The Rule Book: A Novel

It’s a single-room suite. And of course it is! Why would we have expected the agency to book us anything different? We’re married, for pancake’s sake. But somehow in the mad dash to buy and pack our clothes and get to the airport and slip further into delirium from complete lack of sleep over the last forty-eight hours, I didn’t stop to consider that Derek and I might have to share a room. Share more than just the same space, in fact.

I blink at the only bed in the room.

It’s enormous—which is good, I guess. But also, somehow daunting. A zing of desire strikes down my spine as I think of sleeping next to Derek again. Should I be having desire zings? I don’t think so. You’re his agent, Nora! Wait, am I? He unofficially fired me.

Dear god, the enormity of the mess I’m in fully hits me. I’m married to my client who fired me. Who also happens to be Derek. Who I also happen to still have feelings for and find myself wondering every ten minutes if I made a mistake breaking up with. Wondering if maybe I could kiss him, and he’d kiss me back?

Not good.

My eyes slip to the man beside me. Up his solid tattooed arms to his hulking shoulders, over his square jaw and to that full mouth a man has no business possessing.

This is going to be tricky.

“Well now, this is a gorgeous suite,” I say, stepping deep into the bowels of the beast but away from the offending bed. I drop my backpack next to the big black velvet couch and run my hand over its soft armrest.

“I’ve always wanted a velvet couch.” I’m a blabbermouth with nothing important to say.

Derek watches me dramatically wiggle my butt around and make a big show out of loving this piece of furniture. “This is sublime. I mean, what a couch. In fact…” I trail off while unzipping my backpack and pulling my laptop out onto the tops of my thighs. “I think I’m going to claim it, if that’s okay with you?”

“Nora.” That’s Derek’s all-too-familiar what is happening to you now way of saying my name.

I force my gaze up.

He’s still standing in his same place just past the door, but he’s so large it feels like he’s taking up the whole damn room. Another reason I’m not sharing that bed with him. He seems to be hitting a growth spurt as we speak, and his shoulders are doubling in size. There’d be no room for me on there. Our butts would bump. Legs would tangle. I’d have to lie facedown on his chest because it’s so big it would become the mattress. And then I’d somehow wake up pregnant and there’s no way I’d be able to birth one of Derek’s monstrous babies; therefore, I will claim the couch.

I only glance up at him for a split second before I dive back into the world of my laptop. Even as I begin typing the response to an email that came through while we were in the air, I feel my shoulders relaxing. Some people use fidget spinners to distract their fingers from anxiety. I use work. Work is good. Work is where I go when I feel unsure in the world because for me, work is an equation that has a clear answer every single time. Plus, I’m good at what I do.

Want to guess what I’m not good at? Derek.

I feel his eyes on me and my fingers are clumsy on the keys. I backspace four times.

“Nora, I feel like I’m always asking this question lately, but…what are you doing?” Derek’s voice rumbles at me. Or it rumbles extra at me. It’s gritty from his lack of sleep and he’s sporting a very nice scruffy jawline.

“Working.”

“Yes—I see that, and I’ll get to that in a second. But more specifically, I mean what are you doing saying you’re going to sleep on the couch?”

“The truth is, Derek, I have a serious lack of faith in anyone else’s ability to really appreciate the importance of a great couch. I want to make sure the furniture in this suite is all treated fairly. It’s equal opportunity or bust in my hotel rooms.”

His head tilts, giving me an unamused look. “You’re making sure the inanimate objects have a shot at equality?”

I run my hands over the sofa like I’m searching for its ears. “Shh. You never know when this could turn into a Beauty and the Beast situation, and all this furniture might come to life. You want to be on their good side.”

Derek pinches his eyes closed and rubs them with his thumb and forefinger. His bicep does that comet thing again. “Nora…I can’t let you sleep on the couch.”

“Why not? Do you want to sleep here? Tell you what, I’ll play you for it. We can both balance on our left foot and the first one to drop their other foot has to sleep in the boring bed.” I continue to type type type while carrying on a conversation like I’ve watched Nicole do successfully dozens of times. But it’s harder than it looks. I’ve just written one long line of gibberish.

“Because—can you stop working for a second?”

“Why?” I frown up at him. “The bird that catches the worm never sleeps.”

“That’s not the phrase.”

“It should be.” I continue typing.

“Nora, put down your laptop,” Derek commands, but it barely pierces my consciousness because now I’m eyeballs-deep in emails and feeling my purpose in the world restored. But then something slips past his lips that has me looking up. “Please.”

I meet his tired eyes and then gently close the laptop.

He watches me move it aside. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed or not, but there’s a big elephant in the room.” He moves to perch on the edge of the bed.

“Of course I’ve noticed. She’s bedazzled herself and is shooting off fireworks. Frankly, that elephant is an attention hog.”

Derek fights a smile with all of his heart and loses the battle right there in the corners. I love it. I’m a glutton for that smile ever since seeing it in the lobby. Give it to me, Pender.

“Please answer honestly, Nora. I’m too tired for anything else right now.”

“Okay. The truth is, I’m working because I don’t know how to act around you anymore. I don’t know how to breathe normal when you and I are married and sharing the same air in a room with a king-size bed. I don’t know how to make eye contact with you ever since you said you understand why we broke up, but now you don’t want to be friends. Because how the hell do we do that? I’m your agent, who was also fired, who is also your ex-girlfriend, who is now your wife, but we also have this long list of rules to follow. There’s too much overlap and confusion here. The Venn diagram looks like a hypnotic swirl!” I glance longingly at my laptop and pat the top. “But in my emails, I’m still just your agent for the time being. And that’s not confusing at all so I’d rather live there.”

He nods slowly. “It’s good you brought it up. I’m unfiring you.”

I glance sidelong at Derek, all suspicion now. “Why? I don’t want to be your agent if I’m only getting the position because we’re accidentally married and you feel bad about it.”

“That’s not even close to the reason. I want you to be my agent because you’re resourceful and creative. Because you somehow managed to still cut killer deals for me even when I was running you into the ground with busywork. Because you stood up to me and told me to quit being an ass—something no one else would have done in your situation. Because you’re the best one for the job.”

I’m not convinced, and I have a chronic need to earn my place in life. “If all those reasons are true, then why did you fire me in the first place?”

He holds my gaze, his jaw ticking once. “Honestly? I thought it would be too difficult between us in the long run. But I’m ready to get over it now and work together. I’m really sorry, Nora, and hoping you can forgive me for it. All of it.”

“Oh.”

“You’re speechless?”

“For the first time in history, yes.”

“Then I’ll take advantage of it.” He pushes the sleeves of his lightweight hoodie up his forearms and then leans over to rest them on his knees. “I really do want you to be my agent, but not this week. This week, I think you should close your laptop and take your vacation days.”

My mouth falls open. “It’s time to clean your ears out because clearly you heard nothing I said about needing my work to keep myself grounded during all of this.”

He leans back, pressing his hands into the mattress behind him and—dammit—his chest grows again. “It’s too weird if you’re working and we’re acting married. For this week only, let’s just be Derek and Nora. There’re too many spinning plates in this scenario and it’s a mess for both of us. So I propose—”

“Ironic word choice.”

“—that we close your laptop for the week, and then when we go back to L.A., we can double down on the rules and get back to normal.”

I hate to admit it, but I think he has a point. “You want to get rid of the rules also?”

He frowns in thought for a minute. “Where we can, yeah. But I want you to feel comfortable and safe, so we can stick to them if you want. But it might be difficult while trying to sell the relationship in public.”

“I always feel safe with you, Derek,” I say before I can stop myself. But it’s true and I’m not sorry that he knows it. “We could completely dump the rules out the window and I’d still feel that way.”

His sharp blue eyes bore into me, and the air feels thick. “I’m glad to hear it. And since we’re on the same page…I think we can share this bed.”

I cut my eyes to where his hand is denting the comforter. “How can we share it without…”

He lifts a brow at where I let my sentence dangle.

“Accidentally touching! That’s all I was thinking. Not sex. I wasn’t thinking about having sex with you at all. Sex never even entered my train of thought. Ever. Not even back when we were having it.”

Somehow his entire body is a smirk. “You’re saying the word sex a lot.”

“It really feels like it, doesn’t it?” I grimace. “Now we definitely can’t share that bed.”

He laughs and unfolds his big body like the word sex never fazed him. Probably because he’s had plenty of it over the years, unlike me who hasn’t touched a man in three whole turns around the sun. Jeez, I should fix that.

But not with him!

“We used to sleep together, Nora, that’s a fact and not something we have to be ashamed of. Open communication now.” He grins at me from where he’s standing beside the bed, and it makes my knees feel like they’re made of banana pudding.

“What are you doing?” I ask as I watch him add an extra blanket to the bed and then toss his pillow to the opposite end.

“This is how we can share a bed without touching. I’ll sleep on top of the comforter, and you can sleep under it. And just for added measure, we’ll sleep feet to face.”

“You mean sixty—”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” he warns, and the serious note to his voice has me thinking maybe he’s not so unaffected after all.