Wanted: A Bad Boy Romance (20 page)

It’s difficult to say no to that. In that moment, he seems so nice.
So sincere.
So likeable.
And then I
remember my mom. My loyalty. My allegiance. My priorities.

“
Lauryn
,” he says, snapping me out of my
trance. “Dinner? Tonight? Seven?”

“Yes,” I blurt, saying anything to get him to stop badgering me.

His mouth arches into a pleased smile and he stands, placing one steady
hand on the silver door handle. “Excellent. I’ll send Dr. Brown in.”

Brentwood, CA –
Summer
before senior year of high school

Voices trail in from the pool. The closer I get the more it sounds like
laughter. I peek out the window by the terrace and see my father sitting
between my mother and Sandra Pierce. They’re running lines, reading off thick
scripts that sit nestled between tumblers of expensive bourbon and resting
cigarettes, though it doesn’t seem like work. Sandra is laughing her infectious
laugh and my mother is red-faced. My father, internationally known jazz trumpeter
DeVonn
Hudson, mutters something that forces my mom
to gift him with a dirty glare.

They do that – Sandra and my dad. They gang up on my mother and
package it like they’re only teasing. Sandra is effervescent in nature, and my
mom is more serious. Somehow those two are best friends, though I’m told the
friendship started when they both had co-starring roles on some 1980s sitcom.
Dad says they balance each other out. He says it just works and not to question
it. Kind of like how no one wants to watch how sausage gets made.

“Why are you just standing there staring at them?” It’s Sutton, Sandra’s
son. We used to be best friends until last summer when he decided it would be a
good idea to date Kerrigan Zanuck – the bane of my existence. “It’s
weird.”

“Why are you here?” I spit. I fold my arms and turn to face him. He’s
sprawled out on our sofa, the screen of his phone illuminating his face. I
don’t know how I didn’t see him there before.

“My mom made me come,” he says with a sigh that tells me he doesn’t want
to be there.

I casually run my hand along the length of a curled tendril. “You
grounded or something?”

“Yep.” He rolls over to his stomach and fires off a text. The fact that
he won’t look at me is a red-hot burn under my warm, caramel skin. We used to
be best friends. I used to love him.

Scratch that – I still love him. For some insane reason I can’t
comprehend, I’m still carrying a torch for him. Nobody said love was easy,
especially young love propelled by hormones, fueled with rumors, and magnified
by the human instinct that makes us want the things we think we shouldn’t have.

I’ll die before I ever tell him that.

“Kindly remove your shoes from our sofa.” I’m picking. I want to pick at
him. I want to dig and nag and annoy, and perhaps I’m sort of doing it to test
him.

He sits up, sliding his legs across the pale, gray-beige Belgian linen
my mother’s decorator had so lovingly picked out for our family room. “There.
Happy?”

I nod, though he doesn’t see. His face is still buried in his phone.

“What’s wrong,
Lauryn
? Just say it. Whatever
you’re thinking right now, just
say
it. Stop standing
there fidgeting and burning holes into the back of my head with that fucking
scowl on your face.” He places his phone on the reclaimed wood coffee table
next to a book about Marilyn Monroe, leans back into the cushions, and twists
around to face me. Now that I have his full attention, I’m not quite sure what
to do with it.

“I don’t miss you,” I fib. “For the record. I don’t.”

His golden eyes flash, holding my stare for far too long before
releasing me. “Aw,
Lauryn
. Sure you do.”

He rises from the sofa and steps carefully toward me. My arms are still
crossed, as if I’m protecting something.
My heart, perhaps?
My dignity? My self-control?

“I’ve missed you.” He’s encroaching into my territory. I can smell him.
He’s wearing the cologne I picked out for him two summers ago during a lazy
Saturday trip to the mall. I close my eyes and breathe him in, willing myself
not to enjoy it. It’s no use. I inhale him like the oxygen I need to survive.
“I’m not afraid to admit it, unlike you.”

I open my eyes. Our body heats mix and swirl before evaporating into
nothing. My heart gallops, and I receive it in my ears as it blends with a
swishing sound.

“The ship has sailed, Sutton.” I step away, inching toward the open
bannister that surrounds the stairs that lead to my wing of the house. “You
could’ve had me last year.”

“Apparently, you didn’t make that abundantly clear because I thought you
were just being a cock tease.”

“Cock tease?” My mouth hangs open in disgust.

“Fuck,
Lauryn
.” His head tilts back before
snapping forward. “You flirted with me all summer. We spent every single day
together. And the second we started fooling around in the pool, you ran off
crying like some schoolgirl on a playground. Then you refused to take my calls.
What the fuck was I supposed to do?”

“Not run off and hook up with Kerrigan Zanuck.”

“It didn’t happen quite like that,
Lauryn
.
You’re making it sound worse than what it was.”

“Maybe you should’ve tried harder.” I unfold my arms and step back. He
comes toward me, closing the space between us again. “Maybe I was scared.”

“Scared of what?” He doesn’t get it. “We’ve been best friends since
before we could walk. You’ve known me your whole life. What’s there to be
scared about?”

“I don’t know.” Lie. I was afraid of falling for him. Getting hurt. And
I was afraid of losing the best friend I’d ever had. It all happened anyway.

Sutton’s hand reaches for my hip, and he pulls me into him. He towers
over me even at seventeen, and I’m quite certain he’s been hitting the school
gym hard since our year of estrangement. Junior year was lonely without him,
but my hurt ran deep enough that it overrode the pain of not being able to pick
up a phone and call him.

I never should’ve run off that night.

We were in the pool, salt water
lapping over our skin as he picked me up and wrapped my legs around his waist.
He carried me to the grotto, kissing me hard as we ducked under the waterfall.

We’d broken into my father’s liquor
stash, and I was quite positive the only reason Sutton Pierce was kissing me
was because he was drunk and horny, like a typical teenage boy.

With hormones running wild and free,
I untied my bikini top and pressed my skin against his, tasting the rum on his
tongue as tingles of excitement ran rampant through every part of me.

Sutton’s palm slid along my thighs
until his fingers took a detour, untying my bottoms. Tracing his hand between
my thighs, my body jolted and stiffened when his fingers found my most
sensitive area.

Sutton Pierce, the boy who used to
chase me with frogs, the boy who took family vacations with us to Aspen and the
Hamptons, the boy who threw sand in my bed and pulled on my pig tails, was
becoming a grown man with the power to own my body and soul with a single,
solitary kiss.

His fingers slipped inside me, my
body clenching around them as my breath halted.

“Relax,” he whispered between
kisses. “I’m going to make you feel amazing,
Lauryn
.
Trust me.”

My thoughts scattered like leaves to
the wind.

What if he doesn’t mean it?

What if he’s just doing this because
he’s horny and that’s what guys do?

What if things get weird between us
and he never talks to me again after this?

My body tensed harder, going to war
with my brain, which refused to shut off and enjoy the ride.

His mouth lowered to my breasts,
taking a single nipple in his mouth and grazing his teeth across it as his free
hand massaged my opposite breast with the kind of experienced touch a man much
older than Sutton might have had.

Something hard brushed against the
underside of my thigh. Sutton had a hard-on.
For me.
I
turned him on. Me. He wanted to fuck me.

Our dynamic was shifting faster than
I could comprehend. Confusion swirled inside me as my body and mind went to
war. Sutton was the only thing that ever mattered to me, and giving myself to
him was going to change everything.

“Stop. I can’t. I…”I pushed off of
him and plucked my bikini pieces from the water before swimming to the ledge
and climbing out. I ran inside, leaving a trail of wet footprints. The house
froze my skin the second I flew through the sliding doors, and I bolted up to
my room before our housekeeper could catch me. From behind the curtain of my
bedroom window, I watched as Sutton climbed out of the pool and dried off. He
shook his head, and his lips moved as if he were muttering something under his
breath. He entered the house after that and five minutes later, he squealed out
of our circle drive, disappearing over the hill in his jet black Range Rover.

I tossed and turned all night long,
replaying every tantalizing touch, every ill-intentioned glance that had led up
to that moment in the pool. My body scolded me for not fucking the shit out of
Sutton Pierce when I had the chance, but my mind assured me I did the right
thing.

I ignored his call the next morning,
unsure of what to say. I’d hoped that after a few more days passing, we could
pretend like it never happened and things would get back to normal.

And then I saw a picture in his
newsfeed. Kerrigan Zanuck, my arch nemesis, posted a selfie of the two of them
kissing and tagged him in it.

“That fucking asshole.” I threw my
phone across the room, not giving a fuck when it skidded across the carpet and
slammed against the wall.

 
Of all the people in the world he could
use to get me back, he used her?

Unforgivable!

“I think you do know what you were scared of, you just don’t want to say
it,” Sutton says, snapping me back to the present moment. “They say the truth
can set you free,
Lauryn
. You should try it
sometime.”

Replaying last summer in my head sends me into an instant state of
resentment all over again. I stare down at the floor, jamming my toe into the
wide-planked wood floor. “I was worried things would change between us.”

He furrows his dark brows. “Yeah,
Lauryn
. They
would’ve changed for the better. But you ran off and everything changed anyway
so…”

He steps away, releasing me and tossing his hands in the air.

“I know.” I shake my head. I miss him terribly, and the only way I’ll
ever get him back into my life is if I swallow my pride. “Can we try again?”

He bends his head to the side. “We’re going off to college in a year.
You’re going to Pepperdine, and I’m going east. Why start anything now?”

“I mean, as friends,” I say. I’ll settle for just being friends if it
means having him in my life again. Young love is all kinds of complicated, and
this is just par for the course.

Sutton’s face softens, his golden eyes locking into mine. “Yeah,
Lauryn
. We can be friends again. I can’t promise I won’t be
thinking dirty things about you all summer, but we can be friends.”

His words send my heart into a tailspin as a slow burn reaches my core.
He’s going to try to fuck me this summer, and I just might let him this time.
He’s my best friend, I love him, and nothing will ever change that.

Present

“You can just set that there.” A humid breeze rustles past as the sun
falls in the western sky. The table is set up on my balcony. A white
cloth
. Candles. Our dinners professionally cooked and being
kept warm by metal cloches. A young man from a catering company lights the
candles and flits off to grab his things and leave.

A knock on the door five minutes later tells me that my
dear stepsister
has finally arrived. My
heart knocks in my chest. She was cute in high school. All the guys wanted her.
But college and young adulthood have magnified that. She seems to have stepped
into her skin a little more, wearing it like a finely tailored coat.
Finally comfortable with being attractive.

“You’re early,” I say as I pull the door open. She brushes past me just
as the catering guy is rushing out the door. She’s taking in my apartment,
soaking in every square inch of industrial loft ceilings, stained concrete
flooring, and reclaimed oak furniture. Her face is frozen. I’m not sure if she
likes what she sees, though I’m not sure that I care. I didn’t decorate the
place, some schmuck from Restoration Hardware did.

“You had this catered?” She scrunches her face at me as if I’ve
committed some atrocious crime.
Lauryn
glides across
the room toward the balcony, tugging the door open with all her might.

“I don’t cook.” I shut the door before following her outside.

She leans against the balcony railing, peering toward the night traffic
below. Cascades of ebony curls spill down her shoulders and swirl around her
face, framing the smile she’s trying to fight. “Why are you treating this like
some special occasion?”

“Because it
is
a special
occasion.” I stand back, watching her. I’m in a trance. Mesmerized really.
“I’ve waited a long time to see you again.”

Every part of that final summer we shared is forever engrained in my
memory. I replay those days sometimes, when I can’t sleep or when I have a
rough day at the hospital. They make me happy. Mostly. Everything about that
summer was magical right up until the very end.

Lauryn
spins to face me and rolls her dark eyes, biting away a
smile as she takes a seat. She lifts the cover and sets it aside as I retrieve
a chilled bottle of
Moscato
and pour her a glass.

She’s wearing skintight jeans and a white sleeveless blouse that flows
when she moves. She changed before coming over. A gentle breeze carries the
scent of her gardenia perfume across the table. It’s same one she wore back in
high school. Marc Jacobs or some shit like that.

She still cares. She
totally fucking
cares.

“How are you liking Miami so far?” I slice a piece of filet mignon and
fork it, waiting until she responds before bringing it to my mouth.

“I hate it.” She takes a bite of the grilled balsamic chicken I had made
especially for her. She had an obsession with balsamic vinegar back in the day,
pouring it over her salads, veggies, and meats like it was common table salt.
She chews slowly, and I catch her closing her eyes for a brief moment as if
she’s enjoying it. “I’m moving the first chance I get.”

“Aw, it’s not that bad.” I slice another chunk of steak.

“I thought it’d feel like vacation.” She bats away a bug that flies over
her plate. “So far it’s just really, really hot. And humid.” She lifts her dark
hair off her neck, and I swear it’s swollen in size since she got here.

“You’ll get used to it.”
My
 
is
heavy, coating her with the
weight of my thoughts. “I’d love to show you around sometime. Show you all the
city has to offer.”

She takes a sip of wine. “No matter. I’m moving to New York the first
chance I get.”

“New York? What’s in New York?”

“James.” She takes another sip. Her wine is dwindling, and I refill it
without so much as asking. I know she needs it.

“Of course.” I resist the urge to roll my eyes.

Fucking James.

“He works in New York,” she explains, not that I asked. “I’m just
waiting for an opening in his region and then I’m gone.”

We finish our dinner in silence, polishing off the bottle of wine. She
avoids my stare like the plague, which leads me to believe it has the power to
dismantle the hard exterior she puts on around me.

“You’re fucking gorgeous, you know that?” I can’t think of a better way
to break an awkward silence than to hurl an unexpected compliment her way. “You
were always pretty,
Lauryn
.
But
now?
Seeing you all grown up?”

I don’t finish my thought out loud; instead I bask in her beauty and get
lost inside my head for a moment.
Lauryn
is a
multicultural beauty. She’s all curves and edges. Perfection harvested from the
best of both worlds. Her legs are long and shapely and her shoulders pull back
just enough to make her chest rise and fall a bit when she sighs. The
cupid’s
bow shape of her full upper lip, the one I used to
devour that summer after high school, is still beautifully arched and defined.
Her nose points narrowly, and her almond eyes are hooded with long, dark lashes.

Lauryn
shifts in her seat, standing up as if she needs a break
from the heat of my stare. She ambles over toward the balcony ledge, staring
down. The sky is pitch black now, lit up by a few hard-to-see stars and the
lights of downtown Miami.

“You can learn to love it if you try hard enough.” I step beside her and
plant my elbows on the railing.

“It’s not about the city.” She sighs.

“Is it because I’m here?” I’ve never been good at beating around the
bush. Some say it’s a weakness. I say it’s my greatest strength.

“No.” She’s lying. I know she is. “How’s your mom?”

I see through
Lauryn
like glass. She’s not
asking about my mom at all. She’s asking about her dad. And it’s not because
she cares either. She wrote him off along with me that summer. But she’s always
been one to let curiosity get the best of her. Some things never change.

“You’re not missing anything.” I pull in a sharp breath and hang my
head. “He’s still an asshole if it makes you feel better, I’m pretty sure he’s
been fucking around on Mom since…”

I don’t finish my sentence. I don’t have to.

“Why would that make me feel better?” she fires back. Her chocolate eyes
are darker than ever, maybe intensified by years of resentment.

“I don’t know. Justice?”

I’ve tried to imagine what justice might mean to
Lauryn
and her mom. To
Lauryn
, finding out a woman, who was
essentially her second mom, had destroyed her
family
as she knew it was nothing short of traumatic. To her mother, finding out her
best friend of twenty years was sleeping with her husband, and that they were
going to run off together and get married, was earth shattering.

“Shutting me out was never the answer.” My voice is low, rumbling deep
in my chest. She’s angry with me, but I’m angry too. We deal with our anger in
different ways though. She likes to shut people out. I like to face my problems
head on.

“You knew.” Her words are guttural. “You knew all along. You knew it was
going on for years, Sutton, and you never said anything. You could’ve stopped
it. You could’ve at least warned us.”

“I was just a kid,” I say, silently recalling how I’d walked in on her
dad fucking my mom across the back of a poker table one Tuesday afternoon. When
I tried to confront him about it on his way out of our house that night, he
socked me across the face and told me he’d rip my dick off if I so much as
breathed a word about it to anyone else. If the shiner wasn’t enough, he also
threatened to ban me from ever seeing
Lauryn
again.
That was worse than any kind of physical pain he could’ve inflicted. The affair
continued for years. “If I could go back,
Lauryn
, I’d
have said something. I’d have warned you both so you didn’t find out the way
you did.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
Lauryn
leans away from the balcony and eyes the inside of my apartment. “I should go.”

“You just got here.”

“I have to be up early tomorrow.”

“Bullshit.”

Her full lips form a perfect circle, and her arms cross as she pushes
past me.

“Why’d you come here?” I chase after her. “You still hate me so much,
why’d you come over for dinner?”

“Because you wouldn’t let it go.” She stops dead and turns to face me. Her
arms are still crossed, and her face is flushing.

“You’re lying,
Lauryn
.” I invade her space,
closing the gap between us. I reach for her soft face, cupping it in my right
hand. “You still miss me. You still care. And it kills you.”

She won’t look me in the eyes.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” I add. I run my thumb along her bottom
lip before releasing her. “I can’t force you to be a part of my life. I can’t
make you forgive me. Shit, the person you need to forgive is your father, but
we all know that’s not going to happen. But it’s fine. You can direct your
anger at me. I can take it.”

“I don’t want to talk about this.” She twists away, reaching for her bag
by the console table next to the door. “Goodbye,
Sut
.”

Sut
. She called me
Sut
.

My lips curl as she slams the door behind her. “She
still
fucking
cares.”