Breaking Rules Read online

  Breaking Rules

  Breaking #1

  Tracie Puckett

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents depicted in this collection are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons—living or dead—is coincidental.

  United States of America, 2014

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Cover design by Damonza

  Edited by Nicole Ayers of Ayers Edits

  www.traciepuckett.com

  Series by Tracie Puckett

  Webster Grove

  The New Girl

  Under the Mistletoe

  Secrets to Keep

  Coming Out

  All Good Things

  Just a Little

  Just a Little 1-4

  Just a Little 5-8

  Just a Little Sequel

  To the real Mr. Big Shot,

  for the lessons you’ll never know you taught me.

  Thank you.

  And to Mom, for always choosing us.

  Prologue

  No one finds the love of their life when they’re eighteen. Even if it was possible, didn’t she know that young love was always destined to end in tragedy? Hadn’t she read Romeo & Juliet?

  What could my sister ever know about falling in love? She wasn’t in any kind of position to give me advice. Sure, Bailey knew a lot about a lot, but when it came to love and my ability to find it… she was most certainly wrong.

  I—do—not—fall—in—love, and I never would, especially at eighteen. But my biggest fear was that maybe I had the potential to develop a crush, and that thought frightened me to the depths of my very soul. But...if that potential could exist, and if there was even a slight possibility that I could feel something like that, did that mean that the spark I felt at the diner had been real? Did that mean Gabe had become the game-changer?

  I didn’t know.

  But I did know one thing, and that one simple truth brought me to tears yet again: as far as Gabriel Raddick was concerned, my heart was in serious trouble.

  One

  “You—are—an—idiot, Amanda Parker! An idiot! I’m going to murder you!”

  “Let’s not overreact, Bailey.”

  “I can’t believe you would do something like this!” she yelled over me. “Who do you think you are?”

  I could’ve answered with any of the obvious choices: your ex-best friend, your identical twin sister, the only person who can put up with your over-the-top attitude. Any of those would’ve worked just fine. But I chose to let it go. She wouldn’t find my sarcasm cute, not after I’d just ruined her life.

  “I’m going to strangle you!”

  I tried to take a step away from her, but I couldn’t get out of her reach. Cornered against the orange accent wall in her bedroom, she pointed her bony finger in my face and glared, suddenly lost for words. But I knew that her silence wouldn’t last long. I couldn’t get that lucky. Once she figured out her next angle, she’d rear back and let me have it again, and I wasn’t prepared to keep arguing. I ducked away and took a few steps backward in the direction of her door.

  Somehow, I’ll credit years of practice, I managed to keep my voice low and calm as I reasoned with her. “Will you just back off for a second and let me explain?”

  “Back off?” she asked, and under her breath, her near-whisper was almost chilling. I suspected it had less to do with the airy quality of her voice, one that had a tendency to ring eerie at her angriest, and probably more to do with her overall demeanor.

  Standing tall at five feet seven, my sister had an innate ability to intimidate and take control. When she wanted her way, she almost always got it. This, of course, bewildered most everyone who knew her. With such a sweet face and slender build, it was puzzling how well she commanded a room. Bailey’s ability to take charge and get her way was one thing that I’d come to recognize well, basically because it was a skill I’d watched her hone little by little since we’d moved to Sugar Creek. After everything our parents put us through, she dropped the calm nature she inherited from our father. She assumed a new approach to life—standing up for herself, never taking ‘no’ for an answer, and always moving forward.

  On the upside, understanding the way my sister operated helped prepare me for every reaction, good or bad. When our desires were common, we could almost always assure a positive outcome. Unfortunately, her will to win worked against me when we didn’t see eye to eye.

  She combed both of her hands through her long, brunette hair and dug at the roots.

  “You crossed the line, Amanda—big time.” She dropped her arms and mimed strangling me. “How could you do this?”

  “Listen—”

  “You do understand what you’ve gotten us into, right?”

  “Yes.” I closed my eyes and collected my thoughts with a few deep breaths. Rule #9: When all else fails, count to ten.

  “Okay. What do you want me to say?”

  “That you were wrong,” she said, and her arms starting flailing again. “That you’re an idiot! That you’re going to do everything that it takes to undo this colossal mess you’ve made.”

  “Bailey—”

  “Say it!”

  “Okay.” I took another deep breath and let her cold, gray stare burn into the side of my face. I couldn’t admit that I was wrong; I wasn’t, but I had to say something, and I had to choose my words carefully so as not to admit failure. Losing to Bailey… well, that was never an option. “Fine. In retrospect, I wouldn’t say it was my best idea.”

  “It wasn’t your best idea? That’s it? That’s your apology?”

  “I’m not trying to apologize. If you’d just listen, you’d see that—”

  “Listen?” Her pink-painted lips gaped open, and she stared at me as if I’d just asked her to kill a puppy. “The girl who just volunteered the next six weeks of my life away? Yeah, I don’t think so.”

  I watched as my sister shook her head, still stunned.

  “So what, then?” I asked. “You’re just going to shoot it down? You’re not even going to think about it?”

  “Shut your mouth before I slap you, Amanda Parker.”

  An involuntary shiver got the best of me, and my sister’s wicked smirk twisted at the sign of my withdrawal. She was breaking out the big guns, and I knew I was in trouble. Bailey knew better than anyone that there was nothing in the world I hated more than hearing those two words strung together. It was the second time she’d full-named me in the last five minutes, and I’d been able to ignore the first jab. But the more she said it, the harder it became to ignore.

  When we were on good terms and she liked me, Bailey called me Mandy—just like everyone else. But when she was really mad, I suddenly became Amanda Parker. She’d full-name me every chance she got, simply because she knew how much it hurt. If she could plague me with bad memories of our mother, she’d do it. Just to be cruel. She knew that talking to me, tacking those two words together, was the only way she could shut me up altogether. She knew she had the weapon, and I wasn’t going to fight with a scaled-down version of our mother; I just plain refused to do it.

  I dropped my shoulders.

  It was pointless to argue with Bailey in the first place, but I couldn’t walk away without trying. My sister a
nd I were on borrowed time, and I wanted to spend as much of that time together as possible. And she wanted me to apologize for that?

  I couldn’t remember the last time either of us had made a point to spend time with the other. It’d been years since Bailey and I had any kind of friendly relationship, and I needed to remedy that before it was too late. She had plans to head back to California next fall and follow in the footsteps of our father, the former soap opera star. We left our hometown of Los Angeles four years earlier, and nothing was stopping her from going back to our roots. She was hungry for stardom, and she’d stop at nothing to get it.

  I, though, wanted very little more than what I already had. I had zero aspirations to walk red carpets, pose for flashing cameras, or be at anyone’s constant beck and call. All I really wanted was to stay right in Sugar Creek and focus on a solitary, writing career, and our small town was the perfect place to bask in that solitude.

  As the only member of the Parker household who didn’t have an immediate need to be loved and fawned over by the masses, I did my best to keep my head down and my nose out of everyone else’s business. Sometimes it worked, and other times… not so much. And this was one of those rare times that I’d slipped up and overstepped my boundaries. Guilty as charged.

  All because of that one stupid misstep, Bailey wasn’t about to let me off the hook. When it came right down to it, she was only mad at me for one, simple reason: I’d signed our names to a piece of paper, pledging a six-week commitment to compete in a charity competition, one sponsored by a local foundation called the Raddick Initiative.

  It was a simple, high school challenge, and it was the first of its kind to ever come through our region. There were four area schools chosen to compete, and ours was among them.

  Each school was responsible for organizing a team of juniors and seniors, setting up volunteer opportunities, and carrying through with six weeks of charity work and fundraising for their community. At the end of the competition, whichever of the four schools had managed to raise the most money for local charity was declared the winning school.

  The title came mostly with recognition and little else, but the real prize would be up for grabs after the winning team was declared. One valuable member of the chosen school would be awarded a full scholarship to the college of their choice.

  And I was going to win that scholarship.

  It was an opportunity to do something great for the community and for the school, but to me, a full-ride meant so much more. A scholarship was the ticket to the rest of my life, and if I ever wanted to get out of Dad’s grip and do things my own way, then I needed that money. I already had one shot at a free education, but my father didn’t believe in doing anything unconditionally. For his own, selfish reasons, he agreed to pay for college with one very specific condition in mind.

  That condition, though, was unfathomable. If I ever wanted the chance to go to Desden University and live my dream, then I had to find another way to fund it.

  The Raddick Initiative was the answer.

  By signing Bailey up to compete on our school’s team, I’d given her that very same opportunity. But to my sister, giving up even one hour of her life for anything meant social suicide, and sacrificing even a minute was out of the question. She’d made that perfectly clear.

  “Listen,” I said, taking a seat on the corner of Bailey’s canopy bed. She settled herself face-down in the pillows and tried to tune me out. “Tomorrow’s the first day of the program. There’s no contract that says you have to do it if you don’t want to, but I think you should tag along and give it a shot.”

  She groaned and threw her hands up over her ears.

  “Bailey, stop,” I said, speaking louder.

  “I’m not doing it,” she snapped matter-of-factly. She only raised her head up long enough to give me a deathly glare, and then she threw herself back on the pillows.

  “You won’t give up even a few weeks? Not even to volunteer?”

  “Volunteering is for losers who have no friends, no life, and nothing better to do with their time. That suits you, but that’s not me, and we both know it. I have my hands full enough without doing everyone else’s dirty work, Amanda.”

  “At least think about it.”

  She turned over and propped herself on her elbows.

  “I’d rather gouge out my eyes.”

  “Bailey!”

  “I’m not going to give up my time to… to… I don’t know, to stand out on the street picking up trash for nothing.”

  “Not nothing,” I said. “A sense of achievement, some perspective, knowing that you’re doing something for the greater good. And if we win, maybe even a scholarship.”

  “And I need those things because…?”

  I thought about saying it. I thought about telling her right then and there that she needed all of those things to knock her down a peg or two. Maybe that would do something to cure whatever sick disease she had that turned her into a spoiled, self-centered, pretentious brat. But I bit my tongue and stood up.

  “I have to be at the school tomorrow morning at eight for the orientation.” I headed for the door. “I think you should come with me.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then, Bailey,” I said, letting go of a breath, “I won’t be the least bit surprised.”

  Two

  I rolled out of bed at six the next morning. It was the earliest I’d ever pulled myself up on a weekend, but I’d made a commitment, and in spite of my sister’s bad attitude, I planned to see that commitment through to the very end. Rule #5: Never make a promise you don’t intend to keep.

  An hour later, after I’d had a long shower, dried my hair, and squeezed in a few minutes for minimal make-up, I tiptoed out of my room and down the hallway. I could still hear Dad’s sound machine running as I passed in front of his bedroom, so I tried to walk as quietly as possible as I snuck by; on weekends, he allowed himself the luxury of sleeping in until nine, so he still had a couple hours of beauty rest ahead of him. I imagined my sister did, as well. I could tell from the gap under Bailey’s door that she hadn’t turned on her light, nor were there any sounds coming from beyond her door other than faint snores. So that settled that. She was staying home.

  Just down the hall and past the bedrooms, I stopped off at the kitchen and grabbed a banana to go. I left a post-it on the counter and scrawled a note, reminding both Dad and Bailey that I was off to school for the orientation.

  And then I set off, taking the car that I shared with my sister.

  The school was only a ten minute drive from the center of Sugar Creek, but the drive seemed much faster on a quiet, Saturday morning. As I turned off of Main Street and onto Highway 6, I stretched over to the passenger’s seat to dig my cell phone out of my purse. After I found it buried at the bottom beneath my wallet and a pack of gum, I let my eyes wander down to check the screen. I punched in the four-number passcode, opened up my messages, and felt my heart sink to my stomach.

  No new messages.

  But that wasn’t much of a surprise, was it? Part of me hoped that Bailey would roll out of bed and send a last-minute text, begging me to drive back and pick her up. But there was nothing there.

  I dropped my phone to my lap.

  I settled my hands back on the wheel and focused my stare on the road again. With no time to think about Bailey or my budding agitation for her self-absorbency, my eyes centered on something barricading the road up ahead: only ten yards away, a man stood directly in the middle of my lane, unaware of the car headed straight for him. With his hands propped on his hips and his eyes focused off to the side, he studied the park entrance gates as if he had not one reservation about blocking the middle of an open highway.

  The car closed in on him in a matter of seconds, and with no time to hit the horn, I jerked back and slammed both feet down on the brake pedal. Even with the added force of an extra foot, the car still didn’t stop, but took a rough thrust forward. The front bumper clipped his legs
, jerking the car again. With the tires finally screeching to a sudden halt, the force of the man’s entire body slammed against my hood, rolling halfway up the windshield until the side of his face met the glass with a violent blow.

  “Oh God,” I said under my breath, and then I killed the engine. I jumped out of my car just as the man peeled himself from the hood and backed away.

  Breathing heavily, he let his arms fall flat to his sides. I watched him, feeling just as breathless as he looked. I noticed the way his dirtied, blond hair was mussed beneath a crooked, baseball cap and clinging to the top of his sweaty forehead. His gray shirt was stained and ripped, and the filth on his angular face matched the color of his dirtied jeans and scuffed up shoes. Somewhere, buried beneath his short, scruffy beard and a clump of dried mud, his lips thinned.

  Although young, he looked nothing short of beaten-down, exhausted, tired, and burned out. I wasn’t entirely convinced, judging by the state of his appearance, that being hit by a car was the worst thing that had happened to him in the last twenty-four hours. He was a hot mess.

  “Hello?” I said, waving a single hand in front of his face, but he still didn’t move. My heart was racing, pounding so quickly against my chest that I could almost feel it on the brink of explosion. What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to say? I knew that I had to say something. I’d nearly killed the guy!

  It wasn’t until I tasted the salty tears on my lips that I even realized that I started crying.

  Pull yourself together, Mandy. Do not let him see you cry!

  I quickly wiped my tears away with the backside of my hand and took another step forward.

  “Are you going to say something or…?”