Bad Reputation

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.”

“Sorry.”