Bad Reputation

Prologue

Eighteen Months Ago

Tucker

I sat on my bed in the room I shared with another student, enjoying a rare moment of solitude. I didn’t actually mind having a roommate, but she was the fourth one I’d had in six months. She wasn’t someone I called a friend. Living in Residence Hall Three—the official name for our dorm—provided little opportunity to be alone. Even when the odd time did arise, more often than not, I avoided it by spending my spare waking moments with Mark.

I sighed a little when I thought about him—the icing on my cake.

Smart, dependable Mark, who had his life mapped out in the most perfect way possible. I’d spent my whole life trying to escape from unpredictable moments, and I think Mark’s predictability drew me to him even more than any kind of physical attachment. I was in my second year at Juniper College, but I met Mark on my first day. I hadn’t noticed him as particularly striking, and his horn-rimmed glasses had made me smile to myself when he wasn’t looking. But we were both studying environmental law, and we got to know each other through group projects and our common interests. The beautiful thing about our relationship wasn’t its ease. It was its productivity. Our dates weren’t just dinners and dancing, they were meaningful protests for important causes and petitions sent to politicians. We wanted to end poverty and hunger and carve out a greener planet. Mark was kind and steady, and his beliefs lined up with mine so perfectly that it was almost like we were made for each other.

My childhood was marked with enough unpredictability, provided almost exclusively by my father, and compounded by my mother’s enabling personality. Drug addictions led to drug debts. Drug debts kept us living in a tiny, one-bedroom apartment, and tore apart the possibility of any kind of relationship with my mother, turning it into something that seemed beyond repair.

I spent hours—days, even—at the local youth center, seeking respite from the continuous stream of unhappiness.

The only sliver of hope had come when my father disappeared. I didn’t know if he was dead, or just gone. I tried not to care if he was either, because suddenly my mom’s two jobs were enough to pay the bills. My belongings no longer went missing, only to turn up at the pawnshop three blocks from home. Strange women didn’t call our house, making my mom cry when they asked for “Paulie, baby,” and menacing men didn’t sit on our stoop, waiting for a payday that was more likely to wind up in broken fingers than actual cash.

I still wanted to get out, and suddenly it seemed possible.

I buckled down at school, pulling grades that would have been unachievable if my father’s life had still been interfering with mine. And once it was in my sight, college became an imperative thing, rather than a choice, and I had made it happen.

At Juniper College, I was only eight miles away from my devastating childhood, but I was on my way to becoming the adult I’d always wanted to be.

So Mark…studious, sweet, smart Mark was the icing on the cake that was my new life. He didn’t make my heart pound, or my mind spin, but that was perfect. I wanted nothing to do with emotional outbursts or irrational behavior.

As I thought about it, my short-term aloneness in my room suddenly seemed a little lonely after all, and I kind of wished he hadn’t begged off to study.

I was relieved when the door squeaked open.

“I hope you have chips,” I said as I turned to greet my roommate.

The rest of whatever I’d been going to say died in my throat when I caught the look on her face. It was ashen.

“What’s wrong?” I asked immediately.

She shook her head and handed me a piece of newspaper. I frowned. I recognized the letterhead as one from the local paper. I scanned it, and panic reared in my chest. Select words jumped off the page, lodging in my brain. Stonewood Gate Apartments. Twenty-one dead. Estranged husband. Drug and alcohol abuse suspected. Fire. And the headline: No Survivors.

I dropped the article like it was burning.

“Tucker.”

I heard her say my name, but I was already on the move. People stared as I ran through the common area on our floor in nothing but pajama shorts and an ill-fitting tank top, but I didn’t care. I needed to get to something solid. Something that would solidify me. I needed to get to Mark.

By the time I reached his apartment building—a squat, three-story building just a block away from my own place—I was shivering and sweating at the same time, and the tears were starting to come. I let myself in with the key that Mark had cut for me months earlier, and pushed blindly through the hall to his first-floor unit.

“Mark!” I called in a quiet, desperate voice as I opened his apartment door.

“What was that noise?”

“Nothing, baby.”

I stopped dead in my tracks at the feminine voice that asked the question, and at Mark’s casual reply. I inhaled deeply, catching a whiff of perfume, mixed with the dizzying sent of marijuana. I stepped more cautiously into the living room.

I heard a choked sob come from somewhere deep in my throat, and a woman, sprawled on the sofa and clad in a satin thong, turned to look at me. Her gaze was angry and offended, as if I was invading her boyfriend’s house, and not the other way around. I felt the bile rise in my throat at the view. Mark was standing there naked, and his back was to me, but I knew every line of his body as well as I knew my own. I tried to look away, but there was nowhere for me to focus. A joint was burning in an ashtray on the table, and a satin bra was slung over a near-to-empty vodka bottle.

“Mark?”

My voice was very small, and held none of the fury I knew it should.

Shock. The word came to mind, taking a life-size meaning it had never had before. This is what shock feels like. Numbness and sadness and madness that won’t come out.

“Mark?” I repeated, a little more loudly, and he finally glanced my way.

“Jesus, Tucks,” he swore. “What are you doing here?”

“My parents died,” I told him.

His eyes went wide, and I noticed he wasn’t wearing his glasses, either.

“You never take them off when you’re with me,” I whispered.

“What?” Mark stared at me stupidly.

“I have to go.”

I grabbed the vodka and fled the apartment, seeking solace in my own bed. I shoved off my roommate’s attempts to comfort me, and drank the liquor straight. I sobbed until I ached inside and out, and I didn’t know if the tears were for my mom and dad or if they were for Mark and me. It didn’t matter. I cried until all the fight went out of my body and then let sleep start to take me. My final thoughts were of the stark, heart-wrenching headline.

No Survivors.

In the morning, I knew I would pick up the pieces of my life as I had done in the past and move on. Because the headline wasn’t quite true. There was one survivor. It was me.

Joey

I couldn’t feel my face, and that probably wasn’t a good thing.

“I can’t feel my face!”

Saying it out loud to the room didn’t help, even when someone replied with a whooping cheer.

“Gotta get some air,” I muttered, and tried to shove myself up off the couch.

I couldn’t move, and I knew I was way past my limit, even though I was the kind of guy who could—who did—go hard most of the time.

“You need some help?”

I peered around, looking for the source of the voice, and finally zeroed in on the petite girl beside me. Her face was close to mine—inches away—and I couldn’t make her features focus properly. Why was she so damned close?

“S’okay,” I slurred in her direction, and vaguely hoped that my breath wasn’t overtly noxious.

I tried to make sense of what was going on. I could hear people all around me, still partying. I swiveled my head. The room was a little dark, but I could see the blurred outline of a couple making out against a nearby wall, and another pair dancing lazily near a tall speaker.

“Wheremeye?” I muttered, and I knew it came out a garbled mess.

“Joey?”

I automatically turned my face at the sound of my name. It was the too-close girl again. What was she doing there, draped across me? Her legs were bare, and wrapped around mine. I gazed down at them, dragging my eyes across their tanned smoothness and up to her lacy underwear.

Oh no.

I could see she was wearing my oversize T-shirt, and I realized my own chest was bare.

“Whadeyedo?” I asked.

I flipped the girl off me, and I heard someone laugh as she hit the ground. I felt bad for a second, but then nausea overwhelmed me. I grabbed my keys and my wallet from the table, and I crashed through the house, searching for the door. I found it just in time to puke my guts up into the bushes. Which was better than into the pile of shoes in the foyer.

I stumbled out to the street, searching for my truck.

“Wherezstupidthing?” I mumbled.

I finally spotted it, parked crookedly right in front of a hydrant. I lurched toward it, knowing somewhere in the back of my mind that I shouldn’t—couldn’t—drive, but wanting to get out of there bad enough to try it anyway. I shoved the key into the lock and turned.

“Whoa.”

A soft hand accompanied the word, and it tried to yank the key ring from my shaky grasp. I managed to hold on. Barely. I squinted at the woman attached to the grip. Dark hair framed a familiar face, and the effects of alcohol weren’t enough to block out the pain any longer.

“Amber! I know you,” I slurred.

“And I know you, Joey. If you get in that car, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

“What’s it matter to you?” I demanded harshly, drunkenly.

“We’re friends. Or at least we were before—”

I cut her off. “I don’t like to talk about that.”

“I won’t make you talk about it. If you give me the keys.”

“No.”

“Where you going, anyway?”

“Home.”

“Is it close?”

“Nope.”

“I’ll give you a lift.”

“I’ll drive myself.” I hiccuped. “Thank you very much.”

With an exasperated sigh, Amber reached forward and reached for my keys again.

“Can’t catch me!” I shouted gleefully.

I dove sideways, tripped over a bush and landed on my ass. My keys sailed from my hand about three feet away.

“Whoops.”

I struggled to grab them, but one of Amber’s high-heeled boots kicked them out of my reach. When I looked up, there were three Ambers glaring down at me. That, or the alcohol was seriously inhibiting my ability to see properly.

“S’matter with everybody?” I asked.

“Everybody?”

“All three of you.”

She grabbed the keys from the ground and rolled her eyes. “Joey, we were friends once, right?”

“Once,” I agreed. “With one of you, anyway.”

“Then please. Let me take you home.”

After a moment, I shrugged and climbed into the passenger seat. In seconds, we were on the road, and the familiar rumbling of my diesel engine lulled me into a drunken sleep.

When I finally opened my eyes again, the sun was beating through my windshield relentlessly, and my head was throbbing. I was also in an all-too-familiar place—a full four-hundred miles from where I’d been the night before.

Amber was nowhere to be seen.

What the hell? I thought.

I was home.

Actually home. The home I’d fled from three-and-a-half years ago.

I opened the truck door and gagged out the rest of whatever I’d consumed the night before. When I righted myself, I stared up at the ominously cheerful house where I’d grown up. I stepped out onto the concrete and took a reluctant step toward the door.

Coming home should be a good thing. It shouldn’t be a reflection of the guilt, anger and other shitty things that have happened in your life. Even so, as I let myself into my parents’ house and dragged my feet all the way to my dad’s home office, those were the only things I could think about.

My dad barely blinked as I collapsed into the chair across from him.

I watched him, waiting for the self-righteous rage I knew was there, just under the surface. I’d spent my whole life trying to live up to the expectations that went along with being his son. I had lived up to them until everything had gone to shit five years earlier. The man was a corporate mogul, and a financial guru, and a tough-as-nails father. I knew what he wanted from me, and it wasn’t another excuse.

I wished I’d had time to brace myself for his disappointment on the long drive here.

What’s the matter, Joey? I pictured him saying. You run out of girls to string along?

I bristled at the imaginary accusation, just as if he’d actually said the words. I felt tense, waiting for it to come.

We’ve been through enough. You being here…it will just add something else for us to worry about.

My shoulders drooped, and I slipped farther down into the stiff chair that faced him. My dad still kept silent. He sipped his ever-present rye and Coke and looked at me without expression. I wondered if he’d found some new kind of Zen, maybe the result of a concoction of pills and a heavy dose of Irishing everything from coffee to water.

“Dad, I think I need this.”

They weren’t the words I’d been thinking, or even anything close. As I watched him, though, I realized that coming home was exactly what I did need. Maybe it was the only thing that could save me from what I was becoming. I cringed inwardly as the memory of the unknown girl wrapped around me came to mind.

“Please,” I said softly.

Then my father smiled a self-satisfied smile, and the man I’d grown up with was back. I realized he’d just been waiting for me to beg for his help, for me to admit that I needed him. As far back as I could remember, he had this desire to hold every card, to have all the power. Even when he did have it, that wasn’t quite enough. He also wanted an acknowledgment of that power.

“You’ll be working for it, Joey,” he told me.

I knew he was thinking about the thousands of dollars he’d forked out for over three years of therapy, and about the fact that I’d insisted on finishing my degree out of town to distance myself from the very place I was coming back to now. I was thinking about both, myself.

Waste of time, waste of money, was my sudden conclusion.

My dad wasn’t in the habit of wasting either of those things. He reached into the desk and pulled out a leather folder. He slapped it down in front of me.

“These are my conditions, Joey,” he said coolly, and took another sip of his drink.

I didn’t even know what was inside it, and I already wanted to throw it back in his face. I made myself push down the urge.

“What is this?” I asked.

“A contract.”

“For work? Dad, you know I’m a reliable employee. I’ve been working for you since I was sixteen.”

“It’s not about reliability. It’s about accountability. And more than that, it’s about credibility,” my father informed me. “And it’s about you not winding up…” He paused, cleared his throat uncomfortably and continued. “I need some assurance. These are the conditions of me allowing you to work for Fox Enterprises, and the conditions for me allowing you to live here.”

A sneer built up on my face, and I grabbed the leather-bound contract and lifted it in front of me to cover my expression. As I read through the contract, I was glad my dad couldn’t see my expression.

Some of it was businesslike and made sense.

If you were employing a total stranger.

He wanted me to commit to twenty hours of work per week, on a flexible schedule around school. He wanted me to book my vacations three months in advance and to wear a suit to the office.

Fine.

It was the second half of the paperwork that infuriated me. I let the contract slide down into my lap and I stared at him from across the desk.

“Is this a joke?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“Not in the slightest.”

No more than seven alcoholic beverages in a month. No revolving door of women. An 11:00 p.m. curfew on weeknights and a midnight one on weekends.

My father shrugged unapologetically. “You can’t blame me for keeping tabs on you.”

Of course I could. Had he forgotten I was a twenty-two-year-old man? I stared at him, and he read my face perfectly.

“When you’ve shown me that you are an adult, I will consider some flexibility,” he said.

I wanted—badly—to push back.

“I need the sixth of every month off” was all I said. “Other than that, I’ll do whatever needs to be done, Dad.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Fine. A day off, every month. Hell, make it thirty-six hours. It starts at midnight on the sixth, and it ends at noon on the eighth. I don’t want to know what you’re doing during that time, and I don’t want it to interfere with your work. If you do what you’re supposed to do, and abide by my rules, I’ll continue to pay for your education, and I’ll let you live here.”

I sighed with relief.

“One more thing, Joey.”

I tensed. “Yeah?”

“The girl who drove you here. You owe her your life. Try not to forget it.”

Present Day

Friday

Joey

“Shots, Joey?” asked a girl I didn’t know.

She was dressed in a tight black skirt and a hot-pink halter, and carrying two tiny plastic cups full of something blue and gelatinous. Jell-O shooters, I assumed.

I glanced down at my watch. Midnight on the sixth. On the dot. Perfect.

“Brought my own,” I replied with a purposefully winning smile and held up my bottle.

Her eyes widened. “You’re that guy.”

“Aw, damn. Does my reputation precede me?” I teased.

She tipped her head to the side thoughtfully. “My roommate’s sister said some dude with his own bottle of tequila took her home a few months ago and humiliated her.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Did she say whether or not she liked it?”

The girl suppressed a smile. “She called you a jerk, actually.”

“Jerk. Hmm. That’s fairly mild. Most of my…er…lady friends…toss around swear words.” I leaned down to whisper in the raven-haired beauty’s ear. “You can pour me a drink if you like.”

She downed the shots her in hands, then eagerly grabbed the bottle of tequila from me. She didn’t need to know half of the liquid gold was water.

I watched her with a smile as she traipsed off to the kitchen. She wasn’t my type, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate her assets. In a few seconds, she returned with an overflowing shot glass tucked into her cleavage and an expectant look on her face.

“Well…thank you,” I said.

I grabbed the drink with my teeth, tipped it back expertly without spilling a drop, then took a little bow. The girl clapped, handed me my bottle and waited.

“I’d like another,” I told her regretfully. “But I’m here with someone. And I’m a one-woman kinda guy.”

“That’s a lie if I ever heard one.”

“I’ve never said a truer thing.”

“You don’t come with girls. You leave with them.”

I made a wounded face. “I’m hurt.”

“Which one is it then?” she asked.

“Which one what?”

She rolled her eyes. “Which girl?”

“A…brunette?”

She handed me my tequila. “Which brunette?”

I laughed and grabbed a random girl as she walked by and nuzzled her neck playfully. She pushed me away.

“Stop that!” she said.

I chuckled as she took off in the other direction. She wasn’t my type, either, in her buttoned-up blouse and designer jeans.

“C’mon, babe,” I called mockingly. “Give me a chance.”

“Have another shot!” she yelled back.

“Talk me into it, why don’t you?”

I took an enormous swig of the watered-down liquor and whipped back to the Jell-O shooter girl. She was already gone. I slumped into a couch, and after just a few minutes, a smiling blonde put her hand on my knee.

“You wanna get outta here?” she whispered.

I gave her a quick once-over. Was she my type? I liked them pretty. I liked them vapid. I liked them to be so utterly self-involved and terrified of ruining their otherwise perfectly cultivated reputations that they wouldn’t give out details to their friends. Calling me a jerk was fine. Calling me an asshole was all right, too. All I wanted was a girl who did the name-calling without maniacal enthusiasm. I didn’t need my misadventures getting blown out of proportion and then getting back to my dad. Because that would ruin my own carefully cultivated reputation.

After a year and a half of operating under my dad’s rules, I knew exactly how to ride the just-tame-enough line. Taking one girl home every month could hardly be called excessive. So long as she was on board with the fact that all I could ever be was a one-night stand.

Would this girl be like that?

Impossible to tell in five seconds. In the smoky, party-dark room, I couldn’t even be sure if she was attractive. I decided quickly that I would take my chances. After all, my thirty-six hours of freedom would go by very quickly. It always did.

* * *

“You have to be super quiet,” she whispered. “The girls in here are ridiculous about men.”

A warning bell went off in my head.

“Ridiculous how?” My voice echoed in the stairwell, and the girl shushed me immediately.

“I said super quiet.”