you more than ever, I try to make decisions, try to go in a direction that I know would make you proud, would make you smile for me, but it’s hard.”
I stayed for a few more minutes until the tears were nothing more than icy trails on my cheeks, then climbed to my feet. I rested a hand on the top of the gravestone and said a final good-bye while trying to regain my composure. When I got into the car, Ayden had hijacked the radio and Lady Antebellum was twanging it up. She turned it all the way down as I got behind the steering wheel and peeled off my gloves.
“Everything okay?”
I nodded and held my frozen hands over the heater, wishing I had one big enough to dry the legs of my jeans. “Yeah, it’s just sad. I miss him a lot. We used to talk every single day, sometimes for hours and hours. I feel lost without him. So much of the time I think he’s the only one who would make sense of how hard it is to get a handle on Rule. They were very different, but still essentially the same at the core, good men with a strong sense of self and loyalty.”
“It’s obvious you cared deeply for him, so why didn’t the two of you ever hook up? It seems like it would have been an obvious match.”
I smiled ruefully and headed back toward the city. “Because we didn’t feel that way about each other. He knew I was in love with Rule. At times he encouraged it, at times he tried everything to talk me out of it, but he knew it, and for the most part respected it. As for Remy, he was in love with someone else, someone very unlike me. Remy was the life of the party; he had a million friends and everyone wanted to be around him all the time, but he was really private when it came to his love life. Rome and Rule burned through girls at a rate that is honestly alarming, but Remy played it close to the vest. I think he let people believe we had a thing going because it kept them from asking questions he didn’t want to answer. He didn’t want the comparison to his brothers, and his parents loved me so it was just easier for him to play along than deal with the hassle.”
“That doesn’t seem like it was very fair to you. If he knew you were in love with Rule the whole time, why would he let him believe you and he were a couple?”
Rule asked me that same question all the time, even though he wasn’t armed with the knowledge that I had been in love with him for so long. I hated that I couldn’t answer it for him. Remy’s secrets weren’t mine to tell, even if it strained things between Rule and me.
“He had his reasons. At the time I understood them; I guess I didn’t see how damaging they could be. At the end of the day, he saved me from a high school life that would have been miserable and a family that treats me like furniture, so I don’t mind suffering for him in the slightest. You would have liked him; everyone did. As moody and difficult as Rule can be, Rem was just the opposite. He was always affable, smiling, and happy. He just wanted to have a good time and make sure everyone else did, too.
“When he graduated, he was supposed to go to California on a football scholarship. He was good, better than good, but he turned it down because if he had to play in order to stay in school, then that took the fun out of the game for him. Rule moved to Denver with Nash, and Remy left with them. The guys went to work in the shop as soon as they had their diplomas, and Remy screwed around trying to figure out what he wanted to do. Eventually, he got hooked up with a high-end event planning company throwing swanky parties and doing black-tie events. He had found his niche and he never talked about college again. He made good money, loved living in the city, had a great relationship with his brothers and his family. He got involved in a relationship with someone who made him smile and act like a giddy kid. I had just moved here for freshman year when he died. It sucked and it totally wasn’t fair; everything was right where he wanted it, and he was taken away from it all because of a stupid accident.”
“That’s just tragic.” I could hear the emotion in her voice.
“It is,” I agreed because that was all I could do. By the time we got to the salon, we were both beyond ready for a little pick-me-up and I decided that a hot-stone massage was definitely in order.
We got pampered and all loosened up. Maybe too loose, because when it came time to touch up my hair, I had him take the chunk in my bangs and make it almost black instead of the subtle light brown it had been. He did the same to the underside of my long hair so that I had almost a checkerboard effect. It was edgy and dramatic; there was no way to miss it, and the black made the green of my eyes iridescent. I really liked it and so did everyone else. As soon as we got out of the salon, a group of girls around our age stopped to ask where I had it done.
Ayden and I went to get lunch and decided to grab a cocktail at a bar close to the apartment. I glanced at my phone and noticed Rule had texted to ask how I was doing. I frowned and shot back that everything was fine. I waited for him to demand to know where I had been all day, to ask what I was up to, but instead he said that was good and wanted to know what time to come over tonight. My stomach knotted and I felt something awful rise up in the back of my throat. He was only being thoughtful, but I hated it and I wanted it to stop. I texted:
I think I have a migraine coming on. Ayden isn’t working tonight so I think we’ll just have a girls’ night at home with a stupid movie and some popcorn so you can go out with your friends or whatever.
I wanted him to tell me that was stupid. That of course he would come over, but I got back:
All right. Let me know if you need anything for your head. Keep your door locked. I still don’t trust Davenport.
I wanted my Rule back. I wanted him to get mad at me. I wanted him to throw all that attitude he normally toted around at me, but I got none of it. All I got was quiet acquiescence and easy agreeability, things that my Rule knew nothing about. Angry and not sure why or what to do about it, I tossed the phone into my purse and ordered us another round of drinks.
“What’s wrong now?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, Shaw. I’ve been with you all day; tell me what’s really going on. The boobs, the hair, the freezing visit to the grave—something is behind it all. You make me talk when I don’t want to, so spill it.”
I sighed dejectedly and twirled the straw around in my drink. “I told Rule not to come over tonight because I was getting a migraine.”
“Which I assume is not true.”
“No, and I don’t really want him to stay away. I just want him to do what he normally does and throw a fit, to act temperamental and bossy, to tell me he’s coming over whether I like it or not. Instead, he just says okay like it’s no big deal, and I don’t know what to do with it. It’s not like he can’t be sweet and nice when he wants to, but that’s just not his default. He’s complicated and argumentative, but lately all he wants to do is smile and nod like I can do no wrong. It just isn’t like him, and it weirds me out.”
“Maybe try being stoked that your boyfriend sounds awesome?”
I tried to smile because I knew she was just kidding, but I didn’t have the heart for it. “It’s not just when we talk or I ask him to do things, it’s in bed, too. Normally, it’s all out-of-control passion and mind-numbing orgasm after orgasm, but lately it’s been a lot more like ‘May I do this?’ and ‘Is it okay if I do that?’ and ‘How does this make you feel?’ He’s never been the type to ask for permission, he takes what he wants and by the end makes sure you want it twice as bad. It’s starting to freak me out because I don’t know how to talk to him about it without sounding like a paranoid lunatic.”
“Well, you have to talk to him
