Rule (12 page)

“What?”  Something crinkled under
my hip as I moved while my brother chuckled in my ear.

“Did I interrupt something?”

On a plain piece of sketch paper I
had laying around for drawing up designs for clients she had written in her neat,
girly scrip:

Best
birthday gift ever!  Thanks

She didn’t sign it, didn’t say she
would call or ask me to call her.  It was plain and simple and I wasn’t sure if
it made me elated or furious.  My brother was still waiting for a response so I
shook the cobwebs loose out of my head and sat up in the bed.  It smelled like
sex and her.

“No I just didn’t sleep good last
night.”

“That’s what happens when you bring
strangers home with you, you have to make sure you sleep with one eye open so
they don’t rob you or stab you while you sleep.”

I groaned.  “Dude you need to get
out of the Army.  Not every stranger is an insurgent.”

He muttered something under his
breath that I didn’t catch.   “Hey I’m gonna come to Denver for the week.  My
shoulder is acting up and I need to touch base with my Orthopedic surgeon plus
mom is getting on my last nerve.  Shaw refused to come over for lunch today
because mom wouldn’t invite you as well and now she’s convinced you’ve somehow
corrupted her darling girl.  I keep telling her she needs to see someone and
dad even agrees but she’s just so stubborn, I guess that’s where we get it
from.”

I winced a little; glad the
conversation was happening over the phone.  I was sure guilt colored my face. 
My mom would freak out to extreme levels if she had any clue just how
thoroughly I had corrupted Shaw.

“How much longer before you have to
go?”

“I have to be medically cleared
first and I’m supposed to meet with a VA counselor to make sure there isn’t any
PTSD from the accident.  I have to have a clean bill of health all the way
around before I go back.”

“Well it’ll be nice to finally get
a chance to hangout without all the family drama.”

“Yeah, I’ve been calling Shaw all
morning so I can take her out to dinner or something for her birthday.  I’m
sure her moronic parents didn’t do anything again and I hate the idea that she
probably had to spend it alone.  You should get off your lazy ass and come with
us if I get ahold of her.”

I started to choke a little.  It
was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that she most definitely hadn’t been
alone but this was Shaw and as close I was to Rome he didn’t need to know what
we had been doing in this room last night.

“Naw, I think she’s had enough of
me.  I ran into her a few weeks ago and I see her around here and there.  I
think it’s a nice break for her not to have to deal with me every weekend.”

He laughed a little.  “You’re
probably right.  I’m gonna crash with my buddy Drew since I don’t think the
shoulder is up to sleeping on your shitty couch and he has the room but I’ll
hit you up when I roll into town.  If I can’t get in touch with Shaw you and I
can go grab dinner somewhere and you can disgust me with all the tales of your
latest conquests.”

I rubbed a hand over my tired face
and shoved Shaw’s note into the nightstand.  I could still feel her hands
moving all over me.

“You need to get off your butt and
start pulling some conquests of your own.  You’re a hero dude, chicks eat that
stuff up.”

“I’m not like you Rule; I’m not
twenty two and living life by the seat of my pants.  I’ve seen the worst
humanity has to offer, in the last four years I’ve buried more friends than
I’ve made, I get out of the Army in less than two years and I don’t know what
the future holds for me so nailing every pretty girl in my path is pretty low
on my priority ladder.  Right now I want to get healthy, get our family back
together and finish this tour up without any more dead bodies.  One day you’ll
understand.”

He wasn’t wrong.  My priorities
were very different from his.  I made good money, had a ton of savings, drove a
nice car but I was viscerally aware that the majority of my time was spent
trying to outlive the shadow of my dead twin.  I wallowed in superficial
relationships so no one could get close to me, no one could judge me and find
me lacking.  I sought out girls that were easy, that had zero expectation
beyond what I offered, a good time and a few mindless minutes of release but I
had never had a girlfriend, never let anyone all the way in because I was
scared I wouldn’t be enough once they got down to the core of who I was.  I
knew it was messed up, knew I was an emotional train wreak and the thing with
Shaw was just bound to make it even worse.

“Whatever.  A good time never
killed anyone.  Call me later.”

I tossed the phone on the bed and
went into the bathroom to take care of business.  When I went into the living
room Nash was sprawled on the couch watching the early game on the flat
screen.  He had a mug of coffee in one hand and a doughnut in the other.

“Morning.”

He flicked his gaze up to me. 
“What’s up?”

“Nothing.  Did you see Shaw this
morning?”

He nodded and held up the
doughnut.  “She left these.  So what’s the deal with that?  She was in the
kitchen this morning so I assumed she stayed the night with you.  I thought you
were going to put her in a cab.”

“Where did the roommate end up?”  I
tried to change the subject as I got my own coffee.

“I offered to bring her back here
to wait for Shaw but she was having a good time so we had a few more drinks
then I called her a cab.  She seemed to think it was a brilliant idea that her
very intoxicated friend was going home with you, why is that?”

I grunted and sank down on the
couch next to him.

“I dunno.  Shaw and I have all kinds
of twisted history, who knows?”

“But she spent the night with you?”

“Yeah.”

“And I’m assuming because I’ve
known you since forever that you didn’t spend the night discussing politics and
watching TV?”

I glowered over at him.  “No.”

He shook his head and made a tisk,
tisk sound.  “What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t, clearly.”

“Dude, she’s not one of those
girls.  You can’t just have me escort her out in the morning and never talk to
her again.”

“Hey I woke up alone this
morning.   I didn’t make her go anywhere.”

“But you would’ve and Shaw is way
to classy and smart to do a walk of shame.  Man I can’t believe you hooked up
with your brother’s girl.  You really do have some problems, that’s a whole
mess I wouldn’t even jump into no matter how hot the girl was.”

I made a strangled noise and
reached forward to put my elbows on my knees.  “Let’s just say I don’t think
there is any real reason to worry about tarnishing Remy’s memory.  I don’t know
what was going on between those two for all those years but after last night
there is undeniable proof that they weren’t sleeping together.”

Nash swore and his eyes got wide. 
“She was a virgin?”

I nodded.  I probably shouldn’t be
sharing all this with Nash, but I was confused and he was my best friend.  I
was in over my head.

“She was a virgin and gave it up to
you, holy shit bro that’s like a huge deal.”

I sighed.  “That’s what I thought
but then she was gone when I woke up and she was pretty trashed last night so
maybe it was just beer goggles and too many martinis making the choices for her.”

“She seemed fine this morning, I
mean she looked hung over and pretty obviously worked over but she wasn’t
nervous or weird or anything.  She called Ayden for a ride and ran out for
breakfast while she waited. I dunno man, she didn’t seem all swoony in love or
stalker pissed off, she just seemed like normal Shaw.  Granted I always thought
she kinda had a thing for you.”

I turned to him with a look of
bewilderment.  “What?”

“She puts up with your shit no
matter how bad it is.  Don’t you remember that one New Year’s she showed up to
get you and you brought home the redhead and her friend?  That was a freak show
and Shaw didn’t even blink she just tossed you your pants and told you to get
it together.  She lets you be all moody, surly and grumpy and doesn’t even bat
an eye and trust me dude that shit gets old super-fast.  She’s willing to go to
battle with the only parents she’s known to show her any love because she wants
them to treat you right and quit blaming you for Remy’s death, she isn’t doing
any of that for Margot or Dale, and she sure ain’t doing it for Remy, the only
person any of that benefits is you.  Even as stubborn and self-involved as you
are, you have to be able to see that.”

“But she’s Shaw.  Perfect, Shaw. 
Even when she was little she was untouchable and aloof.  She would be over at
the house all the time with Remy and every time I said anything or did anything
she would just look at me like I was an idiot.”

He snorted.  “You were an idiot. 
You don’t remember being sixteen?  We were nightmare and never very nice to
her.  You made fun of her hair, teased Remy mercilessly about spending all his
time with her, you were an ass.”

“I was?”

“Dude, you still totally are.  And
Shaw is Shaw.  She’s so freaking beautiful it hurts look at her sometimes, but
she doesn’t even know it.  She’s still untouchable because she’s always going
to be richer and smarter than we are, but she doesn’t care about any of that. 
She’s cool, she doesn’t care that you’re just you, and honestly Rule, any chick
that can put up with the headache that is you, well I’d put a goddamn diamond
on her finger.”

I punched him in the shoulder. 
“I’m not that bad.”

He gave me a look.  “Yeah you are. 
Think about it, it only took seeing her dressed as a sexy referee to get you to
notice she was an actual girl after all this time.  You suck.”

“But man oh man did she look good
in that outfit.”

“See, total suckage.  So what are
you going to do now, call her?”

“I don’t know.  Rome is coming to
town and since I like my privates located where they are I need to keep it on
the low down.  I don’t think she’ll say anything to him.”

“Probably not, she knows it would
drive your crazy mom right over the edge.”

“Yeah.”

“So,” he paused and gave me a
pointed look.  “Was it worth screwing everything up?”

I let my head fall back on the
couch and stared up at the ceiling.  “It so totally was.”

I had had the best sex of my life
with a girl that I had thought was way out of my league and in love with my
dead brother, yeah Nash was probably right if anybody could put up with all the
crazy I was rocking I should probably lock them in quick because even I could
see how seriously screwed up what I had allowed to happen last night had been.

Shaw

“Stop looking at me like that.”  I
fiddled with my hair and adjusted the neck of the scarf I had on to cover my
neck.  Rome was looking at me like he was trying to see inside my head and I
didn’t like it one bit.  I ignored his calls all day Sunday because I was still
trying to get my head around the fact that I had drunkenly demanded Rule take
my virginity and I had been sore, both from the booze and the bed acrobatics. 
I had a test Monday and had to work a closing shift, on Tuesday I did a
volunteer shift at the children’s hospital and suffered through an ungodly
dinner with my father and his new wife so Rome had been forced to wait until
Wednesday to take me on my belated birthday dinner.  Ever since I sat down he
had been peering at me intently and I had to kept checking to make sure that
the scarf was covering the lovely hickey Rule had left Saturday night.  I got
enough flak from Ayden about it and I didn’t need Rome joining in on the Shaw is
an idiot band wagon.

“It’s the hair.  It’s nice but I’m
just used to the all blond.  You look different, more mature.”

“Thanks, I like it.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you
in jeans either.”

“I went shopping for my birthday. 
I decided that the pearls and heels didn’t need to be worn every time I left
the house, I have plenty for when it’s time to play society maven for the
folks.”

“Speaking of birthdays I brought
this from mom and dad.”  He handed me a little bag and I set it on the table
between us.

“Your mom won’t talk to me; I tried
to call her the other day.”

“She’s having a hard time now that
you laid the law down.  She always viewed you as an ally in the war on the get
Rule to get his act together war.  She just doesn’t see what she’s doing to
him, to us.”

I sighed.  “I know that’s why I had
to stop.”

“This is from me.”  He gave me a
gift certificate to my favorite bath and body store.  I smiled and gave him a
big hug.  I just loved this guy, he looked like a warrior but he had such a
good heart.

“Thank you Rome, that’s so sweet. 
I’m so glad you’re home.”

“Me too little girl, I tried to get
Rule to come out but he had a late client.  He was grumbling about having to
draw yet another Harry Potter tattoo or something, I guess I forget he actually
has to work.”

I peeked inside the bag.  It was a
picture.  Margot had found one of the very first pictures taken of me and Remy
and put it in a lovely silver frame.  I was so small and awkward and Remy so
tall and handsome, we looked ridiculous but it was a sweet gesture and it
brought tears to my eyes.  I showed it to Rome and slid it back into the bag.

“I miss him every day.”

“I do too; I miss the way he made
everyone act right.”

I laughed a little and sipped some
of my iced tea.  “Yeah he was good at policing the way everyone treated each
other, he didn’t tolerate any of the silliness we tend to allow.”

“Rule said he’s run into you a
couple times, how was that?”

I cleared my throat and willed the
scarlet blush that had been accompanying Rule’s name all week to stay at bay. 
“Kinda weird.  He came into the bar I worked at with a bunch of friends on a
game day.  It’s strange to interact with each other like normal people.”