His Games, Her Rules

“Thank you, Ross,” I say to Dominique’s driver as I shut the back seat door.

“You have a nice day, ma’am,” Ross says from the open driver’s window.Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g

With a small wave, I head toward my apartment building as I step into the lobby and walk toward the elevator. I press open the elevator and step inside, leaning against the far wall. As the elevator slides shut, a hand quickly stops the elevator from closing as this person rushes in before the elevator closes.

It’s Tyler.

“Robyn, hey.” Tyler smiles at me, running his fingers through his hair as he leans against the elevator wall.

Fucking hell. I can’t deal with this today, not when I have had an embarrassing and stressful day.

“Hello, Tyler.” I flash him a small smile, pulling out my phone from my bag to avoid having a conversation with him.

I can’t believe it’s 12:15 pm. I slept through half of the day. Monique had given me 15 missed calls and several text messages. And there are several messages from Tiwa and Noah on our group chat asking me if I finally got some last night. Noah created this group chat solely for hospital gossip and he added me and Tiwa to the group.

“Robyn…” Tyler’s voice snaps me out of my thoughts. I lock my phone and look up at him.

“I’m sorry, were you saying something?”

“I was asking you if you were okay. You look exhausted.”

“Yeah. I’m exhausted.”

“Fun night last night?”

“Something like that.” I flash Tyler a small smile as I open my purse and throw my phone inside. I look at the elevator panel briefly, wishing it to go faster so that I can get out of this confined space with Tyler.

It’s not like Tyler is ugly or weird, he’s not. Tyler is actually attractive. He’s like your typical bad boy next door and he’s pretty. But Tyler is not my type but he doesn’t want to hear it. I’ve thought about ways to politely explain to him that I would never go out with him, but I still haven’t come up with anything. I guess I’ll just have to spell it out for him that I would never date him or fuck him for that matter.

He’s too cheesy. He’s like your typical bad boy character right out of a cheesy romance novel and god, if that doesn’t turn me off, I wonder what does.

“If you don’t mind me asking, why won’t you go out with me?”

“Because we’re neighbors, Tyler. If we date or go out or whatever you’d like to call it and things don’t work out, it will be awkward between us. We would avoid each other in the hallways and anywhere we come across each other and one of us might even move out of the building just so that we won’t see each other again.” Well, that’s one way to put it without coming off as a bitch.

“If that’s what you think, I can move out if you want. I would move to another place and in that way, we could go out.” Oh, for fuck’s sake.

How’s it that an attractive and obviously civilized man like Tyler can’t tell when a woman isn’t interested?

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Tyler.”

Thankfully the elevator opens and I hastily step out, Tyler on my toes as he follows me.

“I thought you said the reason why you don’t want to go out with me is because we’re neighbors.”

I sigh and stop walking as I turn around on my feet with Tyler standing just two feet from me.

“I don’t want to do this but you give me no choice. You’re not my type, Tyler. You’re good-looking and attractive but you’re not my type and I would never go out with you. This isn’t about us being neighbors. And if I were you, I wouldn’t ask me out again. But we could still be friends.” I flash him a small smile and turn around to walk toward my apartment door.

Fuck, I’ve never had to reject a guy this way.

I simply just tell them to fuck off and they do after calling me names I’ve heard too many times.

Monique should be home already. I bring out my keys and unlock the door as I step inside, shutting the door behind me and locking it. I groan tiredly, dragging my feet toward the living room as I drop my keys and bag on the couch. I place my hand on the headrest of the couch and take off my shoes.

“Who’s that?” An unfamiliar male voice says as a strange man walks out of my kitchen, shirtless.

I pause, ready to attack whoever this person is as Monique steps out of the hallway wearing her night dress. She stops when she sees me as she rushes toward me and embraces me.

“Why did you do that? I was calling you and texting you all night and you didn’t pick up. I was scared.” Monique says, hands on my shoulders as she inspects me for any injury or wounds.

“I’m fine.” I give her a small smile, eyeing the shirtless man who’s as oblivious as me.

Monique follows my gaze toward the strange man. She smiles brightly, wrapping an arm around my shoulder as she gestures toward the man.

“Um, Robyn, this is Dave. Dave, meet my best friend and roommate, Robyn.”

Dave? Asin the “Dave”?

Well, I am not going to be the one to tell her, but Dave is obviously going to break her heart. One look at him and he’s a woman’s man.

Dave stretches his hand for a handshake and I take it, flashing him a small smile that doesn’t reach my eyes. He notices that too.

“Nice to meet you. Monique has said a lot about you.”

“Of course.”

But why the fuck is he shirtless though? That could mean only one thing. He spent the night.

Monique clears her throat and tilts her head toward the hallway, signaling me to follow her.

“It’s nice meeting you, Dave.”

“You too.”

I give him a quick once over before following Monique to the hallway.

I point my thumb behind me, “What the hell?”

“He drove me home last night.”

“Drove you? You left Club Rogue with your car.”

“Yeah. When I met my boss, we went over a few sample pictures and videos of me for a client of ours. I spent at least an hour before I left. Dave texted me if I would love to hang and I…” Monique trails off, scratching her nape as she clears her throat. “I told him I would love to hang. We hung out for a while and he offered to drive me.”

“So you left your car and Dave drove you home?”

“Yeah. I asked him to come up for coffee and one thing led to another and he spent the night. I guess he wanted to be romantic by preparing breakfast.”

“Right.”

“I’m sorry. I know I should have come back to the club but a part of me thought ‘What if you might have left with some super hot guy?’ Instead, I just agreed to go out with Dave. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

I raise my eyebrows, shaking my head at her. “Uh-huh. It doesn’t matter anyway. You had fun. You seem to like Dave.”

“You don’t seem to like Dave.”

I open my mouth to argue but Dave pops his head into the hallway. “Babe, I’m just going to leave. I made you scrambled eggs and French toast.” Dave says, sparing me a glance before he turns to look at my friend.

Babe, huh?

I notice he’s wearing a shirt, his shirt. I think they made out in the living room and he must have tossed his shirt in the living room before they continued to the bedroom.

“Thank you. I’m gonna call you.” Monique says.

Dave nods, turning to look at me as he smiles. “It was nice meeting you, Robyn.”

I nod.

“I’m just gonna see him out,” Monique says to me.

“Mm-hm.”

I follow her to the living room to get my things as she sees Dave off. I walk back to the hallway and unlock my door, shutting it behind me. I throw my shoes by my bed and my purse on the bed as I get undressed. I grab my dress and throw it in my hamper. I reach for my panties but pause when I don’t touch any piece of the material on my body. I bring my gaze down, surprised I’m not wearing any panties.

“What the fuck?”