Unbroken Rules (Rules 3)

Haze: I’ll be at the park where I gave you Waze tonight at eight.

Haze: Meet me and we can figure this out.

Haze: Don’t… and I’ll never bother you again.

37

Wake-Up Call

“Judy, you okay in there?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning back against the wall. Alone in the wedding venue’s never-ending hallway, I tug at my low-cut lavender bridesmaid dress. Judy wanted me to wear it for the rehearsal dinner. “Judy?” I knock on the bathroom door when she doesn’t answer.

“Just a minute,” she calls. Turns out, my future stepmom couldn’t care less that this isn’t the real wedding. She needs her makeup to be on point either way. I’m surprised she didn’t insist on wearing her wedding dress tonight.

“Your makeup was already perfect,” I say, and she laughs.

“Thank you, sweetie, but my sister’s supposed to be giving the toast, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to need waterproof mascara.”

With a chuckle, I pull my phone out of my cleavage—what? This dress doesn’t come with pockets—and eye the date featured on my locked screen. The wedding is tomorrow.

“We should go down. They’re waiting for us,” I say.

“I’m almost done,” she assures me.

Unlocking my phone, I select the text conversation I’ve probably read an unhealthy number of times in the last three weeks.

Haze: Meet me and we can figure this out.

Haze: Don’t… and I’ll never bother you again.

I never showed up that night.

Well, technically, I did, but Haze didn’t see me. When 7:30 struck, I gathered every single drop of courage in my body, got into a cab, and headed for the park where Haze gave me Waze. It’d just started pouring outside—because of course it had—and when the cab slowed down across the street, my heart broke in six. I saw him. Sitting alone by the water fountain. He didn’t budge, just let the rain soak him to the bone. I tried, Lord knows I tried, but I couldn’t bring myself to get out of the car. I told the driver I’d changed my mind, and we sped down the street in a roar. I started bawling in the back seat and sent him a message.

Winter: I’m sorry.

Albert Einstein said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Going back to Haze would’ve been exactly that: insanity. We’ve been here before, with our hearts on the line, our heads filled with false hopes and promises, and every single time, without exception… it ended in tears and heartache.

Losing him once almost killed me.

Losing him twice definitely would have.

During the week following Kendrick’s party, I felt a bit guilty about how things ended with Matt. After all, I slept with Haze barely one day after we called it quits, but my guilt was cut short when I saw a picture of him at his parents’ charity event online. He was all smiles, kissing another girl. Good for him. He deserves someone that’s not hung up on their ex.

“There you are.” I see Allie striding my way and assess her as she walks: her gorgeous pale pink dress, her long, curled hair. I have a hard time believing that, one day, she might be the one freaking out over her makeup at her rehearsal dinner. In a few years, she might be marrying Kendrick. “What’s taking so long?”

“She’s waterproofing her makeup.” I chuckle.

“We thought you got lost on the way here or something.”

“We almost did.” I recall our hunt for the bathroom. “This venue is huge.”

“I know, right.” Allie makes it rain imaginary dollar bills with her hands, and I laugh. We hang outside of the locked bathroom for a good ten minutes, mocking Kendrick’s complete incapacity to wear a tie. He can’t stand it, constantly fiddling with it. Judy walks out of the bathroom the next second, and we hurry back downstairs.

“Dear Lord, where do I even start?” Margo, Judy’s older sister, says, wrapping a shaky hand around the microphone. She’s already fighting tears. Sitting around a beautiful rose-petal-covered table with Jay, Kendrick, and Allie, I eye the near-overflowing champagne glass in my hand. “A year ago, I told my sister she worked too much. That I was worried about her becoming a cat lady.” The audience laughs. “She told me that you don’t find love—love finds you. Even if you don’t want it to, even if the timing isn’t right, even if the odds aren’t in your favor. She used to say what’s meant to be yours will always find you, so you might as well stop running. I’ll admit I laughed in her face. I said how can you possibly meet someone when you’re working so much? And well, because that’s what Judy does, she just had to go and prove me wrong by meeting her husband at work.”

She proceeds with a tear-jerking speech. By the time she’s done, there isn’t a single dry eye in the room.

“A toast to Harry and Judy, who defeated all the odds and will continue to do so for the rest of their lives.”