by Penny Wylder
Bad Boy Hero
Penny Wylder
Contents
More Must Reads by Penny Wylder
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
More Must Reads by Penny Wylder
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1
The morning the letter comes is one of the worst days of my life. I spent the entire night at the bar, even though my shift was supposed to finish at 1am. I had to clean up after a bar fight spiraled out of control and wound up crashing into the shelving. It broke nearly every glass behind the bar—and my manager threatened to take it out of my tips unless I helped him clean up the whole place.
I trudge home in the predawn light, aching from the crown of my head all the way down to my toes, just wishing for a different life entirely. An easier life. The kind of life all my friends have. When we graduated from high school together two months ago, most of them signed on to similar summer jobs as me. Jobs in food delivery, Uber driving, gig work, anything they could find—but for them, unlike for me, it was just temporary. After this summer ends, they all have colleges to attend. Big, fancy, elite universities, either nearby in Boston or in big cities further down the coast in New York or Philadelphia.
Everyone I know is moving on with their lives.
Everyone but me.
Even though I have an acceptance letter from Tanglewood University sitting upstairs in my desk drawer… I can’t take them up on it. I’ve crunched the numbers over and over, but there’s just no possible way. Not with the crazy tuition costs. I can take out some loans, but to cover the cost of a private university like Tanglewood, I’d be putting myself into debt I’d never climb out of. Not even by the time I’m 50 years old, and by then, I hope to have a family of my own to support.
Besides, with how tight money has been at home, for my mom and my younger brother… it just makes more sense if I skip college. I can work at the bar like I’ve been doing, maybe work my way up to managing a nightclub or a nice restaurant in downtown Boston eventually. You can make decent money off of tips that way. And I can support my mom, maybe even pay toward my little brother’s college fund.
Jake can go to college one day. Bear that flag for our family. But for me… the ship has sailed.
I need to get used to nights like tonight.
I shove open the front door of our house, so tired that it took me three tries just to fit the key into the lock. My muscles scream for release, my whole body just one throbbing ache by now. But before I allow myself to head upstairs, I stop by the mailbox to scoop out the contents and sort through it, depositing Mom’s heap of bills next to brochures for various colleges for Jake and me. Colleges I’ll never be able to afford.
But right at the bottom of the stack is a letter that makes me freeze in my tracks. It’s addressed to me, and the return address is Tanglewood University. It’s in the fancy traditional letterhead that they use for all official communications. I recognize it from my acceptance letter, which I received nearly six months ago now.
I can still remember the excited swoop in my stomach when it first arrived. The way it felt like I was sailing over the edge of a roller coaster, reading those words.
Congratulations, you have been accepted…
But before long, the roller coaster slammed down to the bottom of the tracks, and my swooping excitement turned to nausea as reality hit me. I couldn’t accept. Not really. It was nice to daydream about, but…
Still, I pause in the hallway, waylaid by that letterhead. That font. By all the memories of what could have been. The daydreams about college that I’d had through high school life, even though Mom always warned me it would be tricky.
I try to remind myself of my practical solution. I can enroll next year at the local community college. Maybe a two-year program, something easy, like business or restaurant management. Something that will work with my hectic schedule at the bar, and allow me to use all the work experience I’m building up toward some kind of associate’s degree.
I tell myself to think about that backup plan as I slit the envelope open, dropping my keys onto the side table and tugging the door shut behind me before I unfold the letter inside. I do my best to prepare myself for disappointment. I’m expecting some kind of note about how they didn’t hear from me regarding whether I accepted my admission, so they’ll have to ask me not to attend after all.
It’s fine. No matter what this letter says, you’re going to be fine.
But then I actually read the header. And my stomach drops like I’m right back on that roller coaster all over again. Because whatever I’d expected to read in this letter, it’s not this.
Dear Ms. Lake
We have not yet heard from you regarding your acceptance of our offer to study at Tanglewood University. However, upon further review of your academic credentials, as well as new reference letters we have received from several of your teachers at Noland High, we would like to extend an additional offer to you.
We can offer you a partial scholarship to Tanglewood which will cover 50% of all your tuition costs, as well as provide a $1000 per semester stipend for books, living expenses and any additional supplies.
In addition, we would offer you placement in our freshman year dormitory. If this offer is acceptable, please call our admissions office at…
Sincerely signed by Chancellor Alistair Kross, and a bunch of phone numbers for different questions. My eyes have blurred by now, half from sheer exhaustion and half from the tears that suddenly fill my eyes so much I can hardly squint through them.
Oh my God. “Oh my God.” I don’t realize I’m shouting until I hear a disgruntled thumping and groaning upstairs, and Mom’s voice floating down the steps.
“Honey? Is that you?”
“Mom!” I shout, before I think better of it—before I remember what time it is, and the fact that Mom will have been up late at her own job, working behind the counter of the gas station down the road. That, coupled with how tired she gets lately, whenever her autoimmune deficiency is acting up, well… I should know better. But I’m too excited.
I fly upstairs, taking the steps two at a time, and burst through her bedroom door, unable to contain it. “Mom! I can go!” I’m waving the letter like some kind of flag, and she’s staring at me, bleary-eyed and half awake.
“You’re going to wake the whole neighborhood,” she grumbles. “Go where, Missy, what are you talking about?”
“Look!” I shove the letter under her nose, too excited to explain it. I might also be reaching that point of exhaustion where I’m giddy from lack of sleep. It’s the closest to feeling drunk I’ve ever been. Despite working in a bar nearly every night—or maybe because of that, because I see how hard alcohol hits people, and all the crazy shit it makes people do under its influence—I rarely drink. The few times I have, I’ve never had more than one drink, and all it did was give me a slight buzz.
I imagine, though, if I did get drunk, it would feel like this high right now.
Mom reads, still squinting. Then she gropes around on her night stand for her reading glasses, shoves them onto her face, and takes another pass, slowly rising from the pillows she’s leaning against while she does.
As for me, I’m actually bouncing now, up onto my toes and back down again in a steady rhythm, unable to tear my eyes from her face.
“Is this…” Mom glances from the letter to me and back again. Her jaw actually drops, the way I’ve only ever seen in movies. “Oh, sweetie. Missy, is this legitimate?”
&n
bsp; I nod, my throat too tight to say anything else.
“Oh, my goodness. Honey, I’m so proud of you.” She opens her arms, and I fling myself into them with another squeal.
“I can’t believe it.” I’m crying, I realize with embarrassment. I can’t remember the last time I cried. Definitely not in years.
Mom hugs me so tightly that I gasp for air, but I don’t mind. A moment later, we hear a shuffle, and a knock at the door.
“What’s going on?” Jake rubs sleep from his eyes, watching the two of us like we’ve lost our minds.
“Get in here!” I yell, beckoning my little brother over, while my mother laughs and struggles to sit up. I’m so happy that even the sight of her slowing down this morning doesn’t faze me. Nothing can, right now.
I lose track of time, hugging, shouting. My brother insists on looking up the Tanglewood University anthem, and blasts it from his phone while he and I dance across our mother’s bed. It’s the highest I’ve ever felt in my entire life.
But the thing I’ll remember most from that morning is later. After the highs wear off, and Mom drags herself out of bed to make us pancakes. “A celebratory breakfast,” she insists. She waits until Jake runs back upstairs to change out of his pajamas, before she takes my hand and squeezes it tightly, to get my attention.
“I want to give you some advice, honey.” Her gaze searches mine, uncharacteristically serious. We have the same wide set blue eyes, she and I. Right now, they look more narrowed than I’ve ever seen them.
“Mom, the rest of the tuition… I can save up for it,” I say. “I’ll take out loans; I’ll make it work.” I’d been planning on that anyway. “And I can keep working part-time while I go.”
She shakes her head. “It’s not that.” She glances from me to the pancakes, and lets go of my hand quickly to flip them, before she meets my eyes again. “Honey, Tanglewood is…” She purses her lips, as if searching for the right words. “It won’t be like Noland.”
Noland, my local public high school. Noland, which isn’t great, but isn’t terrible either. A middle of the road school, one that Mom carefully scoped out. She made sure to save up enough to move us into a suburb in the right school district, where she could scrape together enough for the property taxes and we’d have what she called a fighting chance. Some of my friends at Noland came from middle class families, and others were like our family. Blue-collar workers who just managed to squeak by. There were one or two kids from wealthy families, but they transferred out of public school by sophomore year, sent away to boarding schools or transferred to the wealthy private school nearby.
“It’s a private college, and an exclusive one at that,” Mom is saying. “It’s a lot more....” She pauses, searching for the right word.
“You mean everyone will be rich,” I reply.
“You haven’t been around people like that much.” Mom glances at me. Away again. Like she’s nervous to hold my gaze. “I want you to be careful.”
I laugh a little, not quite sure if she’s serious. “You mean you don’t want me to fall for some wealthy playboy?” I roll my eyes. “No worries there, Mom. You know I’m serious about school. I want my degree, nothing else.”
But she’s already shaking her head again. “It’s not that, Missy.” She sets down her spatula and rounds the counter to take my arm. I can smell the pancake starting to overheat, burn around the edges. But she ignores it and squeezes my wrist. “Be careful. People like that… they don’t take kindly to outsiders. I’m not sure it would be wise to trust the people there with details of your life, honey.”
I blink, taken aback. “But…” My mother has always coached me not to listen to peer pressure or give into the crowd. This seems like the opposite advice.
“I’m not saying lie.” She smiles. It doesn’t reach her eyes. “Just, omit things.” She releases my wrist and pats it once more for good measure. “Pretend you’re one of them, Missy. Before you know it, it’ll be the truth.” Then she rounds the counter again to flip the burning pancake, and I forget all about her warning.
For now, anyway.
2
“Can I take your bag?”
This dorm has an honest to God bellman. I stare at him for a minute, still in a state of dumb shock. The past couple weeks have been a whirlwind. Ever since my scholarship offer letter, I’ve been frantically packing and preparing for this moment, my arrival on Tanglewood’s campus. That and working every spare shift I could possibly pick up at the bar. It’s not nearly enough to last me the whole semester, but I manage to set aside enough to buy a half-decent wardrobe, and all the textbooks I require for my first semester of classes.
I’ll have to figure out something else now that I’m on campus. But my manager, despite being furious at me for quitting just as the fall rush of students into Boston began, understood my dilemma. He’ll give me a great recommendation letter. Which means I should be able to find a new bar gig somewhere near campus once I’m settled in.
All of these thoughts and preoccupations race through my mind while the boy in the Tanglewood University uniform stares at me, confused.
“Oh, sorry.” I glance from him to my luggage and back. I only packed one suitcase and a shoulder bag. It doesn’t seem like much for a whole semester—especially compared to the other kids I’ve passed on campus that are rolling up with moving trucks full of stuff—but it’s not like I could afford to really splurge on fancy dorm room stuff anyway. “Um, sure. Thank you,” I say as he picks up my big suitcase.
I lug the smaller one after him, taking the steps up to my third floor dorm room two at a time.
Tanglewood’s campus looks like something out of a Hollywood set. The picture-perfect college campus: gray stone buildings with dramatic archways everywhere you look, big square courtyards with sparkling fountains in the center, and oak trees all over campus, their leaves just beginning the shift to their fall colors. Bright yellows and oranges catch my eye from the windows I pass, all of which look like they’d belong in a medieval church rather than a freshman year dorm.
My room is equally jaw dropping. I have a whole single to myself, complete with a cute little arched alcove for my desk, and a walk-in closet for my—I am now realizing—embarrassingly small amount of clothes.
“Will there be anything else?” the guy asks, actually bowing.
I glance at his name, embroidered on his jacket. “Err, no thanks, Jason.” He’s about to leave when I hold up a hand to stop him. “Sorry, one question actually. Do you work for Tanglewood, or…?”
His smile tightens around the edges, almost imperceptibly. But if you’ve worked in customer service as long as I have, you learn how to recognize a forced smile when you see one. “No, I’m a student here too,” he says. “I’m on the work-study admission package. They lowered my tuition rate in exchange for me working here on campus.” That fake smile widens. “It’s a great deal, actually. If you’re interested in more information about it—”
“No,” I cut him off, my voice rising a little too high. I clear my throat, get my voice back under control. All the while, my mother’s warning echoes in my head. Pretend you’re one of them. I can see why she told me to, if this is how people who aren’t rich get treated here. Asked to act like bellboys in a hotel lobby escorting the wealthy students home. “Thank you, Jason. I was just curious. But I don’t need the… help.”
“Of course,” he replies, though I notice him do a quick little side-eye to check out my bags before he turns to descend the stairs again.
Judgy, much? I want to bark after him. I hold my tongue, though. I know better than to piss off anyone on my first day. If the people here are as stuck up as Mom warned me, then I have a feeling I might need all the allies I can get.
With a sigh, I finish hauling my second bag into the room and toss it onto my bed. Then I pull open the closet and stick my head inside. It’s almost half the size of the room itself. The whole thing is way bigger than my bedroom at home, which I shared with Jake u
ntil he turned 9 and decided he wanted to build himself a makeshift bed in the upstairs hallway instead.
He still sleeps there, behind a sheet and a curtain of fairy lights. Though, now that I’ve moved out, I wonder if he’ll claim my bedroom for himself.
The thought makes me smile, in spite of myself. I miss him. And Mom. And my friends back at Noland. What I wouldn’t give for just one—any kind of friend right now.
At that moment, someone raps lightly on my door. I jump, startled by the sound, and whirl around to find an impeccably dressed girl leaning against my door, surveying the room. She’s wearing a pressed shirt, and jeans that look like they must have been custom tailored to fit her curves—which, I have to admit, are just as perfect as her outfit.
Next to her, I feel like a scrawny, wrinkled frump.
“I wondered who they were going to put in here.” She catches me staring and smiles, without offering a hand. Do rich people not shake hands, I wonder? “Bette Kross,” she says. “And you are?”
Something about her last name sounds familiar, although I can’t figure out why.
“Missy.” I smile at her, no teeth. Let her wonder about my own last name. If I don’t share it, maybe she’ll just assume I’m from some wealthy, mysterious family. “Pleasure to meet you,” I add, after a moment, when it becomes clear she isn’t about to speak again.
Am I doing this right? I’ve never actually tried to act wealthy, whatever that even means. I’ve served plenty of bougie customers at the bar—a lot of Boston’s elite enjoys slumming it after hours, once they restaurants they frequent close. But that’s one thing. Pretending to be one of them is quite another.
“Going for the Marie Kondo approach, I see?” Bette nods at my bags.
