Read Rule for Free Online Page B

thought for a second everything inside me was going to turn inside
out.  “Well he saved me so we made each other better.”
    We fell into an uncomfortable
silence again until the car stopped in front of his apartment complex.  He
turned in the seat and looked down at me.  I peeked at him from under my arm. 
The blue in his eyes was all but swallowed up by the paler silver and gray. 
“Can you get back to University Park or do you need me to take you?  I can have
Nash follow us since he’s home from work.”  It was a nice offer, one I was
surprised he extended, but I had had my fill of Archers for the day and the
drive from Capitol Hill to University Park wasn’t that bad on a Sunday in the
early evening.
    “I’ll make it.  It’s not that
far.”  I scrambled out of the back and had to lean on the door frame while he
got out of the driver’s seat.  We were standing so close I could see the pulse
in his throat thumping under the tattoo he had there of a humming bird. 
“Thanks though.”
    He exhaled and rubbed his hands
roughly over his face.  He took a step back and made sure I was looking him
dead in the eye when he told me, “I’m serious about Sunday.  Don’t show up here
next week expecting me to play nice.  I’m over it.”
    I snapped a salute with two fingers
to my brow and let my body collapse in the seat he had just vacated.  “Message
received.  My services as chauffer slash buffer are no longer needed, which
means I probably won’t be seeing you around.  Try and take care of yourself
Rule, seriously somebody has to.”
    I shut the door before he could say
anything else and didn’t even wait until he moved away from the car to put it
in reverse and pull away from the apartment complex.  It was a short drive to
my own apartment that I shared with my best friend Ayden.  I had met her
freshman year when we shared a dorm room together.  She was a chem major,
worked at the same sports bar I did and totally had the patience to deal with
all my endless neurotic crap.  Her family background was no picnic either so I
loved that I could always rely on her to be there for me, she was also smart as
hell and it had taken her exactly zero seconds to figure the reason my social
life was boring and that I could never commit to any of the guys I dated was
because I was hung up on Rule Archer so when I came stumbling in hurting with
tears in my eyes she put me to bed without questions and pulled the blinds in
my room closed while she fetched me some pain killers and a giant glass of
water.
    The bed depressed when she climbed
up next to me as I kicked my peep toe heels off and tugged my belt through the
loops on my slacks.
    “It was bad today?”  Ayden was from
Kentucky and her southern drawl rolled over me like a smoothing balm.
    “He was with some skank again, he
had a hickey the size of Alaska on his neck, my mortal enemy from high school
hit on him at Starbucks and it took Margot and Dale less than a minute to
insult his clothes and hair and remind him he is not now or never will be his
dead twin brother.  Luckily this time they left out his job and disregard for
manners but he blew his top and stormed out.  They’ve all decided its best we
no longer come up on Sunday making this the second family I’ve been a part of
that can’t figure it out and just love and appreciate one another and to top it
off Gabe has been blowing up my phone all day and I can’t think of anyone I
want to talk to less, so yeah it was really fucking bad today.”
    She brushed a hand over my hair and
laughed softly.  “Girl, the situations you find yourself in.”
    “Tell me about it.”
    “Did you give him the key to his
place back?”
    I moaned a little and buried my
head in the pillow.  “No I totally spaced it but it’s not like I’m in any hurry
to walk in on him and two girls at once again.  Honestly I’ll be super glad to
never have to see Rule’s pierced junk again.”
    She snickered a laugh