Rule(35)

“If we do this; hangout, spend time together your parents, my parents, Rome none of them are going to like it very much.”

“Who cares?”

I guess I did but I always was the always the only one to worry about that stuff.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

I breathed out a soft breath and as it whispered across his mouth he briefly closed his eyes so I did the only thing that was left to do, I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his.  It wasn’t the same desperation as it had been the last time, there was no panic that he would change his mind, no years upon years of pent up desire and frustration, there was no regret that it was only going to be a one night thing  Just the sweet press of my lips against his and the soft bite of that lip ring into my lower lip.  Kissing Rule would always be uniquely different from kissing anyone else, there was just something about it that put it in a class all its own.  I felt his lips turn up into a grin as audible sighs from several of the tables around us were heard.  He pulled back and tapped a finger on the tip of my nose.

I sat back in my chair and cleared my throat.  “Well then.”

He barked out a laugh.  “Yeah, at least that part of it seems to be a no-brainer.”

I shifted in my seat and motioned absently to the work still sprawled across the table between us.  “As nice as this little visit was I have to finish this presentation.”

A quick flash of disappointment blazed across his eyes but he hid it behind that easy grin.  “When do you work this weekend?”

“I work all weekend, but I’m first out Saturday night, I just have to be in by ten on Sunday morning.”

“Busy girl.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“So this hanging out thing might be harder than I thought?”

He said it light heartedly but I knew Rule, he was an instant gratification kind of guy.  If my tight schedule made it hard for us to spend time together I had no illusions that he would wait around for me to get free, he would move on to something easier and more manageable.

“I’ll be out around ten on Saturday and usually I’m out by seven on Sunday, the Sunday shift is optional I just picked it up because we stopped going to Brookside and I figured I might as well make a little extra money.”

“My buddy Jet is playing at Cerberus this weekend, why don’t you grab your roommate and come hangout Saturday night?”

“What kind of music is it?”  Cerberus had a pretty rowdy reputation in town.  It was located in the warehouse district and had been shut down more than once for one thing or another.  It wasn’t the kind of place I would normally consider spending time, in fact it was the kind of place I normally avoided at all costs just on the off chance I would run into someone I knew and they would rat me out to my parents, but if I was going to commit to trying to spend time with this boy that I had wanted forever, then my horizons were going to have to expand.

“Metal.”

I snorted a little.  “Ayden is from Kentucky, she likes Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood.  I don’t know that I could wrangle her into that.”

“They’re actually really good, they went on tour with a pretty famous band last year, besides Ayden seems like a pretty cool chick I bet she would go just to be your wingman.  If she doesn’t come just come alone, I won’t leave you hanging.”

“What about Rome?”

“He has to go to Fort Carson for the weekend.  He has to set up meetings with his VA counselor.  He’s having a rough time since he isn’t healing as fast as he thought he would be.”

“That’s too bad.”

“I’m not going to hide this from anyone Shaw, if you want to play those kind of games maybe you need to rethink whether this is something you really want to do or not.”

I grabbed his forearm and let the tips of my fingers dig into the body of the snake that was marked there.  “No, I’m not going to hide, just don’t make me look like an idiot Rule.  This matters.”

“It matters to me too, Casper.”  He climbed to his feet so that he was towering over me.  He bent down and pressed a soft kiss to the crown of my head.  “By the way you look good in jeans.  Come to the show Saturday.”

“Alright.”  I watched him walk out of the coffee shop and it wasn’t lost on me that so did every other girl in the place.  I stifled a sigh and ruefully shook my head.  I went to flip the top of my computer back open when the girl sitting directly across from me caught my eye.  She was a little bit older than me, had long dreadlocks that were a startling ocean blue and she was staring at me in open envy.  I had to blink a little bit because I was so used to being the one that looked at the girls crawling out of his bed like that.  She gave me a sheepish grin.

“You’re going to have your hands full with that one.”

Considering I wasn’t even a hundred percent sure what we were doing I had no doubt she was right.  It wasn’t like he asked me to be his girlfriend or even on an honest to God date, he just said he wanted to hang out and spend time together, that wasn’t defined or clear and I didn’t even know what that meant to him.  I appreciated that he told me he was willing to keep it in his pants, that he was aware that whatever was happening between us was important enough to try and figure out without the complication of other girls involved, but I was acutely aware that old habits tended to die hard and Rule was not known to practice restraint.  I huffed out a breath.  “You’re telling me.”