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Daniel’s arm is under my neck, His bruised hand rests on his own stomach. His breathing is even. But he’s not here…I can see it in the way he stares up at the ceiling. He somehow left the room without taking his body.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Nothing.” It comes out too fast. His thumb keeps moving on my shoulder, which would be convincing if the rest of him weren’t somewhere else.

“That’s not true.” I push up on my elbow so I can see his face fully. He doesn’t take his eyes from the ceiling. “Don’t do that.”

“Quinn.” He sighs. “We just had a really good afternoon. I don’t want to mess it up.”

“You’re already messing it up by pretending.” I sit up a little more and tug the blanket with me, suddenly feeling vulnerable. “Rule number four. Don’t run from conversations. I’m pretty sure we never took away the rules when we started dating.”

His mouth twitches and he looks at me. “You’re citing the rules at me while you’re naked?”

“Yes. They’re still in effect.” I poke his chest. “What’s wrong?”

He’s quiet long enough that I’m almost positive he will try to say nothing again. Then he scrubs his hand over his face.

“My grades are slipping,” he says. “And the internship. I keep zoning out at the microscope because I’m thinking about you. I’m pretty sure I’m screwing up the one part of my life that I had actually planned out, and I don’t know how to say that without it sounding like you're the problem. You’re not. I’m just…absorbed in you. I can’t fail my classes. If I fail, the scholarship is gone, and then none of the rest of it matters.”

I watch him for a silent minute. We can fix this. This is fixable.

“Okay,” I say. “Then we just add a new rule. No touching me until your homework is done. Studying too, not just the assignment that’s due. And you need to focus on your internship. The future matters. If we’re going to live it together…you can’t set yours on fire because of me.”

He blinks at me. The somewhere-else look flees his face so fast it’s almost funny.

“Future. Together,” he says.

“Yes.” I frown, because I’m not sure which part confused him. “That’s what I said. A few months of doing your work isn’t going to ruin anything between us. You’ll have our whole life to be absorbed in me. I’m not going anywhere.”

He makes a sound that’s half laugh and half something else, and then he pulls me back down, pressing his face into my hair.

“You can’t just say that,” he says, muffled. “You can’t make up new rules and then hand me a whole life with you like it’s just the second bullet point on your to-do list.”

“It’s the first bullet point, actually.” I settle against his chest. His heart is beating way too fast for a man who claimed nothing was wrong a few minutes ago. “So, new rule, future first. Then me.”

“You’re stuck with me now, brain.”

“Good,” I say. “That was the point.”

EPILOGUE 1 - QUINN

Three months later

Daniel grabs me, wrapping his bigger body around mine and peppering my face with kisses. I laugh and push at his chest.

“Stop, you have to finish your assignment.”

“Mmmm…rules were meant to be broken, brain. I’ve been a good boy. Good boys deserve rewards.”

I push harder, but I can’t stop laughing. “I already agreed to go to your game night with all your friends. You said if you submitted on time I had to come, and I said yes, so you don’t get a second prize for the same thing.”

“That’s not the kind of reward I’m thinking about.” He cups my face. I squirm away, dancing back a step, and he follows with a playful growl. “I’m going to have to go all night without touching you. Luke’s barely out of his room. We can’t rub our happiness in his face. Don’t be cruel on top of that. You’re such a taskmaster.”

He catches me again. Excitement lights me up anyway, which is inconvenient, because we have to leave soon.

“You promised me dirty talk; where’s my dirty talk?” he says, kissing my jawline on his way to my mouth. “Where is it?”

“I’m not good at it.”