The Rule Book: A Novel

Wow, do you feel that? It’s hope! Radiant. Light. Expressive, hope! Why am I skipping around my apartment like a teenager who’s never experienced disappointment in her lifetime? Because the other night, Derek and I cleared the air, and I think he’s finally going to let me do my job. He didn’t even call me once yesterday or send me on any silly errands.

Not only that, but the guilt I’ve been carrying for so long is gone. He understands. More than that, he thought it was the right decision. The real difficulty now has been erasing the memory of his eyes softening. Of him telling me he was glad I took care of myself back then. If wild and fun Derek was enticing, stable and mature Derek is terrifying. I can’t deny how much I still…

Never mind. None of it matters. Because in the next breath he said he didn’t want to be friends again and that gutted me like a trout at the fish market, but it’s okay. I get it. (I hate it with all my heart—but I respect it.) We’re going to put our careers first. Good, good, good.

My luggage is packed, my backpack is loaded down with my laptop full of work projects (real projects and not just obscure errands), which I stayed up all night working on because I was too excited to wait, and when I blinked, my alarm was going off. I’ve been doing nothing but working an endless stream of hours since he decided to quit hazing me because I have so much lost time to make up for.

I feel triumphant. Like I should run around my apartment with an American flag strapped to my back like I just won the Olympics. I’m living off hopes and dreams and coffee and I’m sure there’s a slightly rabid look in my eyes, but I don’t even care. For the first time, I feel things are really moving in my life. My dreams are attainable. And even if I don’t get to have Derek romantically or as a friend…at least I won’t be completely out of his life again. I don’t have to say goodbye to him. Is that pathetic? Choosing not to answer that question.

Just as I’m pouring my fourth cup of coffee, there’s a knock on my door. I know it’s Derek because there’s a ripple down my spine. Just kidding, it’s because he said he and his driver would pick me up here at five a.m.

I race to the door and throw it open. “Good morning, Dere-Bear!” I tell him with a huge smile because I refuse to allow any lingering awkwardness after my vulnerability dump and our eye sex. Because yes—upon replaying it over and over in my head since that night, I’ve officially determined it was eye sex. “Come in for a second while I grab my stuff.”

Derek frowns slightly, hesitating at the door. “Uh, Nora—”

“No.” I point at him. “Don’t start all that. We’re going to the airport. I am going to make you a load of money. And we will not have any weirdness between us because of the other night. We can both be professional adults and double down on all our rules.” I go to my bedroom and grab my backpack and suitcase while still talking to him, raising my voice so he can hear me in the next room. “Not to toot my own horn, but I’ve really nailed the agent gig over the last few days. I doubt there’s a single thing that could happen on this trip that I’m not prepared for.”

When I’m back in the living room, Derek frowns deeply at my face. “Nora, did you sleep at all last night?”

I point my airplane pillow at him before I shove it into my backpack. “Good question. The answer is: No. But luckily, I don’t need sleep anymore. Unrelated note, did you know if you drink enough coffee, you can hear the color purple?”

I heave my bag up over my shoulders and try to walk to the door. Try being the key word because I’m suddenly snagged backward by a hand on my backpack. I squeak as I stumble into Derek. He looks down at me over my shoulder with stern blue eyes. “So you haven’t slept. Have you eaten anything today?”

“Yes—I’ve eaten about four thousand milligrams of caffeine, and I’ve gained spidey-senses. It’s great, everything is swirling and tingling around me.”

“That’s called a panic attack.”

I make a psh sound and try to walk away again, but he snags me once more. I swallow when I feel his hands sliding under the straps of my backpack and removing it from my shoulders. “Derek, come on, we’ve gotta—”

“Listen to me, rookie. We’re not going anywhere until you eat something.” He sets down my backpack and I slump. “Do you have any eggs in your fridge?”

“Well…yes…but I don’t have time to make them.”

He’s already striding away from me to the kitchen—that confident mountain of a man acting as if time and space will bow before him. And with an ass like his, maybe they will.

“I’m making you eggs, you’re going to eat them, and then we’re going to go to the airport and you’re going to sleep the entire flight. I mean it, Nora, if I even see a sliver of your green eyes, I’m going to call it all off, understand?”

Bossy, bossy, bossy. Why don’t I hate it? Better question: Why am I feeling hot and bothered by it? Probably because I’m suddenly flooded with memories of his shoulders hovering over me, silhouetted by only the moonlight when he would whisper other bossy things to me.

He opens the fridge door and pulls out a carton of eggs. “Now, while I’m cooking, go put some damn pants on. You broke rule number seven.”

I grunt a laugh. “I did no—” I look down and somehow gasp and shriek at the same time. “Derek! I’m not wearing pants!”

“I noticed,” he grumbles, not looking at me. “I tried to tell you when I walked in, but you were too busy seeing into a different universe with your new caffeine-induced powers.”

“I’m so sorry! This is really unprofessional.” I snatch a fuzzy turquoise blanket from my pink couch (perks of the single life) and wrap it around my lower half as I start inching toward my bedroom. “I promise I didn’t realize I wasn’t wearing pants. I just never wear them when I’m home and I’ve been so preoccupied with work that—”

“Nora.” Derek turns and levels me with a look so full of memory and emotion that my knees nearly buckle. He doesn’t say a single word, but his warm eyes say everything: I know you don’t wear pants at home. And I already know exactly what you look like without pants. In fact, I know what you look like completely naked in my bed.

“Just get dressed, please,” he finally says, and I nod before dipping into my room to change, trying to hide a smile I have no business wearing.

—

We get through security quickly, but I’ll be honest, I’m struggling. My sluggish legs are trying to keep up with Derek’s extra-long, extra-awake ones, and I’m feeling pretty delirious from my lack of sleep and mix of caffeine. At this point, I’m seeing the world through a fishbowl. Everything is hazy, and Derek is right, the intense amount of caffeine is giving me loads of anxiety. It could also be the large number of onlookers making me nervous.

We’re both wearing hats and sweatshirts, hiding as best we can. But even if people don’t know specifically who he is—though I’ll bet you that seventy-five percent of these people do because the man is the most famous tight end in the NFL—they see his size and muscles and expensive athleisure wear and they know he’s someone important. Someone to snap pictures of. I think I’m supposed to be keeping him safe right now, but I keep tripping on my own feet and feeling dizzy. Derek evidently notices because before I know it, his arm goes around my shoulders—pulling me in close to his side to stabilize me.

The problem is, Derek is so strong and warm and smells like Moroccan mint bodywash (yes, that’s the exact scent…I might have peeked in his shower once) and it’s getting too difficult to fight my body’s urge to close my eyes while I walk. At some point, I realize that Derek is practically holding me up. He’s not even complaining. His hand is firmly gripping my side like he wants me to know he’s got me. And every now and then, when we stop to wait in a line, I allow myself to fully lean against him and take little catnaps. Professionalism starts tomorrow.

I’ve never been so tired in all my life. I think two weeks’ worth of sleeplessness plus an entire night without ever closing my eyes is catching up to me in a bad way.

“Almost to our gate,” Derek says, leaning down to whisper against my ear. Tingles erupt across my body and I’m too tired to fight them off. All I can think is God, I miss him like this.

When we finally make it to gate ten, Derek guides us to a secluded corner, but it doesn’t really help. People still take note of us, and he has to spend several minutes signing autographs and taking pictures. I ask him if he wants me to keep the crowd away, but he says he doesn’t mind and that he’s happy to do it. And I think he really is, judging by the way he takes a little extra time with a few teenage boys, asking what positions they play in varsity football and where they want to go to college. The boys ask him if his ankle is going to be okay to play and Derek just grins at them and says, “I’ll be ready for game day, don’t worry.”

I think he needed this, honestly. He’s been hiding himself away too long in the offseason, mentally preparing for the call that he’s been cut. That call is never going to happen if I have anything to do with it.

Soon enough, we’re settled in our chairs in the terminal waiting to board the flight and I’m staring at Derek’s massive knee just a few inches from mine. I can’t look away. My peepers are glued to this bendy extremity of his that suddenly feels so erotic I can’t stand it. Has he always had these knees? His hand is resting on his thigh and when I see him squeeze his leg once, I feel the shift in the air before he even says my name.

“Nora…we need to talk.”

I don’t think that leg squeeze was a good one. I think he caught me staring and saw the raw longing I was too sleepy to cover up. Oh no…

Derek is about to fire me.

I know it. I know it in the pinch of his brows and the softness of his eyes. Something significant has changed in Derek since the other night. I can’t put my finger on it, but now, after he made me eggs and protectively guided me through the airport—I can see it clearly. He’s being tender because he’s going to cut me loose. Maybe he thinks I’m too much of a rookie to take him on for real after convincing him he needs to stop hiding behind his training and protect his career. Or maybe it was the lack of pants this morning. Or the fact that I was falling asleep walking through the airport.

But—no! I can’t let him fire me before I even get to prove myself for the first time. I can hide my longing better! I can wear pants at all times! I swear!

“Not yet,” I say quickly before he gets the chance to give me the boot. “Just—I know what you’re going to say…but…can you wait until after this weekend? Please?”

Derek opens his mouth to respond, but I’m saved by the nice lady over the intercom telling us that our gate is now boarding. My dreams get to live on another hour at least.

We both stand, and I pick up my backpack, but Derek takes it from me before I can strap it on my back and hoists it over his shoulder instead. A few minutes later, we board the plane and once seated in first class living like a queen and king, I conk out. And thankfully, Derek doesn’t wake me up to fire me—he doesn’t even wake me up to tell me my head is lying against his arm.