Just Rules Read Online Free PDF Page B

watched a romantic film and noticed the differences between those love stories and her own. She and Tim were different; they were both intelligent people that had decided to share their lives. They were compatible in bed. The sex was pleasant, and she had no doubt that he was faithful to her. It hadn’t crossed her mind to sleep with anyone else either.
    Why was she thinking about that right now?
    It was obvious that Tim was worried, and there she was thinking about trivial things.
    “Tim, what’s going on?” she insisted. And something changed inside Tim.
    “Stop the car, please,” he ordered suddenly.
    The driver looked for a place to pull over, and as soon as he found one he stopped the vehicle.
    “What’s going on, Tim? You’re scaring me.”
    Tim looked away from the window, but during a few seconds his eyes still weren’t looking at Susan.
    “Tim?”
    Susan’s voice made him snap back into reality, and he remembered where he was and who he was with and shook his head slowly with his eyes closed. When he opened them, he stared at Susan, and took a breath before speaking.
    “We have to call off the wedding,” he declared firmly, taking Susan’s hand, touching her for the first time since he had received that message on his phone. “I can’t marry you.”
    “What,” she stammered. “Why?” She locked hands with him and noticed that he was ice cold.
    “I can’t marry you,” he repeated, letting out a slow breath before continuing. “I can’t marry you because I’m already married.”

Chapter 3
    Third rule of American football:
    No player can be at the line of scrimmage when a play begins.
     
    SUSAN
     
    “I can’t marry you because I’m already married.”
    It is not that difficult of a phrase. It is quite a simple one in fact, and very complicated at the same time.
    “What did you just say?”
    Tim slides his thumb across the knuckles of the hand that is holding mine, and I break away suddenly.
    My brain still hasn’t really processed what he just told me, but my body knows that he can’t keep touching me.
    I close my fist and stare into his eyes.
    “I’m already married, Susan. I’m sorry.”
    I should slap him in the face. I know that’s what I should do. That’s what he deserves. But I don’t want to, and when I realize that he just told me that he’s married to another woman, and it doesn’t bother me enough to slap him, my heart breaks.
    I was going to marry him.
    A tear falls down my cheek and I see Tim raise a hand to wipe it away, but he stops before touching me and backs off.
    “I’m sorry, Susan,” he repeats.
    “When? Why?” I ask. I know there must be an explanation.
    “Many years ago. Because I was in love with her.”
    That last phrase knocks the wind out of me. Tim has never told me that he is in love with me. He just says that he loves me. Maybe it is a matter of semantics, but in this car stopped on the streets of Boston in the middle of the night, it makes all the sense in the world.
    “You asked me to marry you,” I remind him suddenly and furiously. OK, he hasn’t broken my heart, but I feel stupid, like an idiot, like his second choice. Like second best.
    On top of that he’s lied to me. He’s deceived me. Not only has he hide the fact that he is married, but he has also hide the fact that he’s capable of being in love, that he’s not the practical guy who just wants to live a peaceful life by my side.
     
    “Yes.” He sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. And that gesture alone is packed with more emotion than the majority of his kisses. Pathetic. “I didn’t know that Amanda and I were still married.”
    Amanda. Her name is Amanda. The woman capable of getting Tim all worked up is named Amanda.
    “How did you find out?”
    Tim looks at me and I realize that he can’t stop shaking his knee.
    “When requesting the paperwork to get married to you,” he answers sincerely. “I thought we were divorced.”
    “And you’re not,” I