Unwritten Rules (Rules 1)

So tell me why I’ve never felt more alive.

“DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT. MY AUNT’S working at the hospital tonight, and Kassidy’s still at the party.” I unlock the front door to Maria’s house and walk into the completely silent kitchen that’s usually crawling with Kass and Maria’s yappers. Haze follows me hesitantly.

When we finally managed to stop laughing, we started shivering. The water was so cold, it’s a wonder we didn’t catch hypothermia. I sugges

ted that we go to my house, which was closer to where we were, to dry ourselves up. Haze’s place is around thirty-five minutes away, and I don’t want him to stay in his stone-cold clothes and get sick.

“Come on.” I guide him to the bathroom upstairs and hand him a clean towel. When realization seems to hit him and his eyes grow two sizes, I frown.

“What is it?”

No reply. He dives his hand into the back pocket of his pants and gets something out of it.

A phone. It’s dripping on the floor, completely soaked.

“Crap. I thought you said you left your phone in the car.”

He looks up at me. “I did.”

“Then whose phone is this?”

“Kendrick’s.”

“What?”

“I completely forgot to give it back to you when I took you to the rooftop, so I brought it tonight but… then, I also forgot that it was in my pocket when we jumped in the pool.”

“Okay, hold on. Why do you have Kendrick’s phone?”

“He lost it when he attacked my brother. They wanted to use it against him, but I stole it to give it back to you. I thought you had enough going on,” he glances at me. “What’s up with hanging up on people, by the way?”

Everything falls into place.

Haze is the one who picked up when I called Kendrick.

“But…” I stutter. “They made me throw my phone into the toilet in case someone wanted to locate the call!”

It takes a couple of seconds for the information to register into Haze’s brain. Then, after silently staring at me with his mouth wide open, he bursts out laughing, for the billionth time tonight.

“You did what?”

“Shut up.” I cover my face with shaky hands. “I can’t believe it was you. God damn it.”

Haze doesn’t stop laughing, nor does he seem to have any intention to.

“You threw your phone in the—” He cuts himself off, laughing louder. “I can’t believe you. It’s impossible to be bored with you, Winter, you know that?”

I shake my head, unable to take any more humiliation. I threw my phone in the toilet. How was I supposed to know?

“You’re dripping everywhere. Don’t move. I’ll be back with some dry clothes.”

He nods, still laughing.

I walk into Kendrick’s room, which is messier than I thought possible, and grab whatever clean clothes I can find—God knows that’s rare in my cousin’s room. Boys will be boys. These two are around the same size. It should fit.

When I walk back into the bathroom, I see Haze managed to get his laughter under control and is drying his hair off with the towel. One of his toned arms holds the towel up as the other one ruffles his messy brown hair. I swear, this boy could make the simplest actions look attractive.

“There you go,” I say, a shy smile forming on my lips. “Take off your clothes so we can throw them in the dryer.”