Free The Sweetheart Rules by Shirley Jump Page A

throat clogged, and she cursed herself for being a fool who had thought maybe he’d fallen so hard for her that he wouldn’t let her go. But he had, and without a word in all those months since, as if he had erased her from his memory the second he pulled his pants on again. “Exactly. And that’s why I think it’s best if we both move on and quit pretending that night meant anything more than it did.”
    Then she got the hell out of there before her face could betray her words. The barking of the dogs echoed in her head long after she got in her car and pulled out of the driveway, a reminder that her responsibilities lay in her job and her son, and not in trying to fix a six-foot-two mistake.

Seven

    Jackson Tuttle leaned a hip against the door of the decrepit house and tried to look cool. The puppy he’d found in the shelter and dubbed Mary, the only one his mother had let him keep, sat at his feet, tail swishing against the floor, her big brown eyes watching him. The dog went everywhere with him, something Jackson had discovered girls really liked. Plus, he liked the dog a lot. She looked more like her father, a golden retriever, than her mother, some kind of mutt, and was the most loyal thing in Jackson’s life. The only one he could depend on. He gave Mary a pat on the head, which she returned with a lick of his palm.
    It’d taken a major miracle for Jackson to escape his mother’s suffocation today. He’d come home from camping at ten, and all she wanted to do was talk, talk, talk, and ask him shit like whether he had any mosquito bites. Then she’d gotten an emergency call, and as soon as she pulled out of the driveway, he was out the door, ignoring her order that he wait for her at home. He wasn’t a preschooler, for God’s sake. He could take care of himself, and he sure as hell didn’t need her telling him what to do.
    The stress bubbled up inside of Jackson like lava in a volcano. Lately, he always felt like that, like a mountain that was about to blow. So he came here, where they didn’t ask him questions, didn’t give a shit who his mother was, and didn’t want anything from him. He shifted his position and tried to look older.
    He was the youngest one here and sure as hell didn’t want anyone thinking he wasn’t old enough to hang. Two girls were taking turns making out with a guy on a torn sofa someone had hauled in on garbage day, while two more waited for Danny to pass them a freshly rolled joint. One of the girls kept waggling her fingers at Mary, but the dog stayed by Jackson’s side.
    The room reeked of pot and cigarettes, stale beer and urine. Sunlight poked through holes in the roof, speckling the floor like bright yellow chicken pox. June’s humid heat thickened the air, but no one seemed to care.
    “Hey, Prep.” Danny nodded toward Jackson. The words came out of Danny with a slow rolling sigh, like his voice was going over a hill. “What’s your mommy going to say if she finds out you’re skipping school?”
    “I don’t give a shit. It’s just some stupid summer science program she signed me up for. I didn’t even want to go anyway.” Jackson hated Prince Academy. Hated his instructors. Hated all the rules and the uniform and the entitled rich kids who sneered at him. His mother had made him go, telling him it would be good for him. She used words like
opportunities
and
potential
, and thought that would mean something. Like Jackson gave a shit about his future right now. All he wanted was to get the hell out of this town and away from her. One of these days, his dad was going to come get him and they’d travel far, far away from this hellhole. “Who gives a shit what my mom says anyway?”
    The words stung a little when he said them, but he shrugged it off. His mom was always on his case, always acting like she cared. He knew better. If she really cared, she wouldn’t have made his dad leave. She would have tried harder. If she really loved Jackson like she said, she