The Virgin Rule Book (Rules of Love 1)

by Lauren Blakely

  He shoots me that cocky grin that charms his fans. That charms me. “And together we’ll be wedding buddies.”

  Yes.

  Buddies.

  That’s what we are. My teenage crush was just that, long forgotten.

  Friendship is fine. Better than fine because friendship is all I have room for in my life, and I like having room for Crosby.

  5

  Nadia

  Those tissues I tuck into my purse for a girls’ night out? That’s nothing compared to what I pack for a wedding.

  Weddings make me cry.

  Okay, fine. Blubber is more like it.

  I can replenish vanishing seas at wedding ceremonies.

  I cry when the music begins, when the groom sees the bride’s face, when the vows are exchanged.

  That is not entirely surprising, considering I cry over dog food commercials. One of the Hawks’ biggest sponsors is an organic dog food company, and every time I see that sweet collie patiently wagging his tail while waiting to be adopted by his forever person, we’re talking buckets of tears.

  That’s why I grab an extra packet the next day, snagging it from a drawer in the bathroom of my new penthouse in Cow Hollow, on top of a hill with a gorgeous view of the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco Bay, and the glittering Pacific Ocean.

  I’ve been here for a week now, and I’m fully moved in. I’ve been working hard, running back and forth to meetings with the city, interviewing general manager candidates.

  This weekend, I’m off, focused solely on Eric’s nuptials.

  Wearing a sapphire-blue dress too, my sister, Brooke, reads Percy Jackson to her eight-year-old daughter, Audrey, who’s convinced she wants to attend Camp Half-Blood, like the characters. They’re smushed into the corner of my new dove-gray couch, surrounded by purple pillows.

  After Brooke finishes a chapter and closes the book, she waggles a well-manicured finger in my direction. “I saw that you only packed two packets of tissues, Nadia. That’s not going to be enough for you. Don’t forget you needed a towel at my wedding.”

  Her daughter snickers. “A towel? Why did you need a towel?”

  Brooke nuzzles her daughter. “Your Aunt Nadia cries at every single event. She cried at my high school graduation. I was soooo embarrassed,” she says.

  I sneer at my big sister. “Thank you for teasing me for caring about your rite of passage.”

  Brooke flings me an evil grin. She’s particularly good at boomeranging those in my direction. “That was nothing compared to how much you cried at my wedding,” she says.

  “I was sixteen! I was hyperemotional. My big sister was getting married. Plus, you met your husband in China, and he moved to the US to be with you. That’s amazing,” I say, then arch a haughty brow. “Or maybe I was happy you were finally moving out of the house.”

  “Ouch,” Brooke says, wincing in over-the-top pain. “I see you still have the zinger spirit, Nadia.”

  “And I see you still have the crushing spirit of an older sister,” I tease.

  My mom clicks across the floor, setting a hand on Brooke’s shoulder, ever the peacemaker. “And I see you both have the spirit of totally loving each other.”

  I point at Brooke. “Yes, but I have a heart made of sponge cake and hers is carved from ice.”

  Brooke launches a saucy look at me. “Just call me Elsa.”

  Audrey and Brooke break into the famous song from Frozen, then they both laugh. “You know I love you. And all your cakey heart sponginess,” Brooke says.

  Audrey bounces up from the couch, her sleek black hair, thanks to her dad’s genes, braided down her back. “I’m ready to see Mariana in her princess dress and then to eat all the cake.”

  “Me too,” I say, offering a hand for high-fiving to my niece. She smacks back. “Cake is the best part of weddings. But vanilla wedding cake, not heart cake.”

  “And on that note, we agree.” Brooke tips her forehead to the door. “I’ll be downstairs in the limo with David. See you there in a few minutes.”

  She takes off with her kiddo to join her husband, and just to be safe, I grab one more packet of tissues, wielding it at my mom. “One more for the road for me.”

  “Grab an extra for me too, sweetheart,” my mom says in a confessional whisper.

  “You’re not a crier,” I say suspiciously. My mother isn’t a cold woman, but she’s more steely, steady.

  Dad was always the crier. Tough as nails in business and a total marshmallow when it came to family.

  He was the one with tears rolling down his cheeks when he walked Brooke down the aisle nine years ago.

  He was the one with the trembling bottom lip when my mother received an award for all her philanthropic work in San Francisco.

  He was the one whose voice broke when Eric told him two years ago that he’d just met the woman he was going to marry.

  “Do you miss him?” I ask my mom.

  She nods, her voice tight. “I do.”

  “You wanted him here today,” I say, and it’s a statement, not a question.

  “So much. He’d be so proud of Eric. All he wanted for his son was for him to fall in love.”

  “He wanted Eric to have what the two of you had,” I say, rubbing her arm.

  Her eyes well with tears, and I draw her into a hug. “I miss him a lot too,” I say when I let her go. “But I know it’s harder for you. He was your one true love.”

  She pulls back, giving me a sad smile. “He was. But I also believe that we can have more than one true love.”

  I tilt my head, surprised. She’s always seemed so rah-rah soulmate-y. “You do?”

  “I’m not looking right now, but I loved love. I loved being in love. And I’m only sixty-five. I’d like to think some of my best years are still ahead of me. And I wouldn’t mind being in love again.”

  My heart glows at that thought. At the idea that somebody who lost the man she was married to for more than thirty years has a heart that’s open enough to love again.

  It’s an unexpected thought, but one that makes perfect sense now that she’s voiced it. “I bet you’ll find someone,” I say.

  She laughs dubiously. “You think it’s easy at sixty-five?”

  “Well, it’s hard at twenty-five,” I say.

  She shakes her head. “Sweetheart, I’m winning this battle. There’s nothing as hard as dating at sixty-five.”

  “Fine. You win, but then again, I wouldn’t know what dating’s like at twenty-five. Or twenty-four, or twenty-three.”

  “You’ve never really been in love, have you?”

  I shrug, grabbing my silver clutch as we head to the door. “It felt like love a few times. But looking back, no. I liked my high school boyfriends, but it wasn’t love. And being at an all-girls college, I never really met anybody there I fell for. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been serious enough with anyone to feel that way. Maybe that’s why I cry at weddings. It all feels wonderful and magical and sort of far away.”

  She squeezes my hand. “It won’t always be far away.”

  But it doesn’t matter if my time is near or far away.

  Today isn’t about me. It’s about my brother.

  When we reach the Luxe Hotel atop Nob Hill, I find Eric in the suite next to the ballroom, fiddling with his bow tie, the other groomsmen milling about in the hall.

  “For a brother, you look fantastic,” I say with a smile.

  “For a sister, you look decent,” he says.

  As we leave and make our way toward the groomsmen, Eric lowers his voice and says, “Don’t forget what I said the other day. About Crosby.”

  My brow knits. “Why are you reminding me right now?”

  He gives me a look that says you know why. “You’ve kind of had a crush on him, haven’t you?”

  My jaw drops. I shake my head in adamant denial. Vociferous denial. “No. Of course not. Not at all. Not one bit.”

  A dubious brow lifts. “Nadia, I saw how you looked at him when
you were younger.”

  I growl. “You must be confusing me with literally every other woman who crossed his path.”

  Eric shrugs, smoothing his lapels. “Maybe I’m remembering it wrong.” He scrunches his brow, like he’s trying to recall something. He tilts his head. “Or maybe he had a crush on you?”

  I blink, stopping in my tracks, as the floor imitates a tilt-a-whirl. He did not say that. “What are you talking about?”

  “Just seemed that way when we were younger,” Eric says, like this yummy nugget is on the same level as remembering a test junior year that he earned an A on. Something mundane and ordinary, when it’s actually the opposite. It’s big and fascinating. “But what difference does it make now?” Eric asks philosophically. “He’s off the market anyway, and I’m going to make sure he stays that way. I promised him I would.”

  “I’m off the market too,” I say, since I need to remember that. I need to underline it, bold it, highlight it.

  “Good. Just making sure. You both have way too much going on in your lives for anything to happen. But you’re back in the same city now, and I know days like today make people do crazy things. I met Mariana at a wedding, so I know what happens at weddings.”

  I roll my eyes. Then I roll them once more all the way to the back of my head and around. “Nothing is going to happen at your wedding,” I whisper.

  I repeat that mantra as the ceremony begins.

  I say it a few times as Eric walks down the aisle to the front of the ballroom.

  I imprint it on my brain several times.

  When the music begins for the bridal party, I clutch a few tissues strategically around my bouquet, ready to dab my eyes.

  But it turns out, I don’t feel like crying when I spot Crosby outside the ballroom.

  The opposite occurs as he strides over to me, proffering a corsage, then the words, “For you.”

  Blue roses bloom brilliantly, and he slides it onto my wrist, next to my watch. My breath hitches as his fingers graze my skin.

  Nothing is going to happen at the wedding.

  My skin seems to feel otherwise though, all lit up and electric from the barest touch.

  “Gorgeous,” I whisper as I stare at the roses, then at my ruby ring, which seems to catch their reflection. I tear my gaze away to take the matching boutonniere and affix it to his lapel. My fingers are steady, but my senses are frantic, out-of-whack radars that are going haywire as I slide the pin through the back of the boutonniere. A faint hint of his aftershave drifts past my nose, the scent woodsy and clean, and it scrambles my brain, sending those wild neurons into hyperdrive.

  He smells so enticing.

  And he looks like he belongs on a magazine cover beneath the headline “Rugged All-American Athlete.”

  The suit, the five-o’ clock shadow, the twinkling eyes.

  Everything.

  Just everything.

  I step back. “Excellent flower choice,” I say, doing my best to sound friendly.

  “Glad you approve.”

  He offers his arm, and I drink in the sight of him once more.

  My libido roars, rises up, taps my shoulder, and whispers like the she-devil she is in my ear, He looks crazy hot, doesn’t he?

  Yes, Crosby Cash looks insanely yummy in that non-ruffled, non-bell-bottomed blue tux that hugs his muscles and shows off his flat stomach and makes me want to climb him like a tree.

  He looks incredible with his dark hair that demands fingers be run through it, with his stubble that begs for hands to roam over it.

  And those eyes . . .

  Those eyes that simply say he’s imagining a woman naked.

  He gazes at me with those eyes right this second.

  My skin heats everywhere.

  Dear God, my rabbit is going to be working overtime tonight.

  Especially when Crosby flashes his grin at me. That easygoing grin on his stupidly gorgeous face.

  When he links arms with me, a hot shiver rushes over my skin, pulses between my legs.

  He leans in closer and whispers, “That dress.”

  That’s all he says.

  Two words that if written down, if placed in the middle of a poster on a wall, wouldn’t inherently seem like a lusty, sexy compliment.

  But from his mouth, in this moment, with heat in his eyes, they feel like the sexiest thing anyone has ever said.

  As we walk down the aisle arm in arm, I don’t feel friendly.

  I feel something else entirely. Something I haven’t felt in ages.

  Maybe ever.

  A dangerous desire.

  6

  Crosby

  Two weeks.

  My turn-off-the-nuclear-reactor-of-my-love-life experiment is fourteen days strong, and I haven’t texted an ex or swiped right.

  Hell, I killed my Tinder account.

  I deleted all my exes’ contact info from my phone.

  Total reboot. Clean fucking sweep.

  But now the real work begins.

  No matter how good my best friend’s sister looks, smells, or feels with her arm linked through mine, I won’t move her from the friend zone to the I-am-dying-to-take-you-to-bed-tonight zone.

  But standing next to her is an unexpected test of my Ladies’ Men Anonymous resolve.

  With each step down the aisle, my mind narrows to thoughts of her.

  She smells like . . . a whispered moment, like the hint of a kiss.

  And it’s going to my head.

  The faint scent of something tropical, a juicy mango or a lush flower, is tickling my nose, teasing my senses.

  To make matters harder, she looks like a jewel. That sapphire dress hugs her lithe body in all the right places, while letting my overactive imagination do its favorite thing—picture what’s underneath that material.

  Halfway down the aisle, she steals a quick glance my way, her eyes flashing me a smile under her lashes, as she hooks her arm more tightly through mine.

  My heart pounds a little harder.

  How can one person look this good, smell this good, feel this good?

  I have no answers.

  We reach the justice of the peace, and I breathe a quiet sigh of relief as we fan to opposite sides—me with the groom, her with the bride.

  Thank fuck for the ceremony.

  The vows and promises will take my mind off the sensory overload in my body.

  But that’s easier said than done.

  As the justice of the peace speaks, my mind wanders, tripping back in time, making a few quick stops along the way at the LGO Excellence in Sports Awards Gala last year, at the Sports Network Awards the year before, at a local hospital’s big fundraiser for pediatric cancer a few years back. All these events where I’ve chatted with her, shared a joke or a drink.

  The images of us laughing flicker before me.

  As the justice of the peace talks about Eric and Mariana, my mind stretches further, reaches further into the past, landing on Nadia’s senior prom.

  I’d just come home from college at the end of my sophomore year to find her going to the dance with Charlie Duncan, a senior too, captain of the debate team and one of those guys who looked like he’d be cast as the best friend in a Netflix Christmas special.

  Inoffensively handsome and completely forgettable.

  Nadia was the opposite.

  She’d practically floated down the stairs and through the living room in an emerald dress, with her chestnut hair in a twist, several strands framing her face in loose, curled tendrils.

  Her lips were bright, slick with pink lip gloss.

  But her eyes did me in. They knocked the breath straight from my lungs.

  I couldn’t get enough air.

  Had her eyes always been so can’t-look-away-from? So brown and warm? So big and open?

  Or had I only just noticed?

  I was parked on the couch, watching a ball game with Eric and his dad. The bases were loaded, and I didn’t care.

  She walked over to us on confident
feet, the heels making her taller.

  “Hey, Wild Girl,” I’d said, my voice dry and husky.

  I needed a bottle of water. I needed ten gallons. My throat was the Sahara.

  “Hey, Wannabe All-Star,” she’d said, then I stood and leaned in for a hug.

  I was a thief, all right, stealing that embrace. As my arms wrapped around her, the force of my own crush—it had come out of nowhere—hit me like a wild pitch slamming into my thigh.

  She was stunning.

  And some asshole was going to reap the rewards.

  But then, nothing happened with Mr. Netflix, because she came home before midnight, made some popcorn, and invited Eric and me to join her in the kitchen.

  Eric said he’d be right there after SportsCenter, but I was all too willing to leave the sports news behind.

  “How was prom?” I asked, gritting my teeth, hoping her early return meant Charlie had been cast in the role of the too-boring-to-get-another-date role.

  She rolled her eyes. “All he wanted to talk about was himself.”

  My shoulders relaxed. I had to fight off a smile. “I take it that’s not on your list of favorite topics?”

  She shook her head, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she kicked off her heels. “I want someone to laugh with, make fun of the world with, talk about the world with. Charlie has the conversation range of a biscuit.”

  With a straight face, I said, “Biscuits, I’m told, are not known for their sparkling wit.”

  “Sparkling wit is a prerequisite. I haven’t been on a ton of dates, but I know this much—without sparkling wit, I have zero interest,” she said, then offered me some of the popcorn. I took a handful, popped it into my mouth, and chewed.

  “Because you give good sparkles. You give good wit. And obviously, you have top-notch taste,” I said, then pointed to the popcorn, maybe so I wouldn’t be completely transparent.

  She smiled, big and wide. “I do have good taste.”

  I upped the ante. “The best.”

  Her eyes locked with mine for a beat, maybe more. She nibbled on the corner of her lip, then drew a shuddery breath. “Who won the game?”