Page 7 of Falling for Mr. Wrong (The Rules We Break #2)

Chapter Seven

Lyla

T he morning light spilling into my bedroom is too bright, too clean for the thoughts swirling in my head.

I keep telling myself it was just for show. That Damien kissed me because Morgan Price was standing there with her phone ready, and the whole diner was watching.

But my brain refuses to cooperate. Every time I blink, I see the way he closed that last inch between us. Feel the way his thumb brushed my cheekbone.

I try to drown it out by digging through my closet for “clothes I can ruin.” Which now, thanks to him, I can’t hear without thinking of something entirely different — something that makes my pulse tick up before I can shove the image away.

I tug on worn jeans and an old long-sleeve tee, telling myself it doesn’t matter what I wear because he’s not looking at me like that. He never has.

Except… that’s not entirely true.

The memory sneaks in before I can stop it:

Summer after sophomore year. Aaron had dragged me to the Lawson house to hang out, which meant hours of video games with Damien in the background, working on his truck in the driveway.

I remember standing on the edge of the hood, watching him work — the easy strength in his hands, the way his dark hair fell over his brow.

He’d glanced up once, catching me staring, and for a moment something charged hummed in the space between us. Then his mouth had flattened, and he’d gone back to the engine without a word.

Two weeks later, Colton started walking me home from school. Colton, with his easy grin and sunny charm, who made me feel like I’d been chosen for something. It was easier to fall into step with him than to keep pining after the dark, mysterious cloud who clearly didn’t want me anywhere near him.

Only… I’d never really stopped wanting him.

I shake the thought off, grab my keys, and head for the door.

Across the street, the Lawson house looms with its peeling paint and weathered siding, Damien’s truck parked out front.

When I step onto the porch, I can see him through the open doorway, bent over the workbench, focused and silent. No Ronnie today. No buffer.

Perfect. Just perfect.

The creak of the porch step feels louder than it should.

Damien glances up when I step inside, eyes sweeping over me once before going back to the piece of trim he’s measuring. “You’re on time.”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” I say, setting my bag down.

He doesn’t smirk. Doesn’t even look like he’s considering it. Just nods toward the workbench. “Ronnie’s out for the day. We’ve got to get the window trim cut and installed before the rain moves in.”

My stomach dips.

No Ronnie means no one to fill the silence, no one to draw Damien’s focus away from me. And after yesterday’s kiss, the last thing I need is uninterrupted time with the one man who can make my pulse spike just by looking at me.

He hands me the end of a measuring tape. “Hold this,” he says, already stretching it across the length of the board. His knuckles graze my palm as he adjusts the angle, and it’s ridiculous that my heartbeat reacts to something so small.

“Forty-two and a half,” he mutters, marking the wood with his pencil. Then he takes my hand — literally takes it — and moves it closer to the saw. “Keep it steady when I cut. Don’t let it shift.”

The saw whirs to life, loud enough to make my chest buzz with the vibration. He leans in, bracing one hand beside mine, his arm brushing against my side as he guides the blade through the board.

When the cut’s done, he straightens but doesn’t step back right away. The scent of sawdust and whatever soap he uses lingers in the air between us.

“You’re good at this,” I say, trying to sound casual.

He shrugs. “It’s just work.”

Maybe for him. For me, it’s a test of how long I can stand this close without remembering exactly how his mouth felt yesterday.

The hallway upstairs is barely wide enough for one person, let alone two with paint trays and rollers. The ceiling’s low, the walls closing in like they’re conspiring against me.

Damien sets a fresh tray of paint on the floor and hands me a roller. “You take the left wall. I’ll take the right. Work from top to bottom, steady pressure.”

“Got it,” I say, dipping the roller into the tray.

For the first few minutes, we work in silence, the soft swish of paint on drywall the only sound. But every time I step back to reload the roller, I have to brush past him. Shoulder to shoulder. Hip to hip.

At one point, I turn just as he’s reaching for the top corner of his wall, his arm crossing inches from my face. The faint scent of his soap mixes with the sharp tang of fresh paint, making my pulse stutter.

“Sorry,” he says, low, almost gruff.

“Sure you are,” I murmur, not looking at him.

When I crouch to paint near the baseboard, he’s there beside me, knees almost touching. I can feel the heat of him even through the denim. The roller slips in my hand, smearing an uneven strip of paint.

Damien notices. “You’re leaning too much on your wrist,” he says, and before I can react, he takes my hand and shifts my grip on the handle. His fingers are warm, steady, guiding mine like he did with the sanding block yesterday.

My breath catches — and I’m thankful the hallway’s too narrow for him to see my face straight on.

We keep going, but the space between us feels tighter with every pass of the roller, like the walls are pushing us closer on purpose. And maybe I’m imagining it, but I swear he glances at me in his periphery more than once, like he’s checking to see if I feel it too.

I do.

We’ve nearly finished the first coat when the words slip out. “Aaron would’ve loved this house like this.”

Damien stills, his roller halfway up the wall. He doesn’t look at me.

I press on. “He’d always talk about fixing it up someday. Said you two would work on it together.”

The silence stretches, heavy and tight.

Finally, he says, “Yeah. He talked about a lot of things.” His tone is flat, like he’s aiming to shut the door on the topic entirely.

I set my roller down. “Why did you leave after he died?”

That gets him to look at me — sharp, almost defensive. “You really want to do this here?”

“I’ve wanted to do this for years,” I say, keeping my voice steady even though my chest feels tight. “You were his best friend. One day you were in our lives every day, and then you were gone. No goodbye, nothing.”

His jaw works like he’s weighing every possible response and finding none he likes. “There were reasons.”

“What reasons?”

He drags a hand over the back of his neck, glancing away. “Ones you don’t want to hear.”

“You don’t get to decide that for me.”

He exhales, long and slow, his gaze landing on the paint-speckled floor between us. “Sometimes knowing the truth doesn’t help. Sometimes it just… breaks what’s left.”

Something in his voice makes my skin prickle — not just the words, but the way he says them. Like he’s protecting me from something. Or himself.

“You’re telling me not to ask?” I say quietly.

“I’m telling you not to go digging for answers you won’t like.”

We stand there in the narrow space, paint drying on the walls, the air thick with things neither of us is saying.

Then Damien picks up his roller and turns back to the wall, effectively ending the conversation.

But the ache in my chest doesn’t fade. If anything, it lodges deeper.

By the time Ronnie’s boots thud up the stairs, the air between Damien and me has cooled just enough to feel… bearable. We’ve gone back to painting in silence, the earlier conversation tucked away but still pulsing beneath the surface.

Ronnie rounds the corner with a couple of supply bags swinging from his hands. “Got your damn painter’s tape,” he says to Damien, dropping it on the workbench.

“About time,” Damien mutters without looking up.

Ronnie ignores him, setting a bag down by my feet. “Also grabbed more sandpaper for you. Oh—and I ran into your brother.”

The roller in Damien’s hand stills. “Colton?”

“Yeah. Down by the marina. He was grabbing lunch with some guy from the team.” Ronnie’s oblivious to the way my stomach knots. “Said he’s in town for a few days. Didn’t know if you’d heard.”

Damien straightens slowly, his expression unreadable. “I hadn’t.”

Ronnie grins like it’s just a fun coincidence. “Guess you’ll be seeing him soon, huh?”

No one answers. The only sound is the faint drip of paint into the tray.

I can feel Damien’s tension from across the hallway — the shift in his shoulders, the way his jaw sets. My own heart is thudding too hard, because Colton showing up now? When the whole town thinks I’m dating his brother?

That’s not just bad timing.

That’s a lit match over gasoline.