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

by Hunter Rose

  We climb to the top floor of the building and show our student IDs before walking out into the chaotic room. Students and professors shuffle among various stations, trying to decide what to eat that afternoon. There are some who know exactly what they want and make a beeline for it. They are likely the ones with food restrictions or habits that mean they only eat from one small place within the abundance of options. The others wander, looking at the menu boards, peering into display cases and buffets.

  I’m somewhere in the middle. I know the places that have the most food I enjoy, and the ones with the shortest lines. Sometimes there has to be a compromise. I might not get the burger I was really eyeing, but I won’t have to stand in a line and wait for forty-five minutes. But on the other hand, sometimes that wait is really worth it.

  Today is a day I don’t want to wait. Isaiah put me on edge, and now I don’t have the patience. I weave through the crowd and head directly to the salad bar in the back corner. Isaiah doesn’t do a good job of concealing his disappointment. He’s one of those people who likes to say things like ‘it’s not really a meal unless there’s meat on the plate’ or ‘why would anyone want to eat vegetables?’

  There was a time when I thought that was charming. It was just his way of being funny. Now it grates on me. It’s a shift that came with coming to college like he should suddenly care about what he eats and be responsible for his health. At least he does eat the salads rather than just pushing it around the plate with his fork.

  We fill our plates and go to sit at the same table we get nearly every time we come here. It’s a comfortable rhythm that already feels set in place even though we’ve only been on campus for a few months. I sprinkle sunflower seeds from a little bowl to the side of my plate over my pile of greens and take a mouthful. Isaiah mixes the large amount of Thousand Island dressing he poured onto his salad and tops it with a mound of croutons. I have to admit; it looks tasty. After gorging on bowling alley fries, though, it seems like a better idea to stick with my greens and vinaigrette at least until I make amends with the part of me that says I should be caring about what I eat and being responsible for my health.

  “How many exams do you have left?” he asks.

  “Just one,” I tell him. “Tomorrow morning.”

  “That’s what I thought. Good, so we can get a head start back home. I can pick you up right after your exam, and we can hit the road,” he says.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  It really does. I haven’t been back home since moving here for school, but I’m not missing a holiday season with my parents. Since Isaiah is going home for the break, too, we decided to ride together.

  My phone buzzes on the table, and I pick it up, glance at the screen, and put it back down. Isaiah looks at me with expectation. I take a few more bites of the salad, and he leans toward me, raising his eyebrows.

  “What?” I ask.

  “You aren’t going to answer it? Who is it?” he asks.

  “It’s just my project partner for history class. Sending me some notes about what we’ve been working on,” I tell him. I hope it’s enough to gloss over the situation, so we don’t have to dwell on it.

  I hate feeling like I’m lying to him by not telling him about Talon, but it would serve no real purpose. Besides, we’ve already been through the drama of me pushing back against him, telling me what to do. I don’t want to revisit that.

  When my phone buzzes again, he snatches it up.

  “Eager, don’t you think?” he mutters. “Can’t leave you alone even though you’re eating.”

  “How could he possibly know I’m eating?” I ask.

  “Him?”

  “Yes. My project partner is a guy. We do go to a co-educational school, you know.”

  He swipes his fingers across the screen to bring up the most recent message, and his mouth drops into a deep frown.

  “Talon? That’s your history project partner?” he frowns.

  “Yes,” I answer.

  “And you didn’t think to tell me?” he asks.

  “Why would it have mattered? It doesn’t make any difference whether it’s him working with me on my project, or any of the other guys in the class.”

  “Because it’s him,” he says.

  “It’s nothing,” I reassure him. “It’s not like that at all. We didn’t know the other one was going to be in that class. The professor assigned the project, and we ended up partners. We’re both just trying to get the best grades we possibly can, and we happen to be on equal footing in our intelligence and drive in history. It’s nothing. Really.”

  I run my hand along his cheek and tilt my head to look into his eyes. He finally relents.

  “Alright. Now, let’s talk about our road trip playlist.”

  35

  Wren

  Second semester …

  “Did you send a fruit cake to my aunt?”

  The question is the first thing I hear when I walk back into my dorm room after Christmas break. I look in and see Talon lounging on my bed, one arm bent under his head and the other holding a holiday-themed tin on his chest.

  “Maybe,” I shrug. “Why?”

  “I don’t know why you would do something like that, either,” he says. “I really thought I meant more to you than that.”

  I laugh and drop my bags at the end of the bed. I’ll unpack later. The drive back was draining, and I just don’t feel like doing it yet. Talon moves his legs out of the way so I can plop down onto the bed beside him. I drop my head back against the wall, then swing it in his direction, so I can stare at him.

  “Tell your aunt I apologize for the fruit cake assault against her,” I say.

  “Don’t apologize to her. Apologize to me. She stuffed it into my luggage when I wasn’t looking, and I didn’t know it was there until I was going through security at the airport, and they stopped me.”

  I laugh. “And yet, you appear to have it with you now. Is it safe to assume the TSA had a change of heart about confiscating your holiday baked goods?”

  “Unfortunately, all they did was open it, wave a wand over it to make sure it wasn’t embedded with blades or drugs or anything, and then stuff it back in my bag. I’m considering reporting it as a betrayal against me as a consumer,” he says.

  I laugh again. “I’m sorry to have caused a holiday calamity. My mother and I bake fruit cakes every year, and I thought she might like one.”

  His eyes widen just slightly. It’s barely enough to notice, but it draws my attention.

  “You made this?” he asks.

  “Yep. Well, my mother did. It’s one of our Christmas traditions. This is the first year in my life that I remember when I didn’t actually have a part of starting them. Mom and I start in October and actually make the cakes and get them soaking in brandy. Then we wrap them and continuously re-soak them throughout the months. I have always been there to make them with her, but this year I was still on campus and had a lot of hard projects and tests coming up, so I didn’t head home for a weekend in order to do the initial baking. But I did do the last soak of brandy and sealed it with glaze myself.“

  He picks up the tin and looks at it, twisting it from side to side, re-evaluating it according to this new information. Finally, he shook his head.

  “Usually, I would be willing to change my mind because you had something to do with it, but it’s still fruit cake,” he says.

  The comment makes me smile, and my heart fill unexpectedly. Then the oddness of him being in my room settles over me.

  “How did you get in here?” I ask.

  “I have my ways,” he answers.

  “Ah. Mysterious and slightly creepy. Really, how did you get in here?”

  He sets the tin aside and pulls up into a seated position. “When I want something, I have my ways of making it happen.”

  I decide to just let that pass. It’s causing too strong a reaction, and I already have far too much on my mind.

  “How was your Christmas break? I wa
s expecting to get to see you at least some.”

  A smile flickers on his lips. “Miss me?”

  “You live next door to me. It was a safe assumption.”

  “Ah. Well, since Bree and I are the only ones around to celebrate the holidays with, we decided this year we were going to do things a little differently. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to do the whole put presents under the tree and be all surprised Christmas morning thing. So, we traveled instead. We went skiing and then on a cruise. It was a gift from my father,” he tells me.

  “Oh. That was surprisingly nice of him,” I comment.

  “He doesn’t know about it. I should probably say it was a gift from my father’s bank account. If there’s one thing in this world my father understands, it’s money. It’s how he communicates. It’s also the only thing he knows how to use to connect to other people in any way. So, he figures as his son; he should give me a regularly replenished bank account. But since he knows absolutely nothing about my life or what I might use the money for, he made it so I can funnel more money into my account if I run out before it’s time to get my new monthly allowance,” he explains.

  “So, essentially, it’s like the people who parent their children by shoving a phone or tablet in their hands and letting them watch whatever they want or play those obnoxious games. Only he’s amusing you with unlimited funds,” I say.

  “A more withering analysis than I might immediately jump to, but yes, that’s pretty much the crux of it.”

  “I did, by the way,” I say.

  “Did what?” he asks.

  “Miss you.”

  I didn’t really intend to just come right out and say that, but I can’t pretend I didn’t. He stares at me for just too long, his eyes burning into mine in the way he so often does. It’s been the way he’s looked at me since we first met. Staring for just too long, holding me in place so I feel like I can’t move away. Finally, he gives a single nod.

  “I missed seeing you, too.”

  It’s not quite the same thing, but I don’t know if he even realizes that. To him, it might be the same. On the other hand, he might be fully aware of the differentiation and absolutely mean it.

  “Well, it’s a brand new semester. No more history class together. It’s not like we’re going to see each other much, even though we’re back on campus.”

  I don’t know why I say it. What was the point of that? I’m just setting myself up for him to say something cruel or to embarrass me. I’ve never been so flaky. Talon just seems to bring a desperation out in me I didn’t know existed. And wish didn’t.

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  It means nothing and everything at the same time. And it makes me squirm. Those words shouldn’t make me feel like this.

  “You are,” I smile.

  “How was your Christmas?” he asks.

  I draw in a breath. “It was... interesting.”

  He gives me a strange face. “That’s never a good answer. It’s like on that awful cooking show you like. Any time the judges taste something terrible, they put their fork down and say it’s ‘interesting’. Kiss of death.”

  I laugh. “Well, I wouldn’t necessarily call it the kiss of death, but it wasn’t what I expected.”

  “Got a weird gift?” he asks.

  “Got a proposal,” I answer.

  His face drops. Part of me expected him to laugh. I thought he’d make fun of me, or at the very least, make a scathing evaluation of relationships at all, let alone marriage. Instead, his eyebrows knit together, and his breath seems to get a little faster.

  “Isaiah asked you to marry him?” he asks.

  “Yes. Well… sort of.”

  “How do you sort of ask somebody to marry you? That’s a fairly straight forward question. Either you ask them, or you don’t.”

  “I mean, it was his intention. He was definitely going in that direction. I just didn’t let him finish,” I explain.

  “How did you not let him finish?” Talon asks.

  “We have a tradition of going out to look at Christmas lights the week of Christmas. We’ve been doing it for years. So, we had our hot chocolate and our matching Christmas sweaters… “

  “I really don’t need the Hallmark Christmas marathon paint by numbers visual of this whole occasion,” he interrupts in a murky tone.

  My cheeks burn, and I nod. “Sorry. Well, we went out to look at the lights and were walking around. He started talking about our future and how he’s always known I was the girl for him, and we were going to have such an amazing life together. He went back to saying he knew we planned on waiting until after college, but that was so long away. I knew what he was getting at. We walked up to this arch of lights one of our neighbors puts over a walkway leading around the display in their yard, and he stopped under it. There was mistletoe.”

  “We’re drifting again.”

  “I’m sorry. So, he said he wanted to make this Christmas the most magical we ever shared together, and for next Christmas to be a whole new adventure. Then he reached in his pocket.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  My stomach flutters and feels faintly sick, just remembering that moment. Even in the sharp cold winter air that night, my face burned, and I felt overheated. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think straight. We’d talked about it before, in good contexts and in bad, but this was just too much. Too real.

  “What did you do?” Talon asks.

  “I suddenly got extremely delighted by the Charlie Brown display and ran over to it to hug Snoopy,” I tell him.

  His lips twitch. He’s trying to control himself, but it’s not working out for him. Finally, he lets himself laugh.

  “You ran away from an almost-proposal to hug an illuminated cartoon dog?”

  “Snoopy is a Christmas classic and beloved by everyone.” I sigh. “Especially the people in our neighborhood who have seen that same exact display for the last fifteen years.”

  He laughs again. “I mean, I did kind of have hopes of you just leaving him on one knee with a string quartet behind him or something, but that’s pretty amazing, too.”

  “It wasn’t funny,” I say. “It was awful. It’s still awful.”

  My fingers dig into my hair and comb back to grip the back of my head as I let out another deep sigh.

  “I’m sorry. How did he take it? Getting broken up with over Christmas has to suck for anyone.”

  I look at him strangely. “We didn’t break up.”

  His eyebrows pull together even more tightly. “What? You stopped the man from proposing to you by literally running away from him. I’d say that is the kiss of death.”

  I shake my head. “No. I mean, it was awkward, obviously. It completely threw him off. But I just kept up with being thrilled by the lights and didn’t give him a chance to say much else until he dropped me back off that night. By then, I guess the moment had pretty much passed, and he didn’t mention it again. On our drive back here, he started talking about Boston again. Not in any way like asking me to move there, but it’s definitely still what he’s thinking. I think he figures he came here with the intention of going to school here for just one year to do his general education courses. Then we were going to ship off to Boston. Compromise and the whole thing.”

  “That’s not a compromise,” Talon says. It’s not the first time he’s said that to me. The intensity in his eyes says he feels just as strongly about it now as he did the first time he heard about Isaiah’s quest to make me follow him instead of choosing my own college.

  “Well, he has to make his intentions known to Harvard soon. If he’s going to take advantage of his acceptance and go there next year, he has to do it within the next few weeks. He has to start making firm plans,” I explain.

  “Then let him make those plans and go wallow in all the beans his heart desires. That doesn’t mean you have to tie yourself to him and go along,” he says.

  “I didn’t tell him I’d go,” I point out.


  “But you didn’t tell him you wouldn’t, either,” Talon says.

  I shake my head. An unexpected tear wells in the corner of my eye. I try to blink it away, but it slips down my cheek to my lips. Talon slides closer to me across the bed and reaches out to brush the pad of his thumb across them.

  “I hate feeling like this,” I whisper. “It’s like I’m fighting against the life I’ve always wanted. Doesn’t that make me selfish? For years, I’ve had the exact same plan. I built myself, Isaiah, our families up for something, and now that it’s in front of me, I’m shoving it away? I’m only thinking about myself, and that’s not me. It’s not the kind of person I am.”

  “No, it’s not. But it might be the kind of person you should be. Life shouldn’t be an obligation, Little Bird. It doesn’t matter what they’ve thought or what you might have planned five years ago, a year ago, six months ago, even a day ago. They don’t own you. Your life is yours. Not anyone else’s. What you want for yourself doesn’t have to rely on anyone else, and you shouldn’t ever feel like you have to give up any part of yourself to please other people.”

  I feel like he means something different than the words he’s saying. I shake my head.

  “It doesn’t always work like that, Talon.”

  We stare at each other intensely before I can’t take it anymore and look away. Talon slides to the edge of the bed and stands up. He reaches for his coat, where it’s hanging from the back of my desk chair.

  “You’re leaving?” I ask.

  “I’m hungry. Onions and olives work for you?”

  “What? Ew. Just by itself?”

  “On a pizza, Wren.”

  Relief floods me. This conversation took a much too heavy turn, and I don’t want to think about it anymore. Not right now. I nod, and Talon walks out of the room. My head falls back against the wall again as his words flow through my mind again. They sit on my chest and burn along the back of my neck. I think I know what he meant, but they came across very different. It’s the two meanings that tangle inside me and stop me from knowing what to think, or where my feelings really lie.