Unwritten Rules (Rules 1)

“And do what?”

“There’s something I want to show you. It only happens tonight.”

I have no idea what he has in mind, as always, but if it can save Kendrick’s dinner and make the hell that my cousins will put me through slightly more bearable, I owe it to myself to try.

“Fine.”

A victorious expression covers his face. “I believe we have a dinner to go to.” He takes a couple steps forward and rests his hand on the door handle.

“Why did you come back?”

I’m slightly surprised by my own words when they ring out in my tiny bedroom. Haze pauses, his brawny back facing me.

“You disappeared for days. No messages, nothing. Don’t get me wrong. You do whatever the hell you want, and clearly, disappearing is your thing… so why bother coming back at all?”

He turns around, and our gazes meet.

“I told you I was in the area.”

I nod, beating myself up. I don’t know what I expected him to say. That he came back for me? We’re not friends. We’re not anything. He’s just a lonely bad boy with attachment issues who’s desperate for some company. Plus, he did tell me that he came to annoy Kendrick. Not for me.

He begins turning the door knob but stops himself. I hold my breath.

“And…”

He takes a long pause, his back still all I can see.

“Maybe I missed you.”

THERE ARE MANY PLACES I’D RATHER be in the world right now. So many people I’d rather be having dinner with, too. I’d rather be eating with Gretchen, my elementary school bully who constantly stole my Capri Suns, than be here, dining with Haze and Kendrick and wondering if Kendrick’s going to jump over the table and rip off my “boyfriend’s” head.

Indeed, I’d rather go back to the most humiliating moment of my life than be here. Like that one time I choked on my chicken nuggets at McDonalds in front of my fourth-grade crush, George Bay, and almost died.

Needless to say, Bay never became bae.

For the past thirty minutes, Haze has been getting the worst possible childhood stories out of my aunt, who’s more than happy to provide. The only thing that’s missing is the baby pictures, which I swear on my life, he will never see.

“Why did you do that to that poor little girl?” Haze says in between laughter.

“You call that a poor little girl? She was awful. She rubbed her boogers on every kid in kindergarten. She deserved it.”

“But you filled her pants with bugs. Bugs, Winter. That’s evil.”

“Not as evil as she was, I assure you.”

“How did you two lovebirds meet?” Maria asks.

“School,” I say, thinking back to his stupid reputation and the way it all began.

“I saw her in the hall, and I just knew I had to get close to her.” Haze smirks and reaches for my hand, intertwining our fingers on the table. I’m a bit shocked, but I don’t move away.

I see Kendrick clench his fist from the corner of my eyes. I get it. Love at first sight is not the reason why he knew he had to get close to me and he knows it.

No words can explain how relieved I was when I saw Maria had ordered pizza and that we were eating off paper plates. That means no dishes and no more painfully long conversations between Haze and my aunt.

It’s clear that Maria likes him.

Of course she does.