Bad Girl Reputation by Elle Kennedy

But we both realize too late there’s a puppy in the room, and she’s been bored silly all afternoon.

Like a slow-motion crash, the parakeet flits over to the dresser. Daisy’s ears perk up. She lifts her head, a low growl building in the back of her throat. Alarmed, the bird takes flight. Daisy pounces, snatching the tiny creature out of the air as it explodes in a burst of yellow feathers and disappears.

Goodbye Jessie.





CHAPTER 17

EVAN


Me: Hey. Just checking in to make sure you’re alive.

Gen: You’ve been asking me that question every other day for almost 2 weeks. Still alive. Just been busy with work.

Me: Same.

Gen: You realize usually when a guy “checks in” at 1 in the morning, it’s considered a booty call?

Me: Blasphemy! I would never besmirch your purity like that.

Gen: Uh-huh.

Me: Tbh, I can’t sleep.

Gen: Same.

Me: You good, other than being a busy insomniac?

Gen: All good here.

Me: Dinner one of these days?

Me: Just to catch up?

It’s been six hours since Gen stopped responding to my texts. As I help Mac set the breakfast table outside on the deck, I keep feeling a phantom vibration in my pocket, hoping it’s her. But no. Now it’s just been six hours, forty-two minutes.

“Grab the napkins, will you?” Mac says, handing me utensils to lay down.

My mind is elsewhere as I duck inside to grab some napkins. I’d thought things were getting better with Gen. We’ve been texting here and there for the past couple weeks, just random banter or quick hellos. Every time I mention getting together, however, she shuts down and stops responding. I can’t get even a foot in the door. She won’t go for coffee, won’t eat lunch with me—nothing. She’s the most infuriating person I’ve ever known. Worse, she likes it that way.

“So what’s your plan for the day?” Cooper asks after we’re seated to eat. “Got some orphans to pull out of a burning building, or what?”

Mac passes me the scrambled eggs. “Still doing the nursing home?”

Daisy pokes her head up from under the table to beg for a piece of sausage. When I start to hand her a piece, Mac points a knife at me.

“Don’t you dare. That stuff will kill her.”

While Mac is preoccupied with chastising me, Cooper slips a chuck to Daisy, and I stifle a grin.

“Anyway, no,” I say in response to their badgering. “I’m not allowed back there since our crazed beast ate that dude’s bird.”

“Wait, what?” Mac’s utensils clang on her plate as she drops them. “What the fuck?”

“Well, ate is probably an exaggeration,” I relent. “I’m pretty sure most of the bird was intact when Daisy spit it up.”

Coop barks out a hysterical laugh, to which Mac shoots him the scary eyes.

“This happened last week?” she shouts. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I told Coop. Guess I forgot you weren’t there.” Cooper was falling on the floor cracking up when I told him about the incident with Lloyd. In fact, he’d suggested we keep it on the DL because Mac would flip out. Guess I forgot that part too.

“You didn’t think to mention it?” Mac cuts a glare at my brother.

“She’s a dog,” he says lightly. “It’s what they do.”

“This isn’t over, Hartley,” she replies in a voice that says he’s not getting his dick sucked anytime soon.

“Anyway, I’ve got a new gig,” I continue just to save Coop from the weight of his impending punishment. “I signed up to be a Big Brother.”

Yup, it’s happening. I’m hopping on the Big Brothers bandwagon. I tried out a few other volunteer gigs after the nursing home didn’t work out, the most recent one being a shift picking up trash on the beach. Which was going well until I was attacked by a homeless dude under the boardwalk. He chased me off by throwing bottles at my head. I swear, nobody had warned me civic responsibility was so treacherous. At any rate, I figured some disadvantaged kid has got to be less dangerous than hobos and handsy old ladies.

“Oh, Christ, no,” Coop groans. “You realize you can’t just take him to a bar for four hours, right?”

“Fuck off.” Just for that, I steal the last pancake. “I’ll be a great role model. Teach him all the things adults don’t want to tell kids.”

“Child endangerment is a crime, Evan.” Mac smirks at me. “If the cops find you stumbling out of the Pony Stable with a ten-year-old, you’re going to end up in jail.”

“As always, I appreciate your support, princess.” Their lack of confidence is disappointing if not unexpected. “Anyway, he’s fourteen. Plenty old enough to learn how the world works.”

“God help that kid,” Coop mutters.

I get it. They’d rather keep me in the screwup box than believe I’m evolving. I guess that’s not entirely unwarranted, but an ounce or two of faith, a little benefit of the doubt, would be appreciated. They make it sound like I’m gonna kill the poor kid. But how hard can it be? Feed him, water him, turn him in at the end of the day. I mean, hell. I’ve rented a car before.

Is this really so different?

His name is Riley and he’s a typical skinny Bay teenager with shaggy blond hair and a summer tan. I had pictured a little punk-ass like me, some dude with a smart mouth and more attitude than sense, ready to tell me to get bent. In reality, he’s a bit shy. Looking at the ground as we wander the boardwalk, because I hadn’t thought too much about what there is to do with him that doesn’t involve any of the nonsense I was getting up to at his age.