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

  “Great. Then you two run along, and the rest of the class and I will have a little heart-to-heart on what happened with the final exam in December.”

  She gathers her books to the sounds of the rest of the class groaning and whisks past me through the classroom door into the hallway. I follow her with my backpack slung over my shoulder. She stands with her back against a bank of lockers across the hall, her arms crossed over her chest, and stormy gray eyes narrowed at me.

  “You may want to work your hostess skills,” I tell her. “I don’t feel adequately welcomed.”

  She pushes away from the lockers and starts down the hallway. “This is the math hallway. On the opposite side of the building are the science and computer classrooms and labs. I’ll show you the gym and theater.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

  “Mr. Whittaker sent me out here to give you a tour of the school,” she says.

  I step up a little closer to her. Her skin is pale to the point of being translucent, and my fingertips tingle with the compulsion to touch the side of her face. But I don’t.

  “My last school had an Olympic-size swimming pool, an equestrian center, and an observatory. I think I can handle four hallways, a gym, and a theater.”

  I walk past her, but she doesn’t move.

  “Why do you do that?” she asks.

  I turn back to her. “Do what?”

  She takes a few steps toward me. “Talk like that. You shift the way you speak, depending on who you’re talking to. You go from sounding like you’re forty when you’re talking to the teacher to being rude and sarcastic to me. It’s like you don’t know who you are.”

  The muscles in the side of my neck tighten, and I lean closer to her.

  “I know exactly who I am. If that happens to be someone who knows how to handle the situation I’m in, then so be it.” Even as I say it, I’m not completely sure I know how to handle this. “Now, finish showing me around or go away so I can wander alone by myself.”

  “Why bother? You seem to have it under control. After all, it’s just four hallways, gym, and a theater.”

  I smirk. “True. So why don’t you show me somewhere interesting? Like where everybody hooks up.”

  Bright color splashes across her cheeks.

  “There isn’t anywhere like that here,” she says.

  “Of course there is. There’s somewhere like that at every school.” I move closer to her, and she steps back, so I take another step. She ends up with her back against the lockers behind her. “A place where kids go when they need a little time together. Somewhere dark and secluded. Where no one will see them.” I lean in so I can whisper in her ear, “We can explore it together.”

  5

  Wren

  My breath swells in my lungs. I can’t seem to get it to move in and out the way it’s supposed to. Talon is so close to me, I can feel the heat radiating off his body, and his breath touch the skin on the side of my neck. He leans down to talk to me in a low, controlled voice. My skin tingles, and there is a second where it’s like the awareness of where I am disappears. Finally, I snap out of it.

  “I don’t know anywhere like that,” I insist.

  He gives a snort of derisive laughter and steps back from me.

  “Of course you don’t. I should have known,” he mutters.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I demand, but I know exactly what he means. He’s right, not that I’ll confess that to him.

  “You’re too much of a prude. Show me the theater,” he says.

  Before I’ve completely processed the sudden veering in the conversation, he swaggers off toward the front of the school. I follow after him, and soon we slip through the heavy double doors at the front of the theater. It’s dark inside except for the illumination of a single spotlight in the center of the stage. A boy sits on a wooden chair directly in the center, shaking and stumbling his way through a monologue.

  “Is taking theater classes some sort of requirement?” Talon asks.

  I look up with him questioningly. “No. Why would you ask that?”

  He nods toward the stage. “That guy looks like he’s up there under duress. He’s going to throw up before he gets through that speech.”

  I laugh but curl my lips in to stop the sound. “He’s just a freshman. That situation doesn’t happen once you get up into the more advanced classes.” I shrug one shoulder. “At least, not as often.”

  “You take theater?” he asks.

  I nod, not trusting myself to take my eyes off the stage and look at him. “Yes. I’m also doing the play.”

  “Which production?” he asks.

  “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” I tell him.

  Talon scoffs. “Of course you are.”

  “Do you have a particular problem with that?” I asked.

  He shakes his head. “No problem at all. It’s just a little predictable, isn’t it?”

  “The play itself?” I asked.

  “The fact that your school is doing it. Doesn’t every high school do A Midsummer Night’s Dream?”

  “There must be a reason for that,” I point out. “It’s a classic. People enjoy it.”

  “I suppose. Or, it’s readily accessible and easily reproduced,” he says.

  “Let me guess. Your old school had their own dedicated playwrights to create original works for your theater department.”

  “Not that I know of. But the productions tended to be more… adventurous.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you with our small-town high school play,” I snap. “Have you seen enough of the theater now?”

  “Yes.”

  We walk back out into the open commons. I’m about to bring Talon over to the gym when I hear my name bouncing through the hallway. We both turn toward it, and I see Samantha rushing toward us.

  “What are you doing out of class?” she asks almost conspiratorially, as if I’m going to have a secret to tell her.

  “Hi, Samantha,” I say. “Mr. Whittaker decided to make me the official tour guide of the school. You remember I told you about Bree’s nephew. I gesture toward Talon. “This is Talon. Talon, this is Samantha. She works at your aunt’s store.”

  Talon looks Samantha up and down and smiles. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m sure you’re a lot of help to Aunt Bree.”

  I roll my eyes at the blatant flirting, but Samantha looks like she’s about to explode. Her eyes sparkle, and color flushes her face. She nods.

  “I try to be. It’s a lot of responsibility managing all those craft supplies.”

  This may be one of the most awkward and uncomfortable interactions I’ve ever seen. But Samantha doesn’t seem to notice it at all. Somewhere in her mind, she’s living out her own romance novel.

  “Don’t you have somewhere you should be right now?” I ask. “Like class?”

  Her eyes widen a little like she has snapped back into reality.

  “Oh. Right. Wren, I’ll see you after school. It was nice to meet you, Talon.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be seeing much more of you,” Talon says.

  It makes my stomach twist, but I’m not sure why. Samantha scurries away, and I turn to Talon.

  “Is there something else you particularly want to see?” I ask.

  “What were you doing up so early on Saturday?” he asks.

  The question throws me off. I shake my head slightly. “What?”

  “I don’t think it was that challenging a question. Why were you up so early on Saturday morning?”

  “If you recall, an incredibly rude person had a delivery truck show up when the sun was barely up and woke up the entire street,” I say.

  “And you needed to get into your car and drive away from the chaos that was absolutely nothing going on?” he asks.

  “What business is it of yours what I was doing?” I ask.

  “Just trying to be neighborly. Isn’t that what people do around here?”

  “I was on my way to the animal shelter,” I
tell him.

  “Sudden irresistible craving for a new cat?”

  “I volunteer there on the weekends.”

  “Of course you do,” he rolls his eyes.

  “You say that a lot, you know,” I point out.

  “Say what?” he asks.

  “‘Of course’. ‘Of course you do’. Or ‘of course it is’. You say it a lot.”

  “Maybe because the world is just so predictable. It never ceases to amaze me how paint-by-numbers some people’s lives are,” he shrugs.

  “Or maybe because you put yourself so high above everyone else, you can’t possibly imagine anything having significance to another person,” I say.

  “You really don’t have to be so defensive. I’m only saying you doing volunteer work fits right in with the rest of what I know about you.”

  “Which is nothing,” I say.

  “I know the teacher acts like you hung the moon. And that some guy brought you home Friday but didn’t even stay for ten minutes.”

  The back of my neck burns. “The teacher appreciates my work ethic and good grades. I actually give him respect, unlike you. And that guy who brought me home on Friday happens to be my boyfriend.”

  “Your boyfriend?” Talon asks, seemingly shocked by the revelation.

  I don’t know if I like the look of surprise in his eyes or if it makes me angry. That seems to be a common thread in my feelings toward this guy.

  “Yes. We’ve been together for almost five years.”

  The justification tumbles out of me before I can even control the compulsion.

  “Five years and he doesn’t stay after dropping you off on a Friday night?” Talon asks. “How… sweet.”

  “Don’t you dare try to bring him into this.”

  “And what is ‘this’, exactly?”

  “Is everything alright? Wren? You okay?”

  As if I somehow called him to me by talking about him, Isaiah comes through the commons toward us. His eyebrows knit together as he searches my face, and his hand slides into mine.

  “Everything’s fine. This is Talon. He’s new here,” I say.

  “I just moved in next door to Wren,” Talon says.

  If I didn’t know better, I’d think there was a hint of challenge in his voice. Whether he noticed it or not, Isaiah doesn’t flinch. He holds out his hand toward Talon.

  “Good to meet you. Welcome to town.”

  “Talon, this is my boyfriend, Isaiah.”

  The smirk on Talon’s face as he takes Isaiah’s hand and shakes it makes the back of my neck burn again. His searing blue eyes move to me.

  “Of course you are,” he smiles and winks.

  That wink is etched in my memory.

  6

  Talon

  By the time I finish my conversation with the director of the theater department and make my way to the theater the next afternoon, rehearsal is already in full swing. Students are scattered around the house, lounging in the seats and tucked in corners, going over their lines. Some aren’t actually going over lines but are pretending to, so they don’t catch the ire of the student directors hunched importantly over the table set up in front of the black-painted stage.

  I’m here for the stage. That’s the entire reason I went and asked the department head this afternoon if I could jump into being a part of the production even though they were already partway through.

  Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to be on the stage. There’s not any part of my body that has any interest in getting up in front of an audience and performing a flimsy rendition of an already tired and overdone play. I’m here to take the black slabs of wood that make up the stage and turn them into the whimsical settings for the play. It doesn’t really matter much to me what happens after they’re made. I just want to create.

  “Talon!”

  The blonde girl I met yesterday rushes up to me. Her thick hair is twisted up on the back of her head, and she’s changed into tight stretchy pants, and a t-shirt scooped low over her ample cleavage. It takes me a few seconds to remember her name.

  “Hi, Samantha. I didn’t know you were in the play,” I say.

  She blushes like I just propositioned her and directs her cleavage toward me.

  “I’m the choreographer,” she grins. “I’m working on the dances for some of the fairy scenes.”

  That narrows it down to the entire play, but I don’t mention it. I’m not in the market for a deep and meaningful conversation with Samantha. The way her eyes move up and down me, I don’t think that’s what she’s after, either.

  “So, you’re a dancer?” I ask.

  She nods. Before she can answer, the theater door opens, and Wren comes in. Her shaggy dog of a boyfriend holds her hand but keeps a respectable six inches between them. They can’t possibly have their hips touching. That would be too much of a scandal. Her eyes lock with mine, and we stare at each other for a few seconds before she lets out a sigh.

  “What are you doing here?” she asks.

  “Probably the same thing you are,” I snap back. “I’m here for rehearsal.”

  “I thought you said A Midsummer Night’s Dream was just far too predictable. Why would you want to have anything to do with that?”

  “I’m not here to be in the play,” I tell her. “I joined the crew.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Probably because he wants to be a part of it,” Samantha cuts in. “We’re always looking for people willing to help out on the crew. I think you’d be happy for the extra hands.”

  A hint of color touches Wren’s cheeks, and her eyes flicker down to where my hands hang down by my sides. It only lasts a fraction of a second before she lifts her chin again and shakes her head.

  “Doesn’t matter to me. I’m not part of the crew. But I’m sure they’ll appreciate someone who’s willing to work. If he’s willing to work,” she says.

  She tugs on Isaiah’s hand, and they make their way down to the front of the stage. I watch them for a few seconds. His hands go up to touch her waist, but they barely make contact with her. His palms and fingers hover just so they graze against her shirt. He keeps his body away from hers and smiles down into her face. She reaches up and brushes a piece of his hair away from his forehead, and my jaw clenches.

  “So, would you want to?” Samantha asks.

  I realize I’ve missed some sort of conversation she’s been carrying on with me. I don’t care.

  “I should get backstage. It doesn’t look like much work has been done on the sets, and it’s time to get started,” I tell her.

  I pull off my jacket as I walk down the slanted aisle for the stage and drape it across the back of a seat. Wren looks over Isaiah’s shoulder at me as I jump up onto the stage, but quickly looks back at him when I glance her way. He’s oblivious, but that seems to be his general theme.

  Half an hour later, I’m in the wing, contemplating a large piece of canvas fabric in swirls of greens and yellows I don’t completely understand. The tall, wild-eyed girl in charge of set design gave me a lot of abstract instructions, including wanting the sets to look heavily perfumed and evoke a sense of the inside of a flower right on the peak of spring blooming. I have absolutely no idea what the fuck she’s talking about, but she smiled and made a few happy gestures the last time she walked by my canvas, so I guess I’m on the right path.

  Out on stage, Samantha is leading a group of dancers in a warm-up. She’s very aware of my position and keeps angling her body to present it to me. Each long stretch forward threatens to make her breasts spill out of her shirt. Though my understanding of dance approximates to an in-depth amount of nothing, I’m fairly certain the way she’s forcing her ass to the side and twisting it toward me is going to do more harm to her hips than good. But my attention barely registers her. Every time I look up at the practice, my eyes go to the corner of the front row to Wren.

  She’s wearing a pair of stretch pants a shade of pink slightly lighter than the ones she wore the first
night I saw her through her bedroom window, and a pale purple shirt cropped at her hips. Each time she stretches, the hem moves up just enough to reveal a narrow strip of smooth, pale skin.

  When the warmup is over, Samantha divides the group into pairs. A guy with a blond ponytail and a muscle shirt that has yet to fulfill the destiny of its name on him walks up to Wren. They smile at each other familiarly, and he reaches out for her. Unlike Isaiah, the guy’s hands touch her fully, one pressing to the center of her back and the other grasping her hand.

  I keep painting as they dance, my hand getting tighter on the brush handle as their bodies get closer. Strands of her hair slip free of her ponytail and tumble around her face. A slight sheen of sweat forms on her neck and across her collarbones. The guy with the muscle-less shirt notices, and his eyes linger too long, his tongue sliding across his lips. His hand spreads further across Wren’s back, and he pulls her up against him in a yank that almost takes her off her feet. I’m on mine in an instant.

  “What are you doing?” Wren demands.

  “I’m sorry. I tripped,” the guy replies. “Come on, let’s try it again.”

  He tripped like I played Maria in West Side Story. But Wren takes it in stride and steps back up to his waiting arms. I glance into the house and see her boyfriend sitting two rows back, watching her with a goofy grin on his face. He hasn’t even moved. The same part of his brain that makes him able to completely resist touching her is the part that keeps him from noticing that this guy has no problem with it.

  I sit back down to continue the backdrop, and they start to dance again. Blond Ponytail manages to make it past the fateful tripping moment in the routine, but then he lifts her. His hand goes to her inner thigh and slides up toward her hip. I drop the paintbrush and stalk out onto the stage. He lowers her down shakily and steps back. Wren whips around to face me as the other dancers get out of the way.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “I need this space,” I say.

  “For what?”

  “The backdrop. I need to spread it out and make sure the colors are right under the stage lights.”