Rule(55)

“Uh is it going to be weird walking in together with him there?  I’ve had about enough drama for one day.”

I felt him shake his head.  “Naw we talked about it today.  He knows we got something going on and its cool.  He did say that he would break both of my legs if I kept acting like a jackass though, so there is that.”

“Hmm…why did you do it?”  I knew he would know what I was asking about without explaining.

“Because it’s what I do.”  He swore under his breath.  “Girls have always been easy and they usually smell good and taste good so for just a second things are simple and nice and all the crap doing battle inside my head goes quiet.  I knew I didn’t want someone that wasn’t you but I was pissed off and confused so I just did what I always do and thought maybe it would make me feel better.  It didn’t, it made me feel like absolute shit and made me see pretty clearly there is no substitute for you.  I made a mistake but it could have been so much worse and I hope you can sincerely forgive me.”

It made my heart hurt but I understood it because I understood him.  “I don’t like it, but I get it.  It just can’t be your excuse for stepping out on me every time we fight.  I don’t have it in me to just look the other way every time you use another girl to work out your hurt feelings.”

“I told you no more.  I’ll figure this out Shaw I swear.”

“I hope so because we’re going to disagree Rule, we argued before we started sleeping together so you know we’re going to probably argue more now.”

His hand stroked up and down my arm.  “That’s cool because I bet make up sex with you is going to be out of this world.”

I didn’t deny it so I just stayed quiet and let him sooth me while he drove, he even picked Straylight Run to listen to instead of his normal blaring punk rock or heavy metal so by the time we parked in front of the Victorian I was back in control.  He took my bag from me and led me into the apartment.  Rome and Nash were on the couch yelling at the TV, I assumed the Broncos were losing and they both looked up at me with twin faces full of relief.

“Thank God.  Now maybe he’ll stop acting like a cranky toddler that skipped nap time.”  Rule smacked Nash on the back of the head as Rome got up and wrapped me in a bear hug.

“Glad you gave him another chance little girl.”

When I was back on my feet I grinned sheepishly at both of them and turned back to Rule.  “I need to call Ayden and my phone is trashed, can I use yours?”  I expected him to spend a minute erasing texts or clearing his search history but he just handed it over.  I tried to hide how happy that made me so I bit my lip and motioned down the hall.  “I’ll just go in your room so I can hear her over the game.”

“Go ahead I want to talk to the guys for a second anyway.”  The grimness of his tone let me know he wanted to fill them in on my situation with Gabe.  “I’ll be there in just a minute.”

I resisted the temptation to scroll through his contacts and look at his text conversations and dialed Ayden.  I didn’t know if she would answer since she wouldn’t recognize Rule’s number but she ended up picking up on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey it’s me.”

“What number is this?”

“I’m using Rule’s phone because I’m a genius and threw mine against the wall.”

She snickered at me.  “It was because I told you about the girl at the club wasn’t it?”

“Yep.”

“But now you have his phone so you must have worked things out somewhere along the way.”

“He came to Brookside to apologize and then he crashed my mother’s brunch and ended up being the star attraction.  It was impossible not to forgive him.”

“Good for you.  Something tells me that one comes with a whole truckload of drama you so might as well get used to it.”

“Yeah well I’m not short on drama of my own.”  I went into the bathroom and leaned against the sink.  The image looking back at me in the mirror was startling.  I looked agitated and even paler than usual.  “Gabe grabbed me and shoved me around.  He cornered me in my room and threatened all kinds of crazy stuff.  I just don’t know what I’m going to do about it.  Rule’s all set to get together an old fashioned lynching squad and I don’t want him to get in trouble because of me.  It’s a mess.”

“That * put his hands on you?”

I sighed.  “Yeah, I have bruises.”

“Then I say let Rule have at him.  You better be looking into a restraining order.”

“I am, Rule has a client that used to be a police officer he’s going to call him.  He also said he wants to stay with me or have me stay here until the whole thing is resolved.”

“Sounds like your boy is getting serious.”

“He’s trying.”

“Well I guess that’s better than nothing for now.  When are you going to get a new phone?”

“Probably tomorrow, Rule said he would buy me a new one.”

“Man I like a fella that knows how to apologize right.  I’ll see you tomorrow?”  The last was asked as a question.