Rule (Marked Men #1)(19)

When the weekend rolled around I was tempted to give my Sunday shift away just to avoid one more weekend of drama, but the bar was busy and if Rule came in with his friends I didn’t see him. It was still weird not having to wrangle him for family brunch every Sunday but when my shift was over and there hadn’t been any headaches or any accusations and hurt feelings I breathed the first sigh of relief I had in what felt like years. I was feeling so mellow I let Ayden talk me into skipping a study group and going to grab Mexican food instead. It was the first time in forever that I just felt like me and I almost didn’t know what to do with myself.

Since it was the start of a new semester I felt like I was drowning in homework so I gave away my Friday shift and my Sunday shift, I didn’t work this Saturday since it was my birthday and everyone at the bar knew that Lou just loved me and would murder anyone that tried to make me work on the day I turned twenty.

By the time Friday afternoon rolled around I still hadn’t heard from either of my folks so I figured I was off the hook for forced family time, but I had received a text from Margot asking me to reconsider Sunday this week for my birthday. I had replied I would gladly come if Rule was invited as well and hadn’t heard anything back. Ayden was being secretive about what she had planned and it was making me nervous. I would’ve been happy with sushi and the movies again but she kept insisting that we needed to branch out, have an adventure, and do something new. Those words and her take no prisoners attitude seemed like a recipe for disaster but I was trying to stay positive because she was only trying to be nice to me and she was an amazing friend.

I was walking out of my anatomy class and texting one of the girls from work to remind her that she was working my closing shift tonight when I bumped into someone and immediately recoiled in fear and irritation. Gabe was standing in front of me looking as wrinkle free and immaculately groomed as always. His dark hair looked like he had been running his hands through it none stop and when he reached out to steady me I scrambled back so fast that I almost fell backwards onto my ass.

“What are you doing?” I wanted to sound indignant and hostile, but my voice cracked and I had to clear my throat to regain my composure. His blue eyes searched mine intently and I wondered how I had ever found him attractive when now he just weirded me out.

“Uh, you aren’t returning any of my calls and you’ve been really hard to pin down lately.”

“That’s because I don’t want to talk to you or see you. Get out of my way.”

“Shaw, wait.” He held up a hand and dug something out of his pocket and held it out towards me. “I know your birthday is tomorrow and I just wanted to get you something to say I’m so sorry for how I’ve been acting. I was just crazy that you might have moved on to that freak but your mom explained it isn’t like that between the two of you. Here take it.” He shoved the velvet box towards me and I backed away like he was holding a live snake in his hands.

“I’m not taking that from you, I’m not taking anything from you. Leave me alone Gabe, I’m serious.”

“Look Shaw you can’t honestly believe there can ever really be anything between you and that guy. Your mom told me you’ve been carrying a torch for him for years and that he’s never even looked twice at you. You’re just not his type, you’re too good for him and he knows it. Just give me another chance; we make so much sense together.”

I wanted to punch him but I just let the ice that traveled through me at his words coat all the anger I felt starting to build.

“No.” I didn’t say anything else, just ‘no’, because I didn’t need to explain myself or my feelings or the fact that I knew most of what he said about Rule was true. I wasn’t too good for him, I was just too, ME for him to ever look at as anything other than how he did and I had had to make peace with that years ago. I took a few more stumbling steps backwards and then turned on my heel and broke into a full on jog to get away from him. I think he called my name but I didn’t care I just bolted. He was starting to really freak me out and the fact that my own mother was giving out the most intimate details of my life to him just made me wanna vomit. I couldn’t believe that a woman that didn’t even bother to make note of when I was moving out of her house because college was starting noticed how I felt about Rule when he was clueless and it just raked across my ego like razors. If Gabe didn’t knock it off I was going to have to look into changing my phone number and possibly getting a restraining order against him.

When I got home the apartment was empty so like a dork I made sure all the doors were double locked and that the deadbolt on the front door was closed. I hid out in my room and did homework and wallowed in the self-pity that was threatening to drown me. I didn’t consider myself an overly outgoing or optimistic person; it came from years of being over looked at home and socially awkward at school. For a while Remy had managed to pull my head out of the privileged shell I normally coward in and I had thought for sure that when I left Brookside and went off to college I would come into my own, only Remy had died and I was still trying so hard to be all kinds of things to people that just didn’t seem to appreciate my efforts. I dressed nice and minded my p and q’s so that my parents wouldn’t totally forget I existed. I babysat Rule and put up with his awful behavior because I wanted Margot and Dale to remember that he needed and deserve their love just as much as Remy had. I wore a ridiculous outfit to work and put up with silly girls and drunk customers because Ayden deserved a solid roommate that she could rely on and mostly I acted like interacting with Rule, watching him plow his way through the greater population of young adult women of Denver didn’t bother me, didn’t kill something side me and doing all those things day in and day out was starting to turn the little bits that were really me into a shadow.