The Rule Book: A Novel

“Derek! Derek! Wait!”

This cannot be happening. I’m on the sidewalk outside the agency, trying to get away from this place and that woman as quickly as possible. Mac. I should have asked for more details. But how was I supposed to know that my ex-girlfriend got a job with the sports agency that represents me? Oh god—how long has she worked there? How long has she known that there was always only one degree of separation between us but never chose to enlighten me about it?

There’s no way in hell I’ll let her represent me.

“Derek! Please—ugh. Will you slow down a minute? Jeez, your legs are huge now. You’re like one of those giant trees in Lord of the Rings.” She’s running after me yelling this for the whole city to hear. My SUV is just around the corner in the private parking lot, and I plan on getting to it before she gets to me. Am I being petty? Yeah. Do I care? Hell no.

“You’re not my agent, and never will be, so stop chasing me,” I tell her over my shoulder. I get a glimpse of her rosy cheeks and her deep auburn hair blowing around her face as she jogs to catch up. The wind keeps whipping up her skirt and showing more of her legs than she wants, judging by the way she’s trying to keep a hand pressed to the front of it like a Marilyn Monroe poster. Looks like I finally have the answer to my question: She did become a sports agent.

She overtakes me quickly and does this little hop-skip maneuver to walk backward while looking at my face. “Will you just give me a second to explain?”

“Pole.”

“Huh?”

“There’s a pole,” I say, grabbing her arm and tugging it just enough to maneuver her safely around it. I let go immediately after. Should have just let her run into it. Instead, she’s at my side again in a second. “Derek, please! I want to talk about this. And to apologize.”

“I don’t want an apology. In fact, I don’t want anything from you.” And that’s the truth. There might have been a time when I would have given anything to have her begging me for a chance to explain and apologize, but not anymore. My heart is permanently iced over. I clearly wasn’t enough for her, and that’s all there is to it.

I keep my face forward, trying to block her out as she continues that backward walk. “Stop following me. And watch where you’re going or you’re going to trip.”

“See! I’m already such a devoted agent there’s nothing I wouldn’t risk for you!”

This makes me unreasonably angry. She’s joking around like we’re old friends rather than exes with a history so convoluted that I can only see red when I look at her. “You are not and will never be my agent. We’re done here.”

I want to shut my eyes. I want to close her out and pretend she’s not right here beside me—because this moment, it’s going to set me back again. Just the sight of her rips open old wounds that I felt would never heal in the first place. I’m having flashbacks of Nora poking me in the cheek to get me to smile. Nora’s nervous wide eyes as she sneaks with me into our college rec center after hours to skinny dip in the pool. Nora’s soft smile as she sits beside me in class frantically writing notes and I draw an invisible heart over and over on the top of her thigh.

When I enter the parking lot and click the key fob to my electric SUV, the headlights blink and the door handles pop out. Nora notes which vehicle is mine and shuffles ahead of me to plaster her back against the door—breathing heavily. Why does she have to be so damn pretty still? “I’m not moving until you hear me out.”

“Move or I will move you. This is your only warning.” Don’t look in her eyes.

She tips her brows. “Not to taunt you, but I think you might be underestimating my impressive five-seven height and sheer determination to remain rooted until you—”

I set my hands on her waist, refuse to acknowledge the way she smells like a sweet tropical pink drink, and lift her off the ground, setting her down away from my door. Obstacle removed.

She gasps in outrage.

“I warned you.” I open my door and the audiobook I was listening to resumes playing at max volume. It’s something the learning specialist told me to try—apparently listening to an audiobook is an easier way for my brain to comprehend information. I thought I’d give it a try with a fantasy series that everyone loved in high school, whereas I hated it because it was so difficult to read. I wanted to see what I was missing out on. But now, hearing it blast over the speaker with Nora right beside me makes me feel like I’m standing naked in a hurricane.

I reach in quickly and click the control on my steering wheel, turning the volume all the way down. Once it’s silent again, Nora’s voice cuts through my cloud of anger.

“Derek…please.” Her tone is so soft and pleading. I don’t want to feel anything for her. No sympathy. No heart tugs. Nothing.

But dammit, I do. Because this is Nora. My Nora. And this is why I told myself not to look in her eyes, because then I’ll see everything we once were reflected in them. I’ll see that she’s more gut-wrenchingly beautiful than ever, and no matter what she does or where she goes, in my heart she’ll always be mine. And I hate her for it.

I shut the truck door again and face her fully, crossing my arms and wishing I had an actual shield to cover me. Her eyes drop briefly to my tattoos, and she studies them. I’m sure it’s startling to see me with them since I didn’t have a single tattoo when I knew her. There’s a lot about me that’s changed since we were together.

She pulls her gaze up to meet mine, and determination flares in her eyes. “I’m not sure…that is…I want to—” She licks her lips and I let her flounder. She deserves to drown in awkwardness. “It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other.”

“Really? Because it feels like just yesterday you were telling me you didn’t want me in your life anymore.”

She winces. “Do you want to talk about what happened back then?”

I couldn’t want something less. “If you want to talk, I’d rather hear how long you’ve known.”

“About the birds and the bees? My mom gave me the talk when I was—”

I shut my eyes and she cuts off. Deflecting with humor is so classically Nora it hurts. “We haven’t talked in eight years and you’re making jokes?”

Her smile falls. “You’re right,” she says in a different, more reasonable, genuine tone. “No more argle-bargle. You’re asking how long I’ve known that I work for the same agency that represents you?”

I give a curt nod.

“Well…I’ve known since I first started here about two years ago. But I didn’t realize it until after I already had the job and was sitting in on a meeting where agents were discussing their athletes. Your name came up—and I’ve heard about you from time to time since then but never in a lot of detail.”

My blood boils. “And you didn’t think it would be appropriate to tell me? You just thought it would be more fun to surprise me randomly one day instead? And what the hell is argle-bargle?” I really don’t want to ask that last question, but it’ll eat at me if I don’t.

Nora looks a little too eager to answer. “It means ‘copious but meaningless talk or writing.’ My mom got me a Weird Word of the Day calendar and argle-bargle is today’s word. I didn’t think I’d get a chance to use it, but…”

When I shift toward my truck again, Nora’s eyes widen frantically. “Wait, Derek—I’m sorry. I’m handling this so wrong. I wasn’t sure what to do or if it would matter to you. For all I knew you and Bill were going to happily live out the rest of your lives together. I didn’t rule out matching tattoos! And I had zero idea they were going to pair me with you until this morning—I promise you I would have given you a heads-up if I’d had one myself. And no one in the office knows about our history, I swear. It’s not been some big joke on my end.”

I believe her. I think that’s what sucks the most—I fully buy that she didn’t think our proximity to each other would matter one shit. A flashback pierces my memory of the last time I saw her when she was standing in the hallway outside my apartment shoving a box of my stuff into my arms out of the blue. “I’m so sorry, Derek. I thought I could do this with you, but I can’t. I want to break up. You’re going your way and…I can’t go with you. This never should have happened between us. It was a mistake.” The cold way she looked at me with eyes shuttered and heart closed—I’d rather have been physically stabbed.

I wanted to spend my life with Nora, and it turns out I was only ever a brief distraction for her.

All these years of trying to forget her, trying to get over her and not compare every woman I meet against her, and here she is…asking to be my agent. Asking to step right back into my life as if nothing of significance ever happened.

“I can’t, Nora. It won’t work for me.”

Her golden-green eyes blink up at me. “I, however, am determined for it to work. You just haven’t given me a chance to prove that I can be the best agent you’ve ever had. And I know we have history between us, but—”

“I took your virginity,” I say bluntly, and watch as red splotches rise on her cheekbones. “In your dorm room on your pink comforter. You cried after and told me that having sex with me was going to be your new favorite hobby.” She opens her mouth and closes it when I press on. “I know that you have a pattern of freckles on your right ass cheek that looks like the Big Dipper. And that you make a soft little noise right before you—”

“Okay, I get it,” she says, her face the color of a ripe strawberry.

I shake my head firmly and edge a little closer, crowding her. I lower my voice. “No, Nora. I don’t think you do. Because I’m trying to tell you that there are some things you can’t look past or forget, and you don’t seem to be listening.”

Like wanting to marry her because I was so in love with her it physically hurt, only for her to break up with me before I ever got the chance. I can’t forget that, and I can’t look past it. Especially not right now when my career is on the rocks. She would be the physical manifestation of all I’ve lost and all I could lose at the same time.

“Believe me, I know all of this,” Nora says, putting her hand on my door to keep me from opening it with a raw grit in her voice that wasn’t there a moment ago. It’s a complete contradiction to her watermelon-pink nail polish—but a quick flashback of the deeply competitive Nora I knew and loved. “But I’m willing to put it all behind us. Actually, I have put it all behind us because it was years ago. And I know you have too, judging by all the…” She lets that sentence dangle and doesn’t bother finishing it. I want her to. I need to know what she was going to say and why she thinks she has the right to tell me what I’m over.

You don’t know anything about it, Nora.

Unspoken words and old pent-up frustrations beg me to let it all out right here in this parking lot. I never thought I’d see this woman again. Never thought I’d have the chance to tell her how badly she wrecked me. But here she is…begging me to let her be my agent like our time together left me with nothing but a paper cut.

I keep my arms firmly set across my chest and stare at her.

She doesn’t waver under my glare. “Maybe it would help if I told you some of my ideas to help grow your image over the next year?”

“No.”

She crinkles her nose. “I could tell you how I think you’re missing out on bigger endorsement opportunities?”

“No.”

“A joke, then? A song and dance? Do you need your truck washed and cleaned?”

I’m already rolling my eyes and wrenching my door open because I’m not doing this. It’s time for me to go. But when I feel warm fingers close over my bicep, I freeze. My gaze drops to her pink fingernails, gently holding on to my arm. I feel burned.

When she sees me staring at our point of contact, she pulls her hand away. “Don’t go yet,” she says softly. “I’m just asking for a chance that I know I don’t deserve, Derek. Please. I get that you don’t want to be friends, and that’s fine. I’m only asking for one chance to show you that I’m a good agent. That I could even be a great agent for you, because you have a lot of obstacles coming at you in the next few months and I’m confident that you’re going to hurdle all of them effortlessly. I believe in you and I’m asking for you to believe in me too.”

What a touching speech.

It can go to hell.

Now my anger is mounting to something palpable. Her words did not move me to sympathy. They moved me from anger straight into wanting revenge, because she seriously has no idea how much she wrecked me.

I feel like making her life as miserable as she made mine just so she’ll finally understand. After she broke up with me, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t focus for weeks. The one person I thought loved me for who I was and not for the sport I played or my fame on the horizon broke up with me on a random Tuesday without warning or so much as a guilty excuse. It was torture, and I’ve just decided to give her a little taste of it.

I angle toward Nora with a look in my eyes that should serve as a warning for what’s ahead. “Fine,” I say, taking a small step closer to her. She doesn’t waver or retreat. “You want a shot, rookie? I’ll give you a shot. But that’s all you get. I won’t hesitate to dissolve our contract at any point if I’m unhappy with your representation. And I’ll make damn sure that clause is added to the contract.”

“Really?” Her eyes are bright and brimming with naïve hope. Those same eyes I used to get lost in. I refuse to let that happen again. “Great. Perfect! Thank you! You’re not going to regret this, Derek.”

She’s right. I won’t regret it one bit. But she sure as hell will, because I plan on making Nora’s career a nightmare until either she quits or I fire her—whichever happens first.

“Do you want to go back inside and sign the papers now?” she asks.

“Today’s not good for me. We can meet tomorrow,” I say, purely because I feel like being a dick. “And if we’re going to work together, we’re going to lay down some rules first. Because over it or not—we have a history. A physical history. And I want clear parameters for how we can and cannot interact in a working relationship.”

Nora closes her eyes and at first, I think it’s because I’ve hurt her feelings. But then I remember this is Nora I’m talking to and she’s simply having to breathe through her surge of excitement. Her pupils are dilated when her eyes open again. “Derek—after this, I will stop asking you for things—but please…I’m begging you. Will you let me color-code the rules?”