Best Dating Rules (The Best Girls 2)

“I’ll have to. We work at the same place. I’ll talk to him with other people around, but I don’t want to talk to him alone. He’ll just manipulate me with my emotions, and I’ll end up forgiving him and giving him another chance.” She shook her head, lecturing herself. “I let myself fall in love, knowing he would eventually want to be with a different girl. But I told myself I’d never give him a second chance if he was with someone else. Anyway, I feel sure he wasn’t going to date me much longer. He was probably planning to break up last night, anyway. Seeing us together just gave him an excuse.”

“You know, a player really can change. I don’t ever want to be with another girl besides Charlie.”

She put her hand on his arm. “I know. I’m not talking about you.”

She jumped at a loud rapping on the door. “Who’s that?”

Josh peered through the peephole, and then turned back to her, grimacing. “It’s Spencer.”

Spencer fidgeted while he waited for someone to answer the door. It had finally occurred to him Brad must have seen Emily or at least talked to her if he got a copy of the picture. He might know where she’d actually gone.

After a long pause, he was about to knock again when the door opened. Josh stood in the doorway, wearing shorts and no shirt. “What do you want?” he asked, his body blocking the entrance. His body language told Spencer he wouldn’t be invited inside.

“I’m... I’m looking for Emily. I just wanted to talk to Brad for a minute. I thought he might know where she is.”

“Why do you want to know? Haven’t you hurt her enough already? By the way, you look terrible. Did you sleep in those clothes last night?”

“Look, Josh,” he snapped. “It’s none of your business, but that picture was a set-up. I love Emily, and I’d never be with another girl—especially not Becca.”

“Really? A set-up? How’s that? It sure looked like you had your arms around her and your lips locked.”

“I was at a dance class. Okay? A stupid ballroom dance class, because I wanted to surprise Emily. And I didn’t even know Becca was going to be there.”

“So, let me get this straight. You were trying to learn to dance for Emily while she was trying to learn to play racquetball for you? And you got mad at her and walked out. And then she got mad, and she’ll never forgive you?”

A small voice behind him said, “Okay, let him inside.”

Josh moved out of the way and made a grandiose gesture for him to enter. He walked through the door, frantically searching for the source of the voice. Then his eyes focused on her. She was sitting alone on a stool, clad in oversized scrubs, with her hair splayed around her face in loose flowing curls, emphasizing her huge eyes—her huge angry eyes.

Emily observed from her perch on the barstool as Spencer entered the room, blinking his eyes as they adjusted from the bright sunlight. The moment his eyes met hers, he started her direction.

“No. Don’t come any closer. You can sit over there on the couch.”

His face revealed his hurt, but he obediently moved over to sit on the edge of the couch. From this position, she looked down on him. It felt powerful, and she liked it. She was strong. He’d hurt her, and he’d lied to her. But he’d never do it again.

“Can we talk alone?” he begged her, glancing at Josh.

“No. We can’t.”

Josh grinned and picked up his cereal bowl and spooned a mouthful, munching with noisy abandon.

“Look Emily. I wasn’t with Becca. I didn’t kiss her. I really was taking ballroom dance lessons, so I could dance with you at Sam and Tanner’s wedding.”

Josh laughed out loud, and Spencer shot him a furious look.

“I can prove it. There are pictures of the class on Facebook by now. You can see, it really was a dance class.”

“Spencer,” she said, blinking tears back. “Even if it wasn’t true this time, it’ll be true another time. I’ll always be waiting for it to happen. I thought I could settle for a year or however long you’d give me, but it just hurts too badly. I can’t go through that again.”

He blinked a few times, his mouth hanging open. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I mean, when we talked about getting married, didn’t you know I meant—”

“Getting married? We never talked about getting married.”

“Of course we did. How could you forget? We were sitting on the glider on the porch—”

“We didn’t talk about getting married—we talked about breaking up. You said you only wanted to date for a year.”

“Yes, because I wanted to get married as soon as possible.”