Rule(78)

“Are you sure you want to do this?”  Ayden sounded nervous and she wasn’t thrilled I had dragged her to Marked so early in the morning.  We were sitting in a little room at the shop I had never seen before even though I was spending more and more time at the shop waiting for Rule to get off or dropping him off dinner if he had to work late.  The room had clearly been decorated by a female, Cora’s funky sense of style was all over the place and it smelled a little less antiseptic than the rest of the shop.  I was sitting on a chair that looked an awful lot like the one you would find in a gynecologist’s office and nervously fidgeting with everything in sight.

“I’m sure.”

“I just don’t understand why you want to do something that’s going to hurt.”

“It’ll only hurt for a minute and I trust Cora.”  I did.  Whenever I was at the shop we inevitably ended up spending hours talking and had even taken our budding friendship out of the building.  When Rule or Rome were unable to pull ‘eyes on Shaw duty’ Cora didn’t seem to mind hanging out with me until one of my many watch dogs was free.  I really liked her and since the idea had taken root I was happy that having someone I knew and was comfortable with pierce me was the only way I was going to go through with it.  Cora had even agreed to come in when the shop was closed while Rule and Nash were at the gym so that I could keep it a surprise.

“I just want to make sure you’re doing it for you and not for Rule.  What if you guys break up and the next guy you date is all straight laced and proper?  Pierced nipples might not work for your next boyfriend.”

I gave her a bored look and tried to calm my nerves.  The truth was doing it had nothing to do with Rule.  I was back to feeling like I had no control over my life again.  The thing with my car and the way Gabe was still influencing my day to day life, the pressure from my parents about everything from my hair to Rule, the way Rule disappeared inside himself when I started to get too close it was all closing in on me and I needed something that was just for me.  I wanted this little something that was my choice, a decision to alter my body that no one else had any say in.  I was having migraines more frequently, three in the last two weeks and if I didn’t do something I was going to shatter apart in too many pieces to put back together.

“If I Rule and I break up you really think the next guy in my life is going to be all clean cut and preppy?”

“I don’t see why not.  You dated Gabe for six months and he’s about as opposite physically from Rule as one can get.  I bet pierced nipples would send him into cardiac arrest.”

“I’m never dating anyone just because I’m supposed to again, and I’m not planning on dating anyone besides Rule for the foreseeable future anyway so let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

The truth was things had been strained between Rule and I for the last week.  I didn’t know what it was but he was treating me like I was spun sugar and going to break apart at any moment.  When he didn’t think I was paying attention I would catch him staring at me with a confused look in his gaze like he was trying to figure out what I was still doing there, or why he was still around.  He was obsessively concerned about my safety and making sure I was never ever alone and even though we still spent every night together at alternating homes the time we spent in bed had morphed from passionate and out of control, to moments that felt tender and fleeting and while it was nice and hard to complain about it didn’t feel like him and it was starting to really concern me.  I didn’t know how to address it because it wasn’t like there was anything actually wrong, he was still emotionally present, still attentive and clearly willing to try like I asked him but something was off I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was.

“If your father finds out he really will make good on pulling his tuition check for next year.”

My dad had finally gotten tired of me ignoring his calls and had ambushed me at the apartment last weekend.   I had tried to explain the situation with the car, tried to make him understand about Gabe and his threats but none of it did any good.  All my dad was concerned about was how things looked for him and mom the requisite threat about tuition had been lobbied about but it held no weight with me.  I told him if he pulled my tuition I would gladly get a job as a striper to pay my way through med school and he hadn’t liked it one bit.  I knew the threat would only keep him off my case for a brief minute but for now that was all I needed if he wasn’t going to take my back against what was going on with Gabe.

I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him but I don’t think Rule pushing him around had really sent him to ground.  Ayden mentioned she had heard some girls in one of her classes talking about me and from the sounds of it his new mission was to trash my reputation on campus with a series of foul lies and outrageous stories.  Luckily I was pretty immune to hearing awful stuff about myself from growing up in such a judgmental and hatful household or else I would have been freaking out even more and contemplating changing schools to just get away from it all.

“Yeah he would, good thing that’s not something he ever has any opportunity to see.”

Cora opened the door with a little metal tray in her hand that looked sterilized and smelled like hospital grade antiseptic.

“You ready?”