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

Well, this is the worst.

Come out on the boat with me and my sister, Cooper. It’ll be fun, Cooper.

Guess what, Drew—it’s not fun! His sister is supposed to be burly-looking, the female version of HIM. She’s supposed to have a deep, husky voice, and if I squint, I would get her and Drew mixed up. That’s what every guy hopes his best friend’s little sister will look like.

Lucy, however, is freaking gorgeous.

She looks absolutely nothing like Drew. The only thing these two have in common is their eyes. Except, on Drew, they are just plain blue. Dude has blue eyes, end of story. On Lucy, they are deep-indigo irises framed by long, dark lashes. Her skin is a soft milky white, and her hair is dark auburn, almost brown but not quite.

The worst part of all? She’s got that girl-next-door look about her. The kind that’s so sweet she can’t make eye contact with me while my shirt is off. The kind that makes her cheeks go pink every time I talk to her. It’s been years since I’ve met a woman who genuinely blushes, and here she is, yanking down the hem of her cover-up and darting secret glances at me when she thinks I’m not looking.

I’m looking, though.

I’ve had my peripherals trained on her from the moment I stepped on the boat. Which brings me to my next problem and, actually, the real worst part of it all. She’s off limits. Lucy might as well have a neon flashing DO NOT TOUCH marquee above her head. Not only is she Drew’s sister, but she is fresh out of a breakup and, if I remember correctly, has a little boy. I know about the breakup not only because Drew overstated it like a moron when I first got in the boat, but because he borrowed my truck to go move her back from Georgia. Call me superficial all you want, but if I had known Lucy looked like this, I would have offered to go get her in his place. He wouldn’t have let me, though, because he’s super protective of her. He’s expressed his hatred for her ex-boyfriend, Tim, since they met. He never even had a really good reason for his dislike, just that the guy didn’t deserve her. I have to agree now. Only a few minutes in Lucy’s company proves she’s different—special.

“Cooper! We should go cliff jumping!” A woman named Bailey pulls me from my thoughts with a splash of water to my face.

About ten minutes after we put down the anchor, a boat full of Drew’s and my friends pulled up. They tied up with us, cranked up their loud music, and tossed floats out in the water. Everyone jumped in almost immediately, soaking up the sun and enjoying the water. But not Lucy.

She took one look at our new companions and their bikinis and hunkered down in the front of the boat with a book. No one pressed her to join us, and since I have no idea how I’m supposed to act around her, I didn’t either. I’m just trying to follow Drew’s lead, but it feels wrong to leave her up there in the boat alone. Then again, he did say she was pretty heartbroken. Maybe she’s just not feeling it today and wants to be alone.

“Cooper?” Bailey asks. “Hellllloooo, did you hear me?”

I blink and turn my head to her. She’s smiling a megawatt smile, perched on her bright-yellow pineapple float, and I know she’s flirting. She always flirts with me because we’ve had sort of an on-again, off-again fling for a while now that never amounts to anything and, honestly, never will.

“Sorry, cliff jumping—yeah, sounds good.” I turn my eyes back up toward the boat even though I can’t actually see Lucy from down here. “Let’s go in a few minutes. I’ll be right back.” I swim over to the ladder and have to pass Drew on the way.

He sticks out the hand holding his beer in front of me so I can’t pass because, apparently, he’s a bouncer now. “Where are you going?”

“Grabbing a water.” LIE. I’M GOING TO SEE YOUR SISTER.

His eyes narrow a little, but he withdraws his arm. “Okay. Just don’t go bug Lucy, okay? She’s going through some hard stuff.”

My head kicks back. “I resent the implication that I would ever go bug a woman.”

“You know what I mean.” Yeah, unfortunately I do. He’s telling me to leave her alone. The warning is there in his eyes, and it’s kind of threatening as hell. I’ve never been on this end of Drew’s ire, and I don’t particularly like it.

It was about a year ago that I moved away from Charlotte, North Carolina in favor of somewhere a lot less…near my ex. I put in applications with a few top-tier marketing firms around the country, and Hampton Creative was the first interview I got. It was a great fit right away and a huge promotion (and pay raise) from my last position. Everything fell into place quickly, and I found out through a friend of a friend about a guy named Drew Marshall needing a roommate. We had a brief phone call where we both determined the other sounded somewhat normal, and then the next thing I knew, I was living in Nashville (blissfully far away from Janie) with a great job and a great roommate. It was the perfect place to reinvent myself—and reinvent myself I did.

For the last year, my motto has been Nothing but fun. I date a lot, I go out a lot, and I’ve sort of become that guy you call when you want to have a good time. I think every date I’ve been on has been a subconscious middle finger to my ex. She didn’t want me, so I’ll prove just how many women do. Problem is, she isn’t watching me. She’s been too busy falling in love with someone else, getting married, and starting a family.

I guess you could say I’ve diverted from my usual path this past year, and I’m just now realizing, in this moment when I find myself wanting to go spend time with Lucy Marshall, that Drew only knows this Cooper—the one who’s so freaking jaded from having his heart torn up that he’s made the word commitment sound like a swear word. He doesn’t know anything about the person I was back in Charlotte. This blip in my life is the whole picture to him, and sure, he’s liked this version as his wingman, but he doesn’t want me anywhere near his baby sister.

“I get it, and it’s all good, man.”

He nods, and I nod, and it’s all settled now. I’ll stay away from Lucy.

Except I don’t.

I step into the boat and wrap a towel around my waist before my feet carry me directly to the bow where she’s sitting. My eyes immediately snag on Lucy’s bare legs stretched out in front of her. She’s so engrossed in her book that, at first, she doesn’t even realize I’m standing here. But then she looks to the side, makes direct eye contact with my navel, and scrambles to tuck her legs under her so fast she nearly dumps her book in the lake.

She’s yet to actually talk to me other than the soft “Hi” she gave me earlier along with the weirdest handshake of my life. Somehow, though, it went down as my favorite too. She’s quirky, and I’m drawn to her in a way that kind of scares me—scares me because if Drew knew, he’d turn me into a eunuch.

“Hey. Hi,” she says, shifting in her seat, eyes bouncing everywhere to keep from having to look at my face too long. I make her nervous. “What’s up?” She aggressively pushes a lock of hair out of her eyes and then finally really looks at my face.

She freezes like she wasn’t expecting me to be smiling down at her.

“Can I sit down?”

Those long, dark lashes blink. “Yeah, of course.” She gestures to where I was sitting earlier, but I don’t sit over there. I sit right beside Lucy (a little too close) and look at her over my shoulder, noting another blush on her cheeks.

“Are you having fun?” I ask.

“Mmhmm. Yeah, lots of fun.” Her voice is a little squeaky.

I grin and nod toward her book. “Really? ‘Cause it kinda looks like you’ve just been up here reading all day instead of having a good time.”

She looks at me over her book with a mischievous sort of smile. The expression makes my stomach coil up tight—which is odd because it hasn’t done that in a long time. “Who says reading can’t be fun?”

“You sound like my third grade teacher.” I notice Lucy’s smile fade a little, and she scrunches her nose, eyes dropping down to her lap because she thinks I’ve just insulted her. Only because this is an emergency, I ignore the DO NOT TOUCH sign and bump her shoulder with mine. “I had a major crush on her, though. You should have seen how many stars I got on my reading chart.”

This makes Lucy laugh, dimples popping beside her mouth, and suddenly, making her laugh is all I want to do. You know, as a friend. Because even though I find her ridiculously attractive, I’m also not going to try to start anything up with a woman who’s just come out of a breakup. She’s vulnerable, and I’m not a vulture, so I’ll just make her smile for purely friendly reasons. Also, the whole Drew-death-glare situation was a little scary.

“So, you’re a major flirt, huh? Like, is it tough for you to talk to a woman and not try to seduce her?”

A laugh bursts from my mouth because I kind of can’t believe she had the guts to call me out like that. “Maybe a little less creepy than you make it sound, but yeah, I guess you could call me a flirt.”

“Well…” She wiggles her finger in my direction. “You don’t have to do all that here with me. I don’t need the lines.”

“Why do you think I’m giving you lines?”

She tips a shoulder and pretends to be interested in her book. “Because you saw Drew’s bookish little sister up here on the boat and felt bad that I was alone, and as the token flirt guy, you felt it was your job to entertain me.” She looks up. “I’m saying I release you of your responsibility.”

An incredulous smile pulls over my mouth because I really like her. I like that she says what she thinks and is not afraid to call it like she sees it from the start. Except, she’s not seeing it right this time. “I’m not up here talking to you because you’re Drew’s sister, believe me.” In fact, her being Drew’s sister is the only reason I haven’t asked her out already. “And you know, I think I’m offended that you’ve so easily diminished me to nothing but the token flirt guy.”

“Are you actually offended?”

“Maybe.”

She narrows her eyes. “Okay, I give you one minute to convince me I have you pegged wrong.”

I lift an amused brow. “You’re serious?”

She looks down at her phone and swipes across the screen until a one-minute timer starts ticking. “Clock’s ticking,” she says.

Well, shoot. Suddenly, this is important for reasons I don’t quite understand. I sit up straight and clear my throat. “Okay. I work in marketing. I’m from Charlotte—”

She grimaces. “Those tidbits aren’t going to help you. Dive deeper. Forty seconds left.”

“Ah—shoot, okay. I like to play solitaire on my computer. I’m really close with my parents; we talk almost every day, though it’s mainly to help them figure out how to change the input on their TV again. I like to bake, but I’m terrible at it. And I own a rescue shelter for abused animals.”

The alarm chimes on her phone, and her mouth falls open. “Do you really?”

“No,” I say with a chuckle. “But I felt like I wasn’t making a very good case for myself and needed some extra points.”

She laughs and shakes her head in mock reprimand. “Like I said, token flirt guy for sure.”

I guess she’s not wrong. I turned myself into this guy on purpose. So why does it feel so uncomfortable to own it now? Maybe I’m a little tired of it. Maybe I’m ready to start veering back toward my old path.

“And what about you?”

“Oh, I’m squarely in the bookish category. I never even attempt to flirt because it always ends badly.” Her face is so serious right now. She really means this from the bottom of her heart. “I see you looking at me skeptically, but it’s true. I’m exactly opposite of your and Drew’s personalities.”

Ah—speaking of Drew, I should really be getting up now and leave Lucy the heck alone. She’s smiling, so my mission is accomplished. (Hurrah for the token flirt guy doing his duty!) For some reason, though, I can’t. I don’t want to go back down in the water with everyone else. I want to sit here and watch this beautiful woman blush and continue having odd conversations with her that make me want to smile more than I’ve smiled since Janie. So, I do the wrong thing and stretch my arm out across the bench seat (not the arm closest to Lucy, because I may be stupid, but I don’t have a death wish) and settle in.

“You two do seem pretty different. And you definitely look nothing alike.” Why did I add that last part?

Her nose crinkles again with an uncomfortable smile. “Well, most people think he’s pretty hot, so I don’t quite know how to take that.”

I squint one eye. “Are you fishing for a compliment? Trying to get me to flirt with you again?”

Her smile drops, and now she has owl eyes. The blush is back. “What? No! I was just saying a fact, not at all fishing. I don’t even really like compliments because I never know what to do with them, and—”

“Lucy, relax,” I say with a chuckle. “I was just messing with you.” I want to bump her shoulder again but refrain because I’m a saint and a very good friend.

“Oh.” She sinks back against the bench again and laughs at herself. “I’m sorry. I—This is why I prefer reading to actually talking to people. Less chance of humiliating myself.” She tucks her nose back down into her book like she’s intending to jump inside it Reading Rainbow style.

I’m not ready to lose her to that book yet.

“Well, now that you’ve admitted you’re only using that book to hide”—I pluck it from her hand and toss it onto the bench across from us—“you have no choice but to put it down and come hang out with us.”

She looks from the water, where everyone is floating, back to her lap. “I’m good up here. Thanks, though.”

What? She’s not going to come out to the water at all? Maybe Drew was right and Lucy really is having a hard time after breaking up with Tim. “Alright, well, I won’t push you to come out there with us. Breakups are hard, so I understand wanting to just chill by yourself.”

She lets out a sharp ha, and then her hand immediately flies up to cover her mouth. “I didn’t mean to laugh,” she says from behind her hand. “It’s just…” She shakes her head. “Never mind.”

Okay, that was definitely not the reaction of a woman aching with a broken heart. My spirits lift. Tim Shmim. “Are you really going to bait me like that and then leave me hanging?” I lower her hand away from her mouth. “What were you going to say?”

Lucy stares at where my hand is covering hers. I let it go, realizing I’ve already touched her twice in five minutes when I’m supposed to touch her never in my entire life. “It’s not the breakup. Don’t tell Drew, because it will go straight to his head, but I never liked Tim all that much. The reason I don’t want to swim has nothing to do with my breakup.”

She gives me a look that’s sort of shy and reserved but loaded with meaning, and now I’m worried Drew was right. For the first time in quite a while, I feel unsure of myself. Am I…bugging her?

I’m a pretty straightforward guy, so instead of lying awake tonight, wondering, I ask, “Is it me? Am I making you uncomfortable? Just say the word, and I’ll totally leave you al—”

“I didn’t shave my legs!” she says suddenly, eyes snapping back to me like she didn’t mean to cave on her secret so quickly.

I, however, am fighting a smile, relieved that I’m not completely unappealing to her—not that I want to be appealing to her. Because, you know…I can’t. “That’s not such a big deal.”

“No, I don’t think you get it. I haven’t shaved my legs in, like…weeks. It’s bad.” My eyes unconsciously begin to drift down toward her legs, but she reaches out quickly and grabs my chin, keeping it lifted. “Don’t look! What are you doing?! I just told you it’s embarrassing!”

I’m laughing now; I can’t help it. “Well, what do you expect me to do? You’ve just put a red button in front of me and told me not to press it. Of course I’m going to.” Something in my mind alerts me to the realization that I’m not just talking about looking at her hairy legs. My eyes drift toward the edge of the boat, expecting to find Drew pointing a sword in my direction, threatening a duel.

Except, no. I don’t think the pull I’m feeling toward Lucy has anything to do with the red-button principle and, instead, has everything to do with the way I genuinely enjoy talking to her, feeling like I have no idea what she’ll say next and loving that nothing comes out of her mouth unless it is absolutely true. Right away, she lets you know she’s not the kind of woman to play games. And guess what? I’m tired of games.

Lucy tucks her legs tighter under her and gives me a warning side-eye.

“Come on.” I wiggle my fingers in front of me. She gives me a quizzical look. “Show me.”

“No! I will not show you. I’m going to stay snuggled up with my book and let you and Drew enjoy your time with those waxy Barbie dolls.” She makes a shoo gesture, and I really don’t like that she seems to think I’m into “waxy Barbie dolls.” What kind of guy does she think I am? And why is it bothering me so much today that everyone seems to have a different perception of me than I have of myself? Shoot, maybe I’ve veered off path more than I realized.

“Lucy. I don’t give a sh—” I was going to say something else, but looking at her makes me feel like she’s too sweet for cuss words, so I correct myself. “Crap. I don’t give a crap about the hair on your legs, and no one else will either. Look, I’ll prove it.” I reach out and grab her foot, pulling it and her leg out from under her. Before she can protest, I run my hand gently from her ankle up her shin to her knee, and I can tell you one thing, I really don’t give a crap about the hair. I meant for the gesture to be playful and funny and break the ice between us, but instead, I feel sparks flying off my fingertips. Not good to have that strong of a reaction to a woman I need to stay away from.

I slide my eyes up to her face, and her mouth is open, eyes wide, cheeks crimson red. “I. Can’t. Believe. You. Just. Did. That.” She blinks at me and then at the place where I haven’t moved my hand from her knee yet. I need to move it. I SHOULD move it. But I don’t want to. Her skin is warm beneath my palm, and touching her feels different than I’ve felt with anyone else. “Goodness, you really are a flirt.”

Her words act like a bucket of cold water. She doesn’t think I’m being genuine, and also…Drew’s sister. I can’t act this way with her.

I smile and pull my hand back. “Sorry. Not trying to seduce you, I swear,” I say, emphasizing the word to remind her of her earlier ridiculous statement. Time to tug us back into the friend zone—probably my least favorite of all the zones. “But now that I’ve not only seen, but also touched your hairy legs and you don’t see me running away screaming, you have no choice but to come cliff jumping with us.”

“Cliff jumping?! No.” She’s vehemently shaking her head. “No, no, no. I don’t do that kind of thing.”

“By ‘that kind of thing’ you mean exhilarating fun?”

“Don’t make me remind you about my book. I go on all kinds of exhilarating adventures in those.”

I scoot a little closer without meaning to. “I would argue that books give the illusion of fun. But believe me, there’s nothing like the real thing.”

She lifts a brow, and I could swear she scoots closer too. “I’ll argue that you’re wrong. Studies show that reading a book actually increases serotonin in your brain and reduces stress.”

“You know what else releases serotonin and reduces stress?” I watch Lucy swallow, and her eyes dip to my mouth. “Cliff jumping,” I whisper with a smug smile.

The corners of her lips curve up so softly as she continues staring at mine, making this moment feel oddly intimate and charged. I wonder if she’s feeling the same pull I’m feeling.

“Cooper!” Bailey and her friend Jessica both singsong at me from in the water. “Come on! Let’s go to the cliffs.”

“Yeah, Cooper.” That’s Drew now, mocking their flirtatious voices. “Let’s go! I need you to hold my hand while we jump!” His voice sounds ridiculous, and it’s followed up by an oof. I imagine Bailey and Jessica both hitting him in the stomach.

I look back at Lucy, and her new closed-off expression pokes at me. “You guys go without me.”

Her brow furrows tightly together, like she can’t fathom that I would want to stay on this boat with her rather than go off with the others to the cliffs.

We both hear footsteps on the boat and look up to see Bailey making her way toward us, dripping and not bothering with a towel. She comes to stand right in front of me, and I’m honestly nervous she’s going to try to sit in my lap or something. That’s classic Bailey kind of stuff and exactly the sort of slightly overbearing personality I’m getting tired of. I was never drawn to women with that personality before Janie, and like Lucy is a spotlight shining on my life, I can see with perfectly clarity all the places I’ve lost touch with myself over the past year.

Thankfully, Bailey remains standing. She does, however, playfully reach out for my hand and try to tug me up. “Come on. I need you to come with me! I’m too scared to jump on my own.” No, she’s not; she’s playing coy for attention. I know she has no problem jumping off those cliffs because I’ve seen her do it many times before.

“Nah, y’all go on. I don’t want to leave Lucy alone,” I say, making Bailey’s awareness suddenly shift to the beautiful woman sitting scrunched up in the corner, cover-up pulled tightly down over her knees.

“Oh. Well…Lucy, do you want to come too?” To her credit, Bailey actually does sound welcoming.

“Uh, no thanks.”

“You sure?” Bailey asks, that blinding smile aimed at Lucy. I can practically see Lucy shrinking away before my eyes. What in the world does she think she has to be intimidated about?

“Yep. I’m good.”

Satisfied, Bailey shrugs her shoulders and tugs my hand harder. “Okay, well, she said she’s good, so let’s go.” I don’t budge, and Bailey gets desperate, starting to look around the boat. She spots Lucy’s book laying on the other seat, grabs it, and tosses it onto Lucy’s lap with a patronizing smile that grates on me. “There. That looks like a fun read! Now you have something to do while we’re gone.” She grabs my wrist again, yanking harder. Now I’m just annoyed. “Come onnnnn, Cooper! I need you to jump with me!”

Something shifts in Lucy’s eye as she looks from the book, to Bailey, to me. Finally, she tosses the novel aside and stands up—eye level with Bailey. “Actually, cliff jumping sounds like fun after all. I’m in.”