Bad Guy: Providence Prep High School Book 1 Read online

  Bad Guy

  Providence Prep High School Book 1

  Jacob Allen

  Contents

  1. Emily

  2. Adam

  3. Emily

  4. Adam

  5. Emily

  6. Adam

  7. Emily

  8. Adam

  9. Emily

  10. Adam

  11. Emily

  12. Adam

  13. Emily

  14. Adam

  15. Emily

  16. Adam

  17. Emily

  18. Adam

  19. Emily

  Epilogue

  1

  Emily

  Who could that be?

  The soft doorbell ring reached through my door and into my room. I sat up from my bed, in the process of listening to Sum 41 while imagining what senior year at Providence Prep would look like. In my head, it featured a whole lot of dancing, easy nights of studying, and zero drama with a certain someone.

  In reality, it probably would look like the exact opposite, but a girl who had just celebrated her eighteenth birthday two weeks before without any trouble could dream of a similar outcome for the next nine months.

  Those dreams, though, got put on hold by the unexpected ding-dong in the house.

  “Dad! Can you get that?”

  I waited a few seconds for my father to answer. I knew my mother, at best, was trying to sleep off the alcohol she’d had at lunch, but I hoped that my father would at least want to answer. But, apparently, he either had fallen asleep early or he just didn’t want to face the outside world right now. Both were equal possibilities.

  “Never mind,” I said with some resignation.

  I turned down “Fat Lip” by Sum 41, bounded down the stairs in my shorts and pink tank top, and peered open the door. Samantha and Jackie? What in the world?

  I opened the door to see my two best friends in all of Providence Prep and all of the world standing there before, looking much more put together than I was. Jackie, with her curly brain how, mixed heritage, cute freckles, and exotic yet affordable dresses, always drew eyes wherever she went; the effect only got heightened when she chose to doll up a little, especially since she had curves not always visible when dressed normally. Samantha, meanwhile, had legs that made many a teenage boy swoon; she had pale white skin, deep brown eyes, and a sweet smile. She was also best described as “endearingly awkward,” a term she gave herself and one we used as a compliment for her.

  As for me? Well, I’d like to think I kept myself in decent shape through soccer, and I knew a lot of guys had things for blonde hair. But aside from my work ethic and my dreams of becoming a doctor, I considered myself pretty average. Certainly not as beautiful as Jackie or Samantha.

  “Hey girl,” Jackie said with a smile. “You look like you’re about to watch some Hulu and go to bed at the same time as your parents.”

  “That was the plan,” I sheepishly admitted. “It looks like you two don’t have the same plans.”

  “Duh!” Samantha said with a little bit more force than she probably meant. “We’re gonna go party.”

  “Oh, where?”

  Just don’t say…

  “The Senior Kickoff party.”

  Only one family could throw a party that would have had the entire senior class of Providence Prep invited. Only one person would have the antisocial personality to not care if the cops got called on a party of over two hundred teenagers. Only one person could throw such a party and have me not want to come.

  “Do I even need to ask who’s hosting this party?”

  “I know what you’re thinking, Emily,” Jackie began. “But—”

  “It’s at the Collins,” Samantha blurted out.

  I rolled my eyes as I looked at Jackie, the one who always got everyone involved without understanding why some people may not want to hang out.

  “It is, but I promised Kevin that I would show up, and I just thought you would feel bad if you got left out, and—”

  “Why?”

  I loved Jackie, but to say she was a people pleaser—and practically a beggar for Kevin—was about as nice as I could put it. We’d told her many times in the past to not be so desperate to make everyone happy, but it seemed destined to be Jackie’s greatest personality trait and her greatest curse to want to make everyone happy.

  “Why what?” Samantha said.

  “Why would you think that would be a good idea?”

  “Look, the house is huge, and you know the Broad Street Boys run in a pack,” Jackie said. “It won’t be hard to ignore them. It’s not like the four of them will be scanning the house.”

  That much was true. Seeing one of the boys, especially outside of school, usually meant seeing the other three in short order. And the funny thing was, I didn’t really have a problem with three of the four members. I found them to be a little arrogant and, at times, too rude, but they at least didn’t seem to pick on me every opportunity they got, to try and make me cry every chance they got.

  “You can always hang out with one of the smart guys,” Samantha said. “Maybe Tyler or Jacob. They’re nice or quiet. Heck, maybe even Nick!”

  I gave a polite chuckle.

  “At least come in and upstairs to my room,” I said as I moved aside from the door. “My parents would kill me if they knew bugs were getting into the house.”

  They wouldn’t care. Mom wouldn’t, at least. Dad might, if he decides he wants to do things besides work and sit at home all day.

  Samantha and Jackie entered and joined me in my room. Jackie put her own music on, switching over the band to Green Day. The two stood by my bed as I tried to move past, as if preventing me from just doing what I wanted to spend my evening.

  “Samantha made a good point down there,” Jackie said. “Those guys are nice.”

  “They are,” I said.

  But none of them excited me. None of them made me feel the same way as… him.

  Adam Collins.

  My first crush, my first boyfriend, the first boy to ever say things that sent shivers down my spine and had me excited. He had brought me out of my shell in middle school, and he had given me confidence that I was beautiful. No one could make me feel like he did.

  Unfortunately, that was true then and it was true now for different reasons. It was true then because he liked me. Now, it seemed true because he hated me.

  Why? I had no damn idea. And by this point, with just nine months to go before I went to Vanderbilt or some other school far larger than the 800 or so students at Providence Prep, I didn’t care to find out. I just wanted to get through the school year, keep my grades up, graduate with a hug from my parents, keep in touch with Samantha and Jackie, and then remove Adam Collins from my life forever.

  “So, what are you waiting for, girl?” Jackie said. “Look, if you’re scared of Adam, I get it. But are you going to let him define your senior year? Are you going to walk around on eggshells all year long because the giant douche said something?”

  “It’s not just that he ‘said something,’” I said, but I could see that I was fighting a losing battle.

  I knew what Adam’s house looked like. It was more appropriate to call it one of the largest mansions in all of Nashville than it was to call it a house. A house implied that it looked like something you’d see in the suburbs; a two-story house with three or four bedrooms, much like what my parents had.

  No, Adam’s house, thanks to who his stepfather was, felt more like going to a museum than going to a house. If ever there was a single place that I could visit for four hours and never cross paths with him, it was there.

  If it wasn’t hi
s home, that was.

  But still…

  “Can you promise me we’ll stay far, far away from Adam?” I said. “I really was having a great night, and I still will with you two. But if I see him and if he calls me out, it’s going to ruin everything.”

  “We’ve got you,” Jackie said with a smile.

  “Don’t worry at all,” Samantha said.

  In general, I did that. When I was in the classroom, when I was on the soccer field, when I was alone at home, I didn’t worry too much.

  Unfortunately, Adam was like a black hole whose event horizon I constantly circled—one little bump into his orbit would suck me entirely, making it impossible to escape without having my self-esteem and self-worth crippled.

  * * *

  Jackie hailed an Uber for us, with Samantha and I in the back and her up front. She spent the entire car ride on her phone, undoubtedly texting Kevin and telling him how much she looked forward to seeing him—a passion unrequited on his side. If not for the fact that I had seen this one-sided dance for the last three years, I might have stepped in to say something.

  Samantha pulled out her Kindle and started reading. That was par the course for her; the question wasn’t whether she was going to follow the rest of the smart kids to Vanderbilt, but if she was going to go to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. Some people just seemed destined to succeed at an enormously high level, a level far beyond what even the so-called good students did, and Samantha was just that person.

  In terms of making me feel better about my decision to come to this party, though, she sucked.

  I looked out the car window as distant thunder rumbled, with some heat lightning going off in the distance. If that didn’t foretell of a shitty night, nothing did. Just keep your distance. Talk to Jacob or Tyler. They’re safe, they’re nice, and you’ll have classes with them anyways. It might pay to have someone whose physics notes you can copy if you get sick, anyways.

  We pulled up to the mansion, a building that seemed to get bigger every time that I saw it. I hadn’t stepped inside it since sophomore year at another party, a decision I had instantly regretted when Adam loudly called me a whore—despite me not having slept with anyone at the time. I hadn’t stepped inside it happily since the day eighth grade ended, when Adam told me that he hoped we lasted forever. Yeah, that really worked out.

  “He should be waiting for us outside,” Jackie said suddenly, breaking me from my thoughts.

  “Who?” I said, nerves already tightening in my stomach, making me want to vomit my dinner from four hours ago.

  “Kevin.”

  Well, it wasn’t Adam. But it was one of the Broad Street Boys. Which meant Adam…

  “Let’s go,” Jackie said.

  I had no choice. I opened the door, nerves in my stomach. At least I had changed into something more appropriate for a party—that gave me a small sliver of confidence that Adam couldn’t pick on me for my clothing. Wishful thinking.

  Sure enough, Kevin, with his floppy blonde hair, thick build, and crossed arms, awaited us. Not surprisingly, he didn’t look that happy to see Jackie—but then again, except for in short spurts, Kevin didn’t ever look that happy.

  “Took you long enough,” he said. “Samantha, Emily.”

  He nodded to us. Like I said, I never had reason to hate him—but if I were in Jackie’s shoes…

  “There are no parents, right?” Samantha said.

  Kevin rolled his eyes. Even I had to roll my eyes. There was no way that a party like this was getting thrown while Adam’s stepdad and mother slept in the master bedroom. That was especially true considering that Adam’s stepdad was the chancellor of the high school—and even that was a position he had “retired into” from his original spot as a dean at Vanderbilt.

  “Come on, let’s go,” Kevin said, ignoring Samantha’s question.

  “No, there are no parents,” I whispered.

  With Samantha, you could never be too sure. Ironically, her intelligence was what made her ask stupid questions, as she never took anything as an assumption. A great skill in biology and English, a terrible skill in parties and dates.

  Kevin swung open the doors to the mansion. Even having seen the place many times, it never failed to impress. The foyer reached out with a red carper to multiple rooms on the sides, one of them a kitchen some of them with TVs and pool tables, some with video games, many of them with couches where teenager lust filled the air. Upstairs were several bedrooms, and those I didn’t care to examine further.

  Out back was the pool where one DJ was—the other was in here, although the main party was definitely outside. And above the pool, on a balcony overseeing it all, like kings of a dominion, were the “Broad Street Boys.”

  There was Adam Collins, a tall, hot-tempered, and admittedly handsome man who never met someone he didn’t like to chop down with his sarcasm. Adam’s intensity was both what had made him such a wonderful boyfriend and now a terrible enemy; the way he treated me when we were dating made me feel like a princess in a Disney movie, while the way he treated me after made me feel like scum not worth being spat upon.

  There was Kevin Torres, a guy who was generally sullen but could be whip-smart and darkly funny. He had a way of making people laugh while wearing a stone-cold gaze over his face. Many referred to him as the jester to Adam’s king, a comparison that made sense in more ways than just his sense of humor. Rumor had it he was at Providence Prep on scholarship, but there was no better way to trigger his anger than to bring up money.

  Nick Locke was the next one. Of the four of them, he was probably the kindest. He didn’t seem to relish the opportunity to mock everyone and anyone he saw. Unfortunately, the previous several years with him revealed that had less to do with him being a good person and more just being quiet by nature. He wasn’t afraid to break things up that he felt went wrong but expecting him to defend me against Adam was ludicrous. He also had a wicked temper that exploded out of nowhere; he could go from polite, quiet, and deferring to volcanic with just a single sentence.

  And finally, much to Adam’s chagrin, was Ryan Collins, Adam’s younger brother by two years. As handsome as Adam was, Ryan was by far the hottest member of the club, and he knew it. Ryan was one of the few boys I knew who actively fought off women from having too many options. I also knew how much it pissed off Adam that Ryan had women come to him more easily, but Ryan was also the most closed off of the group, even more so than Nick. Ryan and Adam cared for each other and defended each other, but any situation that had girls involved was as likely to end with the two of them fighting as it was with them high fiving each other.

  Individually, aside from Adam, the boys were intimidating but avoidable. Together, though, they ran Providence Prep like tigers in a park full of deer. At any moment, they could tear someone down if they wanted to. At any moment, they could elevate someone if they wanted to. They ran the school, and they knew it.

  “You know where everything is,” Kevin said with a yawn. “I’m gonna go see Adam. Have fun.”

  “But—”

  “I did what you asked me to, Jack,” Kevin said, using his derogatory nickname for Jackie. “Don’t ask me for more.”

  I watched Kevin head up the stairs, confirming my suspicion that Adam and the others had taken their spot up on the balcony. Undoubtedly, they probably had some cheerleaders or other known class sluts with them. It didn’t bother me, I swore, but still…

  “Hey, look,” Samantha said. “Tyler and Jacob. Let’s go talk.”

  I readily agreed, less because of the chance to see Tyler and Jacob and more because it gave me a chance to not have to face Adam or anyone else.

  I did feel bad, though, when I realized walking over that Tyler had a crush on me. I had no romantic interest in him, no matter how much of a nice guy he was.

  “Emily, looking good,” he said, though his words came out so shakily I felt like he had rehearsed this speech in his head. “You, uh, you really made the effort to get dressed for this. It�
�s, um, it’s beautiful.”

  “Aw, thanks,” I said, trying to suppress my facial expressions. “How has your summer been?”

  Tyler went into an answer that I mostly ignored. I wasn’t trying to be rude; my attention was just focused elsewhere. I was looking at Samantha, engaged in genuine conversation with Jacob, and…

  Where did Jackie go?

  “Hey, one sec,” I said to Tyler when he finished saying whatever he was.

  I looked out into the foyer, only to see Jackie talking to Kevin at the base of the stairs.

  And, I noticed, Adam was walking down the stairs, wearing his long-sleeve black t-shirt and his navy-blue shorts.

  I quickly pulled back, as if staring at Adam would have the same effect as the Medusa and freeze me in place. I went over to Samantha as anger started to take over me.

  “Can I talk to you for one second?” I said. “You promised me we’d stay together, and I wouldn’t have to face Adam.”

  “Yeah,” she said, confused. “I’m still here?”

  “I know, but…”

  I looked back. I felt like a woman hiding from a monster, able to hear only the steps of the beast and nothing more. Even the music tuned out, and it was like with a single turn, the bearded, tall monstrosity would be back in my face.

  “I need to go to the bathroom,” I said, trying to get out of here.

  I brushed past Samantha and headed for what I remembered were the bathrooms. I passed by a couple of students making out, including one trying to get under the shirt of a girl I didn’t recognized. The music had all but faded entirely.

  And I could not find the damn bathrooms. I didn’t know if they’d changed the house at all since I had last come or if I’d just blocked this out of my memory, but it was frustrating.