The Rule Book: A Novel

A dramatic southern accent perks up behind me. “Excuse me, kind sir, could I bother you for an autograph? You see, I’m your biggest fan in all the world! And it would mean ever so much—”

“Why the hell aren’t you sleeping?” I ask Nora as she slips onto the barstool beside me, looking…damn she’s so pretty. Her hair is all up on her head in a messy bun that drives me literally wild. She’s in her same outfit that she changed into at the airport after our flight—bright pink leather sandals, light blue flowy pants, and a white short-sleeve button-down tucked into the high waistline of the pants. I can’t quite describe it, but just looking at her you know she smells good—sweet and delicious. Like a dream.

She has no business looking this good after the insane day we’ve had. We got into Vegas around nine-thirty a.m. and were immediately driven to the set of the commercial—which took place in a casino. They threw me into an indigo suit that fit me like a glove and the crew shot a few different moody, ritzy-looking scenes of me playing blackjack, roulette, and pool. Turns out, pool is difficult to play in a skintight suit when you’re a person my size. On the last take of the night, the fabric couldn’t handle the strain any longer and split down the back of the jacket.

Other than leaving the jacket behind, I didn’t bother changing when we made it to our hotel, where I deposited Nora at her room and told her I’d tie her down if she didn’t sleep. We finished filming about eleven p.m., and Nora hung on set with me the whole day even though I tried multiple times to get her to go back to the hotel and nap. She wasn’t having it. She’s by far the most thorough agent I’ve ever had—which makes it even tougher that I’ve decided to dissolve our contract.

I really don’t want to. Not only do I need a good agent and think she’d fit the bill perfectly, judging by how she handed me my ass the other night when I was all but giving up on my career, but I’m dreading letting her out of my life again.

It’s not like all the pain I’ve been carrying from losing the woman I loved magically disappeared when I learned the truth, but it did take on a new light. I respect Nora for the decision she made for herself. And dammit if respecting her doesn’t make me love her that much more.

In order for me to move on, I can’t be faced with her day in and day out. It’ll hurt too much.

Nora doesn’t even bother looking guilty for popping up beside me at the bar now. “I tried to sleep. But it’s too noisy.”

“I can get you some earplugs.”

She scrunches her nose and wiggles her fingers beside her head. “I mean it’s too noisy in my brain. I can’t stop thinking of all the potential endorsement deals you’d be incredible for—especially now knowing you can act. What do you think about—”

“Nora.” I interrupt her while looking down at my empty glass. She can hear the change in my voice and knows what I’m about to say.

Her smile fades. I hate that I’m the reason for it dimming.

I grip my glass and stare into it as I say the words I know are going to hurt her. “I…I can’t do this. I thought I could, but I can’t. I need to dissolve our contract.”

There’s a beat of silence between us where only the sounds of Vegas fill the lull. From the corner of my eye, I see her shoulders rise and fall. “Is it…was I…did I not do a good job with the commercial?”

I look sharply at her. “What? No. You are incredible at your job and under different circumstances…I’d be lucky to have you.” Those words felt thick in my mouth. “But…” Damn, I don’t want to say it. “Because of our history, this is too much for me. I’m glad we talked the other night and cleared the air. I meant everything I said about understanding your side of things, but…” I can’t get over you.

Her usual smile is nowhere in sight. “You don’t think with time…?”

I laugh once. “It’s been eight years. I think if time was going to fix this, it would have already.”

I feel like I’m being pretty transparent here. That she’s understanding what I’m saying without me having to say the awkward words Hey, I’m still in love with you and unless you love me back, we can’t do this because it hurts so damn much to be near you and not have you.

But then she says, “Is it…do you…do you still hate me?”

My heart rips down the middle.

Do I hate her? I hate that when your mouth curves into a smile, I can’t kiss it. I hate that you hold my heart in a vise grip and you have no idea. I hate that I’ve never been able to move on from you—not for a single day. I hate that if I were to tell you all of this, you’d leave, and I’d be left vulnerable and bleeding out at the bar.

“No. Hate is not the right word for it,” I say, because I can’t bring myself to lay my heart out on the line in the middle of a Vegas bar. It’s time to move on and just let her go.

We’re interrupted when the bartender steps up and asks Nora what she wants, leaning over the counter toward her so he can hear—or maybe because he notices how beautiful her eyes are and wants a closer look.

“What can I get you?” he asks, and then with an obnoxious smirk, he tacks on, “My number maybe?”

And now I have the strongest urge to slam his face down into the bar and break his nose. Which, yep, this only solidifies why I can’t work with Nora. I can’t be around this all the time. Everyone seems to want her—with good reason.

She laughs at his flirty comment, and I bite the insides of my cheeks not to say anything. But then her hand juts out and lands on the side of my neck where it meets my shoulder. She grips it once, possessively, and I cut my eyes to her. What the hell?

“Sorry—I’m taken,” she says, and my heart—my pitiful little sad sap of a heart—rockets against my sternum.

“Ah, too bad,” says the bartender, turning to me with unapologetic eyes.

I keep quiet as Nora rattles off her order—a gin gimlet—all the while keeping her hand fixed on my neck. Her thumb glides up and down my skin and I doubt she understands how completely she’s torturing me right now. Also how confused she’s making me. Did I not just essentially fire her? What the hell is happening? And why am I contemplating sweeping her into my arms and carrying her straight up to my hotel room?

The bartender walks off and the moment his back is to us, Nora drops her hand away along with her smile.

“I’m so sorry!” she says, turning wide-eyed at me. “He hit on me and I’m just so tired. Plus he was definitely giving off the vibes of a guy who would only take a rejection as incentive to try harder, but then I realized you were here, and you already hate me, and I’m already fired so what do I have to lose, right?” She smile-grimaces at me. “Oh gosh, you don’t look so happy. Are you going to fire me a second time? Here…I’ll just…scootch right over here.” She’s shuffling her chair farther down the bar. “Consider me thoroughly fired. I won’t bug you anymore. In fact, I’ll zip it, lock it, and put it in my pocket.” Of course she mimes this entire monologue by locking up her lips with an imaginary key and shoving it in her nonexistent pocket.

I watch as Nora sits ramrod straight and turns her face forward as if she no longer notices me. This woman.

“Nora, what are you doing?” I ask, trying to keep the laughter from my voice.

She blinks over at me and then pretends to take the key from her pocket and unlocks her lips. “I’m giving you space.”

“This is space? You’re going to sit an arm’s length away from me and pretend I don’t exist?”

“Yes—because I’m professional. The peak of professionalism.” She’s doing something with her hand now. A round-and-round gesture. Nora is a real full-body-conversation kind of person.

“What are you doing with your hand?” I ask.

“Rolling up my window so we don’t talk anymore. You’re free of me.”

“You can have any imaginary car in the world, and you choose one with a manual window crank?”

She still won’t look at me. “Of course because this”—she mimes pressing an imaginary button on the bar—“doesn’t look nearly as cool.”

“I’m not sure cool is the word you’re looking for.”

Nora smiles and slowly turns her face in my direction again. It’s like a light has turned on behind her eyes. “You’re not mad? You’re joking with me?”

“Well, I would if your window was down, but…” I shrug and smile into my glass.

I notice the bartender headed our way again with Nora’s drink. Against my better judgment, I lean over and hook my hand under Nora’s stool, dragging her back to my side. Closer this time. The bartender sets her drink down and lingers a second, hoping to catch her eye (because I guess he feels like dying tonight). But Nora doesn’t see him. She’s staring at me.

We’re both confused as hell.

I don’t acknowledge how close I’ve pulled her. I don’t acknowledge how incredible her hair smells. Instead, I continue like nothing out of the ordinary is happening. “Are you going to be okay once the contract is dissolved?”

“Was Matthew Macfadyen the best Mr. Darcy to ever grace the screen?”

“What?”

She takes a sip of her drink and licks her lips. “The answer is yes to both. I’ll be fine.” Except her eyes dart away from me quickly, like she doesn’t want me to see the truth. She might not be okay. Her agency might think something was her fault. Dammit.

“I’ll call them and tell them everything. Make sure they know it’s nothing you did but because of my own issues.”

“That’s okay. I can handle them myself,” she says with her usual Nora steel, and then takes a long drink, nearly downing her whole gimlet. She hisses once she swallows.

“A little tart?” I ask with a grin.

She doesn’t answer. She swivels on her barstool and her knees push into the outside of my thigh. “So if I’m no longer your agent…tonight we’re just…?”

“Two people having drinks.”

“People,” she says with heavy inflection. “Right. Not friends. Because you hate me.”

“Again—hate is not the word for it.”

“Okay, well, whatever we are…” Her hand wraps around her glass and puts it to her mouth, tipping it back to drink the last swig of it. “Can we be it while drinking? Because I’ve had a long week and I think I’d like to get drunk safely. And you’re a big guy,” she says like maybe I didn’t already know this. “And a gentleman. I think even though you hate me you’ll keep me safe.”

“Once again…hate is not the word.”

She throws her hands up dramatically. “Loathe me, are annoyed by me, despise me, abhor me…”

Fucking love you.

“…Have a distaste for me, wish ill upon my soul!”

I raise my hand in the air to catch my least favorite bartender’s attention. Nora’s gaze slides up my arm and her eyes sparkle. “Ooh, what are you doing? Are you getting his attention? Should I sit in your lap while you do?”

My eyes cut slowly to her, and she smiles wickedly up at me. For some reason—thinking I dislike her is giving her a whole new freedom. Fine. Whatever it takes to get through this last night before we go our separate ways and I make myself get over her for good.

I order us both another round of drinks as well as shots, and a few minutes later, we’re raising our glasses in a toast.

“To the official end of us,” she says in her usual candidness, making me want to laugh even as my chest hurts at the thought of losing her.

“To the end of us.”

Our glasses clink together and then we both toss back our drinks.