Heavy: A Bad Boy Next Door Romance Read online

“It’s your Aunt Linda.”

  “I know.” She takes in a little breath, and I regret being so terse with her. “Are you—is everything all right?”

  “Sawyer, it’s your dad.” I can hear her swallow over the phone. “He’s dying. Can you—can you please come home?”

  Chapter 3

  Zelda

  I’m still not quite sure how the archival research here applies vis á vis digital curation for artifact creation…thoughts?

  The question pops up in the private chat room for my online class, and my soul sighs.

  I’m getting my Master’s in Library Science in an online program through Bluestone University, which has one of the top-rated online-only programs in library science in the country. At least, that’s what my mom kept saying when she was trying her best at convincing me to live in Greenville while I got my next degree. It seemed like the sensible thing to do at the time, even though I was going to miss the hell out of the dorms at State, where I lived for four years while I got my BA.

  It’s not that I don’t love the library. I do. I want to be an excellent librarian. I want to be more than an excellent librarian, actually. I want to do something important, and something strikes me as pretty damn important about collecting all our knowledge for future generations. I could move to Washington, D.C. and be an archivist for NASA, slotting all that incredible data into homes for other people to access one day while they’re researching things like space and time.

  A little shiver shoots up my spine when I think about it.

  At least, it normally would.

  Today, sitting in front of my computer, I’m not very jazzed.

  I click out of the window for the chat room while the other three people in my small group sink their teeth into Adam’s question. I shouldn’t be doing this—I should be focusing—but that picture I saw a few days ago during my shift at the circulation desk keeps popping up in my mind. The starlet’s long legs are wrapped tightly around the waist of a man who has to be fifteen years older than she is, and the way her eyes are squeezed shut against the flash of the camera, seem to indicate one thing, but her body language implies that she doesn’t seem to care at all that she’s being photographed…

  I go back to my favorite gossip blog and scroll through the last two days’ worth of posts until I find it. I’ve been imagining this picture exactly as it is, but looking at it sends a buzz of excitement through my core.

  It’s not even that he’s older. I’m not interested in older men. It just seems so…so reckless, so dangerous, so free in a way that I don’t think I’ll ever experience. A couple of sloppy kisses outside frat parties that I didn’t really want to be at can never measure up to whatever it is they’re drunk with.

  Alcohol, probably, and money, but each other more than anything.

  I want to feel that way.

  But I also don’t want to derail my entire life. I’ve been careful, so careful, after…

  The chat tone sounds again, insistently, and I click back to the chat. We’re supposed to be collaborating on this “artifact” for our final portfolios, but my head is anywhere but there.

  And we’re just getting started.

  Adam, Tina, and Emily—the other three in my small group, the pack of us moving through the degree program together—are moving on to the study group portion of our chat.

  Why anyone wants to schedule these for Friday night is beyond me, unless they’re leading lives just as boring and predictable as mine is and the fact that it’s Friday night makes no difference.

  There’s a little thrill in my chest. Friday night, back when I was in school, used to mean all kinds of possibilities. Once classes were over, people were full-on into making plans for the evening. That was my favorite part—the back-and-forth on which bar to go to, which band to see play, which guys to meet up with. None of it ever panned out the way I thought it might, though. Nobody ever swept me off my feet on the dance floor or made me think I could marry this guy in the middle of a crowded bar. And even when they came close, there was always that nagging voice in the back of my head. Remember how dangerous, it always said. Don’t forget.

  They’re divvying up the portions of reading we’re about to discuss, and I get a knot in the pit of my stomach. Normally I don’t mind talking about techniques, methodologies, strategies, research…if I truly hated it, I’d have dropped out of the program after the first semester. I don’t hate it. It’s just…today.

  It’s today, and that picture from the gossip blog that’s been haunting me since Wednesday. It’s the fact that Carly went to some exciting erotic art show, and I was left sitting behind the desk at circulation, left to wander around, coaxing elderly patrons off the computers and tearing them away from their Facebook games.

  Then I came home to my parents’ house, where I have a little apartment in the basement. It’s a sweet place with its own entrance, but still…I go home to my mom’s and dad’s, and I go to bed only to wake up the next day and do it all over again.

  It’s very safe.

  It’s very predictable.

  It’s not stifling. Of course, it isn’t. This is a great life.

  It’s a great life…

  My cell phone buzzes with an incoming text, and I snatch it off the surface of the desk next to me.

  What are you doing, hot stuff? ;)

  Carly. I smile at her message.

  Study group… :(

  Her reply comes a second later.

  Ditch it. Let’s go out!

  My thumbs hover over the screen.

  I really shouldn’t. It’s one of our big projects, and we have to go over the reading.

  SCREW THE READING!!!

  I laugh out loud at that message, and I’m still laughing when another one comes in.

  I want to go OUT. You missed out on the art show and it’s FRIDAY NIGHT. Live a little!

  I shouldn’t. I should stay here and discuss last week’s reading assignment. It’s the last semester before I graduate. I should finish strong, and then start applying for jobs for my real career.

  I should…

  OKAY!!!

  As soon as I hit “send,” my heart pounds. I have to get up! I have to get going. I have to get out of my sweatpants and top and put on something more appropriate for going out. I don’t know where we’re going, but it doesn’t matter. I’m going out!

  I’m picking you up in ten minutes…get yourself together!!

  I dash toward my bedroom, toward my closet, light on my feet, a huge smile on my face.

  Chapter 4

  Sawyer

  I raise my hand and knock hard on the door, its red paint starting to peel a little. There are quick footsteps inside, and then it swings open, revealing my Aunt Linda. Her face shifts from thin-lipped determination to a gasp.

  “Sawyer!”

  “Come in!” she cries. “Come in, come in. I can’t—” She looks up at me, her dark eyes shining. I can tell that she wants to say “I can’t believe you came,” but she doesn’t.

  I step over the threshold into the house and the smell of the place nearly knocks me out. Not because it’s bad—but because it smells so fucking good. Good like recently vacuumed rugs and the light scent of cookies in the oven. Good like coming here after my dad beat me up and Aunt Linda ushering me up the stairs to sleep in the guest bedroom under clean sheets. Good like the breakfast she used to make for me before school, not saying a word about my dad or what he did to me, and the pile of cleanly folded laundry she’d leave outside my bedroom door, the smell of her favorite linen-scented dryer sheets clinging to the fabric.

  She closes the door behind me, and I decide to answer the question on her mind, even if she won’t say it. “I decided to make the trip.”

  I don’t know what the hell exactly made me cave this time. Linda’s called me before about coming home, three times in the last five years. One of those times, she told me that he’d been diagnosed with cancer. She didn’t say that he wanted to see me, she just left it
lingering in the air between us until I hung up. This time she asked. Maybe it was the look in that fucking kid’s eyes when he scrambled to get the money out of some hidey hole underneath his bed, or the way my body relaxed when I realized I wasn’t going to have to hit him.

  Which shouldn’t be a thing, in my line of work.

  Either way, something was going on with me and she got to me at the right time. After I left Paul’s shithole of a house, I squared up with Domino, told him I was taking some time off, packed up a few things, and drove out of the city in the car I keep in a parking garage most of the time. It’s a hell of a lot cheaper than parking it in a lot or on the street.

  Linda puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’m glad you could make it, Sawyer. I’m really glad.” Then she clasps her hands in front of her, takes a deep breath in and lets it out. “Would you like something to eat? I’ve got cookies baking in the oven that will be done in about ten minutes, and there is leftover lasagna in the fridge.”

  My stomach growls. Damn right, I want something to eat. But more than that, I want this little reunion to be over.

  Linda heads matter-of-factly toward the kitchen like she’s on a mission, and I kick my shoes off on the mat by the door and follow her. The oven door opens, and I can hear the telltale slide of the metal tray against oven racks, and then it shuts closed again.

  The rest of the house is silent.

  The silence is what clues me in.

  I step into the kitchen. “So where is he?” I don’t say, because he obviously isn’t here, which would seem odd for a guy on his deathbed who hates doctors and hospitals.

  Linda presses her lips together and glances across at me while she reaches in one of the kitchen drawers for a spatula. She takes down a plate from one of the cupboards and starts lifting the cookies one by one off the tray and onto the plate, arranging them carefully so they can cool without touching one another. “He had an appointment.”

  “He drove himself?”

  “The oncologist he’s been seeing has a service.”

  “A taxi service? That’s a talented guy.”

  She shoots me a look. “A shuttle service, for patients who have trouble driving or need other transportation.” Linda takes in a ragged breath before answering the question on my mind. “He didn’t want to…inconvenience me this afternoon.”

  “What a standup guy.” The tone in my voice is acid, but I can’t stop myself. This kind of shit—pretending to be a good guy, never wanted to do anybody any harm, inconvenience anybody—is just like my dad. Behind closed doors, he’s a fucking asshole. So while I’m glad that he didn’t take up Linda’s time asking for a ride—

  Linda’s expression has gone soft, and my stomach twists. She does not need to feel sorry for me. I came here for her, not because I have any need to make nice with my dad. “Well, they took him from there to the hospital. A night of observation, to make sure…”

  “To make sure of what? He’s dying. That’s what you said on the phone. Do they need a test to prove it?”

  She shakes her head, the corners of her mouth turning down, and I see how this is weighing on her. God. I’m just as big of a prick for letting her deal with this on her own. My mom’s been gone since I was three, and her husband, Jerry, died just before I graduated high school. She doesn’t have anybody else. Her one daughter, Alexis, goes to school on the opposite side of the country. Somewhere sunny. She’s the only one who has her shit together. “It’s touch and go, Sawyer.” Her voice breaks a little, sending a bolt of pain through my chest. “Every day it’s different.”

  I step over to her, wrapping my arms around her narrow shoulders. I’m not the kind of guy who hugs a lot of people, but she looks like she’s on the damn verge of tears and there’s a tension in the room that I can’t shake off. “I’m sorry, Aunt Linda.” It might sound formal and fucking weird to most people, but it’s what I’ve always called her, and there’s nothing else to say.

  One deep breath later, she responds, “It’s all right.” She straightens up, pats me on the arm, and turns away, reaching for another plate. “Lasagna?”

  I sit down at the kitchen island, feeling like a fucking teenager again. She plates up some leftover lasagna, heating up some green beans as a side. It’s good, as always, but the food sticks in my throat when I try to swallow. When her back is turned, I pull out my phone.

  I can’t stay here all evening. I just can’t do it. I need to go out, go to the bar. I just don’t want to be some pathetic asshole sitting up at the bar by himself.

  There’s one person left in Greenville who will go with me.

  Chapter 5

  Zelda

  The music throbs in my ears, too loud by a hundred times, and I feel vaguely slutty in the outfit I chose to wear. The first “going out” clothes that came to hand were a black skirt that’s at least three inches too short to wear to the library and a halter top with lace detailing around the halter part. Getting out of the car at the club—a taxi, not Carly’s Ford Taurus—a breeze came from a new direction and alerted me to the fact that the shirt is showing more cleavage than I’ve put on display in…

  Well, since college.

  “Where are we going?” I’d asked her a million times in the car, but Carly wouldn’t tell me. I knew she was planning to get a little wild the moment the car service pulled up at the curb, but for once the warm excitement in my chest outweighed the darkness pooling in the pit of my stomach. It’s not dangerous to get a ride to…somewhere…with your best friend by a reputable car service.

  The entrance to the club was ringed with people when we arrived, but Carly stepped up to the bouncer, rose on tiptoes in her cherry red heels, and said something into his ear that I couldn’t hear. He nodded his head on his thick neck and pulled the velvet rope aside for us to go in.

  Fifteen minutes later, I’m wondering if I should have stayed home with the study group.

  It’s so damn loud in here. The library must be turning me into some kind of old woman hermit, because I have to force myself not to lean over to Carly and grouse about how the music doesn’t need to be this loud.

  Thankfully, Carly’s not next to me. She’s up at the bar. She must have pushed her way up toward the counter, because I can’t see her.

  I shake my head. This is not the kind of woman I want to be. I’m not old enough to be irritated at loud music. I should be dancing. I should be—

  “I have drinks!” Carly’s voice cuts across the heavy beats of the music. Thank God. A drink is exactly what I need right now, and judging by the martini glasses in her hands, she’s got the perfect thing.

  She hands mine over. “Cheers!” I say, and we clink our glasses over the tiny standing table we’ve managed to snag somewhere toward the front of the dance floor.

  Carly takes a big sip of her drink. “Mmmm.” As she’s saying it, I follow suit. Whatever it is must be a risky drink, because it tastes fruity and wonderful and not at all like alcohol. Excitement zips down my spine, and I take another sip—maybe more of a gulp.

  I feel the heat starting to form in my chest, in my cheeks, and suddenly the music doesn’t seem loud and obnoxious any more, it seems exhilarating and fun.

  “Where are they?” Carly’s drink is half gone, and her eyes are narrow as she scans the crowd.

  “Where’s who?” I no longer care that I have to shout over the music.

  “The guys. I’m looking for somebody sexy tonight.”

  “You didn’t find anybody at the art show?”

  She laughs, tossing her head back. “Not a single one!” She downs the rest of her drink. “It was practically all women.”

  How much of my drink is gone? I don’t know. I don’t care. I want another one. “What, the guys weren’t brave enough for it?”

  Carly waves a hand in the air. “No, and who cares? That’s gone. That’s in the past. I want a guy for tonight.”

  “I’ll be your wing woman.” I’m feeling pretty fancy-free now that my first drink is gone, bu
t I’m out of practice as a flirt, if I ever was in practice. I’m happy to hang back and scout out men for Carly.

  “No way,” she says, tugging at my elbow. “There’s a whole crowd in here. Find somebody hot for you!”

  “You first,” I insist. “But I want another drink. That was so good.”

  “One more, and then we dance!”

  Carly makes her way over to the bar and starts to talk up a guy at the outer edge of the crowd, and it’s not long before he steps aside and lets her go first. She’s a natural with men, but also highly selective. Whenever I’ve been out with her, she usually finds a guy who I would consider eye-poppingly sexy, but for one reason or another, she won’t even end the night with his number. Or if she does enter it into her phone, I never hear about him again.

  To each her own.

  I turn my eyes back toward the crowd, watching the couples grind on the dance floor, most of the women wearing something that reflects back the pulsing lights. Maybe all black wasn’t the best choice. How can I be so torn about this outfit? It’s too revealing; it’s not sexy enough.

  Another drink will cure me of thinking about it.

  At the opposite end of the club, the hallway leading toward the front door goes dark, and the change catches my eye. The light has been blocked by two guys. The first one steps in, eyes immediately going to his right and starting to take a slow look around, but the second one—

  When he comes around from where he’s been hidden behind his friend, I gasp out loud.

  A hum starts rising up between my legs at the sight of him, and my nipples pebble hard against my bra. He hasn’t touched me—hasn’t even looked at me—and my knees feel weak, unsteady.