Writing the Rules: A Fake Dating Standalone Mariah Dietz (best novels to read .txt) 📖

my lips come down on hers, the trepidation gone as victory pulses through my veins as strong and intoxicating as any drug. She gasps, her entire body tense under my touch. I don’t relent, running the pad of my thumb across her cheek as I claim her mouth, working to silence the chaos that’s happening around us and likely even louder in her own thoughts. I run my fingers deeper into her hair and slant my lips, kissing her more fully. Her neck muscles relax under my touch, and she releases a nearly silent moan that has me parting her lips with my tongue, urgent to prolong the moment and hear the same sound. I kiss her with abandon, without rules, without sense, and she returns the same level of intensity that makes my skin feel too hot, and my thoughts run to darkened spaces and lost clothing.

Cheers break out around us, so loud and raucous that they fracture the moment and have Poppy pulling away. Her cheeks begin to flush, and for the first time in a couple of weeks, she won’t make eye contact with me.

What the fuck just happened?

Lincoln stares at me, questions and something that resembles disapproval etched across his face, but before the message behind his expression can leach onto this moment, Arlo passes in front of him, another gleeful smile. “That’s going to be front-page news,” he says, thumping my back again.

Poppy

Raegan is silent as we drive, her foot punching the clutch before she shifts and accelerates. I’m pretty sure if my best friend weren’t so intent on becoming a cetologist, she’d be a racecar driver.

“I know what you’re thinking,” I say.

She glances at me. “Do you?”

“It’s just a ruse,” I tell her.

“I just saw my brother’s tongue in your mouth. It looked pretty real.”

That part was real. Heat crawls up my neck, hitting my face. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“I know,” she says. “And if you’re starting to develop feelings for each other, I will sign up and get on board with this, but if this is still the ruse, I have questions. It’s been going on too long. His games are improving, he’s going to classes, and you’re getting looks from every guy on campus. You’ve accomplished what you set out to do, right?”

“It’s only been a couple of weeks,” I tell her. “It’s always easy in the beginning. It’s when something happens that it gets tough to stay on track.” I know this from my mom’s counseling sessions that I used to fall asleep to every night while they streamed on the radio.

“If it’s real, Poppy, you need to talk to him.”

I shake my head. “We’re friends,” I tell her. It’s a surprisingly honest answer that rolls right off of my tongue. “And that’s kind of strange because I’ve known him forever, but I’ve never known him.”

“That sounds like you know him naked,” Rae says.

My cheeks flare red. “That’s not what I meant.”

She glances at me, smiling. “Thank God. I don’t think I could take hearing dirty details. I would never be able to look him in the eye again.”

“Do you think that’s how he feels about you and Lincoln?”

Rae instantly shakes her head. “I don’t consider what Pax thinks about Lincoln and me.” She shakes her head again. “I refuse.”

Laughter sparks in my chest as Rae maneuvers through traffic, turning at a light that takes us into a neighborhood.

“His game was good tonight,” she says, glancing at me again, this time apprehension flashes across her features.

“Pax?”

She nods.

“He was worried about this game.”

“They’re a physical team.”

I nod, recalling Paxton mentioning this.

“He was focused tonight. That same drive he had last fall, he had it tonight.” Another cut of her eyes.

“Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

“I don’t know. I have so many conflicting thoughts about what you guys are doing. I’m relieved and nervous and borderline confused.”

I don’t tell her that I’m feeling the same confusion. It seems like a dangerous admission that could reveal that lines are beginning to cross or at the least blur.

“I love you, and I love him, and I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

I shake my head. “That’s why we have the rules. It prevents things from getting messy.”

She slows to a stop in front of a house on Greek Row. We haven’t been to a party here since last fall. “Give me one of your pep talks.”

I turn my attention from the house to her. “A pep talk for what?”

“Tell me I’m young and that college is temporary, and I’m going to look back and regret not having fun and partying.”

I shake my head. “You won’t.”

She laughs. “You were better at this last year.”

“Last year, you were trying to get over Lincoln, and we were freshmen, and parties here were exciting and new.”

She sighs. “I want him to have fun and celebrate.”

“Lincoln hates parties.” It’s a widely known fact that he’s been repeating since last year.

“He does, but the rest of the team loves to party, and he likes being with them, so even when he says he hates it, he enjoys parts of it.”

“Sure. Okay. Let’s park.”

Rae chuckles and checks her mirrors before pulling forward and finding a parking spot a block away. “They should be here in an hour or so,” she says. “We should adopt our own tradition. We should start going out and getting something to eat after the games. We can invite Rose and Olivia, Nessie, and Chloe and go grab something terrible for us and have fun before the guys finish with all the interviews and everything gets wrapped up.”

“Rose will be there doing interviews,” I remind her.

She scrunches her nose. “That’s right. But the rest of us can do it. It will cut down on the time we have to be at the bonfires or parties.”

A raindrop hits me on the forehead, quickly followed by another, and then another, ushering us to hurry toward the house. “I’m in. I froze at the last bonfire.”

Rae’s hand