Page 26 of Rent a Bad Boy

He keeps holding my hands, and I let him, because I don’t trust myself anymore. Also, his hands are warm and large, and I feel safe, which is annoying because I was fully prepared to be mad at him for not answering his phone this morning. Now I’m too high and too comfortable to maintain my anger. It’s very inconvenient.

The room settles back into its rhythm. Someone changes the song. The conversations merge and separate before merging again. I drift in and out, leaning against Everett, watching the smoke curl toward the ceiling. I feel like I’m wrapped in something soft and comfortable. I like it. I like this.

Then the front door opens.

A couple of guys walk in. I don’t recognize them—they’re not in team shirts, not built the same way as the football players. It’s not like I’m surprised that I can’t identify them. I don’t know a single person in this room, even though they know half my life story by now.

The taller guy has a split lip that’s mostly healed. The more muscular guy standing next to him has a bruise along his cheekbone.

Red Hair nods at them from the recliner. “What’s up?”

Split Lip nods back, all casual-like, before he spots Everett on the couch. He stands up a little straighter, eyes narrowing. “Stone. Didn’t know you’d be here.”

Everett jerks his chin. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

“How’s the hand?” Split Lip glances down at Everett’s knuckles. “I’m pretty sure that left hook you hit me with last week is still ringing in my ears.”

Everett goes tense beside me. Just enough that I notice, but that’s because I’m pressed against him.

“Fine,” he grunts.

Split Lip takes the hint and moves on.

I don’t, because I’m pretty much incapable of moving on in this condition. The high is still buzzing through me, soft and warm. Underneath it, though, there’s something cold and clear forming. A connection.

The bruises on his knuckles. He said they were from a heavy bag.

He lied to me. He hit that guy. Why did he lie?

Why is he hiding something from me?

10

EVERETT

She’s curled up against me when I wake up, which is weird. Not bad weird. Just... different weird.

I’m not used to waking up with another person in my bed, mostly because I’ve never let another person stay in my bed. Girls I’ve been with before got the couch, or they got a ride home, or they got the hint when I didn’t ask them to stay.

Isla didn’t get any of those things.

Her glasses are on my nightstand. Without them, her face looks younger. Softer. There’s a crease on her cheek from the pillowcase, and her hair is everywhere, fanned out across the pillow. She’s breathing in that slow, steady way that tells me she’s still out.

I should get up. I’ve got things to do. Laundry, playbook. The gym, if my hands cooperate. They’d better. I hurt them at the last fight, but I have another one tonight.

It was worth it. When I look around at my room and think about the house—the kind I always swore I would have one day—I remember how worthwhile it all is.

Isla shifts against me. Her eyes open, slow and unfocused, and the first thing she does is reach for her glasses. I grab them off the nightstand and hand them to her before she can knock anything over.

“Morning,” I say.

She pushes the glasses on and blinks a few more times, adjusting, then looks up at me. Her cheeks go pink like she suddenly remembers where she is and what happened last night. She’s clearly about to say something. I’ve learned it’s best to just let her get to it. “Your hands.”

Or she could just go straight for the throat. Cool. Good morning to me, too. “What about them?” I ask.

She sits up and pulls the sheet with her before reaching for my right hand. I let her take it, since pulling away would make things worse. She turns it over, studying my knuckles the way she studies everything: like she’s going to be tested on it later. Okay, so the bruising is ugly. Purple and green at the edges, swollen across the first two knuckles. There’s a cut on the third that I super-glued shut in the bathroom because I didn’t feel like going to urgent care.

“This isn’t from a heavy bag,” she announces.