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

  It’s bullshit, but I don’t care. As long as his hand is nowhere near her thigh, they can think anything they want.

  “We’re in the middle of a rehearsal,” she protests.

  “And I’m in the middle of trying to make whatever the cast slaps together look halfway decent for the audience. Maybe it will even help hide some of the god awful dance moves you can’t seem to learn.”

  “It’s fine,” Samantha calls from the front of the group. “Let’s go ahead and call that rehearsal. You guys put in some really good work today.”

  Wren lets out a sigh and walks down the stage steps toward Isaiah. He takes her hand, and she murmurs something to him, making both of them turn toward me. Without hesitation, I walk up to Samantha.

  “Want to get out of here?” I ask.

  She would climb in my pocket if she could. Wren’s eyes follow us as I put my hand around Samantha’s waist and guide her out of the theater. It turns out, there is a spot on campus where the kids hook up, and I’m about to get very familiar with the back bleachers of the soccer field.

  7

  Wren

  “He really should work on his core strength. I could probably help him with that,” Isaiah says.

  I look over at him, confused. “What?”

  He glances at me and then back at the road. “Mark. He seemed to be having some trouble with his footing while you were practicing your dance today. It’s probably because he doesn’t have a strong enough core. I could teach him some exercises that will help with that.”

  “Oh. Yeah. That would be nice,” I say. “He’s really… determined.”

  It doesn’t even begin to occur to Isaiah that a lack of core strength had absolutely nothing to do with the way Mark was acting during dance rehearsal this afternoon. I don’t know if I should be bothered by that or think it’s sweet. What I can’t stop thinking about is the way Talon reacted. It was immediate and aggressive, but just as quickly as he lashed out, he sent another blast of Arctic chill my way. Maybe I was misinterpreting the entire thing altogether. It’s not like he said anything about Mark or even about the rehearsal. He only cared about the set he was working on and having enough space for it.

  And why would he say anything about Mark? My own boyfriend didn’t see anything wrong. The next-door neighbor who seems to barely tolerate my existence certainly wasn’t going to jump to my chivalrous defense.

  If nothing else, he seemed all too eager to hurry out of rehearsal with Samantha. As soon as she said practice was over, he forgot all about wanting to spread the backdrop out across the stage. I don’t want to care that he left with her. I don’t care that he left with her. It’s the interference and selfish demands that are bothering me.

  “Can I see you Friday night?” Isaiah asks. “Maybe we can catch a movie and do a couple of rounds of mini-golf.”

  “Oh. I’d really like to, but my parents said we have some sort of plans. But I’ll call you, and maybe we can plan something for Saturday? You can come up to the shelter and volunteer with me?”

  He shudders slightly. “You know how I feel about the dogs,” he says. “Besides, I have indoor track training all afternoon.”

  “Yeah,” I nod.

  “But, hey. I’ll see you Sunday morning.”

  He gives me a playful soft nudge across the center console, and I smile at him.

  “Of course. I’ll see you Sunday morning.”

  He pulls up in front of my house. “And even better, I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll meet you at the flagpole before school.”

  “Absolutely,” I smile.

  He climbs out of the car and comes around to open my door. I let him take my hand and help me out, then pull me in for a quick hug before he gives me a peck on my lips. Laughter from next door makes us both turn. Samantha and Talon tumble out of the front door. She clings to his shirt and launches forward to press a kiss to his cheek.

  “Seems like the two of them sure are getting along,” Isaiah comments.

  “It definitely does,” I say. “Maybe hitting a little too close to home.”

  “What do you mean?” he asks.

  I glance over at him and shake my head.

  “Just that she works for his aunt. It just seems like that’s keeping things a little too close. But that’s not my business.”

  Samantha walks down the steps and starts down the sidewalk toward where her car is parked in front of Bree’s house. I hadn’t even noticed it there when we drove past. Her eyes catch Talon’s motorcycle parked in the driveway, and she walks over to it. He follows her, any mirth gone from his face.

  “I just love your bike,” she says. “I’ve never known anybody who owns his own motorcycle before. Where did you get it?”

  I almost laugh at the question. It’s not like anything he says could have any meaning to her. She knows as little about motorcycles as I do. He could say literally anything, and she would believe without question it was some elite bike shop. But this is how Samantha operates. I’ve seen her weave her way into the thoughts of plenty of guys before. At this point, most are eating out of the palm of her hand. But Talon isn’t so easily swayed.

  “I built it,” he tells her.

  Samantha turns astonished eyes to him. “You built it? Yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, how sexy.”

  She leans forward and starts to run her hand along the curve of the bike, but Talon catches her wrist, prying her hand away and dropping it unceremoniously by her side.

  “Don’t touch,” he says matter-of-factly.

  That would be the moment when I’d think a girl would be offended and walk away. But Talon’s spell holds Samantha hard. She just smiles more, her lashes batting furiously as she slithers her body in his direction. The same hand he just pulled away from the bike comes up to run down his chest.

  “Want to give me a ride?” she asks.

  “Already did,” he answers, and my stomach flips.

  “I mean on your bike,” she purrs.

  “No,” he answers without elaboration.

  “No?”

  “I don’t give rides on my bike,” he tells her, the same way he told me the first time we interacted.

  “You can’t make an exception for me?” she asks.

  Her voice has taken on a strange, almost simpering tone I haven’t heard her use before. It’s uncomfortable to watch, but at the same time, I can’t turn away.

  “No,” Talon says.

  “Wren? I need to go.”

  I barely even remembered Isaiah is standing here, and I turn to him, nodding. “Sure. Have a good meet tonight.”

  “Are you sure you can’t come watch me?” he asks, taking both my hands in his.

  “I’m sorry. I have a huge project I have to do for science class, and the only time my lab partner can get online to work on it is this evening. I actually need to be getting inside. She’s supposed to sign on soon. But I’ll be thinking about you and sending you all the good thoughts and luck.”

  I smile at him, and it appeases him.

  “Well, I’d rather have you there, but with that, I still have much more than anyone else.”

  He kisses me on my cheek and walks around to get back in his car. I wave as he drives away, and as I start toward the house, I see Samantha coming across the yard toward me. Talon is nowhere to be seen. I can only imagine during my goodbye with Isaiah, he had his fill of her and went back inside.

  “I guess you and Talon hit it off,” I say.

  She smiles dreamily at me and nods. “We did. He’s… amazing.”

  She’s being coy, but I’m not going to take the bait and dig any further. Those aren’t details I have any interest in hearing.

  “When are you going to see him again?” I ask. I shouldn’t care. It shouldn’t make me so uncomfortable, but I tell myself it’s just because she’s my closest friend, and I don’t want to think of what I’m sure happened in that house just next door.

  She shrugs.

  “I
don’t know. I mean, I’ll see him at school. But we didn’t make any plans or anything,” she tells me.

  “I noticed you admiring his motorcycle.”

  What is wrong with me? Where am I going with this conversation?

  “Isn’t it hot? I don’t know if I could control myself seeing him sitting on that thing,” she grins.

  “I don’t think you controlled yourself, and you didn’t even see him on it,” I say before I can stop the words from coming out of my mouth.

  Samantha narrows her eyes at me.

  “What’s that crack supposed to mean?” she asks.

  I shake my head. “It was just a joke.”

  No, it wasn’t. But it doesn’t matter. She rebounds quickly and goes back to her dreamy eyes.

  “He says he doesn’t give rides to anyone. But I’m going to change that,” she says.

  “You are?” I ask.

  She nods. “It’s just going to take a little bit of persuasion, but I have a feeling I’m going to get on the back of that bike and wrap myself around his gorgeous body. He can take me anywhere he wants,” she sighs.

  I wonder if I look as sick as I feel. Adjusting my backpack over my shoulder, I climb the steps onto my front porch.

  “I’ve got to get inside and work on a science project. I’ll see you at school tomorrow,” I tell her.

  Samantha nods, and I go inside, closing the door and resting my head back against it. I want the thoughts in my mind to go away. They make no sense. Having them makes my skin sting and the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I head upstairs to my room, reminding myself of his rude attitude and demanding ways to push the images of Talon on the back of his bike out of my mind.

  8

  Talon

  Sitting in the open commons to eat lunch among the masses isn’t something that appeals to me. So, I’ve taken to eating lunch either backstage in the theater or along one of the hallways. I’d much rather sit alone with my sketchbook and be able to enjoy eating than have to listen to the teenage drama unfolding around me. But today is a little different. Instead of heading straight for the stage or the corner of the hallway I’ve mapped out for myself, I detour to the library.

  The wild-eyed girl in charge of the sets, whose name is Matilda, but I just can’t take that seriously, has gone off the rails. Her descriptions of what she wants for her vision of the sets have only gotten more ridiculous over the last two days. So I’ve decided to make a few changes. There’s a book I studied in my old school that I hope is sitting in the library here, too. If it is, I can copy a few of the pages and translate them into sketches we can apply to the sets.

  I only intended to walk into the library, check out the book, and leave. But when I step inside, I see Wren across the room. We haven’t spoken a word to each other in the last two days, and curiosity pulls me into the room. I sit down at one of the round tables and pull out my sketch pad. Absently adding shading to the simple drawing on the page, I keep lifting my eyes toward the girl. She’s standing in the stacks; a large book resting in her palms. Her eyes glance down at it and then flit up again. She’s watching something, but I can’t tell what it is.

  Leaning to the side, I try to see what has fascinated her so much. She leans closer to the shelf beside her. Her lips move like she’s talking to someone. A flash of bright green on the other side of the books tells me someone else is just beyond them. A second later, she closes the book and tucks it back onto the shelf. Picking up her bag from where it was sagging at her feet, she swoops around the end of the shelf and into the next aisle where the person she was talking to waits.

  The strange behavior brings me to my feet. I tuck my sketch pad back into my backpack and cross the room to the aisle to the far side of the library. This lets me stroll along the ends of the stacks until I end up by the one where I just saw Wren. I stop where she was standing and look up like she was, trying to figure out what she kept looking at.

  Halfway across the room, sitting at one of the computers locked down to a row of segmented tables is a scrawny boy in ill-fitting jeans and a t-shirt that stretches almost to his knees. The tip of his tongue sticks out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrates hard on the textbook open in front of him.

  It strikes me as odd. I look around to see if there’s anything else she could possibly be looking at. There’s no one else around, and other than a few of the horrible motivational posters every school has that look like they are throwbacks to the eighties, there’s nothing else of note in the line of sight.

  Then I hear something. A giggle, somewhere to my side. I look through a gap in the books to see her in the next aisle over. Again, she’s holding a book and peeking up over it in the direction of the awkward guy. Somebody whispers, and she looks through the books beside her, her hand covering her mouth to muffle a laugh.

  Easing the books in front of me to the side, I tap on the gray metal shelf to get her attention. Wren looks startled to see me peering back at her.

  “Your book is upside down,” I whisper.

  “What?” she asks.

  She looks confused as if she was expecting me to say something else, and I threw her off with that comment. I point to the book in her hands.

  “It’s upside down.”

  She looks down, and her cheeks flush. As she’s flipping it over, I walk around the end of the shelf to stand beside her in the aisle.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  I shrug and run my fingertips along the spines of the books in front of me.

  “Thought I’d pick up some light reading for the upcoming weekend. Brush up on my,” I glance at the titles of the books, “wild bird knowledge.”

  She tries not to laugh, biting down on her bottom lip. She’s beautiful, even with her hair thrown up in a messy bun and wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and a hooded school sweatshirt. Her finger lifts to her lips to quiet me.

  “Shhhh. He’ll hear you,” she whispers.

  I take a step closer. “One of the wild birds? Is that a particular fascination for you?”

  “Shhhhh.”

  Another voice comes from my side, and I glance over to see round dark eyes peering at me through the books. I point at the girl.

  “Or is that your wild bird? I think I found it in its natural habitat,” I say. “I must say, though. Hiding out in the bird section… a bit on the nose, Wren.”

  She presses her lips together and shakes her head. “Hush. We’re watching him.”

  She points across the library at the guy on the computer. The longer he works on whatever it is he’s doing, the closer he leans to the textbook. At this point, he is almost lying down on the glossy pages and having to peek up at the screen every time he needs to use the computer.

  “Who is ‘we’?” I ask.

  Wren points to the eyes still staring at me through the books. “This is Andrea.”

  “Hello, Andrea. And why exactly are you scoping out the guy in the cocktail t-shirt?”

  Before either of them can answer, a familiar form lumbers up beside the desk and leans on it in the most uncomfortable version of casual I’ve ever seen. Isaiah waits there for a few seconds, but the guy engrossed in his book doesn’t seem to notice him. Wren’s boyfriend looks over at her, shrugging, and she points at the guy. The muscles along my jaw tighten, my hand clenching the strap of my bag. Isaiah taps the guy on the shoulder, making him jump and nearly push his textbook off the table onto the floor. They exchange a few words, and Cocktail Shirt goes back to his book as Isaiah walks away. He takes a few exaggerated slow strides, then scurries toward Wren. He hops into the aisle with a wide grin on his face.

  “Civics,” he whispers.

  A thump on the floor in the next aisle accompanies Andrea’s backpack dropping to the floor with her crouching down beside it so she could dig through. She yanks out her own Civics book and fluffs her hair before spreading a wide smile across her face and heading toward the desk.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.


  “Andrea has had a crush on Trevor since freshman year. She figures since it’s the last semester of high school, she better hurry her seduction plan along a little bit,” Wren whispers.

  “And by seduction plan, you mean stalking him in the library, having someone else find out what subject he’s studying, and then, I presume, her going up to him to ask a completely arbitrary question?” I ask.

  “Yes,” Isaiah nods.

  He grips Wren’s hand, and I lean close to her.

  “You really are a child; you know that?”

  I stalk out of the aisle and directly up to the table, where Andrea is now stumbling her way through asking a question she clearly didn’t prepare.

  “... but there’s denatured alcohol. Is that like liquor from England that hasn’t been approved for citizens to drink yet?”

  He blinks at her a few times. I think I can hear the gears grinding to a halt in his head and attempting to start up backward. I step between Andrea and him.

  “Trevor?”

  “Yeah?”

  “This is Andrea. If you haven’t figured it out yet, she’s trying to let you know you could get in her panties any time you want. I strongly recommend condoms, because no one needs reproduction between the two of you. Have fun.”

  Andrea gasps as I walk past her and out of the library, not even bothering to look behind me to see Wren’s reaction.

  9

  Wren

  “You can’t be serious.” I look at my mother imploringly, but she just narrows her eyes at me and continues to set the table.

  “Yes, I’m serious. What are you talking about, Wren? I told you we had plans for tonight.”

  “You didn’t tell me those plans were having them over for dinner,” I say.

  “She’s our next-door neighbor. She’s a very nice woman. You said so yourself. Why shouldn’t we have her over for dinner again?”

  “She is our next-door neighbor and very nice, but… him.”