Bad Girl Reputation by Elle Kennedy

Then she pulls away. She stands and wraps a towel around her waist. The impenetrable wall goes up and I’m locked on the other side.

“Sorry,” she says with a dismissive shrug. “I can’t. I have a date.”





CHAPTER 9

GENEVIEVE

Three hours after my encounter with Evan, I’m still kicking myself. In a moment of triumphant stupidity, my mouth ran away from me, and now I’ve got to materialize a date for tonight out of thin air. After the lie popped out of my foolhardy mouth, Evan was naturally pissed, though he was doing his best to act like it was no big deal. Sometimes he forgets I know him too well. All his tics and tells. So, while pretending he wasn’t fuming inside, he’d quizzed me on the where and when, which compounded one lie with another, and then another. I managed to dodge on the question of who by insisting Evan wouldn’t know the guy, but I wouldn’t put it past him to check up on me, so therein lies the rub.

By eight o’clock tonight, I need to come up with a man to take me out.

Since I’m not about to hop on Tinder for a fake date to dissuade my ex, I throw up the SOS in our group chat, then end up at Steph and Alana’s place to get the brain trust together on this one. Heidi’s at work, which is probably a good thing because her advice in the chat thread was utterly useless. Tell stupid lies, win stupid prizes, she’d texted in her typical no-nonsense way.

Ugh. I mean … she’s not wrong.

“So you emotionally masturbated to teasing Evan with your boobs and then swerved him,” Alana says to my explanation of events. We’re sitting on their back porch while I try visualizing my sweet tea with vodka in it. “I mean, not to take his side, but I’d call that mixed signals.”

“I don’t think I’m telling it right. He walked in on me.”

Steph regards me in amusement. “Yeah. But you kinda liked it.”

“It’s fine if you did,” Alana tells me, reclining on the porch swing while she sways back and forth. “Everybody’s got a kink.”

“It’s not a kink.”

Although, now that she’s named it, I suppose she isn’t so far-off. Evan and I have always had this tension between us. Pushing and pulling. Making each other jealous and manipulating a response. It’s all part of the bad habits I’m trying to break. Yet, in doing so, I’m repeating the steps. New tune, same old dance.

“It’s the bad-boy dick magic,” Alana says in her flat intonation, devoid of humor. “Makes us crazy. It isn’t our fault the screwed-up ones are the best in bed.”

I mean, she has a point. And when it comes to Evan Hartley, it’s the most random stuff that gets me all messed up. The little things that trigger memories and invite involuntary responses. My body has been programmed to certain stimuli. It’s instinct. Second nature. He licks his lips and I start imagining his face between my legs. Today, it was the way his hair smelled.

And it certainly didn’t help that he taunted me about pool sex and then asked me to meet him at our spot later.

I only came up with the date excuse because I was so close to accepting his invitation. Because what would be the harm in a little consensual sex between friends, right? No harm at all … until a little sex leads to a lot of sex, and then we’re spending every waking minute together, starting trouble and picking fights because every bit of adventure and conflict wrings a few more drops of adrenaline out of each other.

“I can’t help myself around him. He’s an addiction. I try to stay aloof, but then he smiles and flirts and coaxes me into flirting back,” I find myself confessing. “But if I don’t break the habit, I’ll never get a fresh start.”

“So we break the cycle,” Alana decides. “We just have to find someone who is everything that Evan isn’t. Shock the system, so to speak.”

“Well, that pretty much eliminates everyone we know.” Scratching off the list of names that are either his friends or people I can’t stand, there are hardly any people left in this town who aren’t related to me. Trolling college bars for a random Garnet dweeb isn’t my idea of a good time either.

“What about that guy from the other night?” Steph asks. “The one who approached you and Heidi.”

“Who, Harrison?” She can’t be serious.

“No, that’s good.” Alana sits up. Her face lights as the scheme assembles behind her eyes. She’s the queen of schemes, this one. “That’s really good.”

Steph nods. “The way Heidi told it, it sounded like the guy had a crush on you.”

“But he’s …” It even tastes bad on my tongue. “A cop. And he wears khakis. Tourists wear khakis.”

“Exactly,” Alana says, nodding her head as she sees all the pieces come together. She lands her determined gaze on me. “The Anti-Evan. He’s perfect.”

“It’s one date,” Steph reminds me. “Gets Evan off your back, and there are worse ways to spend a night than getting a free meal out of a guy who has zero chance of trying to get laid.”

There is that. And she’s right; Harrison was plenty nice. As far as dates go, this one comes with bare minimum expectations and is super low risk. The worst part, I guess, will be running out of things to talk about and realizing right away that we have absolutely nothing in common. But we’ll just part awkwardly at the end of the night and never have to see each other again. Simple. And if Evan shows up, he takes one look at Harrison, decides to feel sorry for me, and walks away laughing. I can handle that if it keeps Evan at bay.