Dont date a dilf rules w.., p.1
Don't Date A DILF (Rules We Break Book 1), page 1
DON’T DATE A DILF
DJ JAMISON
Don’t Date a DILF
Rules We Break
Copyright 2023 DJ Jamison
Published by Must Love Books
Cover Design by Morningstar Ashley
Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
CONTENTS
Don’t Date A DILF
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
Thanks for reading!
Also by DJ Jamison
About the Author
DON’T DATE A DILF
I have one rule to live by: Don't Date a DILF.
I've seen the consequences of blurring the boundaries between teaching life and dating life, and I'm not about to take that kind of risk.
But I didn't count on Hunter Rhodes walking into my school. Never expected that the broad-shouldered, stubble-jawed, absolute glory of a man would be such a sweet and caring father. Or that as a seemingly straight man, he might decide he wants me.
If my Nana has her way...I'll be in love with someone by the end of the school year, but there's only one man who tempts me.
With her matchmaking in overdrive and half the single women in Granville setting their sights on Hunter, faking a relationship could give us both a reprieve.
It might be fun and games for Hunter, but separating pretend feelings from real won't be so simple for me. And then there's that rule...
Can I date a DILF without disaster--or will all my fears come true?
Don't Date a DILF is Book 1 of Rules We Break, a spin-off series from Games We Play, set in the small, quirky town of Granville, where nosy residents meddle in one another's lives, great friendships are made, and silly innuendos are a way of life.
Dedicated to my bar trivia team, 100 Percent Sure, and all the times we were, in fact, not 100 percent sure.
CHAPTER 1
CLARK
Hunter Rhodes was a walking wet dream.
His chiseled jawline had just the right amount of stubble to look sexy without sliding into scruffy. His sandy hair glinted with gold highlights under the overhead lighting. Even the crow’s feet around his eyes added to his attractiveness as he smiled down at his son.
So. Hot.
I should have let the man move on about his business without ogling him—I didn’t doubt he got more than enough attention wherever he went—but I was a gay man in the midst of a very long dry spell. My gaze slipped lower to broad shoulders, corded forearms, and big, strong hands. The idea of them touching my skin sent a shiver through me despite the furnace working overtime to heat the high school gym.
The crowd meandering through the community book fair I’d helped organize in the wake of losing our only bookstore in town faded away as I drank him in wistfully. There wasn’t a universe in which I’d be in Hunter’s league, even if he did swing my way. Which, by all accounts—and his marriage history—he did not.
Probably. I mean, there were always a few closet cases…
Snap.
I blinked and jerked back as Augustus’s fingers nearly clipped my nose.
His boyfriend, Joe—who was my friend first but seemed to have forgotten that fact during his honeymoon period—chuckled. “Someone’s got a crush.”
“Pfft, no,” I denied as heat rushed to my cheeks.
“Well, that’s odd, because there’s drool dripping down your face,” Augustus teased.
I glared. “Well, that’s nothing compared to the fuck-me eyes you had for Joe last month.”
“Just last month?” Joe asked with an exaggerated pout.
“Babe, I’ll always have fuck-me eyes for you.”
Ugh. New couples. They were the worst, waving around their happiness like it was a cupcake that the rest of us could go to the bakery to order. My last attempt had been less sweet frosting and more sour grapes by the time we parted. But I counted myself lucky. After watching my friend Alexa chase love into a life-shattering bad decision, I’d sworn off the whole thing.
I was married to my work anyway. Take this book fair, for example. It was doing a whole lot more good than sleeping with Devon Trager in college ever had—especially since he’d messed around with my roommate behind my back.
I returned my attention to the display of high-school level books I was arranging, intermingling classics like 1984 by George Orwell and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath with contemporary novels by Cassandra Clare, John Green, and Maggie Stiefvater. Front and center I placed one of my favorite books: Flowers for Algernon.
It was a fitting metaphor for my life. The idea that once you know some things, you can never unknow them and they can color your perception of the world and everyone in it in irreversible ways.
A year and a half after returning to Granville, I was still wishing I could forget my brief attempt at city life. Omaha wasn’t all that far from home, and yet it felt as if a whole other lifetime had passed there.
For the next few minutes, I was saved from Augustus and Joe’s displays of affection as customers began to browse through the books at my table. A few of my students stopped by to say hello, including Malcolm Kraft, who stammered and blushed his way through telling me how much he loved the book fair and how amazing I was for organizing it.
Of course, two friends from my bar trivia team, Beckett Monroe and Wes Potter, were right behind him.
“Dude, I know you’re hard up,” Wes said once Malcolm had moved on, “but I don’t think you’re supposed to date students.”
I cringed, even though he was kidding. “I would never do that.”
“Does the kid know that?” Beckett asked with a snort.
Joe frowned. “Don’t even joke, guys. That shit can get teachers in a world of trouble.”
“I have three cardinal rules when it comes to teaching,” I said. “1. Don’t date a student. 2. Don’t date a parent.”
“And three?”
“Never invite you two to a school event.”
Wes chuckled. “Sounds legit, although I don’t know, man, a MILF should never be off-limits.”
Beckett whacked the back of his head. “A DILF, you mean. He’s gay.”
“Right. Well, that sounds less fun to me, but hey, you do you, man.”
“I won’t be doing anything,” I said. “Work keeps me plenty busy.”
“That’s depressing,” Beckett said.
“Hey, I love my work—”
“Me too, but it doesn’t get me blowjobs and cuddles.”
Augustus grinned. “Good to know you’ve got your priorities straight.”
“Aw, I thought I gave you enough cuddles, bro,” Wes said, grabbing Beckett in a bear hug.
“You two are so weird,” I muttered.
But Joe’s eyes were gleaming as he looked at me. “Beckett isn’t wrong, you know. There’s more to life than work.”
I rolled my eyes. “You sound like Nana.”
My grandmother had urged me to date last year, but she’d hoped that Joe might eventually become more than a friend. Once he’d started dating Augustus over Christmas, she’d decided she would just find me a man. I’d been dodging her setup attempts, but it was getting tougher and tougher to evade a woman with the kind of determination my nana had.
“Maybe Nana’s right,” Augustus teased. “You were the one who persuaded me to give Joe a chance. Maybe you need to get out there too. Let Nana find you some men.”
I groaned. “You’re making me sound like a contestant on The Bachelor.”
“The Gay Bachelor,” Beckett said. “Sounds like a Top Ten Netflix hit.”
One of the shows where the contestants find instalove then break up a month after broadcasting? That sounded about right.
My friends could have all the romance they wanted. I’d stick with shaping young minds. My job was more than enough fulfillment for me.
HUNTER
“So when are you going to start dating again?”
My mother cornered me in the laundry room while I was holding my underwear and therefore vulnerable to attack. Laughter spilled out from the dining room, where her friends had congregated to play canasta and get hopped up on sugar and gossip, blocking my onl y route of escape.
I tossed my briefs into the washer, trying not to blush like a twelve-year-old. Mom had been doing my laundry only a couple of months ago. Thankfully, I’d broken her of that habit—but only by moving into my own place. A fact my son had not yet forgiven me for. He didn’t like much about Granville, but he’d loved staying with grandparents eager to spoil him.
Still, after five months, even they were ready for their houseguests to leave.
“Mom, please. Can we not do this today?”
She carried on as if she hadn’t heard me. “Tessa Weaver got divorced last year too, and she’s a lovely woman. You went to school together, remember?”
I nodded. “Mm-hmm.”
“She was the valedictorian when you graduated. Such a smart young woman.”
“I remember.”
“And Marsha at the Happy Bean—”
“Stop.” I closed the washer door with a clang and hit the button to start the wash cycle. “I have heard about every single woman in town at this point, but Toby is my priority. How do you think he’d handle it if I started dating?”
“Well, I don’t know. And neither do you unless you try. It could be good for you both.”
I hummed noncommittally. Maybe running the gauntlet of the women in the living room—and their inevitable questions about my private life and parenting missteps—would be better than my mother’s targeted attack?
“Just think about it,” she continued. “It’s been a year since your divorce. I want to see you happy again. Toby, too. He’s the sweetest boy, Hunter, but he hasn’t fully accepted that you and Holly won’t be reconciling.”
I dragged a hand down my face. “I know.”
Toby was always sweet as pie for his grandmother. But he’d been outright hostile toward me, and he was acting out at school. Things were not good. Adding dating to that mix would only be feeding the flame of his discontent. I couldn’t imagine he’d take it well. Maybe it would help him move on, but at what cost?
Iola Fletcher popped into the doorway. “JoAnn, it’s your turn to play.”
My mother patted her hair. “Oh, well, okay. Will you please tell Hunter he needs to get out and live a little? All he does is worry about Toby and that old house of his. It’s not healthy.”
Iola grinned like the Cheshire cat. “You’re quite the hot commodity these days, huh?”
“Unfortunately,” I muttered as I turned to lean back against the washer. “But my mother has already listed off every single woman in town, so—”
“What about single men?”
“Uh…” I wasn’t into dudes, but it seemed rude to say so. My brother was gay—and a drag queen—so it wasn’t as if the idea weirded me out. I settled on a diplomatic response. “I’m not interested in dating anyone right now.”
“Sure, sure,” she said. “I bet the women in this town have been salivating over an attractive single father, hm?”
She scanned me head to toe, giving me the kind of once-over I preferred in a bar hookup rather than my mother’s laundry room. But I was getting used to being ogled since returning to Granville. In the year since I’d moved back, I had been reminded of just how overbearing small-town people could be. Well-meaning, yes, but so damn meddlesome.
“I’ve gotten my share of attention,” I said, wary of a trap.
She tsked sympathetically. “I bet it’s been overwhelming.”
“A little, yeah.”
Only last week, Thelma Walker had offered to hold my meat at the deli counter of the grocery store, and I got the feeling she didn’t mean the sliced turkey I was putting in my cart.
“My grandson is quite the catch though,” Iola said.
And there was the trap, so neatly laid.
“Have you met Clark since you came back? He’s about yay-high.” She held her hand a foot above her head, but that wasn’t saying much, because Iola was tiny. “Curly blond hair. Just an angel. He teaches at the high school.”
“Right, yeah, Clark,” I bluffed.
It wasn’t that I didn’t know of him. It was a small town, and I’d seen him at The Stag Pub quite a few times. Last summer, I’d spent way too many nights trying to drown my sorrows, and I still stopped in to pick up dinner now and then because it was marginally healthier than fast food. But we’d never spoken.
“He’s only been back in Granville a smidge longer than you,” Iola said. “You two might have a lot in common.”
“Well, I appreciate you thinking of me,” I said awkwardly. “But I’m not dating right now.”
She pulled a sour face. “Yeah, that’s one of the things you have in common. I’ve tried to set him up with some lovely men, but he always finds a way to worm out of the date!”
“Well, uh, I’m sure he’ll date when he’s ready,” I said. “These things can’t be forced.”
“We’ll see about that. I’m going to find him such a good man he can’t possibly resist,” she said with a defiant tilt to her chin. “So get with the program, Hunter, or you might miss out!”
She stormed off, leaving me bemused but impressed by how passionate some of the women in this town got about matchmaking. I hid until the laundry was nearly done, but eventually I was lured out by the sound of my son asking for yet another cookie.
“You’re going to spoil his dinner,” I warned my mother as I emerged from the hallway. “We’re leaving soon.”
She ignored me and handed my son a snickerdoodle, even as Toby pouted. “Can’t we stay for dinner? Grandma makes the best food.”
“Nope. It’s a school night and you’ve got some makeup work to do from when you were sick.”
Toby groaned, but my mother patted his head. “Maybe next time, sweetie. I’ll make you some Chicken Yum-Yum next weekend!”
I appreciated the gesture, though I wished my mother would not offer to cook for him. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy home-cooked meals too. It was very tempting each time she invited us to stay. But I couldn’t continue to use my parents as a crutch. For months, I’d lived in their house and eaten their food and, frankly, exhausted their energy.
I’d been grieving for my marriage, and they’d been very patient with me. But after all the years I’d been away and all the ways I’d failed to support them, they owed me less than nothing. I had to learn to be the kind of parent Toby deserved, and the only way to do that was to figure it out on my own.
Easier said than done in a small town.
“I’ve got some recipes I can give you to try at home, Hunter,” another of my mother’s friends, Marilyn Lattimer, offered. “I make a nice chicken pot pie that Duke just loves.”
“Oh, Tom can’t get enough of my bourbon ham balls,” Lula added.
“Bourbon recipes might not be the best choice for a child, Lula.”
“Hogwash. The alcohol evaporates. It’s not going to get anyone drunk!”
“Well, it still doesn’t seem proper—”
The women fell into an all-out brawl over home cooking, and I motioned Toby to follow me to the laundry room to gather our clothes. He looked sort of shell-shocked. “Are they really mad?”
“Nah. They just feel very strongly about casseroles.” I ruffled his hair. “It’s why Grandma makes such good ones.”
“And why you don’t?” he asked glumly.
“Hey.” I crouched down to look him in the eye. “I know things aren’t perfect, but we’re rebuilding a life, right? We’ve got a house that’s going to be amazing when the repairs are done.”
