me once. A fleeting glance with zero recognition in it.

  Booker saves us from a further scene when he pushes Luke away from the gathering crowd that’s engulfed us, Maddie’s raised voice drawing in an audience ready to see someone fight.

  Jen’s hands continue petting up Roman like he’s a baby and she’s never touched one before in her life, but he’s staring at me, and I don’t like what I see in his glazed eyes.

  His emotions flicker from one to the next, and I can see him stringing together a huge deal out of nothing. Because now he knows there’s no me and Luke and there never was.

  My feet don’t move from where I’m standing, and this night’s turned on its head so fast, I no longer want to be here. I hate New Year’s. It’s one big Monday to me and an excuse to drink too much and party heavily into the early hours.

  Jen drops her hand from around Roman’s arm after he says something to her, and I go with him when he takes my hand like my palm belongs in his, and there’s nothing weird about it.

  Maddie’s expression mirrors how I’m feeling: confused and apprehensive. The one drink I’ve had swishes uneasily in my belly, bile fizzing in my throat as Roman leads me to a dark corner where there’s less people.

  Maddie doesn’t take her eyes off us, and I wish she’d come over here and hold off whatever’s about to happen.

  Up close, separated from everyone else in the bar, Roman’s in a more stable condition than I originally thought, and he’s still warring over whatever it is he’s brought me over here to say. Sighing and raking his fingers through his hair, giving me this fucking look that feels a hell of a lot of like pity.

  “Just don’t,” I say for him, saving him the grief of having to cut himself loose from me. “I know what you’re going to say, but you don’t have to.”

  “You do?” He doesn’t hide his surprise to hear I’m not as dense I look.

  Yes, I do. I’d known it the second Maddie announced Luke and I were just a figment of Roman’s imagination, been quietly ready for it since we started getting closer, so obviously now he wants to get as far away from me as possible because I knew he would do this.

  I hate how right I was. I hate how he’s not the problem and I am. The dealbreaker was getting to know him. That was when shit started heading south.

  Roman’s gaze is heavy on mine, a weight pressing on my chest, gradually crushing me. The spotlights in the ceiling glance off his hazel irises, glassy from alcohol but fully alert. He raises my importance level even when he’s as good as dumping me. Shows me as much attention as if he was standing here kissing me, making me feel lightheaded rather than like I’m slowly sinking.

  “Can we still be friends?” he asks.

  My heart dives out of my chest and splatters all over the floor despite being wholly conscious of what was coming. I was so stupid to think I could take on Roman and then be able to just walk away. He sucked me into his way of life, chewed me up and then spat me out. After this? I don’t want to see another man until I’m thirty. I don’t even have the right to lose my shit and wail all over him because we were in perfect agreement with each other, only I’ve been flying with the fairies and Roman’s had his feet firmly on the ground.

  I was never a match for him, and I’m still not.

  As much as I hate his weak attempt at keeping up a friendship, and believe me, I hate it, I smile and agree to it, because what the hell else can I really do?

  “So, we’re even?” I ask, keeping my voice light and breezy so Roman doesn’t notice I’m wounded on the inside. Our dumb bet seems so far in the past, I sometimes forget that’s how we know each other.

  He tucks his hands into the pockets of his jeans and nods. His limp smile’s unsure, but it’s there, and he’s trying as hard as I am to keep everything under wraps. He’s just lost the one man in his life I don’t think he could bear to lose, and I know he needs to deal with that before anything else.

  Roman drags his finger along the black shorts covering the side of my hip. “I’ll hangout somewhere else while for a while. Until… you know.”

  Great. Go somewhere else, asshole. He’s just playing with me now, and I’ve got no idea what he’s trying to achieve or if he’s deliberately being hurt
ful to get his point across that he’s done with me.

  It hurts like hell, though, and I lock myself in the staff bathroom after Jen gets her claws back on him.

  My entire chest aches, my bones sore when I know that’s not possible and, physically, I’m all in one piece. Nothing’s broken. Nothing you can see, anyway. All my injuries are internal.

  Who knew I had a flare for the dramatic?

  Brushing away my tears with a wad of paper towels, I let a few more slip out before I take a deep breath and close my eyes, making myself presentable to go back out there and salvage what’s left of New Year’s Eve.

  Not that long ago I was ecstatic to have the rest of the night off. Now I wouldn’t mind if Preston gave me rubber gloves and a hand-held scrubber and sent me to deep-clean the toilet bowls.

  Other than slightly red eyes and cheeks beneath all the glitter, the fake smile I paste on mostly hides I’ve been in here crying, and I suck in one more breath and go and find Maddie.

  The countdown to midnight’s already started as I’m looking for her. The chant surges through the bar around me, the music silent for the occasion.

  Five!

  Four!

  Three!

  Roman and Jen leave the bar together, her arm linked tightly around his.

  Two!

  One!

  Everyone cheers, tossing around ‘Happy New Year!’ as midnight makes its arrival.

  I’m still staring at the doorway, which is now empty, when Booker slides his arm behind my neck and plants a wet, dark rum scented kiss on my lips.

  Either my pulsing head wakes me up or my phone ringing under my cheek in the otherwise silent room.

  I grope for the phone with my eyes closed, then see it’s a text message and not a phone call. It’s from my mom, and I blacken the screen, shove the phone out of sight, and press my palm to my forehead to slow down the beating drum that must be up there.

  I’m curled up in a black leather armchair, and Booker’s lying on his back on the couch on the other side of the living room. It looks like he’s still asleep, but his eyelashes move, and he turns his head to look at me, his face half-scrunched in hungover sleep.