Page 61 of About That Rule

CHAPTER24

FROM THE UBERto the hotel, there was no speaking between them. In fact, they’d skipped getting the divorce paperwork at the courthouse because it had all felt too real. At least it had for Samantha. She had no idea why Nate wasn’t talking. Perhaps they had said too much at this point.

The noise in the hotel was loud, as it should have been on the strip, but it felt like there wasn’t a sound.

It was eerie as they walked to their hotel room, neither saying a word, but she was surrounded by the noise of the judge’s decision. It was a disheartening that this was the end for them. If it were a time to cue in her ability to poke fun at everything, she would have played the Boys II Men song, “End of the Road.” But this was not a time for silliness. Hell, she and Nate were still fighting from before they even met with the judge, mixing in the future divorce was just too much.

Doom and gloom surrounded them.

Nate flopped in the chair in the corner of the room. Samantha sat on the bed.

An eternity that passed before Nate broke the silence.

“How did this happen?” he whispered.

“Right?”

He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry for earlier. I didn’t mean it, when I said I couldn’t wait for the annulment. I think the stress of this day tied in with my confusion on where we stood just didn’t sit well with me. I never should have spoken to you like that. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I didn’t mean to argue with you either. Our whole dynamic has been thrown,” Samantha admitted before falling back on the bed. “Three months ago, we were trashed at the alter getting married, and now look at us. What happened to us?”

“Honest? I think the rules ruined everything.”

She sat up quickly. “What do you mean? The rules were there to protect us.”

“And do you feel protected?”

She shook her head. Her heart had been hammered into a million little pieces. If anything, she was broken, not safe.

“I thought being best friends was going to stop us from hurting each other,” Nate told her while he tapped his foot on the ground.

“Same. We were doing so great in the beginning.”

Which was true. The first month or so, everything went smoothly. They got along, visited each other as planned, took loads of pictures. Something changed, though. For her anyway, the more she was around Nate pretending to be his wife, the more she thought of the reality of actually being his wife. It was far too appealing for her to be his.

The thing was, she was losing Nate as a husband.

She wasn’t ready to let this ruin them as friends.

There was no way she would be able to suffer losing Nate twice.

“The past three months have been a whirlwind. We got drunk and married.”

Nate nodded. “Check. Then we had some visits, but we have to admit, we toed the line a bunch.”

“And you got super bitchy at one point,” Samantha pointed out to him as a reminder.

“I’m pretty sure it happened more than once, but in my defense, this was my first time ever waking up with a hangover and a sexy wife. All the rules threw me.”

“I am pretty sexy,” she took a turn to gloat. It was well-deserved after their hearing today.

He smiled. Ugh, how she loved his smile. “You’re the sexiest.”

“You’re not so bad yourself.” She couldn’t believe she was flirting back during all this madness.

He huffed. “You’ll be off the market before you know it.”

“Is that what you want?”