Bad Boy Next Door: A Small Town College Bad Boy Romance Read online

  Bad Boy Next Door

  A Small Town College Bad Boy Romance

  Hunter Rose

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Copyright 2021 © Hunter Rose

  Hunter’s Roses

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  To the ones I’ve loved, the people I’ve lost and those that have inspired me along the way.

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  More By Hunter Rose

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  Coming Soon

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Wren

  I’ve never been one to believe in every moment of my life being planned by another force. I know there’s someone… something… watching over and guiding me, but I’ve never believed that I’m simply a game piece, pushed from predestined point to predetermined future.

  But I believe in set moments in time.

  These are the moments that shatter everything. The moments that can either set you on the path to your highest potential or send you reeling into nothingness.

  That is what he is.

  Meeting him was inevitable. A set moment in my life. No matter where I was or what I did, we were going to crash into each other.

  All that was left to do was fall.

  1

  Wren

  The entire church smells like the furniture polish they use on the pews. When I was a little girl, I thought they polished the wood to such a high shine so that if you would open your eyes when you were saying your prayers, you would see yourself looking back at you and feel guilty. Now it just feels like they treat the sanctuary the same way we treat ourselves before church. Primped and shined up into our very best. As if God can’t see us any other time.

  Right now, the smell of the polish is mixed up with Isaiah’s aftershave. Warm and spicy, expected, and unassuming. Just like Isaiah. It wouldn’t matter who peeked down from Heaven at him. At any given moment, he’s perfect. Always has been. Reliable, responsible, as driven in school as he is in the community. He’s the poster child for what every mother would want their daughter to find in a partner. Which is why she’s been envisioning our wedding day since he asked me to our eighth grade formal when we were thirteen.

  Now in our senior year in high school, he sits beside me at church every week and holds my hand through the sermon. Always on the smooth polished wood of the pew, never in my lap or rested on his thigh. That would be too much for the white-haired ladies perched on their usual seat in front of us.

  He turns to me with a gentle, peaceful smile when the sermon ends. Just like every week, we get to our feet and shake hands offered to us from all sides. My mother meets us in the vestibule. She always sits on a different pew with my father and uncle. It didn’t start that way. We always sat together as a family, then eventually, Isaiah joined us. Somewhere along the line, they moved to the other side of the aisle and started sitting a few rows behind us. Sometimes I feel like we are in training. This is our official spot and will be after we get married. Someday our children will look down at the polished wood and see their faces during prayers.

  A feeling flutters through my belly at that thought. I tell myself it’s hunger.

  “That was a beautiful sermon, wasn’t it?” my mother asks, opening her arms to hug me like she hasn’t seen me in days. Like she forgot the pile of pancakes she made me three hours ago.

  “It was lovely,” Isaiah agrees. “I was particularly moved by pastor encouraging us to be refreshed and renewed in the new year. That it shouldn’t just be about the calendar or arbitrary resolutions, but about seeing within ourselves and setting our hearts to being better and striving for our highest selves.”

  He reaches down and takes my hand again, smiling at me in that warm and knowing way he always does that makes me feel like he sees something behind my eyes no one else does. I smile back at him and reach up to brush a strand of his shaggy brown hair away from his forehead. It’s the one that isn’t streamlined and perfect; it somehow being a little too long and curling.

  “Are you joining us for lunch, Isaiah?” my mother asks.

  “If you’ll have me,” he says.

  She smiles at him. “Don’t I always?”

  She does. We have this exchange every week.

  We step out into the parking lot, and I shiver at the cold blast of air that bites through my coat and whips my hair to move down the neckline of my dress. Hurrying to Isaiah’s car doesn’t provide much relief. The old blue compact that’s made its rounds through his siblings holds onto the chill like a freezer. The heater has barely thawed my fingers by the time we pull into the driveway of the house I’ve lived in my whole life.

  It’s a few days after Christmas, and strands of darkened lights still hang across the front porch. Inside, the Christmas tree looks exactly like it did when we put it up the day after Thanksgiving. It will stay up until tomorrow. By the time we are ushering in the New Year, every ornament will be packed away in its own little bubble-wrapped compartment, and the tree will be nestled in its box with strange little scented sticks to try to convince it to be a real fir. The year has to start anew. It can’t do that with a reminder of the year before right in the picture window of our living room.

  But for now, the early afternoon sunlight sparkles on the gold and burgundy ornaments glittering on the branches close to the windowpanes. At night, softly twinkling white lights make the illusion of shimmering ice. Every ornament is perfectly positioned and balanced to catch the light.

  Movement in the driveway of our next-door neighbor’s house catches my attention out of the corner of my eye. That house has been sitting empty for years, ever since the people who were there became empty nesters and moved to Florida.

  I didn’t realize people actually did that. It was the backdrop of a cheesy holiday movie, not something that actually happened. And then it happened.

  Since then, the driveway has sat empty, and the windows of the house stare black at the quiet street. Whoever owns it has a landscaping company come by every few weeks to cut the grass, but in the summers, it’s no
t enough for my father. Mom always tells him it’s not his responsibility, but more often than not, when he hops on the back of his riding mower, he ends up wandering over into the yard next door to knock the blades down just a little more. The cold temperatures for the last couple of months had made those little ventures unnecessary, but he still peeks over at the grass every time we walk into the house just to make sure it hasn’t spontaneously sprung up while he wasn’t watching.

  A person pops up from behind a car, shutting the door I saw open with a pop of her hip before walking around to carry a box toward the side of the house. I watch her until Isaiah’s fingers tug mine.

  “Coming inside?” he asks. “It’s cold.”

  I nod, and he brushes his lips across mine. We walk up the steps through the front door into the warm smell of chili cooked for long hours in the slow cooker while we lingered before church and held hands in the polished pew. I breathe it in, let it fill my lungs, and chase away the cold. Mom’s in the kitchen, heating my grandmother’s old cast iron skillet for cornbread. It’ll take another forty-five minutes until the sizzling butter and bacon grease turns to a crust on the bottom of the bread, and bowls of chili end up on the table. Enough time to change out of my church clothes and watch the house next door from my bedroom window for a few minutes.

  When I make it back downstairs, Isaiah has his jacket folded over the back of a chair in the living room, and his tie loosened as he stands in the kitchen with my parents. He’s completely at ease with them. There’s no discomfort or even cool formality around the edges of their interactions. Conversations and easy silence flow back and forth between them. He reaches a hand out for me when I walk in the room and gives me a squeeze to his side before I step past him to take dishes out of the cabinet.

  “Is someone moving in next door?” I ask.

  “Oh, I didn’t tell you. Yes, a really nice woman named Bree. She actually owns that little craft shop that opened a few months ago in the old dress store,” Mom tells me. “Apparently, she’s been renting a place just outside town, but just bought the house next door.”

  “Is it just her?” I ask.

  “Just her. Never married.”

  Isaiah makes a sound something close to pity. His eyebrows draw in close together as he contemplates a world where a woman old enough to buy her own house hasn’t settled down.

  “We should have her over for dinner,” my father suggests. “It’s the neighborly thing to do.”

  “We’ll let her settle in a bit first, but that would be nice,” Mom agrees. “Wren, go on and set the table. The cornbread is about to come out of the oven.”

  Isaiah picks up a stack of napkins and placemats before following me into the dining room. We never eat in the dining room during the week. Meals are always around the round table in the kitchen alcove. But on Sundays, everything moves to the dining room.

  I follow behind Isaiah, arranging the dishes on the placemats he puts into place at each setting. There are five of them, and just as he leans in for a brief kiss after setting the fifth, my uncle bursts into the house. His laugh is bright and real, coming from somewhere deep inside him and filling the room. He pats Isaiah heavily on the back and kisses my cheek, then disappears into the kitchen. It’s just him, too. Always has been. But somehow that doesn’t create the same reaction.

  After lunch, Isaiah and I curl up under a quilt on the porch swing. He’s warm and familiar beside me, holding me with one arm and resting his head against mine. We’ll sit like this for a while, watch the afternoon drift by, wondering idly if there’ll be snow. In the spring, we wait for rain; in the summer, a breeze; in the fall, the smell of burning leaves. Before too long, he’ll get his jacket, kiss me goodbye on the front porch, and go home. He’s never here when the sun goes down.

  I glance back over my shoulder and watch the woman moving in next door drop a welcome mat on her front porch and wonder about her life.

  2

  Talon

  My father and I didn’t exchange a single word in the car this morning. There was nothing more to his goodbye at the airport than a terse nod and a few muttered platitudes about enjoying the end of the school year.

  That isn’t why I’m on this plane, skidding down the runway of a tiny airport as we land. Coming here has nothing to do with enjoying the end of my school year or seeking new opportunities. He threw those words around over the last few weeks, mostly to his girlfriend. Not that I really needed to do any covering for her. She knows as well as I do, the only reason I’m here is he’s tired of dealing with my shit.

  He wants to keep me out of trouble until I graduate and leave for college. Getting me out of the city means not as much chance to get in trouble. Not as many girls to work my way through and embarrass him when their daddies turn out to be his business associates. If nothing else, I’m glad to be rid of that drama. They should have known better than to get wrapped up in me.

  Not that this was my father’s idea. He’d just as soon leave me to stuff more hours into his work schedule and go on more business trips, so he has to deal with it as little as possible. If it wasn’t for my aunt, I’d still be at my old school, graduating with the same people I’ve always known. If it was anybody but my aunt, I’d have told my father to fuck himself.

  She’s waiting for me when I come through the door right past security, holding up a sign with my name on it. I laugh, shaking my head as I walk up to her.

  “Think I wouldn’t recognize you after six months?” I ask.

  “I figured you’re used to your chauffeurs standing around with signs when you jet around with your father. Just helping you feel at home,” she says with her wide, honest smile.

  “Making me feel at home would probably start with not talking about my father,” I point out.

  She makes a soft, understanding sound and opens her arms to gather me in a hug. Not for the first time, I wonder if she realizes she’s the only person in my life, I let hug me.

  “This is going to be good for you, Tal,” she says to me. “You’re going to like it here.”

  She’s also the only person in my life I let still call me ‘Tal’, the name I absolutely refuse to go by ever again.

  “Is that the entire spiel you used to convince my father?” I ask.

  She laughs and steps away from me. “Come on. Let’s go get your suitcases.”

  I stare out of the window as she drives me through town back to her house. She’s only lived here for a few weeks after moving from the city six months ago, but she talks about it like it’s always been home.

  “Why did you move out here?” I ask.

  She’s in the middle of a sentence, and she stumbles on the ends of words already starting out of her mouth. I look over at her across the center console of her truck. If there is a vehicle that represents everything my life in Atlanta is not, I think it’s this one.

  “I like the quiet. There are already enough craft shops in Atlanta.” She chuckles. “There is already enough everything in Atlanta. It’s been my dream for a long time, and it got to the point where there was no more reason not to follow it. Life’s too short not to.”

  She glances at me, and the pain-filled tenderness in her eyes hardens my throat. I would rather her smile. When she smiles, she looks like my mother. Bree is her younger sister, and the only connection I have left to her.

  “What is there to do around here?” I ask.

  So far, the landscape hasn’t looked too promising.

  “I’m sure you’ll find plenty. School has already started back up for the semester, so I’m sure you’ll meet some kids who can show you around.”

  That doesn’t interest me. I doubt anyone from around here is going to be able to keep my interest for long.

  “Any historical points of interest?”

  History fascinates me. Something about looking into the past and watching stories unfold when you already know how it’s going to play out intrigues me. My aunt’s eyes, blue like those my mother gave to me, slide ove
r to me.

  “A few things. Some old houses. A couple battlefields relatively nearby. You’ll settle in, Talon. I think you’re right where you’re supposed to be.”

  We pull into the driveway of a house that looks straight out of a small-town still-life painting. Remnants of a recent snow cling to the grass and pile in the corners of the white wood steps leading up onto the porch. A wreath still hangs on the door, the cardinal nestled in its boughs, a droplet of vibrant red against the wash of pale color.

  Bree points to a round window near the top of the house. “That’s your room. It takes up most of the upstairs. I figured you could use the privacy. A few boxes arrived for you yesterday, but I think your father said there was going to be more. Want to go inside?”

  As we start toward the porch, my backpack slung over my aunt’s back while I carry my two suitcases, a car pulls up in front of the house next door. The driver’s side door opens, and a guy climbs out. He scurries around to the passenger’s side and opens the door. He reaches in and helps a girl out. She barely glances my way, but I pause. They walk quickly to the front porch, and I continue to where my aunt stands at her open front door.