Unbroken Rules (Rules 3)

A smirk stretches his lips, and he hooks a finger in one of the belt loops of my jeans, angling his head so that his mouth hits

my ear. “Meet me in the bathroom in five and you can teach me anything you want, baby.”

Oh, and he’s also been one hell of a tease.

“Why did I ask you to come with me again?” I slap his hand away.

“Please don’t pretend like this isn’t the happiest day of your life,” he laughs and leans back into his seat. As much as I’m tempted to deny his claims, I know he’s right. This is the happiest day of my life—no matter how much shit I give him for leaving with no luggage, or changing his mind at the last minute, I’m over the moon right now. Haze is coming with me. He’s moving to Canada. Did you hear that, brain?

I don’t think it’ll really sink in until I wake up next to him tomorrow.

“What were you thinking getting on a plane with a dead phone?” I mock. He forgot to charge it last night and clearly didn’t expect to board a plane this morning. Not that I blame him. We were all exhausted after the day we’d had. No one more than me. Almost dying will do that to you. “We have like forty-five minutes left. Try to sleep.”

Haze scoffs. “How the fuck am I supposed to sleep with the apocalypse next to my ear?”

I smother a laugh. Next to us is a sixty-year-old-looking woman whose snores are so loud, we jumped in our seats when she started fifteen minutes ago.

“Hey, do you have mints?” Haze glances at the carry-on bag at my feet.

“Sure.” I reach for my bag.

As soon as I give him what he asked for, his eyes trail to the woman and her wide-open mouth. We can smell her bad breath every time she exhales.

Oh my God.

“Don’t you dare!”

He laughs and throws the mint into his own mouth. “You’re no fun, Mom.”

My eyes divert back to the window. Since we didn’t book our flights at the same time, our seats were in completely different sections. Haze wasn’t having it. He ended up paying some cranky guy who absolutely wanted to keep his seat by the window fifty dollars just to switch seats with him.

“So, what should I expect? Are we going to freeze to death the second we get to Toronto?” he asks, running his fingers up and down my lap.

“What? Of course not. We’re in June. The snow just finished melting.”

“Hold on.” He pauses. “You mean there’s no snow?”

The look of shock on his face sends me into a fit of giggles.

“Nope. Not until November. What did you think? That we had snow all year long or something?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” He shrugs.

“Sure, and we drink maple syrup for breakfast and ride polar bears.”

Haze’s eyes widen. “No way? That’s great. How expensive are igloos this time a year? Rent’s not too high?”

I break into laughter at the awful stereotype that came out of his mouth. Man, this guy needs a lesson on Canada, and he needs it fast.

“What about your folks? Are they okay with us staying with them until we find our own place?”

Relief fills me. We haven’t really talked about our living arrangements in Toronto although moving in together seemed to me like the most logical thing to do. After all, Haze left his entire life behind just so we could be together. I’d hardly see us living separately. I’m glad he feels this way. Because that apartment is not a maybe, it’s a must. There’s no way Lauren, my oh so sweet mother, will let me live at home, let alone with a boyfriend. She’s made it clear before I left for Florida that when I came back, it was time to move out. You’re eighteen now. You’re an adult. Time to act like one.

Harry, the man that I’ve called my dad my whole life, disagrees, convinced that I’ll need all the financial help I can get while I’m in college. I know he’ll put up a fight for me, but my mom will probably end up winning. She always does.

“I’m sure they won’t mind us staying for a few weeks,” I say, the bitter taste of a lie lingering on my tongue.

Truth is, they have no idea Haze is coming.