Best Dating Rules, Tamie Dearen [literature books to read txt] 📗

“Oh god! Oh god! This can’t be happening!” He blinked furiously at the tears that rose in his eyes. The picture blurred, but he could still see it clearly in his mind. Brad’s message was brief. Someone sent her this picture.

“What is it?” said Anne. “Is it something about Emily?”

“It’s Becca! Oh god! I’ve lost her. It’s just like you said would happen. I’ve lost her.” He felt a surge of nausea.

“What happened?” demanded Gherring.

“Someone sent this to her.” He handed his phone to Gherring. “It happened at dance class. But it’s not what it looks like. Becca was there, and I had to dance with her. She practically attacked me and then I left. That’s it. That’s all that happened. I ran out and came straight here. And that’s when Emily came back with Josh, and I got angry.”

He couldn’t bear to look at their expressions. The picture was bad—they wouldn’t believe him. Emily would never believe him.

“Who took this picture?” asked a grim-faced Gherring.

“There’s a studio photographer at every class. They put pictures up on Facebook the next day.”

“Well, this certainly explains a lot.” Anne put her hand on Gherring’s arm. “What can we do?”

“You were right,” Spencer told Gherring. “You told me this would happen.”

“I wasn’t making a prediction. I was giving you a warning. But I didn’t actually lose Anne, and you’re not going to lose Emily either.”

“What can I do? She’ll never believe me.”

“Of course she will,” said Anne. “If she knows you love her, she’ll believe you. You just need to tell her again. And again. We have to hear it a lot of times.”

“I’m not exactly sure I ever said the actual words, but I implied it when we talked about getting married.”

Gherring raised his hand before Anne could respond. “Spencer… Son, we need to talk, man-to-man.”*****

Emily slept for four hours but by noon she was awake, haunted by her own thoughts. She could hear soft snores emanating from the bedrooms. Having slept in her clothes at the hospital, she felt sticky and dirty, and she couldn’t wait to bathe. When she slipped quietly into the bathroom to shower, she noticed a set of drawstring scrubs with a note on top. For Emily. Relieved at the prospect of changing into clean clothes, she stripped and stood under the water, letting the warm torrents pound on her stiff muscles. She toweled off and put on the soft clean scrubs, chuckling as the drawstring bunched the large amount of excess material. The top also hung loosely on her thin frame, but at least she wasn’t wearing her old dirty clothes. She looked in the mirror at the wild mass of long, wet, curls, belatedly realizing she didn’t have a brush. She attempted without success to comb them with her fingers. She’d have to borrow a hat.

She was poking around in the kitchen, looking for food, when Brad walked in. “Hey. Good morning. Feel free to eat anything you can find. It may be sparse.”

“I’m sorry. Did I wake you up?”

“No, we’ve both got to be back at work at two thirty today. It’s already one o’clock.”

“Wow! They don’t give you much time to sleep.”

“No. But we get used to it. Sometimes our schedule’s more normal. Occasionally, we get a whole day off, or even two.” He grinned at her. “You look much better in those scrubs than Josh does.”

“You’re right about that,” said Josh as he entered the kitchen, playfully ruffling her wet hair.

“I’m taking a shower,” said Brad, disappearing into the bathroom.

Emily found a bowl and cereal, and Josh helped himself to a bowl as well. They ate in companionable silence for a while. Josh spoke around bites. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Much better than at the hospital. Thanks for the couch. And the scrubs. And the shower. And the cereal.”

He smiled and nodded.

She added, “And also, thanks for not telling anyone where I was. I don’t think I could’ve handled seeing him.”

“And now? Can you handle it?”

“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