Her Rules, His Luck

Prologue

Nova

I was eleven years old when I met Jacob Mylonas for the first time.

I had been marooned by my parents at the pool area at Cherry Hills Country Club.

No doubt my parents were hiding from the dry Colorado heat while enjoying sweating gin and tonics on the shaded clubhouse patio.

I was bored to tears as I sat wrapped in a damp towel that smelled heavily of chlorine.

My long dirty-brown hair was twisted into two long braids over my shoulders, and it dripped pool water into my flat soda.

My best friend, Sofia, who would normally be by my side, was away with her family in Europe somewhere for the summer. Our two families had taken a few vacations together, but this year, my mother had a big case to deal with and we were stuck Stateside.

I watched the crowd of people at the pool and suddenly realized that I was very, very interested in boys. I watched every boy that passed by like they were candy. I made mental notes about which of their features I liked best. Then my eyes were suddenly glued to one boy in particular.

He had everything I was newly attracted to: dark hair with hints of sun, crystal blue eyes, and a slight lopsided dimple to the left of his mouth. He was taller than most boys, and his laugh made me smile.

The two boys with him, who were obviously his brothers, were calling him Jax.

Jax was currently near the deep end of the pool horsing around with his brothers, treating the diving board like a military fortress they’d successfully conquered.

Rick, who looked like he was the oldest, was shouting orders from the high-dive area, while Chris, the youngest one, was cannonballing and splashing anyone lounging within a ten-foot radius of the diving board.

And then there was Jax, who I gauged was around my age. He was sitting on the edge of the pool, watching his brothers as if it was the best show around.

I fell hard and fast for him.

For the next hour, I watched him tripping over his own flip-flops on the pool deck.

I held in a giggle every time he frowned down at the ground, as if some invisible force was tripping him instead of his own clumsiness.

His legs were a little too long for the rest of him, which was probably the reason for his awkwardness.

I watched as he slicked his wet hair back and laughed at something his younger brother had said, and my pre-teen heart absolutely disintegrated.

The brothers didn’t look like they wanted a girl crashing their territory, but I had never been wired to take a hint.

Besides, I didn’t have any siblings of my own and I wanted in on the party.

Defiant, I finally got up the nerve and marched right up to the edge of the pool. I planted my hands on my hips.

“Move over,” I demanded, pitching my voice to sound as intimidating as an eleven-year-old girl in a floral one-piece swimsuit could manage. “You guys are hogging the deep end.”

Rick choked on a mouthful of pool water and laughed. “Make us,” he challenged, jerking his chin up slightly.

Chris rolled his eyes and tried to splash me. “Go away, girl.”

But Jax? Jax just treaded water, looked up at me, and let that slow, dimpled smile track across his face.

He swam to the edge of the pool, swung his body up to sit on the edge with his feet dangling in the water, and said, “Hi, I’m Jax.

We didn’t mean to hog the whole pool. If you want, I’ll fight my brothers off for you. I bet I could take them both.”

I smiled and sat beside him. “I’m Nova.”

“Cool. Like a star?”

I shrugged in response. My parents, Brian and Bethany Clark, hadn’t picked my first name, not really.

I’d come with that one. I didn’t know what my real mother had been thinking when she’d scribbled the name on the hospital records, but my adoptive parents said they had kept it because I was a bright star in their lives.

They had given me my middle and last names, so I’d been Nova Louise Clark since I was the age of two and a half.

My middle name didn’t sound special, but my mother had picked it because it had been the name of her younger sister, who had died when she was one. As far as names went, it was okay. Not like my best friend Sofia Camille Ferreira, which sounded so exotic.

I didn’t remember my time at the orphanage or in foster care. My first memories were of the Clarks and of meeting Sofia.

As I sat and talked with Jax for the next hour, we discovered that we lived less than a mile from one another.

The brothers didn’t go to Golden public school like Sofia and I did, but they were regulars at the country club.

Jax and I were inseparable for the rest of that glorious summer, sunburned and fueled by overpriced snacks from the snack bar.

Unfortunately for me, I instantly understood that Jax, whose real name was Jacob, wasn’t actually interested in girls yet.

He just wanted a partner-in-crime who wouldn’t cry when we played pool tag.

So I did what any girl who had completely lost her heart would do. I played the long game and I waited.

Double unfortunately for me, in waiting, I became part of the furniture. I lost my chance of him ever seeing me as a romantic prospect. Instead, we fell into the dreaded friend zone.

Years and years of being the ultimate team turned that zone into a deeply ingrained rut in the road—comfortable, safe, and seemingly impossible to climb out of.

Once, I’d tried to blast our hardened dynamic to pieces.

It happened during a crowded house party when I was a sophomore in college.

Nearly ten years after I’d first met Jax that day at the country club pool, I had finally gotten the courage to corner him in my dorm’s noisy hallway.

I’d had two beers for liquid courage, and I pinned him against the wall and went for it.

It was a dizzying, breathless kiss that tasted like cheap beer and pure adrenaline, and it was everything I’d spent a decade imagining.

But the next morning, Jax had asked if I wanted to catch the football game and hang out, like nothing had happened. He was the same reliable, steady, unfazed Jax. Mortified, terrified of losing a best friend, and desperate to save face, I played along. I acted like it had meant nothing to me, too.

So here we were, four years after that one ignored kiss, and I was finally done playing by my own rules.

It was time to convince Jax Mylonas that I belonged in his life permanently. If I couldn’t, I was finally going to find the courage to walk away once and for all.