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

  “Well, that’s uncomfortable. Be that as it may, amid all that plush, chocolate, and sparkly glitter, there is education happening. And you’re going to be there for it. Now, eat your pancakes.”

  The day doesn’t get a whole lot better when I walk outside and see my motorcycle draped with garlands of bright red hearts. I tear it all off and throw it on the ground. I’m so angry; I almost don’t notice Wren’s car still sitting outside her house. She’s always gone by the time I leave in the morning. Dismissing it as just another girl putting far too much time and effort into getting herself ready for Valentine’s Day, I get on my bike and head to school.

  Lisabeth is waiting for me. I never should have gotten linked up with this girl. She’s a lot of fun, especially over the last few weeks of Wren avoiding me like the plague, but after just a few hookups, she’s starting to make Velcro look slippery. As I pull up in my usual parking spot, she jumps toward me in a red sequin mini dress and giant wings in the shape of hearts. Her headband has springs with even more hearts bobbing around, and something black sticks out from her ass. She flings her arms open in an attempt to hug me, but I grab her by her wrists and deflect it.

  “Good morning!” she gushes anyway.

  “What is this look you have going here?” I ask as I head toward the school building.

  “I’m your love bug!” she says. “Let me sting you!”

  She turns around and wiggles her hips, so the black cone hanging from her dress bobs around.

  “Let’s not,” I mutter, continuing on. She rushes to catch up with me and reaches for my hand. “Look, Lisabeth. I don’t do Valentine’s Day. I don’t do love. I did do you, but I’m over that now. So, why don’t you go ahead and flutter away before I need to bring in a fly swatter?”

  She stops, her humiliated cry audible above even the ear-piercing squeals of a gaggle of girls nearby as they exchange roses. I get inside and see Samantha leaned against a set of lockers. She’s in a decently non-holiday outfit and only smiles as I approach. The expression isn’t contagious.

  “Did you put that shit all over my bike?” I demand.

  “It was supposed to be a joke,” she offers.

  “Not funny. I told you not to touch it.”

  Without waiting for a response, I storm down the hallway toward first period. Every step further into the building fills me with more aggression and frustration. When I see Isaiah in front of me, I nearly snap. Then I realize Wren isn’t with him. He looks forlorn, holding a bouquet of daisies and a purple heart-shaped balloon and staring down at his phone. I start to walk past him, and he steps in my path.

  “Where is she?” he asks.

  I look him up and down. “What’s wrong? Lose your girlfriend?”

  “Where is she?” he asks again.

  “How the hell am I supposed to know? Just because she lives next door doesn’t mean I keep tabs on her.”

  “You seemed more than happy to keep tabs on her when you first got here.”

  “If you can’t find your girl, that’s on you. I didn’t do shit. I haven’t even spoken a word to her for more than a month. I suggest you step down and do a little inward thinking about why Valentine’s Day might be the day she decides to give you the slip,” I glower.

  I walk around him and end up in the trig classroom. The entire place smells like milk chocolate and desperation. Someone took a bath in cheap body spray in an effort to lure a mate, and some girl is sobbing in the back row because her boyfriend gave her white roses instead of red. I can’t fucking wait until I can get out of this place. Four more months. Just four more months and I can go back to Atlanta for the summer before college starts.

  The thought isn’t enough to keep my eyes from flickering over to Wren’s empty seat. It stays empty for the first ten minutes of class. Finally, I stand up and scoop my backpack off the floor.

  “Mr. Whittaker, I’m not feeling well. I’m going to visit the nurse.”

  “Too many conversation hearts this morning, Talon?” he asks, bursting into laughter.

  It’s hard to take a middle-aged man seriously when he’s wearing a Cupid costume over his clothes. I force a tight smile.

  “Maybe that’s it,” I say.

  “Well, go on.”

  I walk out of the classroom and head directly for the back doors of the school. I did what I promised Aunt Bree. I went to school. There were no specifications for how long I had to stay. Her car is gone when I get back to the house. Valentine’s Day is big for crafting supplies, apparently.

  I stop my bike and climb off, then notice Wren’s car is still where it was before I left for school. It shouldn’t matter. What she does doesn’t concern me. Let her boyfriend worry about her. I shove down another surge of jealousy and storm inside. In my room, I’m pulled to the window and look out into Wren’s bedroom below. Everything is still pristine pink and white, except for the bright red form of Wren curled up in the middle of her bed.

  I immediately push away from the window, darting down the stairs and out of the house. I’m on her porch in a matter of seconds. It’s unlocked. I’m suddenly glad for the ridiculous, trusting habits of these people.

  Wren’s eyes are closed when I get into her room, but her breathing is irregular, and it doesn’t seem like she’s asleep. I grab her shoulder.

  “Wren? Open your eyes.”

  Her lids flutter open slowly.

  “Talon?” she asks. Her voice is soft and weak, like it takes effort to even get the words out.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “What time is it?” she croaks.

  “A little after eight,” I tell her.

  She tries to sit up. “Oh, no. I’m late for school.”

  I take her by her shoulders and ease her back down. “Tell me what’s going on before you try moving around. Did someone do this to you? Do you need something?”

  “Water,” she says.

  I go into the attached bathroom and fill a pink plastic cup with cool water. She sips it down slowly, then lets out a sigh.

  “Better?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Now, will you tell me what in the living hell is going on?” I ask.

  “I’m fine, really. I have a minor heart condition,” she says.

  “A heart condition? That doesn’t sound so minor,” I frown.

  “It is. Really. It’s called mitral valve prolapse with low blood volume. I’ll spare you all the medical details, but essentially my heart doesn’t pump my blood well, and my body doesn’t make the right volume of blood. If I don’t take care of myself, I have really bad fatigue and feel weak. If it gets bad, I can pass out and even experience adrenaline surges that shock my heart, but they can cause panic attacks.”

  “Holy shit,” I mutter.

  “It’s really not that bad. I just didn’t get enough sleep and haven’t been eating well. It started messing with me, so I laid down for another minute to make the dizziness stop. I guess time kind of slipped past. I should really get up and go to school.”

  “You need to stay right here,” I tell her. “School’s still going to be there tomorrow.”

  “Why aren’t you at school?” she asks, staying reclined against her pillows.

  “I got the urge to do a little urban spelunking. Except, I guess out here it’s suburban spelunking. Damn near rural spelunking. I’m going to explore some of the old abandoned houses out here. Learn about the history of the area from a different angle.”

  “I love history,” she says.

  “So do I. I just also happen to hate Valentine’s Day, so this was the perfect excuse.”

  Her hands cover her face, and she groans. “I completely forgot about Valentine’s Day,” she says.

  “Your outfit tells a different story,” I point out.

  She looks down at her red sweater and leggings. “Just a coincidence. Oh, jeez. I can’t believe I forgot.”

  “Did you just say ‘oh, jeez’?” I ask. She doesn’t even hear me.

&n
bsp; “Isaiah is going to be so upset. I need to call him.”

  My smile falls. I walk back over to the door. “Of course you do. Can’t let Isaiah think his lap dog is straying too far off the leash.”

  She protests as I walk out of the room, but I don’t turn back. Six weeks isn’t enough time to be away from her after all.

  14

  Talon

  Two weeks after Valentine’s Day, March decides it’s had enough of winter, and the days start feeling more like spring. I take all my school supplies out of my backpack and refill it with my sketch pad and pencils, my camera, and a few snacks. Bree left a few hours ago for work, which means there aren’t any questions when I slip the hood up on my black hoodie and head out the back door to the run-down old house I’ve been scoping out for two weeks.

  I dipped into a few places on my last excursion, but old empty barns and a one-room house that looks like it hasn’t been lived in for about a hundred years can only be but so interesting. The looming mansion deep in the woods, however, looks promising. I’m a few yards into the woods when what I thought might be footsteps behind me become obvious with a loud crack of a twig.

  “You’re not very good at being stealthy, Little Bird,” I call back over my shoulder without pausing.

  “I wasn’t trying to be stealthy,” Wren protests.

  “Yes, you were. What do you want?”

  She jogs a couple of yards to catch up with me. “Are you going grave-robbing again?”

  I look over at her and laugh. “I don’t intend on digging anybody up. So, if you happen to see any fresh tombstones around, give me a heads up.” She doesn’t laugh. I roll my eyes. “It’s called spelunking. Like cave exploration. And, yes, that’s where I’m going.”

  I mean it as a cue for her to turn back, but she doesn’t catch it. She continues walking right along beside me.

  “I haven’t seen much of you in the last few weeks,” she finally says.

  It’s thrown out casually, like she’s just trying to have a breezy conversation, but the words have a little bit of weight to them.

  “You told me to back off. So, I’ve been keeping my distance,” I shrug, still not looking her in the eye. “How’s your boyfriend doing? Still keeping you on a tight leash like a dog?”

  She tenses, but it doesn’t stop her from walking beside me.

  “Isaiah is fine. He just found out he was accepted into his first-choice school, so he’s excited,” she tells me.

  “Well, congratulations to Isaiah,” I say. “I guess that means you know what college you’re going to as well.”

  She looks at me strangely. “Why would you say that?”

  “You two have a future together, right? I just figured that means you’re going to follow him to college. That way, you’re right there to find a nice apartment off-campus and... oh. Well, I guess you won’t be doing that. You can gaze at each other in front of your dorm buildings.”

  She scoffs and shakes her head. “I’m not following him to college. We don’t have the same academic goals. He really wants to be a lawyer, so it’s off to Harvard Yard for him and then law school.”

  I whistle. Didn’t think Isaiah had it in him. “Harvard? That’s pretty far from here.”

  She nods.

  “And how about you? What do you want to be?” I ask.

  She shakes her head and looks up at the sky through the branches hanging overhead. “I don’t know yet.”

  I finally look over at her. “Really? I’m surprised at you.”

  “Why? A lot of people go to college without having a clear idea of what they want to do with their lives,” she argues.

  “But not you. Everything is mapped out for you. You said so yourself.”

  She nods, her eyes casting down to the ground now. “I guess you’re right. My parents would love for me to be a veterinarian. I’ve spent so much time volunteering at the animal shelter; they think it just seems like a natural progression for me.”

  “But, again, not you.”

  She shakes her head. “There is a big difference between walking a dog around the park and performing surgery on it.”

  “I mean, but they sound so similar.”

  “So close. But it’s that fine little margin that’s giving me pause.” We laugh, and she goes back to looking ahead. “I’ve thought about being an anthropologist. Study people and where we came from.”

  “That’s not a career aspiration you hear every day.”

  Wren lets out a long sigh. “Nope. And not one my parents love hearing me talk about. But, either way, Harvard is not for me.”

  “Why do I think I detect some relief in those words?”

  Our eyes meet for an instant before she looks away again. Between us, our hands brush against each other. I move to let the connection last a little longer, but she turns to face me and our hands part.

  “I never got a chance to thank you,” she says.

  “For what?” I ask.

  “Helping me when my heart was acting up.”

  “You say that like it’s a spoiled toddler.”

  She smiles. “Sometimes that’s what it feels like. If it’s tired or doesn’t get enough of its sippy cup; it throws a temper tantrum. I really do appreciate you coming to check on me. How did you know I was there?”

  “Your car was still at the house when I came home from school,” I explain. I gloss over noticing she was missing from class and Isaiah waiting for her with the flowers.

  “I’m glad you were there. I hate waking up from that by myself. It’s really disorienting.”

  “I hate Valentine’s Day, but I have to say, you did at least give me something to laugh about,” I offer.

  “Um. Thank… you. I’m glad my medical condition is amusing to you.”

  “I meant it was funny for all the days it could happen, it did on the day where everything is covered in hearts. Maybe it just didn’t think it was getting enough of the attention,” I say.

  Wren laughs. “That’s probably exactly it.”

  She looks in front of us and gasps. I follow her gaze and see we’ve gotten to the house. It’s big and old and probably crumbling, and vines have started their crawl up the columns. The place is beautiful but also looks like the kind of place you’d expect in a creepy movie.

  “Here we are.”

  “You want to go in there?” she asks, pointing to the cobwebs covering the steps.

  “That is kind of the purpose of exploring abandoned houses. You can’t really accomplish it unless you go into the house,” I shrug.

  “It’s just…” she hesitates, then shakes her head, “never mind.”

  “It’s just what?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” she shakes her head.

  “Tell me.”

  She sighs. “It’s just this place kind of has a reputation for being… haunted. You’re going to laugh at me now, aren’t you?”

  “Nope. Not going to laugh. But if you run into a ghost in there and it tries to drag you down to the netherworld with it, make it let you leave a note first. I’m not catching the blame for that.”

  I climb up onto the massive veranda as she sighs behind me. “Thank you, Talon.” I laugh and reach down for her hand. “See? I knew you were going to laugh at me.”

  Pulling her up onto the porch, I reach out to catch her when she almost tumbles back. One arm wraps around her waist and pulls her close against me. Our faces are close, our bodies touching. We’re almost as close as we were that evening in the kitchen, but something has changed. The air isn’t as tense. It’s almost warm.

  I jerk my head away from her.

  “We should probably go inside now,” I murmur.

  She nods, and we step back from each other. Carefully stepping over fallen pieces of decorative scrolling and branches of nearby trees blown onto the porch by many storms over the years, we make our way around the veranda trying to find a way inside.

  “So, the story goes that a man built this house because he was desperately in lov
e with a woman in town. He’d known her for only a short time, but he fell for her and wanted to marry her. The problem was she was betrothed to someone else. That didn’t stop him. He believed if he built her a house, it would prove he could provide a life for her, and she would choose him. The day the house was finished, he brought her here and showed it off. He’d furnished it beautifully and included every detail he could to make it everything she wanted. Only after he showed it to her, she told him she had eloped with the other man.”

  I find a window sitting low to the porch and push it. The French-style panes swing open toward the inside of the house, and I smile at Wren over my shoulder. The sunlight filters inside just enough to illuminate clear patches of floor. I climb in first to navigate a safe path, then turn around to help her inside. She shivers when she lands, looking around at the dusty, cobweb-covered interior.

  It’s ravaged by time, but still beautiful, full of antique furniture and artwork under what must be a solid foot of dust. Taking out my camera, I snap a few pictures before we continue picking our way over the pieces of broken furniture and decorations tossed to the ground by wind and other forces over the years.

  “What happened to them?” I ask.

  “To whom?” Wren asks.

  I smile. “The man and the woman in the house.”

  “Oh. He was heartbroken. He flew into a rage and imprisoned the woman in a hidden chamber somewhere in the house, believing eventually she’d realize she really did love him. Her husband came by looking for her a few days later, and the man killed him and buried him behind the fireplace.”

  “That one?” I ask, pointing to a huge stone fireplace against one wall.

  She stepped closer to me. “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “That.”

  “Point out features of the house? Again, that’s kind of what exploring is.”

  We continue through the house. I snap a few more pictures and pick places I want to sketch the next time I come back. We’ve just made it to a bedroom upstairs when I hear something on the bottom floor. Wren is in the middle of describing something to me, and I hold up my finger against my lips to quiet her.