Rules and Roses: Untouchable Book One Read online

  Rules and Roses

  Untouchable Book One

  Heather Long

  Copyright © 2019 by Heather Long

  Editing: Virginia Nelson

  Cover: Crimson Phoenix Designs

  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.

  Contents

  Rules and Roses

  Foreward & Dedication

  1. Chapter One

  2. Chapter Two

  3. Chapter Three

  4. Chapter Four

  5. Chapter Five

  6. Chapter Six

  7. Chapter Seven

  8. Chapter Eight

  9. Chapter Nine

  10. Chapter Ten

  11. Chapter Eleven

  News Flash

  12. Chapter Twelve

  13. Chapter Thirteen

  14. Chapter Fourteen

  The Rules

  15. Chapter Fifteen

  The Rules Part Deux

  16. Chapter Sixteen

  17. Chapter Seventeen

  The Morning After

  18. Chapter Eighteen

  19. Chapter Nineteen

  20. Chapter Twenty

  21. Chapter Twenty-One

  22. Chapter Twenty-Two

  23. Chapter Twenty-Three

  24. Chapter Twenty-Four

  25. Chapter Twenty-Five

  About Heather Long

  Also by Heather Long

  Rules and Roses

  Untouchable Book 1

  When it comes down to acclaim in the yearbook, my class rank would probably earn me my only entry, but probably very little else. I don’t wear cosmetics, do my hair, or give a damn about my appearance in general. Despite this, I’ve navigated high school among all the different groups from the nerds to the jocks to the theatre kids and the band geeks. I don’t need to be cool.

  Kicking off senior year, my only focus is to make every AP class count and keep my grades up. Shouldn’t be hard, particularly with my so-called untouchable status. Oh yeah, imagine that—I had a reputation. Hadn’t been a blip on my radar until the end of junior year when one of the girls’ dropped that little nugget on me. Apparently, the guys at school considered me the best girl to hang out with for fun or homework, but nothing else.

  While I’m not looking for a date, it’s a little hard to swallow that I ranked as the best bud and tutor, but I would definitely never fall into the Girl Most Likely To Get Asked Out.

  Pfft. What do I care? One more year and I’m off to college. So what if the numbers of female friends I used to have drifted off, and I’d scored a permanent seat in the friend zone? I had subjects to study, grades to maintain, and colleges to get into. I’ve never cared about the rules or status before, and I wouldn’t now.

  181 class days to go, and I’ll graduate. No problem, right?

  Foreward & Dedication

  Every once in a while, you get a chance to work on a book that captures you so thoroughly you can’t not write it. I’ve been very fortunate to have been similarly captivated over the years, but Rules and Roses truly submerged me in Frankie’s world.

  Frankie and her friends Archie, Bubba, Coop, and Jake are fantastic characters that came totally to life while I was writing and I found myself as captivated with their tale as I hope you will be.

  I have to thank Blake Blessing, in particular, for Frankie’s tale. A few months ago, she asked a question during a party on Facebook and I answered her privately. Just a fun recollection from my past. She said that sounds like such a great book! Well, the idea kind of planted itself and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  Ideas, like seeds, grow when they are watered and Blake along with Rebecca Royce were fountains of encouragement. So this book is for them!

  Just a couple of housekeeping notes!

  For those of you who have never read a reverse harem before, first let me thank you for picking this up and giving it a shot. Second, a reverse harem means the heroine will not make a choice in this book or any other between the guys in her life. It may take her a while to reach that conclusion, but it’s the journey that drives it. There are many ways to frame this kind of relationship, currently reverse harem fits it very well.

  Also, this is the first book in a series. While there may be no specific happy endings at the end of each of these books, there will be one to the whole series, that I promise you. Some of these books will have cliffhangers, largely due to the size of the story, but the happy ending has to be earned as part of the journey.

  Thank you again for reading Frankie’s story and I truly hope you enjoy it!

  Chapter One

  First Day

  “Frankie,” Mom called. “You’re going to be late.”

  “I’m not going to be late,” I yelled, not bothering to straighten from where I was digging under the bed for my shoes. I had one, the other was just almost out of—got it. Fingers hooked into the heel of the sneaker, I yanked it out and then pivoted to sit on the floor so I could put on my shoes.

  Tiddles eyed me from his perch on my windowsill. He paused mid-groom as though I’d disturbed him with my antics. Shoes on, I stood and gave the black feline a scratch under his chin. He purred his approval then resumed his grooming as I snagged my backpack, made sure my wallet was secured where it went, then checked for my keys before giving the room a once over.

  Bed not made. Clothes still in the hamper because I didn’t have time to do laundry over the weekend. My uniform stuck out of the top with its ugly ketchup stain prominent as if giving me the bird. Fine, I’d do laundry after school. I didn’t work again until Wednesday, anyway.

  I scanned the floor—I’d vacuum before Mom noticed, had an aneurism, and ripped my head off. Course, that depended heavily on if she noticed. Backpack over my shoulder, I pulled the bedroom door wide and left it that way. Tiddles would spend ninety percent of his day in my room, but if I shut him in there, he’d shred the door or the carpet. As Mom always said, we needed the pet deposit back someday.

  Speaking of Mom, she stood in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee. As I approached, she pushed a sealed tumbler of coffee toward me along with two twenties.

  I eyed the money then her. “Thank you,” I muttered, claiming the coffee. I had a car and the school was less than ten minutes away by car, but I always went in early. First day, new year, and I had six AP classes and a TA period. No time for slacking, senior year or not.

  “Take the money, too.” Mom held up a hand before I could open my mouth. “Not a word, Frankie. Put the money in your wallet. I don’t care if you never spend it, but you’re going to have pocket money.”

  I made my own money. I worked at the fast food joint two blocks from school—Mason’s, home of the Big and Thick, known for its big burgers and thick shakes. Yes, it sounded dirty, but I’d gotten over blushing about it years ago. I still snickered, though. Course, every penny I earned was currently being poured into a savings account.

  One I’d dipped into to fix my car two weeks earlier, but I still had to have air conditioning and a car that didn’t overheat. It was supposed to be over a hundred today and would stay about that for the next week or so. Back to school did not mean fall weather in Texas.

  Joy.

  Rapture.

  “You’ve been working your butt off, missy, and instead of cruising through your senior year—which you could be doing—you’re overachieving, again.” Madeline Curtis, Maddy to her friends, Mad Maddy to her family, and Mom to me, shook her
head.

  “Every AP exam I ace equals one less college class I have to take a loan out for.” Since I had my eye on an out of state university, I needed all the help with that tuition I could get. I’d done two classes in my sophomore year, five in my junior, and this year was all AP classes. I only needed three of those classes to finish my credits for graduation. “I really don’t mind.”

  Actually, I kind of looked forward to the classes. I knew a couple of the guys in at least two of the classes, and I’d probably end up tutoring some of the others, so it wasn’t like I wouldn’t have people to talk to.

  After the end of last year, that was a good thing.

  “Fine,” Mom said with a sigh. “You’re going to do what you do.”

  “Yep.” I grinned and gave her a loose hug. Mom wasn’t that touchy-feely, no matter how much I might have wished otherwise. She tolerated my hugs. PDAs just weren’t her thing, but she let me kiss her cheek and give her the occasional hug. Sometimes, she even ruffled my hair, which I had to duck away from because it was in a ponytail, the frizzy tamed at the moment, and I wanted it to stay that way.

  After slipping the twenties into my wallet and securing it back inside the safety pouch of the backpack, I took my keys and my travel mug of coffee. “We, who are about to enter the breach, salute you.”

  Mom snorted. “May the odds be in your favor.”

  I groaned. I hated those movies, but she loved them. “Thanks, Effie.”

  Her eyes crinkled with her smile as she followed me to the door. “I’m going to be late tonight, but there’s still leftover lasagna. Get the chicken out for tomorrow before you go to bed?”

  “Can do.”

  I jogged down the concrete steps from our apartment to the ground. The apartment complex was built into a hill so we were higher than the apartments behind ours.

  “Do you work tomorrow?”

  “Wednesday,” I called. “Thursday, too. Then the weekend.” Same days I did every week, but I’d pulled extra shifts over the summer. “Bye, Mom.”

  “Bye, Frankie!”

  It took a couple minutes to reach the parking lot. Mom got to park in the carport, but we only got one slot with our apartment, so I had to park across the lot in any open space I could find. The extra ninety seconds of walking wouldn’t kill me. I checked my phone before I shoved it in my back pocket. Five minutes late.

  I needed to get going or I’d never find a parking spot at the school. I got the sticker that said I could park, but unless I wanted to pay an extra hundred, I didn’t get assigned parking spot there, either.

  Unsurprisingly, a sandy blond leaned against the side of my car. He had his backpack slung over one shoulder, his eyes half-closed, and five o’clock shadow on his face.

  “You look like crap,” I said by way of greeting.

  “Look better than you,” Coop retaliated, and I grinned.

  “Impossible.”

  With a light shove, I pushed him away from the driver’s side door. He mock-stumbled before straightening. At six foot, he topped me by six and a half inches.

  “Let me guess, you need a ride?”

  “Kind of obvious, isn’t it?” He smirked and circled around the car. I’d already unlocked the doors, so he all but fell into the passenger seat. “I’ll cover half the gas.”

  “For the ten-minute drive?” I rolled my eyes as I set my backpack into the backseat before climbing into the driver’s seat. The ten-year-old Toyota wasn’t flashy or sexy, but she was reliable and got me where I needed to go. She was also paid off, and I made payments to Mom for her, which helped Mom make payments on her new car—not that she’d asked me to do it, but fair was fair.

  “Okay, I’ll keep my money to myself, if you insist,” Coop smirked. “Drive, Jeeves.”

  I flipped him off, and then got the car started. “Ass.”

  He just laughed.

  The drive to school didn’t take long; it never did. Coop spent most of it with his eyes closed behind his sunglasses, and I drank my coffee, draining the last of it before we even pulled into the lot. First day back and it wasn’t crowded yet. Fantastic. I scored a parking spot next to the only tree and closer to the gym hall’s exit doors.

  Good karma for the first day.

  First day as a senior, too.

  So weird.

  Coop made an obnoxious snoring noise as I shut the car—and thus the air conditioner—off. I pinched him and he made a grumbling noise then caught my hand and held it to his chest.

  Rolling my eyes, I flicked his nose and he made a face. “You are so mean to me.”

  “Ha. Out of my car, Coop. I need to go inside, walk my classes, and see if Ms. Fajardo is in her classroom.”

  “Why?” He gave my hand a squeeze before he let me go. “God, girl. Just come to the cafeteria and hang out.”

  “There’s plenty of time for that.” Well, there had been in freshman and sophomore years. We hung out every day before classes, but then Mr. G let me use his classroom in junior year, and I hung out there some—mostly toward the end of the year. I was kind of hoping Ms. Farjardo would do it this year.

  “Uh huh.” Cooper “Coop” Brennen, the boy next door with the lazy attitude and the never in a hurry motto, had a GPA just a bare fraction off mine. He was so not the face he showed the world of being too cool for school or study. “You said that last year and disappeared on us.”

  “I didn’t disappear,” I argued. He unfolded himself from my car and stretched before sliding his arms into his backpack. He shut the door and circled the car, snagging my backpack for me and holding it up. It was already hot and humid outside. Texas in August? What did anyone expect? At least we could wear shorts to school, and I’d taken advantage of it.

  Not Coop. He wore jeans and looked like he’d never broken a sweat. Sliding my arms into the straps, I locked the car before shoving the keys into my pocket. My tumbler would stay in the car until I got home. I’d kill for another cup of coffee. There was a Starbuck’s a short walk away, inside the grocery store up the street. But—meh. I didn’t want to be dripping sweat with curls pulling my hair out of the ponytail.

  So, I’d suffer.

  Looping an arm over my shoulders, Coop turned me toward the building. “You spend most of your time in classrooms even when you didn’t have to be.”

  “I was studying. Five AP classes is a lot of homework.”

  Coop snorted again. “Frankie, Frankie, Frankie… do not hide this year.”

  “I’m not hiding,” I said, and gave him a shove. “And get off. It’s hot.”

  He laughed. The great thing about Coop was he never fell into bad moods or got tense. If anything, he was the most laid-back guy at Robertson High. He didn’t sweat grades, homework, the temperature, or life. He just drifted along, and the currents were always kind to him.

  Well—except for when they weren’t. I put a pin in my internal whining. Coop made conscious choices to be zen, and I knew why, so better to just respect than be an ass about it.

  “Tell you what,” Coop said as he pulled the door open for me. The ancient air conditioning must have been in a good mood because a wall of cool air greeted us. After a couple of thousand students arrived, it wasn’t likely to stay that cool. “I’ll go with you to Fajardo’s room. You can kiss up to teach, dazzle her with your awesomeness, and then you come hang out with me in the cafeteria.”

  I didn’t say anything at first. What did it matter if I hung out or not? Being seen wasn’t going to get me a date. If anything, the end of last year proved my involvement, or lack thereof, in the social scene wasn’t going to get me anywhere.

  “Frankie,” Coop dragged out my name like every syllable was a hint of him pleading. “Say yes. C’mon. You know you wanna. Bubba will be there. Jake and Archie, too. You haven’t really seen them this summer.”

  I scowled. “You’re going to be a pest until I say yes, aren’t you?”

  “Well, duh,” he said, smirking. “If you’d come to one party this summer,
I might cut you some slack.”

  “I went to one of the parties.” I’d gone to Bubba’s birthday party two weeks ago. His eighteenth. The first of the group to hit it. Coop was next. Archie closer to Halloween and Jake at Christmas. Me? I didn’t get the right to vote until almost Easter.

  Sucked to be me.

  “One.” Dry. So dry and so sorrowful. “One does not count. You only went because it was Bubba’s birthday. You stayed for exactly thirty-five minutes, gave Bubba a present, and slipped out when you thought no one was looking.”

  Halting, I stared at him. We were mostly alone, because I’d only seen a few kids and a couple of teachers. In about twenty minutes, the first school buses would be rolling in. “How do you know? You had your tongue down Laura’s throat.”

  His smile grew. “I know things.”

  “Like what Laura Zaverman’s tonsils look like?”

  “Feel, not look. If I were looking at them, that would be gross. And we all noticed you ditched.”

  Crap.

  I tilted my head back and stared at the ceiling. The problem with being that girl. The one they all hung out with, the terminally friend-zoned buddy, was they did notice crap like that.

  Everyone at the party had been pairing off. There were kids in the pool making out, kids on the lawn furniture making out. At least three of the cars had been rocking when I headed down the hill to my own. “Fine,” I conceded. “But I need to walk my schedule first and talk to Ms. Fajardo.”