Bad Reputation

She started to turn on her bare heel.

“Wait!”

“Dammit,” she muttered. “What?”

“I’m with the school paper,” I lied.

She stared at me blankly, and I shoved down irritation that she hadn’t noticed me in the meeting.

“I sat in on your meeting with the city just now,” I clarified. “I was hoping we could do an interview? An exclusive, maybe?”

Her pretty mouth tightened up. “Press inquiries go through my lawyer.”

“I’m not real press.”

“Please?” I turned on my sexiest grin. “It’s mean a lot to me, Miss—”

Crap. What was her name?

She rolled her eyes. “You’re kidding, right? You work for the paper and you sat in on the meeting and you didn’t even catch my name? That doesn’t bode well for your career in journalism.”

“I just started. And it’s more of a hobby than a career.”

“Find a new hobby,” she suggested.

My phone vibrated in my pocket, and in the brief second I glanced down, the redhead disappeared down the stairs.

Dammit.

My phone buzzed again, and I fought an urge to toss it out the window. Instead, I answered it without bothering to check the display.

“What?” I growled.

“Is that any way to greet a nice girl like me?” asked a teasing voice.

My heart did the weird twist and release thing it did every time Amber called. I knew what I owed her, but she was still a constant reminder of my past.

I took a breath and put a smile into my reply. “Hey, sweetheart. Bad timing on my part. I thought you were my dad.”

She laughed. “You’ve got to start remembering who I am.”

“How could I forget?” I joked.

I meant it in a light-hearted way, but the second I said it, my mind went to Beth, and I wished I hadn’t spoken. They were cousins. I’d known Amber first, in fact. She was the daughter of one of my dad’s golfing buddies. Our mothers attended the same social functions. At a party one night, Amber had introduced Beth and me, all those years ago.

“Too late,” I murmured out loud.

“Pardon?” Amber said.

“Nothing. It’s just always a relief to hear your voice.”

She snorted, but I knew she liked the flattery. “You promised me you’d show up tomorrow.”

“I promise a lot of girls a lot of things,” I teased.

“I’m sure that’s truer than I want to think about,” Amber said. “But you made this one to me.”

“Babe…” I searched for the kind of excuse that usually came so easily, and failed. “I’m not going to be great company tomorrow.”

My honesty was a testament to how on edge I was feeling.

“I know. You really aren’t all that much fun in general. But you did promise,” she told me in a sweet voice.

I wanted to laugh at her obvious manipulation. I’m generally impervious to any and all attempts to reel me in, and I was sure Amber knew it. Maybe my emotions were just raw enough, or maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for letting anyone down. Whatever the reason, I found myself agreeing.

“A promise is a promise,” I said.

“Yes it is.”

For one second, I thought I heard a hint of smugness in her voice, and I was immediately regretful of agreeing to meet her. I held my temper in check and refused to back down. I clenched my teeth together and made myself bury the irritation under a chuckle.

“You’ll have to remind me where I said I’d be,” I told her cockily. “Lots of promises mean lots of forgetfulness.”

She drew in an irritated breath, and this time I chuckled for real.

“It’s the market in the commons,” she reminded me, just shy of completely impatient.

I should apologize.

I couldn’t make myself do it.

“All right, sweetheart,” I said. “I’ll be there. I’ll even dress nicely so you don’t regret inviting me along.”

“Oh, I won’t,” she assured me, and hung up.

Saturday

Tucker

When my alarm had gone off on Saturday morning, I’d groaned and dragged myself out of bed.

I slept poorly, plagued by a recurring dream. In it, the too-good-looking-for-his-own-good stranger from the school paper tapped me on the shoulder, only every time I turned around, I found Mark standing there instead.

“Not a dream,” I muttered as I made my way through the already busy student market. “A nightmare.”

The most coveted spots were the ones on the outside because they were the biggest and got the most traffic. The ones in the middle of the market were practically stacked on top of each other, and only the customers who wanted to make an actual effort would reach the area. As I shouldered my way through the other vendors, I knew that’s where I would be stuck.

I finally reached an empty table, plunked down my supplies, and stifled a cringe when I immediately recognized the girl setting up at the table beside me.