Her Rustanov Bully: the (possibly romantic?) tale of how I pucked around and found out
Her Rustanov Bully: Chapter 21

“First of all, where did you get that cute-ass rubber duckie sweater? Second, can I borrow it? And third, Merry, what are you doing here?”

Trish had just woken up from her weed-sponsored sleep-in to replace me helping Merry move into my room.

And by “me helping Merry,” I mean that poor Merry had to both body double and direct me to get my bedroom into a halfway decent state so she could move into it.

Thanks to my executive function issues, what should have been a simple tidy-up before lunch turned into an all-hands-on-deck job.

And best believe, Trish immediately zeroed in on the large suitcase I’d laid out on the bed, along with the bright yellow sweater featuring an oversized rubber duckie. The cute-as-hell pullover had mysteriously appeared outside my guest bedroom door at Yom’s that morning, tucked into a COACH bag with patchwork jeans, sports bras, and a 3-pack of underwear from the local Cal-Mart.

By the time we made it to the food court, both Trish and Merry had a whole lot of questions beyond how I’d let my room get so bad in the space of the few weeks since I’d returned from Berlin.

And that’s how my cancelled lunch with UMG’s star hockey player turned into a full recap session with Trish and Merry in a booth at the student center’s food court.

“Wow, Lyds.” Trish rolled her eyes and leaned her head back against the booth’s wall after I finished telling her how my rescue mission had ended. “I’m happy it all turned out for P.M., but only you would make a deal with the devil to save a dog.”

“What happened after his family left?” Merry, sitting next to Trish on the other side of the table, seemed way more interested in this story than in the trip she was supposed to take to Cal-Mart for a pregnancy test.

I cringed, remembering the weird scene from last night. “He hands me this envelope with ANYTHING LIST written across the front. Then he says, ‘I’ll see you in the morning’ and just walks off.”

“The Anything List?” Merry asked. “What’s that?”

“Turns out, it’s a literal list.” I leaned in, lowering my voice. “A one-page sheet, and there’s, like, twenty things on there—things I have to do and rules I must follow until the end of the school year.”

Trish shook her head. “Why does this guy keep giving you contracts instead of just talking to you like a normal human?”

“Right?! This situation is insane!” I shoveled a few more comfort fries I’d ordered instead of a nutritionally balanced lunch into my mouth.

“Can I see it?” Merry asked, eyeing me cautiously. “Do you need me to read it to you?”

I shook my head. “No, it was written pretty clearly. But the first rule is that I can’t show it to anyone else.”

Trish narrowed her eyes. “Like Fight Club?”

“Kind of. But it doesn’t say I can’t talk to my friends about it. And honestly, I need a consult here because I’m so confused.”

“Wait… Is it a bunch of kinky stuff?” Trish whispered. “Does he have a sex dungeon? Is this turning into Fifty Shades of College?”

“No!” I waved my hand. “That would make way more sense, considering how this started. But it’s mostly domestic stuff—beginning with me having to live with him at his lake house until the end of the school year.”

Trish’s eyes went wide. “Like sharing a bed?”

“No, I have my own room. But I’ve got a curfew, and I have to eat lunch and dinner with him every day unless he says otherwise. Plus, he drives me to school and walks me to my first class. And if he has an event, I have to go with him.”

“Like, as his date?” Merry asked.

“Maybe? The Anything List said ‘accompany,’ but yeah, basically, I have to be ready whenever he wants.”

“But no sex stuff?” Trish raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“No sex stuff,” I confirmed with a shake of my head.

“Okay, that’s wild.” Trish still appeared unconvinced. “What did he say when you asked him about the list on the ride in?”

“Oh, are you talking about that twenty minutes when I sat in the passenger seat and tried to work up the courage to say anything at all?” I sucked my teeth because, apparently, Trish had mistaken me for someone who didn’t go out of their way to avoid conflict at any cost. “I’m easily overwhelmed on a good day, and the last item on the list was him reserving the right to add anything to the list at any time. I didn’t exactly want to poke the bear.”

“I guess not.” Trish clasped her fingers under her chin. “So, basically, this Anything List gives him complete control over your life.”

“Pretty much.” I buried my face in my hands.

“But why does he even want that without sex?” Merry asked, sounding as baffled as I felt.

“I have no idea!” I replied, just as lost as her.

“In my experience, men don’t pay this much attention to you. Not unless they’re looking to use you in some obvious way.”

I thought darkly of my brother, showing up at my hotel room door with tears in his eyes, begging me for help—only to revert to his prick, narcissistic ways as soon as he didn’t need me anymore.

“What about your shift at the shelter?” Merry’s voice took on a worried note. “Do you need my car?”

“Maybe.” I sat up and flopped my hands back down on the table. “He said he’d drive me, but that was before I canceled lunch.”

“Are you even allowed to cancel lunch?” Merry asked, sounding incredulous.

“I don’t think so.” I winced. “I put my phone on mute before he could respond, and now I’m too scared to check the messages. I mean, why would he even want to eat with someone who can barely string two words together in his presence?”

“Maybe it’s a mind game,” Merry suggested, her mouth taking on a bitter twist. “He acts like the way he treated you before was just some big misunderstanding, then bam! He shows you who he really is.”

Trish and I exchanged glances, then stared at her.

She gave a self-conscious, “What?”

I averted my eyes, but Trish came right out with, “Are we still talking about Lydia’s situation?”

Merry shifted uncomfortably. “I’m just saying, this guy has already shown you who he really is. You should probably believe him.”

I nodded in full agreement. “You’re probably right about there being some kind of psy-ops going on. There’s no way a guy like Artyom Rustanov—I mean, Yom Rustanov, me calling him that or this other nickname I can’t even pronounce is number sixteen on the Anything List,” I mumbled.

Trish and Merry looked confused, but I pushed on. “Anyway, this has got to be part of his master plan to make my life miserable. There’s no way Yom would be doing all of this unless it was part of some crazy revenge⁠—”

“Quit stalking, Restraining Order!”

That was all the warning I got before some frat-bro-looking guy in a hockey jersey picked up my orange soda and threw it straight in my face.

I gasped, and the soda dripped down, forming a large orange stain right over the rubber duckie on my sweater.

“Gotcha!”

I looked up to see the guy snicker and toss the empty cup on the ground.

“Oh, no, you didn’t!” Trish yanked out her hoop earrings and shot to her feet. “This ain’t Glee, bitch. I will fuck you up.”

“Trish, wait!” I went from wiping pop off my new sweater to scrambling in front of Trish to keep her from what she called “going Milwaukee” on the frat boy.

But before Trish could get to him, another woman swooped in out of nowhere.

“That’s assault,” she announced.

And the next thing I knew, the frat boy was on the ground with her knee in his back.

“Hel-lo!” Trish said in the tone she used when spotting someone she might want to “girlfriend after one date.” Her turn of phrase, not mine.

I blinked in recognition. The woman pinning the guy down was one of the college-aged guards I’d seen a few times the night we brought in P.M.

Now, with her hoodie down under the food court’s bright lights, her buzzed blonde hair was clearly visible, and I realized she was one of the few White students in the Clara Quinn seminar—which, according to item twelve on the Anything List, I wasn’t allowed to drop now.

“Who are you?” Trish asked, practically breathless.

At the same time, I blurted, “Wait, are you following me?”

She shifted her gaze over my shoulder and said something I didn’t understand. But I recognized the language as Russian.

So, I wasn’t surprised when I turned around to see Yom standing behind me.

His fists were clenched, and the look on his face promised violence.

“Yom, don’t!” I said when he lunged toward the frat boy.