Rules for Living Together

As I walk into what is supposed to be my bedroom, I start having second thoughts.

It's been four months since Blake signed with the Dark Knights officially, and since I agreed to not only move to Chicago with him but to also move into the same apartment as him.

It took a while for me to be convinced that this was a good idea. Not the whole moving to Chicago thing, that I was already planning on doing, not this soon, but that was still in my peripheral. The thing that I needed convincing on was the whole living with Blake thing.

If you had asked me at ten years old if I wanted to live with my best friend, I would have said yes in a heartbeat. At ten things weren't complicated between us. At ten, we were still best of friends in the whole wide world. We were innocent and naive. Living together at ten years old would have been awesome.

But not that we're twenty, almost twenty-one, I don't think living together would be the wisest choice. And it has everything to do with me being secretly in love with Blake but also us having sex once.

It's not the wisest choice, yet I still said yes.

Why did I say yes? Because apparently, I like to suffer.

That's not the real reason, if I'm being honest with myself.

Blake was right when he said that it made sense for us to live in the same apartment. We were going to be in a strange city, with none of our family or friends and having each other there will make things easier. And if we lived together, we didn't have to come home to an empty apartment. The way I saw it, if I agreed to move to Chicago, one of us would always be at the other's place anyway, why not use the money that we were going to spend towards two apartments on just one?

It made sense, logically.

Emotionally, it was the worst thing in the world, but I wasn't going to be living with Blake forever, just until we got a feel of the city, so I agreed.

My heart broke in the process, but I agreed.

Now here we are, four months later…moving into said apartment. All the while Blake is a month away from reporting to the Knights for training camp and I'm a week away from starting at a new school.

When Blake brought up moving to Chicago, school was my number one priority. I had done well at Montana State, and I really liked their nursing program. That was reason enough to say no. But because I wanted to do this with him, I looked at his list. I was able to apply to a few different schools and got accepted into a handful of them, ultimately landing at the University of Illinois. I'm both excited and nervous about it.

I guess that feeling can be applied to a lot of things in my life right now.

"Is there a reason why you have three boxes that are labeled shoes?" Blake asks, coming into the room and putting down a box by the closet.

Sure enough, the box has shoes written on the side.

If only he knew I have more shoes at my parents' house.

I give him a shrug. "I like to have options."

"Do you even wear half of them?" He asks, giving me a look like he can't even comprehend having that many shoes.

"Of course I do. You have to have shoes for every season. Don't go knocking my shoes, though, after the season starts, you are going to have more shoes than I do. You can't be showing up to every game with those crusty loafers you wore at Montana. You actually have to look presentable for pre-game arrivals."

Blake makes a face. Wearing a suit for hockey is his least favorite thing. Dad made his team wear suits before every game for years, and that extended into college. Because he hates it, he puts in the least bit of effort.

But the days of going to thrift stores to find the ugliest suit imaginable, are over. Hundreds of pictures are going to be taken, and he can't be looking like he doesn't give two shits in them. Fans are not going to like that.

"Why can't the NHL be like the NFL? They don't have rules about how to arrive at the stadium."

"Just because your brother sometimes arrives in jeans to his games, doesn't mean that he doesn't put in the effort to look good. The dude knows how to entice the fans." I won't lie; Hunter Jacobi has gotten much hotter with age, but he definitely doesn't have Blake beat.

"Whatever," he scoffs and looks around the room. "Are you sure that you're okay in here?" Blake asks, looking like he is inspecting every single inch of the room.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" I ask, looking around the room like he is.

"It seems small. I think you'll fit in the master a lot better," he says, pointing over his shoulder to the door.

It's not small. This room is actually double the size of my room back in Montana. But compared to the other room, this one looks like a closet.

But I like it. When we did the walk-through last month, I liked the way this room felt, and it has a bathroom attached to it, so I see that as a plus.

"It's fine. You're paying for this place, so that means you get the master."

When Blake asked me to move in with him, I started to panic about how I was going to be able to afford living in Chicago. I had a job at Montana State as a tutor, and that definitely helped when it came to rent, and whatever I needed. But the rent was split between three of us and was nothing compared to the rents I've seen in Chicago. Of course, Blake being Blake, he told me that I didn't have to worry about paying rent, that he would take care of it. Him having that NHL money now and his parents being a bit more well off than others. Money was no issue.

So, I'm living here for free, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to be getting a job. I have to pull my weight around here and not become a free loader best friend. Thank God, I have a few interviews lined up in the next coming days, that way I can start pulling my weight sooner rather than later.

‘'I'm not even going to be using it a whole lot," he says, and mind automatically goes to him spending his nights with different women, but I stop myself from going into the deep whole when I realize that he's talking about the hockey schedule.

"Then it's just going to sit there waiting for you, because I'm not going to take it," I say, putting the finishing touches on the vanity.

"Whatever," he says, throwing himself on my bed. The bed that I just made. I narrow my eyes at him, but he just gives me a smirk. "Do you want to put together some rules?"

"What kind of rules?" I ask, getting up from where I'm sitting and walking over to the closet, not looking over at him. "Like who's going to clean the bathroom and wash the dishes?"

I know what kind of rules he is talking about.

"Those," he says taking a pause. "And others."

"You mean other rules that you want to put in place so that I don't land in your bed one night?" I ask and it takes me a second to realize that I did.

I can't believe that I just said that.

Turning ever so slowly to look at Blake, I find him still on my bed and looking at me with eyes wide as if my words took him by surprise too.

"Um," he says I see his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he tries to find his words.

I step in before he can say anything. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that." I rush out, figuring out why my mind decided to let those words come out.

"No," Blake says, getting up from the bed and shaking his head. "It's fine," he swallows again. "That's definitely something we should talk about, especially now that we're living together."

Great.

Two years of pretending that what happened was just a distant memory and now on day one of living together we're going to talk about it. Why did I have to open my mouth?

"We don't have to talk about it, if you don't want to. We agreed not do anything about that night, and that's worked out for us for the last two years. And that was without any rules. I'm sure we can still make that system work." I feel like I'm hyper on sugar with the way I'm talking. Everything is rushed so that we can move on from this subject and talk about something else.

"Soph," Blake starts but I hold up a hand stopping him.

"It's okay." I start, giving him a smile. A smile that's mostly to keep me calm as I say the next few words. "We are never going to repeat that night." Every inch of my heart breaks with those eight words. "We were able to get through life with no rules, I don't think we need to set some now."

Besides, what would those rules entail? Him not walking around shirtless? Not walking around in a towel? Those things already happen. I've seen this man shirtless more times than I can count, and he's already seen me in a towel. Hell, he saw me in a towel a few days ago, when we stopped at a hotel for the night during our drive to Chicago. Putting rules like that in place isn't going to work. A stupid rule isn't going to stop me from jumping his bones if I wanted to.

And trust me, I want to, but I won't because while it might mean something to me, I don't know if it will mean the same to Blake.

Blake is looking at me with an expression I can't really read. Maybe he's irritated that I don't want to put any rules in place. If he is, that's a stupid reason to be irritated about.

"Can we have one at least?" He asks, his voice almost has a tinge of hurt in it.

One rule wouldn't hurt.

So, I concede. "Yeah, if you think it's necessary."

He gives me a nod, that tells me that yes, he thinks this one rule is necessary.

"No unplanned overnight guest," he says, surprising me. That is definitely not what I thought he was going to say.

"Okay?" I say, the word coming out more as a question than a statement.

Blake gives me a small smile before he responds. "This is our space, you know? Our family and drunk friends can stay over, but I don't think either of us wants to be making breakfast and have to feed another person unplanned. If we want someone to stay over, then we have to ask the other, no matter what."

That is actually…thoughtful.

As much as I want to see Blake be happy with someone, I don't think I can handle it if I hear him while he fucks them one room over. This rule would keep me sane.

I give him a nod. "Okay, I'm good with that rule."

"Good. Now help me with your other boxes. The living room looks like it exploded with cardboard." He says, giving me a smile, one that doesn't reach his eyes and walks out of my room.

I don't follow him out right away.

"We can do this. We can live together. It won't be that hard. We can do this. We can do this without any incident."

I sure hope that I'm right because I'm not, I deserve a huge ass kicking.