Breaking the Rules (Pushing the Limits, #1.5)(42)

Without a word, I dump the mandatory apron and go out the back door for the alley. The early-evening air feels good against my skin and, to cool down, I whip the bandanna off.

“Shit, Noah, it’s like you want a repeat of our summer in Kentucky.”

Fuck me. The door behind me snaps shut, and I remember one second too late that the door locks from the inside and that the only way back in is through the front. I’m stuck with Mia.

In a white shirt buttoned low enough that it highlights the two assets she’s most proud of and a black skirt that barely covers her ass, Mia leans against the graffiti-covered brick wall. One quick inhale confirms that this time she smokes a cigarette.

Mia twists her hips to show off more of her outfit. “You like? I get great tips in this.”

“I hear there’s a Hooters in Denver.”

She only smiles. “Have sex with me. Right now. My car’s around the corner.”

Jesus, to think what attracted me to her was her direct style and noncommittal attitude. I didn’t realize that she sucked the soul out of then ate whatever she f*cked. “Told you. I’m taken.”

With one final drag off the cigarette, Mia drops it to the ground then grinds it out with her foot. “That only makes me want you more. The first time, it was because you had that bad-boy persona. Now you’ve got that reformed bad-boy thing and I want to...” She curls her fingers in the air and lowers her gaze to the zipper of my pants.

“I’m not playing, Mia.”

I walk past her for the street, and Mia calls out, “You’re eighteen, right?”

The two of us never talked age last year. She was out of high school, and I wasn’t. “Yeah.”

“And the human race has evolved to the point that we easily live to be in our nineties.”

“Got a point?”

She assesses me, boots first then slowly up until she meets my eyes. “I’ve thought about you a lot since we talked.”

That’s what I get for talking. “Shouldn’t think of me at all.”

Mia ignores my comment. “I’ve done what you’ve done—graduated and played house with the good guy. It doesn’t last long. The summer. Maybe a few months into fall, but the good ones lose interest. Redemption becomes boring or maybe we become boring once we’re redeemed. There’s only two ways this can go—she’ll hurt you now or later.”

My body locks up. If this was a guy, I’d knock his head off. “You don’t know shit about me and Echo.”

Mia loses the confidence that pushes out eight feet in front of her and suddenly, she looks smaller than Beth. “Have you started fighting yet? Like no matter what the conversation is, you can’t be on the same page?”

It’s likes she’s crawled into my brain, and I don’t like it. “How about you shut up?”

“Want to know the next stage?”

I don’t, but I do. I rub my neck, ignoring the urge to tug at my shirt as my ability to breathe constricts.

“Soon she’ll find something that interests her and her alone. That special thing they were born to do and when they find it—they come alive. That’s when they meet the real people they’re supposed to be with. Suddenly, people like you and me, the rebellious one that was cool to be with six month ago? We morph into a strangling chain around their neck. Listen to what I’m saying. We’re a phase. That’s all we’ll ever be to people like them.”

I’m shaking my head, but I don’t have words. Mia’s verbalizing my worst fears. Like she’s reading my f*cking mind and foreseeing my damned future.

“I’m getting my shit together. I’m going to be the man she wants.” Yet it isn’t lost on me that Mia and I are the ones standing in the back alley next to a Dumpster overflowing with trash. It’s where we met last year. It’s where we’ve met again and somehow, I’m more comfortable here than when I stand beside Echo at a gallery.

“I was going to become the girl he wanted,” she says. “But there’s no way people like you and me can move quick enough. Have you fallen back onto a bad habit and you got that look of utter disappointment? Sort of like they watched you kick a puppy?”

The expression Echo had when I threw the guy against the wall. The small apprehensive glances at the galleries when it’s clear I don’t belong.

“You were my rebound for my Echo,” she continues. “You helped me remember that it’s better to be in control. We’re the same type of person, Noah.”

“Why do you care?” I spit out.

She shrugs. “Because I wish I would have cut my relationship with him off earlier. I wish I could have walked away with my pride intact. You helped me once, and here we are meeting again. I don’t believe in coincidence. The reason I ended up in the middle of nowhere Colorado is to be the rebound for you.”

“You’re wrong,” I tell her, and begin toward the light of the main street.

A lighter clicks behind me. “I hope I am.”





Echo

Two seconds after I answered Mrs. Collins’s Skype call, I closed the door to the hotel’s business center, granting me the illusion of privacy.

“Is that it?” Mrs. Collins asks. I told her everything: how my sales plummeted, my mother calling, the conversation with the Wicked Witch gallery owner and me and Noah fighting. To cover that I’m lying, I hide my face in my hands when I answer, “Yes.”