The Off Limits Rule: A Romantic Comedy (It Happened in Nashville Book 1)

Lucy’s gaze bounces from the bottle of wine in my hand to my eyes, and she swallows. I start to feel stupid still holding up the wine, and also a little concerned she might turn me away. It sounds egotistical, but I haven’t been used to women keeping me at arm’s length or turning me away this past year. The fact that she doesn’t throw the door wide open and start undressing before I’ve made it across the threshold is refreshing—sort of.

Finally, she steps aside and gestures for me to come in, but her eyes are skeptical. She’s going to keep me on a short leash until she knows what I’m about.

When I walk into the living room, I notice the house is completely dark except for the glow of the TV. I look at my watch; it’s only ten thirty. But, yeah, I guess that’s actually pretty late to be ringing the doorbell of a home with a sleeping child inside. Shoot, now I feel terrible.

“I didn’t wake up Levi, did I?” I ask, turning back around to follow Lucy into the kitchen after she takes the wine from my hands.

She chuckles quietly. “No. He’s with my mom tonight. And even if he wasn’t, he sleeps like a rock. I imagine I’ll have to dump cold water on him when he’s a teenager.”

Oh, so Levi’s not here. And neither is Drew. So that means…we’re alone in here?

Now I’m contemplating the wisdom of this late-night adventure as I track Lucy moving around her kitchen. Her bun is an enormous mess of auburn waves, her shirt is so big it’s nearly falling off her shoulder, and she’s wearing thick-rimmed glasses. And don’t forget the famous dinosaur sleep pants. She’s so freaking adorable I almost can’t handle it.

“I can feel you judging my outfit,” she says as she pours red liquid into two stemless wine glasses.

“Not judging.” I move to stand closer to her. “Admiring.”

She quirks her mouth into a skeptical grin and leans a hip against the counter. I watch her lips make contact with the glass as she takes a slow sip. “You’re so full of lines.”

I hold up a hand in the universal sign of scout’s honor. “I’ve never given you a single line. Only honesty.”

She’s looking for a way to call my bluff. Vast, deep blue eyes search mine then shift to my mouth, looking for any signs of a teasing smile. Back up to my eyes. She takes another sip and tips her chin toward her shoulder. “Okay, then maybe I’ll wear this little number to my next date if you think it’s attractive.”

Her words are a cheap shot to my gut. “Next? Are you going out with Ethan again?” From where I sat, it looked like both of them would have rather been at the dentist. Maybe I was wrong?

“Gosh, no. I now know firsthand how terrible it is to have to listen to someone drone on and on about their kid, but I had two more of Drew’s friends text me tonight asking if I’d like to go out sometime, so I can only imagine how many of them he gave my number to. I’m worried he’s trying to rival eHarmony.”

My teeth clench together. So, it’s not that Drew is against Lucy dating one of his friends; it’s strictly me he doesn’t want his sister going out with. Cool. That feels great and not at all messed up.

“You okay?” Lucy asks when she notices the storm cloud that has settled over my head.

“Yeeeeep,” I say, drawing out the word a little too long before taking a deep drink of wine and letting it warm my chest. How am I going to watch Lucy go on more dates? Whatever. I’ll have to worry about that later because, right now, I’m here alone with Lucy. Me. Not Ethan. Not any of the other guys. ME.

And apparently, when I get jealous, I turn into a caveman. Me get Lucy.

She watches me with an amused, calculating look, letting me know I must be openly displaying more of my jealousy than I realize. Sometimes, I can’t handle her eyes on me like this. It makes me want to fidget, and I’ve never been a fidgeter before. I reach up and flick one of her unruly locks of hair, tossing her my best attempt at a relaxed grin just so she doesn’t look too hard and find all my flaws and insecurities. “What are we watching tonight, Marshall?”

Her eyebrows rise, making her glasses shift a little on her face. “You want to watch with me? It’s a Turkish romance. I doubt you’d be into it.”

“Try me.”

And that’s how I wound up on Lucy’s couch, drinking wine and watching a sappy show until the early hours of the morning. At some point during the night (I think after her second or third glass), Lucy’s legs ended up draped across my lap. They are still there now, and I have one hand on her foot and the other covering her shin. The side of her face is sort of smooshed against the couch cushion, and we both angrily groan when, once again, the show cuts off with the main couple’s lips hovering a hair’s breadth away from each other.

“WHY DO THEY KEEP DOING THIS TO ME?!” Lucy says with overly dramatic, slurring words, shoving her whole face into the cushion and sloshing a tiny bit of wine onto her t-shirt. I’ve lost count of how many glasses she’s had now, and her raised blood-alcohol level is showing.

I laugh and tighten my grip on her foot, liking how freely I get to touch her when it’s just us. “Should we start another one and see if they finally kiss?”

Lucy’s head pops up and her glasses are askew, eyes a little glazed. I right the frames on her face and can’t help the sappy smile I feel on my mouth. I can’t remember the last time I felt this comfortable and happy. Is this why all my friends with girlfriends and wives always disappear? I thought it was because their women wouldn’t let them go out anymore. Turns out, it’s that the men don’t want to leave.

“No. They’re never going to kiss. This show is one nevvvver-ending tension torture device.” Her words stick in a few places, but she finally manages to get it all out. And then her gaze swings toward the TV, smile slowly fading. “’Sides, it’s not good to watch stuff like this.”

“Why not?” I watch closely as Lucy reaches up and tugs her hair free of her bun. Wild auburn locks fall down around her shoulders, and I stare in amazement at how beautiful she is even when she’s in this state. But it’s not just Lucy’s skin, hair, and eyes that contribute to her beauty. It’s every smile, every laugh, every little thing she does for her son and did for me when I was sick. It’s all of it. I meant it when I said I thought Lucy was the complete package. She’s too good to be true.

She gathers all of her hair and pulls it to the side, sectioning off three pieces and stumbling over her own clunky hand coordination, attempting to braid it. She’s doing a poor job and has very clearly tipped over into I’ve-had-too-much-land. “Because it’s not real. In life, the guy doesn’t wait a hundred years for the most romantic moment to kiss the girl. He sleeps with her right away, gets her pregnant, and leaves her sorry butt with a baby.”

The vessels of my heart constrict at the sight of Lucy. A broken-hearted woman is bad enough, but a broken-hearted woman who’s a little drunk, slurring, and spilling her wine as she tries to balance the glass and tame her hair…it’s too much. She looks like a wounded baby bird, and all I want to do is scoop her up, take her home, and protect her until her wings heal.

First, I take Lucy’s wine out of her hands and place it on the coffee table because she’s had enough. Then, I scoot a little closer and move her hands so I can pick up where she left off. Her eyes meet mine, and with an overly dramatic breathy flair, says, “You know how to braid?!”

I laugh and continue to move my hands through her soft locks, overlapping strands and moving slowly as I go. Being this close to Lucy and keeping things strictly friendly is the equivalent of jumping off a roof with the hopes of defying gravity. “I have several female cousins. Any time we would get together for the holidays, they would teach me stuff, like how to braid hair and paint nails.”

“And you wanted to learn?”

I give her a half-smile. “Around age thirteen, I realized if I knew how to braid hair, I’d be a hit at summer camp.”

“Were you?”

I meet her eyes and wag my eyebrows playfully. “Best summer ever.”

Lucy laughs and shoves my arm. I pluck her hair tie from her fingers and wrap it around the end of the braid. When I look back at her face, I find her watching me closely, head leaning against the couch, legs still draped over my lap. “Jamanji was an idiot.”

A laugh shoots from my mouth, and I lay my head back against the cushion, eyes level with Lucy’s. “Janie.”

She frowns and shakes her head a little. “No, I’m Lucy.”

“No—not you, drunky. My ex’s name is Janie.”

“Ohhhhh. Yeah, that’s what I said.” Lucy shrugs her bare shoulder, drawing my eyes to the sharp line of her collarbone and velvety skin. I reach over to pull her t-shirt back up to cover her.

A soft smile tugs the corner of her mouth, and the next thing I know, Lucy is running her finger across my eyebrows. “You have pretty eyes,” she tells me in a dreamy voice.

I’m trying not to laugh at her, but it’s difficult. “Thank you. So do you.”

“But yours make me want to go to Tahiti. I have a screensaver that looks like your eyes.” I think she’s trying to tell me she has a screensaver with a body of water from Tahiti on it, not that she has an up-close photo of my eyeball, but I’ve been wrong in life before. “Jackie is stupid for giving your Tahiti eyes up.” She places the warm palm of her hand on my now scruffy jaw and looks deep in my eyes. “I wouldn’t have given them up. I would have said yes.”

My mouth opens, but I’m not sure why, because it’s not as if I have any words to let out. I don’t know what to say, what I should say…what she’ll remember in the morning of her own words or of my reply. Luckily, she doesn’t even seem to want an answer.

Instead, she smiles and shuts her eyes, letting her hand slowly sink down my shoulder and then arm, stopping to land on my bicep. I notice her dark lashes fanning across her cheekbones, her delicate nose and soft silky skin, thinking how sweet and innocent she looks.

That is, right until she squeezes my bicep and says, “You know what I think about sometimes?” Her eyes pop open and meet mine, looking a little wild all of a sudden. “S-E-X.” She spells it like that somehow makes it more innocent.

I expel a breath like someone just punched me in the lungs. “What?” I ask on a jarred laugh.

She jolts upright and adjusts her glasses, swaying a little to the side. “Ya know…intercourse.” She whispers the word this time.

“Yeah, no, I can spell. I knew what you meant the first time. I’m just trying to figure out why we’re talking about it right now, out of nowhere.”

“Because,” she says in a dramatic tone that could rival the greatest stars on Broadway, “did you know it’s been over four”—she holds up three fingers—“years since I’ve been with anyone?”

I’m sure my eyes are sixteen inches around. I didn’t see this coming (although, I really should have). “No, I didn’t realize that. But there’s nothing wrong with it.” I’d also be lying if I didn’t admit it makes me slightly happy to know she and Grim Tim didn’t sleep together. Which is a double standard and completely unfair of me, I realize.

She makes an exaggerated pshhhhhh sound, and her lips flap a little in the process. “It’s for the birds!”

My Spidey senses begin to tingle. I know where this conversation is headed, and I’ve got to slow this thing down before she steamrolls right over the point of no return.

Gently slipping out from under Lucy’s legs, I stand and pick up our half-empty wine glasses then carry them into the kitchen. “I think we’re good on the wine for tonight, yeah? I better be headed home.” I’m not actually leaving here tonight, but I don’t think telling her I plan to sleep on her couch would be such a good idea.

Lucy is up now too, a woman on a mission as she blocks the kitchen doorway. That wine has fully soaked into her bloodstream and emboldened her in a way she will not look back on fondly tomorrow. I want to stop her before she can embarrass herself, because I know what it feels like to make decisions under a warm fuzzy wine blanket, and believe me, it does not feel so warm and fuzzy when the sun comes up.

“Orrrrrrr,” she says with her attempt at a seductive smile. I love that she’s not good at it. “You could stay here tonight. With me. In my bed.”

Oh, someone make it stop. Not because I don’t want to do what she’s suggesting. Believe me, on any other night, with a fully sober Lucy, I’d be so down for it. But I can’t let her say these things tonight, because I know for a fact that if she were sober, she would not be saying them. It’s clear that Lucy values intimacy as more than just an act, and I will absolutely honor that.

“You know, Lucy…” I walk closer and put my hands on both of her shoulders to gently turn her around and walk her toward her bedroom (so I can make sure she safely makes it there and no other reason). “I’ve got a really early morning at work tomorrow. I better go back—”

She hits the brakes and whirls around to face me. Her finger suddenly runs a trail down the side of my neck. “But you know what I’m suggesting, right?” She tips her head almost aggressively toward her room.

“Yeah. I think I get the gist.”

“Nothing serious. No commitments or anything, of course.” I know she’s not meaning to cut me with her words, but she is. Each word is razor sharp and tears right through me. Does she really think she’s suggesting something I would want, or would find enticing? “You think I’m too sweet for it, but I’m not.” Her words are growing more and more impassioned.

I turn Lucy back around and start pushing her the rest of the way to her room.

She misinterprets. “OH! Did it work? Are we going to do it now?”

I shake my head as I spin her around and sit her down on her bed. “No. You’re going to go to sleep in this bed alone. That’s what’s happening tonight.”

Her shoulders sink, and she pouts. “Whyyyyy? You don’t like me?”

I sink down to my knees and look her directly in the eyes, brushing her hair behind her ear and noting how fragile and vulnerable she looks right now. “We’re not doing this tonight because, one, you’re drunk and I don’t take advantage of intoxicated women. Two, I refuse to be your booty call, Lucy. Not now, not ever.”

She giggles, and I can practically see wine bubbling out of her pores. “Booty.”

“Uh huh,” I say, coaxing her to lie down while I pull her covers up over her. “Yep, booty is a hilarious word. Thaaaaat’s it, let’s get you to sleep there, killer.”

“Cooper?” Lucy peeks one eye open, comforter pulled up around her head like a cocoon, and I wonder if this is how she sleeps every night. She wiggles one finger out of the face hole she’s created and wiggles it, gesturing for me to get closer.

I lean in, unable to keep the grin off my face.

When I get close enough, she whispers, “I’m drunk.”

I nod and lean forward to kiss her forehead. “You’re a cute drunk, though.”

She passes out immediately and is snoring before I can close her bedroom door behind me.

I go back into the living room and turn off the TV, put the empty bottle of wine in the trash, and then curl up on the couch, tugging the blanket over me. Lucy overindulged tonight and deserves to have someone here to look after her and keep her safe while she lets loose (and sleeps it off). I set my alarm for 5:30 AM, planning to be out of here before she wakes up.