Once Upon a Bad Boy--A Sometimes in Love Novel

by Melonie Johnson

  “Why did you leave me all alone?”

  Her words punched a hole in his heart. “You weren’t alone.” Bo reached for the bottle. “You had Ana. And all your other friends.”

  “I wasn’t talking about just that night.”

  “Neither was I.” He glanced around at her shiny, fancy apartment. You had your powerful family. Your money. Your luxury cars and expensive homes. Your big college plans. “I realized it was never going to work out between us.”

  “You just came to this conclusion out of the blue that night? On prom night?” Sadie slammed her empty glass on the counter, a slight flush rising in her cheeks. “Something happened that night. After we … after you went to park the car again. Something you’re not telling me.”

  “Let’s just say it became painfully obvious to me that we weren’t right for each other,” Bo ground out. He could still feel the cold bite of the glass pressing into his face as he was smashed against his own windshield. The throbbing pain in his ribs and back as fists pummeled him, over and over and over. “We were too different.”

  “I saw the bruises on your hands, Bo. I saw the blood. What happened?”

  “I was angry.” He shrugged, reaching for the vodka and deciding to go for that next shot. “I punched a wall.”

  “Bullshit. Next you’re going to tell me the wall punched back.” Sadie took the bottle out of his hand and poured herself another healthy splash, following it up with more juice.

  Bo snorted, tossing the drink back. He held his empty glass out to her.

  “I know you were in a fight.” She poured him another shot, then set the bottle down and pinned him with a stare. “What I don’t know is, why?”

  He shifted his gaze, refusing to look at her. The black walnut cabinets lining the back wall of Sadie’s kitchen were polished to such a fucking shine he could see his reflection. Yeah, he’d been in a fight. With a few privileged pricks from Sadie’s school who had taken one look at Bo and found everything they saw lacking. From his hand-me-down shoes to the cheap rented tux to his work-roughened hands.

  The liquor was finally starting to worm its way through his system. Numbing the pain. Dulling the memories. But not erasing them. Bo stared down at his calloused hands, rough as ever. He would never be a guy with smooth hands. Never be like those guys from her world. Bo’s fingers clenched, curling into fists.

  “Yeah, I was in a fight.” Bo spun on his stool to face her. “And you wanna know why?” He leaned closer. “Because those assholes were begging for it.”

  “What assholes?” Sadie frowned.

  “Some pendejos you went to school with. Didn’t like the fact you were slumming it with someone like me.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Don’t play dumb; it doesn’t suit you,” Bo mocked, tone frosty as the chilled vodka in his glass. “You’re not naïve either.” He shifted his gaze to his hands. “They wanted to teach me a lesson. Punish me for daring to lay my dirty hands on you.”

  “Bo, I…” Sadie began, but then stopped. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

  He despised the pity in her voice. He shouldn’t have told her. Bo hated talking about this. Hated the feelings it dredged up. The anger. The resentment. The despair.

  Because deep down, he’d known they were right.

  She reached for his hand, but he jerked it away.

  “Please don’t do this again,” she begged.

  “Do what again?”

  “Pull away from me.” She looked up at him. “What those guys did to you, it was horrible.” Her voice took on a hard edge, accusation sparking in her violet eyes. “But you should have told me, not walked away from me.”

  His temper flared. “They wanted to fuck me up for the simple fact I was fucking you!” The words exploded out of him. Sadie flinched, but Bo wasn’t going to let her back away from this. Not after she’d reopened the wound. “Do you have any idea how that feels?”

  “Do you have any idea how it feels to know that all it took was a couple of dickhead rich boys for you to kill what we had together?” Her cheeks were flushed, face hot with anger.

  “That fight was the final nail in the coffin.” Bo shook his head. “But it had been building for a while. I had plenty of other reasons.”

  “Like what?”

  Bo rubbed a hand over his face. “Do you remember that summer I had a concussion?”

  “Of course I do.” She looked up at him from her drink in surprise, eyes wary. “I came to visit you every day. You weren’t allowed to do anything. No books, no TV, no video games.”

  “I know,” Bo muttered. “Rogue is still one of my favorite stallions, even if the asshole did kick me in the head.”

  “I can’t believe it happened in the first place.” Some of the tension went out of her and she poured another vodka cranberry, topping off his glass with a generous dollop of vodka as well. “I mean, I know horses can be unpredictable, but you always had a sixth sense about that stuff.”

  “I wasn’t thinking.” Bo raised his glass, watching Sadie. “I’d kissed this beautiful girl for the first time a few days before, you see, and had been walking around like someone who’d had his brains scrambled.” He tossed the shot back. “Maybe that kick to the head helped knock everything back in place.”

  “Maybe,” Sadie agreed drily.

  Bo blinked, brain pleasantly fuzzy now. “You read me these stories. About gods and goddesses.”

  “Mm-hmm. The Greek myths. It was my summer reading assignment that year…” She paused, nose scrunching. “I thought you couldn’t hear me; you were so out of it most of the time.”

  “I didn’t always comprehend what you were saying, but yeah.” He nodded. “I heard you.” Through the foggy haze of his brain and the almost-constant nausea and headaches, Sadie had been his one salvation. Her voice wrapped around him, blocking out everything else. Helped him forget the restlessness, the boredom, the pain.

  The stories she read took him away from the frustration of being stuck in bed and forced to do nothing more strenuous than stare at the ceiling. Bo traced a finger around the rim of his glass. “There was this one story about Hades.”

  Sadie set her drink down. “The lord of the underworld?” Her brow furrowed, and Bo could tell she was trying to piece together where he was going.

  “Sure. And the woman he fell in love with.” He waved his hand. “I can’t remember her name.”

  “Persephone.”

  “Right. And they were from different worlds. After she married him, she was miserable. She hated living in his world.”

  “Bo, I—”

  “Let me finish.” Maybe it was the alcohol, but suddenly it become imperative that he told this story. Made his point. “She was so unhappy that eventually Hades agreed to give her up for half the year and let her return to her own world.”

  He brushed his hand over her cheek, fingers a little clumsy as he traced the rosy glow. “I never forgot those stories you read to me, and I’ll never forget how it felt when I realized that story—it was you and me. We had our summers together. And during that time when I had you to myself, it was completely different than when you went off to live in your other world the rest of the year.”

  “Bo…” she tried again.

  He shushed her, trailing his finger down to her mouth, across her smooth, soft lips. “When we were older, and I finally scraped enough cash together to buy a car and visit you in the city, I never felt like I belonged. Never thought I could measure up. All your friends judged me. Except for Ana. And your mother hated me.”

  “My mother hates everyone.”

  “Fine.” Bo wasn’t going to argue with her on that. “But it was then I started to realize that if we stayed together, if our time stretched beyond the magic of those summers, you would miss that other world. I didn’t belong in yours, and you would be miserable in mine.”

  “You were fourteen when I read you those stories. Eighteen when you broke up with me. Which means
what you’re telling me is you saw yourself in a story—in a myth—and then snap! Four years later, you get in a scuffle with some dude bros and decide to do something about it? That’s an excuse, Bo. Not an explanation.”

  “It’s a reason.” He tucked a finger under her chin, lifting her face to his. “I didn’t want it to eat away at us, to slowly destroy us.”

  Sadie jerked back, away from his touch. “What you did, it destroyed us anyway.” She hopped off the stool and began to pace the length of the island, her steps slightly unsteady. “Only it wasn’t slowly. It was one big epic explosion.” She waved a trembling hand through the air. “Boom. We’re over. Done.”

  Temper back in full force, she turned to look at him, eyes bright and wild with fury. “And then you walked away. You didn’t even bother sticking around to view the carnage. To help pick up the pieces. Do you have any idea how I felt? How much you hurt me?” She stepped closer, voice cracking under the weight of holding all this in. “I deserved to know why. You should have told me.”

  “If I had tried to explain, you would have argued. You never would have listened—”

  “You’re right, I wouldn’t have listened to this garbage.” Her chin jutted higher. “I would have fought for us.” Her eyes narrowed, and Bo felt like she was seeing straight through him. “I always thought you were the brave one. Stronger than me. Now, I’m not so sure.”

  Bo sat, stiff and still, staring at her. But inside, he was crumbling. “I’m sorry I hurt you, abeja.” He stood, gathering the remnants of his courage. “But I’m not sorry for what I did. It was for the best.”

  “For you.” Her eyes flashed in a face of stone. Tension crackled like lightning in the air between them.

  “No. For us.” He took a step toward her. “What I wanted, you already had and didn’t care about. And what you wanted? I couldn’t give you. I’d never measure up.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “No? You didn’t want to spend your life at the stables. You wanted to travel the world. Go on shopping sprees and stay in fancy hotels.” He scowled at her. “How was I supposed to make any of that happen? My family literally doesn’t even own a pot to piss in! Everything we have belongs to the Murphys. To you.” Bo sighed and shook his head. “Our lives were headed in different directions.”

  “You couldn’t know that for sure.” She glared at him.

  “Maybe not,” he agreed. “But I believed I was right.”

  “Really?” She laughed, hollow and bitter. “You thought you—what—that you were Bogie and I was Bergman?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “A movie, Casablanca. One of my nana’s favorites.” Sadie notched her chin. “He tells her to go, to leave, that it’s for her own good. Says she’ll regret it if she doesn’t.” Her voice shook with emotion, but beneath the anger and bitterness, there was pain. “Sound familiar?”

  “You can’t compare us to a movie, abeja.”

  “Why not? You compared us to a book.”

  Bo held himself in check. He wanted to reach out, to hold her so badly, the ache was physical, ripping him apart inside. But first he needed her to understand. “Here’s what I think. Back then, it just wasn’t the right time for us. We both had to walk our own path. If we’d tried to do it together, tried to force it, somewhere along the way, things would have splintered, pushing us apart.”

  “But we ended up here! Together. Right now. In the same place, at the same time.”

  “I know, it’s … incredible.” Unable to resist any longer, Bo crossed the room to her. “I’m not saying the universe has a plan for us or anything, but maybe—if it did—then this was the idea all along. That we had to go our own ways in order get here. To this moment.”

  “Why?” She jerked her head back, staring up at him. “To make us suffer?”

  Bo sucked in a breath. There was so much pain in her expression. More than he realized. A moment of doubt caused his foundation to wobble. Had he caused all of that?

  He swallowed. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I don’t know why.”

  As if something inside Sadie gathered all that pain up and tucked it away, it suddenly disappeared, her face going blank. Bo sensed it was still there, hidden from view. He wanted to dive into Sadie’s soul, seek that pain out and carry it for her. But whatever she was feeling, whatever she was thinking, she wasn’t ready to share that with him now. He hoped, one day, she would.

  “Please, abeja,” Bo begged, reaching one hand out, palm up, an open appeal “No matter what happened in the past, no matter the reason, what’s important is that the universe or fate or whatever you want to call it has given us a second chance.”

  Tentatively, Sadie placed her palm over his. “A second chance, huh?”

  He nodded. “The chance to get it right this time.”

  “Does this mean we’re dating now?”

  “I’d like that.” Bo squeezed her hand. “But with my job as your stunt coordinator, it could look bad. You know how fast a story like this can lead to trouble.” He paused, not sure it was wise to point this out, she’d been so pissed earlier. “If we slip and the media picks up on it…”

  “We won’t slip,” Sadie promised. “On set, we’ll be professional. No hint of anything inappropriate,” she said, lowering her voice to an exaggerated whisper.

  “Nothing inappropriate, huh?” Bo teased, bringing her fingers to his mouth and brushing his lips across her knuckles.

  Sadie let out a tipsy giggle.

  “It’s the beard, isn’t?”

  She nodded. “It really is ticklish.” She shifted her hand out of his and slid her knuckles along his jaw. “Nothing inappropriate on set. But when we’re alone…” Her hand drifted down his neck, slid along his collar, fingers resting on the pulse at his throat.

  A pulse that was rapidly picking up the pace. Especially when Sadie began undoing the buttons on his shirt.

  “We could take it slow,” she suggested, fingers fumbling, moving down his chest, releasing more buttons.

  “I can do slow,” he breathed.

  “Yeah?” One doubtful brow rose in challenge.

  “Yeah.” Bo rubbed his thumb along her bottom lip. “Can you?”

  “I bet I can hold out longer than you can.” The last button on his shirt slipped free, and she tugged the tails of his shirt out of his jeans.

  “Sounds like a challenge to me.” He brushed his hand along the line of her jaw, stroked the back of her exposed neck, grinning in triumph when she shivered, nipples puckering, tight buds visible beneath her T-shirt. “Or maybe a dare.”

  “Oh, it’s definitely a dare,” she purred. “I dare you not to have sex with me until we wrap.”

  “Wait.” Bo’s hand dropped. “What?”

  “Well, no going all the way until we’re done filming,” she amended. “This way we can honestly say we aren’t sleeping together.” Sadie’s laugh was full of mischief. “Technically, that won’t be a lie.” Her eyebrow quirked again. “Think you can handle that?”

  “We can do anything else but that?” Bo mused.

  “Anything you can imagine.”

  “I don’t know. I can imagine quite a lot.” He cocked a grin at her.

  Sadie rolled her eyes. “You’ll get it, Solo.”

  His grin widened. Christ, every time Sadie picked up on one of his Star Wars references, Bo got that much more turned on. “I better.”

  “You will.”

  “Well then, princess”—Bo bent his head, leaning in close, mouth inches from hers—“I accept your dare.”

  CHAPTER 19

  THE NEXT MORNING, Bo hustled into the Windy City Stunts office, nursing a vodka hangover, a heart full of hope, and a head bursting with a hundred things to do. Things he wanted to do with Sadie. But also things that needed to get done in the next few hours. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours and already Bo knew keeping his personal and professional shit together while separate was going to be the hardest dare he’d ever
taken. He might not have agreed to the terms of Sadie’s challenge if he hadn’t been half a dozen shots under the table, but what’s done was done, and he’d never backed down from a dare. He wasn’t about to start now.

  “Good morning, Bo,” the middle-aged woman at the front desk trilled sweetly, greeting him with a warm, motherly smile, her thick Polish accent curling around his name.

  “Hi, Claudia.” He returned the smile. “Is your husband around?”

  “VICTOR!” Claudia shouted, loud enough to knock Bo back on his heels.

  “What?” an annoyed bark sounded from Vic’s office.

  “BO IS HERE TO SEE YOU.” Claudia bellowed the words in loud blocks of sound.

  “Well, send him in!”

  Claudia returned her attention to Bo. “Victor will see you now,” she announced, voice once again soft and pleasant. Singsong, even.

  Bo hid a grin. “Thanks.”

  He headed down the hall into Vic’s office and plopped into one of the cracked leather chairs they’d salvaged from a set years ago. “When is your wife going to learn how to use the intercom system?”

  “Never,” Vic grunted. “She enjoys yelling at me too much.”

  This time Bo didn’t contain the grin that split his face. Vic and Claudia’s relationship was a constant source of unintentional entertainment.

  “What’s up?” Vic leaned back in his chair, wheels creaking. “I thought you were headed out to Maplewood for a week.”

  “Birchwood. And there’s been a change in plans.”

  “Oh?” One salt-and-pepper brow arched.

  Bo nodded. “Fire at the stables.”

  “Shit.” Vic frowned. “Anybody hurt?”

  “Everyone’s fine. No casualties, no injuries. The horses had to be relocated, though, and the facility is shut down for repairs. We can’t shoot there.”

  “Obviously.” Vic leaned forward again, shuffling papers on his desk. “Is this going to push you back? I know you’re on a tight timetable. You still got that Chicago Rescue contract before the end of the year.”

  “It’s fine. I figured it out.”

  “You did, eh?”