Free The Infatuation (Josh and Kat #1 , The Club #5) by Lauren Rowe

front.”
    “And a total douche—oh, wait, except that you’re not
now. Scratch that.” She attaches a winking emoji.
    “Exactly. You only live once, right? Best not to
waste valuable time being a total douche.”
    “Hey! I say that ALL THE TIME,” she writes.
    “You say ‘best not to waste valuable time being a
total douche’ all the time?”
    “Haha. No. I say, ‘You only live once.’”
    “So do I. YOLO. It’s kind of my thing.”
    “Oh, God, no! Not YOLO. Don’t say YOLO! Oh, the
humanity!”
    “Douchey?”
    “Yes. Don’t do it!
    “What about ‘go big or go home.’ Can I say that?
Because I say that all the time, too,” I write.
    “Yes. And you may also say, ‘I can sleep when I’m
dead.’ Those are fine. Just not YOLO,” she writes.
    “What about ‘Work hard, play hard’? I say that one
all the time, too.”
    “You like spiffy little catchphrases, huh?”
    “Hey, at least I’m not running around quoting Plato
all the time.”
    “What’s wrong with Plato?” she writes.
    “Hang around my crazy-ass brother for a day and
you’ll see.”
    “LOL. Okay.”
    “Oh, I just thought of another one I say all the
time. ‘Under-promise and over-perform.’”
    “Oh, words to live by,” she writes.
    “I do. Religiously.”
    “Interesting.”
    “So is that it?” I write. “I can say all that stuff,
just not YOLO?”
    “Correct. Just not YOLO. EVER. Though you CAN say
the actual words ‘you only live once.’ Just not ‘YOLO.’”
    “So many fucking rules. Jesus.”
    “Dude, I don’t make the rules. I just enforce
them.”
    I laugh out loud.
    “And for God’s sake don’t get a YOLO tattoo!” she
writes. “Promise me!”
    I burst out laughing. “I make no such promise.”
    “Don’t do it!”
    “How about a YOLO tattoo on my ass? Can I do
that?”
    “LOL! The absolute worst possible scenario! DO NOT
DO IT! TOTALLY AGAINST THE RULES!!!!”
    I can’t stop laughing. “There’s something you really
should know about me, PG: I like breaking rules.”
    “Do what you must, but you’ve been warned. A YOLO
tattoo is social suicide.”
    I laugh again. “Okay. Good to know. So what other
really uncool things should I avoid like the plague besides a YOLO
tattoo on my ass? Help an old man out.”
    “How old are you?”
    “Thirty,” I write.
    “Holy shitballs! Where’s your walker?”
    “How old are you?”
    “Twenty-four.”
    “Aw, just a kitten.”
    “Meow.”
    “This is good. I need help from a whippersnapper
like yourself to keep me in the cool. What else should I absolutely
avoid, according to these rules of yours?
    “Not MY rules. They’re just THE rules.”
    “Okay. What else is against THE rules?”
    “A barbed-wire tattoo around your bicep fo shizzles.
Don’t do it.”
    I laugh to myself. I couldn’t agree more with that
one. “Okay,” I write. “I promise I won’t get that no matter how
drunk I am.”
    “And don’t get a tribal band around your bicep,
either, unless you’re from the Islands. Are you an Islander,
Josh?”
    “Nope. Duly noted.”
    “Or dragon. Cliché.”
    I laugh. “Really?”
    “Yup. And God help you if you get a girlfriend’s
name tattooed onto your arm. Just ask Johnny Depp. He had to get
‘Winona Forever’ lasered to ‘Wino Forever.’ Lasers are painful,
Josh. Not good. Don’t do it.”
    “Yeah, I could see how that could be a bit of an
oops.”
    “A little gold hoop in your left ear. Don’t do
it.”
    “Jesus. The Rules are as long as my fucking arm.
Anything else?”
    “Nope. Avoid all that redonkulousness and you’ll be
super cool.”
    “So you’re allowed to use the word redonkulousness
and I can’t say YOLO?”
    “Correct. Again, let me repeat. I do not make THE
rules. I merely enforce them.”
    I laugh out loud again.
    “Whoa, did you see that?” Jonas says, swatting my
knee.
    I look up and catch the instant replay of a
smooth-as-silk pass and dunk on TV.
    “Sweet,” I say. But I don’t care about the