Page 50 of Rulebreaker

Are we dating?

Is that what this is?

Discomfiture crawls over me and I’m not sure how to respond, so I turn back to the parmesan and start vigorously grating it again.

“Why do you avoid my eyes whenever we have a serious conversation?” he asks quietly.

“Because I don’t know the answers and it makes me feel out of control.”

“Lily.” Warm hands land on my shoulders. “Babe–look at me.”

I don’t move for a beat, closing my eyes as I try to come up with a way to tell him the truth.

“Atlas, I don’t–”

“Shhh.” He puts a finger on my lips. “If you don’t want to tell me about your demons, you don’t have to. Not now, at least, but you have to start letting me in. We can’t do this if you don’t. And we both know there’s more between us than sex.”

“Yes, there is, buthowwould we do this? I have to go back on tour and you can’t just fly out to meet me one weekend a month or whatever. That wouldn’t be enough for either of us.”

“I can work from anywhere,” he responds. “I go into the office because it keeps my team on their toes, but Briar can handle almost anything that comes up, and I have a jet that can take me anywhere I want to go, whenever I want to go there.”

“Atlas, I don’t know if I’m ready for…serious.”

“I don’t know if I am either but how else will we find out?”

“I’m scared,” I admit.

“Of me?”

“No.” I shake my head. “Of us. Ofthis. Of how it feels when we’re together. I like you. A lot. And that’s terrifying to a woman like me.”

“Well, if it helps at all, I like you too. And I’m also terrified.”

“You are?” That’s a little hard to believe. “I didn’t think anything terrified men like you.”

“Well, you’re wrong. I’m terrified of something happening to Frankie. I’m terrified that the hockey player Briar is dating is going to break her heart and then I’ll have to kill him. And more than anything else, I’m terrified of falling in love. I’ve never done it.”

“You’ve never been in love?” I ask in confusion. “Not even in college?”

He slowly shakes his head. “I’m not even sure if I know how. I love people, of course–Frankie, Briar, my brothers–but that’s a different kind of love. This thing with us? It’s something I’ve never felt before and I have no idea how to classify it. Or you. But I’m trying to be…brave, because I think you’re worth it.”

Without responding, I bury my head in his chest, luxuriating in the way it feels when he wraps his arms around me.This is crazy, and happening way too fast, but I couldn’t slow things down now if I tried. And the truth is–I don’t want to.

All I want is him.

Even if he shatters my heart.

“I think you’re worth it too,” I whisper.

SEVENTEEN

Atlas

I thinkyou’re worth it too.

I hear Lily’s words on repeat over the next couple of days, and I hold tight to them as she’s pulled away from me time and again.

For her shows. For interviews and meetings with her agent, with her producer, with sponsors that want to pitch her ideas. Even for her fucking stylist so they could plan outfits for the next leg of her tour–something that’s a waste of time as far as I’m concerned.