Writing the Rules: A Fake Dating Standalone Read online

  Writing the Rules

  The Dating Playbook: Book 6

  Mariah Dietz

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Paxton

  2. Poppy

  3. Paxton

  4. Poppy

  5. Paxton

  6. Poppy

  7. Paxton

  8. Poppy

  9. Paxton

  10. Poppy

  11. Paxton

  12. Poppy

  13. Paxton

  14. Poppy

  15. Paxton

  16. Poppy

  17. Poppy

  18. Paxton

  19. Poppy

  20. Paxton

  21. Poppy

  22. Poppy

  23. Paxton

  24. Poppy

  25. Paxton

  26. Poppy

  27. Poppy

  28. Paxton

  29. Poppy

  30. Paxton

  31. Poppy

  32. Paxton

  33. Poppy

  34. Paxton

  Epilogue

  Read More of The Dating Playbook

  Bending the Rules

  Poppy’s Chocolate, Marshmallow Cream Filled Cupcakes

  Stay Connected

  Also by Mariah Dietz

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2021 by Mariah Dietz

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Edited by Arielle Brubaker

  Proofread by Michele Ficht

  Cover Design by Hang Le with By Hang Le

  Cover Photographer: Arron Dunworth

  Model: Adi Gillespie

  Created with Vellum

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  Website: www.mariahdietz.com

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  Prologue

  Poppy

  I’ve been recording my life since I was seven. A heavy stream of consciousness, questions, thoughts, details that I’ve kept and recorded in the journals’ pages, knowing that memories don’t last forever and are often missing details. I’ve long believed my life to be simple and I to be boring. Painfully average and predictable. Now, I question why I associated so many negative thoughts toward things I now find reprieve in.

  It may not be a popular opinion, but there’s something incredibly fulfilling and shockingly wonderful found in familiarity, and these pages are a testament to that fact.

  I run my fingers along the spines, stopping on my very first journal. I pull it out and cradle it with the gentleness of an infant, flipping to the first page—the beginning of my written life that explains the time Mom had told me how we rarely remember moments, only the way we feel in them. She told me to close my eyes and try to picture her, and I was shocked at how quickly her dark brown hair and her eyes that are the same shade as the acorns I used to gather and collect every fall, slipped from my mind. I didn’t even remember the familiar path of freckles across the bridge of her nose or her smile for very long. They all faded into a silhouette that I simply knew was her. That day, I began keeping track of my days, my memories, my thoughts—filling the pages of journals that reside in chronological order in my closet because though I don’t know what my life will bring, I want to remember the tiny details—ones we all take for granted like a really good shower with the perfect water temperature, the feeling of receiving flowers from a boy you like, and that smell after it rains when everything is waking up. I wanted to record all of my firsts and all of my lasts. Which is why I’m in my closet now, flipping through pages and reading entries from years past, trying to decipher if arbitrary rules and ideas had blinded me and kept me away from him and the knowledge that I’ve loved him all this time like it sometimes feels, or if lust has stolen my memories and exchanged them for feelings. I need to get past the faded silhouette in my head and find the truth.

  1

  Paxton

  “Where have you been?” my little sister, Raegan, asks, eyes on me and arms crossed over her chest like she’s preparing for a fight as I get out of my car.

  “You’ll have to be more specific,” I tell her, my tone relaying my state of physical exhaustion and lack of enthusiasm for this conversation.

  “No one has seen or heard from you since Saturday night.”

  “It’s only Sunday. Relax.”

  “Pax…” She shakes her head. “I’m worried about you.”

  “You don’t need to worry about me,” I respond, but before I can list the reasons she doesn’t have to be concerned, my teammates Arlo Kostas and Lincoln Beckett step out from our shared house. Lincoln stops beside Raegan, reminding me of the only thing I don’t like about my best friend—he’s dating my sister. It’s a selfish reason, I know, but when you go from being each other’s wingmen and partying together to having your sister spend the night—in his room—things get a little awkward.

  “Look who the cat dragged home,” Arlo says with a laugh. “I thought I heard you.” He turns his head toward the opened front door. “He’s here!” he yells.

  I release a heavy sigh. “Don’t tell me you guys are hosting another intervention.” I’m so damn tired of having to account for my whereabouts and actions.

  Ian Forrest, the captain of our defense, steps outside, ready to join the crowd and give me his two cents. Behind him, I spot Poppy Anderson stopped in the doorway. I’ve known her since she was five, when she and Raegan became instant friends and began doing everything in life together. She’s easy to get along with, and unlike most of Rae’s friends, she has never made any attempt to flirt with me—not a lingering touch or innuendo or even a stray glance.

  “Are we having a party?” I ask, trying to lighten the mood.

  “What the fuck, man?” Lincoln asks.

  I roll my shoulders and release another heavy sigh. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

  “That’s great because none of us want to babysit you,” Rae says. “But we’re worried about you.”

  “We talked about this,” Ian says. “I thought we were on the same page?”

  “We are. I went out and had a good time, and there were no pictures, and I didn’t drink and drive. I had two beers,” Or maybe five. “And spent the night on someone’s couch.”

  “We have two rules for the team this year,” Ian says. “No drinking and an eleven o’clock curfew. You keep pushing it and pushing it. The only reason Coach hasn’t benched you is because you’re the best goddamn quarterback in the league, but he’s starting to pay attention. His tolerance for bullshit is at an all-time low right now.”

  “Plus, you have a habit of making some less than stellar decisions when you drink,” Rae adds.

  “I haven’t missed a single game or practice all year long. Hell, I haven’t missed a fucking practice or game ever. I got sick sophomore year, they taped an IV to my arm all day, and I played that night. Dad fucked a student, and I still showed up for practice.”

  “Your ass got saved by Caleb’s friend in med school,” Lincoln challenges me. “If he hadn’t come by to pop another IV in your arm, you’d have missed a dozen practices and likely a few games by now.”

  “But the only reas
on you know that is because you live here,” I point out. “On the field, you can’t tell, and neither can the rest of the team.”

  “We don’t want to go to the coaches,” Ian says. “We’re trying to work this out with you.”

  I pull in another breath and release it just as fast. “I’m just trying to enjoy my senior year of college. If I was driving home wasted, or sticking needles in my arms, or something that warranted this kind of concern, I’d be taking a step back.”

  Raegan reaches for her phone. “How many examples do you need?”

  “How many do you have?” I ask.

  She rolls her eyes. “Strip poker.”

  “That was one time, and I was having a rough week.”

  She turns her phone around to show me evidence of that night, forcing me to relive the tiny pair of basketball shorts she and Lincoln had procured after I literally lost my shorts.

  “I can’t believe you took a picture of those. You can see my nuts.”

  Raegan cringes. “Solely for blackmailing purposes, I can assure you.” She lowers her phone. “My point is, strip poker was mildly stupid, but you keep getting more daring and increasingly more stupid.”

  “Poppy, have I been stupid?” I ask. “Give us some psychological insight.”

  “Nice try,” Poppy says, pushing a lock of dark red hair back from her face and tucking it behind one ear. “I’m not going there.”

  “You know that means she’s on my side when she won’t defend you.” I swing my attention back to Raegan, who likely isn’t even the ringleader of this little intervention of sorts. It’s tricky to say who is leading the charge. Ian was up my ass for a couple of weeks after his girlfriend, Rose, and I ended up at the same party where I was trying to find the bright side of my recent breakup with my long-term girlfriend, Candace, at the bottom of a bottle. Needless to say, I was drunk and with a hot girl who didn’t care about anything but a good time when Rose dragged me out of the house. I hammered the final nail into my own coffin when I lost my stomach and proceeded to take a nap on the front lawn. Ian had to come and drive my sorry ass home. It wasn’t my finest hour.

  But, aside from that instance, I’ve been getting my shit together. The moment was a wake-up call for me as well. No more blacking out or passing out. No random girls, I haven’t even responded to Candace, who I have a habit of going back to after a few weeks with the hope of a different result. I open the backseat to grab my duffle bag, and an empty beer can rolls out, falling to the driveway with a loud clang. Correction, my shit is mostly together.

  “You have worked your ass off to be as great as you are. We don’t want to see you piss that away in exchange for a few nights of fun,” Ian tells me.

  The joke is on me because the nights in question haven’t been all that fun.

  “We’ve got two and half months left until the final bowl game,” Lincoln says. “After that, it won’t matter as much, but right now, you’re under a magnifying glass, and everyone is watching.”

  I sling my bag over my shoulder. “So, is this an ultimatum or what?”

  “We’re trying to offer you our support,” Raegan says. “And we’re probably not doing it in the best way, but we love you, and we support you, and we want you to reach your dream. This is it, Pax. Everything you’ve worked so hard for, it all ends this year. You made it this far, and as Ian said, we don’t want to see it all slip away now, not after all you’ve done and all you’ve achieved.”

  I swipe a hand down my face. “Intervention, then?”

  “Basically,” Rae admits. “But it’s because we love you.”

  Lincoln places his hand on her shoulder and nods. “And because we know what you’re capable of. You’ve had one hell of a year, man. I know it’s been rough. But you can’t keep chasing that pain with a drink or a hit off the bong.”

  “We’ve got you,” Arlo says. “Us, Caleb, and the rest of the team—we’ve all got you.”

  “Is this like the movies where you ask me to give you my stash? Because if so, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. My stash is in the kitchen.” I pick up the can that had fallen and toss it in the air before catching it.

  “No more alcohol for a while. We don’t want you to become dependent,” Rae tells me. “We want you to have fun and enjoy your senior year, and you deserve to, but it can’t be at the expense of your safety and future.”

  I want to remind them all that I’m not doing anything illegal, that my actions aren’t that far from what many other college students do—including members of our football team—but I know they’ll tell me the same lines. As the quarterback and captain of the football team, I’m held to a higher standard. That my grades are slipping, and so is my reputation. And my long-time relationship with Candace is only adding to the theatrics.

  “I relent,” I tell her. “I won’t drink anymore. Not a taste until we win our final bowl game.”

  “And no more smoking pot,” Arlo says. “I had to go to dinner at Coach Harrises house last weekend, and I smelled like a joint.”

  “Bring on the fun,” I mutter.

  2

  Poppy

  I grip the door handle and pause. On my drive here, I realized that I excel at approximately three things:

  Knowing a vast (and often useless) amount of dinosaur facts

  What the best snack foods are

  And, following the rules

  Unfortunately for me, none of these award-winning skills will help me once I step foot out of my car.

  I was an only child for the first ten years of my life, and, as strange as it sounds, I was thriving. I knew how to wash and fold laundry, remembered which day to take out the trash and recycling, and never forgot to do my homework. I found freedom in following the rules (well, as much freedom as a ten-year-old can comprehend), and with that came my independence, drive, and sense of responsibility, all of which I learned by example. My dad, Alex Anderson, has owned Anderson Construction & Realty with my grandpa for the past twenty years, and together, they’ve built vast sections of Seattle and own a great deal of commercial real estate. My mom, Dr. Linda Anderson, is a psychologist, radio talk show host, and author of seven novels. With their busy careers, I learned to enjoy my own time and space and was happy with our routine.

  Then my little brother, Dylan, was born, and instead of freaking out at the new variable in my life, I adapted. I learned how to change diapers and blow raspberries and play peek-a-boo just the right way to make him laugh. My parents let me start babysitting him when I was twelve, just when he was getting into the screaming and throwing-things-across-the-room phase. In my attempts to find something to watch that would be both appropriate for him and not mind-numbing for me, I stumbled on The Land Before Time playing on the TV, and he loved it. Dylan became obsessed with dinosaurs, and so, naturally, I started learning a lot about them as well.

  As for snack foods, that’s a gift I’ve had for as long as I can remember. On the first day of kindergarten, I’d snuck a handful of chocolates into my backpack just in case (it made sense at the time). That turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made because, at lunch, I shared them with Raegan Lawson, and we’ve been best friends ever since.

  My strengths helped me make friends and have a great relationship with my little brother, and get accepted to Brighton University, a prestigious school in Seattle. What they didn’t prepare me for was the text that led me here to Starbucks, waiting to meet someone I haven’t seen or spoken to in years. This morning I was positive that coming here was a good idea, and now, it seems like the very worst.

  “I want to see you.” Those were five words I never expected to hear from my ex-boyfriend, Mike Rio, mainly because he’d moved to Arkansas for college on a full-ride scholarship. Though we’d promised to remain friends, I haven’t seen or heard from him since he left. But I’d texted him back because I was sure he’d meant to text someone else, and the polite thing to do would be to let him know he had the wrong number. And a small part of me was
curious.

  After a few back and forth messages he confirmed that yes, he’d meant to message me, and yes, he wanted to meet me here at the coffee shop off of Southeast Magnolia, close to where our parents still live and where we both grew up. It’s funny how we lived so close our entire lives, but we didn’t cross paths until high school because one of the many invisible barriers separated his neighborhood from mine and sent us to different elementary schools. I was fifteen when we met in English Language and Composition. He sat behind me and would ask to borrow a pencil almost every day. By that point in my life, I’d had a lot of firsts, but Mike Rio recorded three more. He was my first crush that made it difficult for me to concentrate, my first serious, hold-my-books and walk-me-to-class boyfriend, and my first can’t-get-out-of-bed heartbreak.

  Today, Mike’s getting another first from me: having coffee with an ex.

  I’m not sure what to expect or what to say. Mike and I dated for two years and then broke up after graduation because he was moving and I was staying in Seattle to attend Brighton University with Raegan. She and I had planned out college over a decade ago, and we worked hard to make it happen because it was a school that met my parents’ requirements and allowed Raegan to study marine biology and cetology.