Bad Boy (39 page)

Jon tried to avert his eyes from the other employees who had come in to work out
‌
—or to gawk at him
‌
—but it wasn’t an easy thing to do. What he wanted so desperately to do was to hit the stop button, jump off the rubber track, and tell them exactly what Tracie had done to him. How she had violated him. How she had exposed him as the town clown. How she had made him the Micro/Con mascot.
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But Jon opted for jogging on the treadmill. His head was pounding with every step he took. How could she do this to me? he thought. He couldn’t remember having this feeling of pain in his chest since his father left him and his mother so long ago. Sure he had felt badly for all the other women his father had been with and dumped, but this hurt was something that Jon couldn’t get past.

He wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead before they could roll into his eyes and sting. Though that wouldn’t be so bad, he thought. Then my vision would be impaired and I couldn’t see everyone looking at me. He wondered if the hurt he felt was what he had inflicted on all the women he had slept with since this whole transformation started. Especially Beth
‌
—she was the most persistent of all of them. Well, he was definitely his father’s son, thanks to Miss Higgins.

Why had Tracie decided to sleep with him only after he had been with all the others? Was she jealous of them? Had she wanted him all this time? Or did she want to see if he was doing the sex thing right and take notes on that, too? Jon couldn’t take the pressure of the room any longer, so he stepped off the treadmill and left the gym. He used his towel as a shield, pretending to wipe down his wet face and neck.

At least the changing room was empty and he was given a moment to gain his composure before having to step out into the hallway. He had managed to get halfway down the hall on his way to his office, when he was met by
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Samantha. Jon almost wished for the time when it was only a daydream to have her come up to him. But what she did to him was beyond even his own wildest dreams. “You rotten little bastard!” Sam spat in his face, and before Jon could respond, she had slapped him across the face.

Great, if all the other women at Micro/Con had this reaction, he would be black and blue by noon. He put his hand up to his face and continued down the hall. He couldn’t help but look into the doorways of the offices along the way. Luckily, most were empty, so he was fortunate enough to get down to the main room, where all the cubicles were located in his department. All that came to his mind was the possibility of a reenactment of the scene in
Jerry Maguire
when Tom Cruise goes to leave his job and everyone stands up and watches him go to the elevator. If only he were leaving, Jon thought. He thought that he could stand up to them and say that the article Tracie had written for the paper was not his mission statement, that he’d had nothing to do with it. Then everyone would go back to what they were doing and never give any of it another thought. He stopped at the entrance to the big room. Everyone was working away and no one really looked up at him; they were doing what they usually did every morning when he came into his office. Could be worse, he thought as he entered his office.

He decided he’d shut the door on the rest of his staff today. That way, anyone wanting
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entry would have to be announced first. As he turned from the door to head to his desk, he was taken aback by Carole, who had perched herself on a beanbag chair.

“Good morning, Mr. Bad Boy,” she said with a sheepish grin on her face. “You’re the talk of the commissary today.”

Jesus! He didn’t need this, not after all he’d been through already. “Good morning,” he said quietly, and went to sit in his chair. “Can I help you with something?”

“I’m going home today and I wanted to say it’s been a pleasure having met the ‘Sexless Savant’ of Seattle.” She grinned again.

“I didn’t have
‌
—” he began, but she got up from the chair and put her finger up to her mouth to signal him to be quiet.

“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Jonny,” she said in a snotty voice. “A boy’s gotta do what a boy’s gotta do. You’ll manage.” Then she stepped closer to his desk and pointed to a memo. “Based on what this says, you should have spent a lot more time on Parsifal than on me and all the others.”

Jon looked down at the paper. Shit! It was from Dave, his division supervisor. He scanned the words and the word
failed
was in bold capitals in the second paragraph. He pushed his chair back from the desk and Carole went to the door. “Good luck,” she said. “Maybe we’ll meet at Carousel B again sometime.”

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Finally, his day was over. Jon walked out of the office building and headed toward his bike. Tracie stood beside it, her hand on the seat. When he saw her, he stopped for a moment, then turned back toward the Micro/Con entrance and began to walk away. “Jon, please,” Tracie called, and came up beside him. “Just let me explain and apologize.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t know you were a liar.”

“Jon, I swear. I was going to ask your permission before I
‌
—”

“Permission to humiliate me?” he asked, interrupting her. “I don’t think I would have granted that, even for you.”

“Listen! Marcus had rejected the idea months ago. I was
‌
—”

“But when he changed his mind, you stepped up to the plate, huh?”

“Marcus promised he wouldn’t run it . . .”

“Who do you think you are?” he asked. “
Who?
What gives you the right to play God?” He couldn’t believe how callous she had been, how she had used him as a pawn to get closer to Phil. For a moment, his anger rose so high, he could understand how men hit women. “Interfering with people’s lives. Changing them altogether.”

“But you asked me to,” she reminded him.

That was true. What had he been thinking of? Jon thought of his father and all that he
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had put his mother and stepmothers through, as well as the pain he had caused. Jon shook his head to snap himself out of his reverie.

“You know,” Jon said to Tracie, “maybe Molly is right. For a smart girl, you’re really dumb. Maybe I was asking you something different. Maybe I was asking you a more important question than why I got blown off by Samantha.”

“What? What were you asking me?” she demanded.

Jon turned his back on her and walked away. He wanted her to melt, to disappear. Instead, she followed him. Christ! He didn’t need anyone watching more drama in his life. But Jon couldn’t keep silent. “After being my best friend for more than seven years, maybe you should have known what I was asking. And why,” he spat out at her.

“If you wanted me, why didn’t you say so? Why didn’t you tell me, or make a move on me?” she demanded. “I’m not a mind reader.”

The unfairness of that stung him. “Why should I? So I could hear that you loved me but you just didn’t love me in ‘that way’?” He felt a pain and a rage he hadn’t known was there. “Do you know how insulting that is? Do you think I needed to hear that said aloud by you?” he asked. “You were smart enough to pull off this charade so that women would fall for me. You were smart enough to turn me into a newer, better version of my dad. You were smart enough to write an article that makes me look like the jerk I am. But you’re not smart
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enough to know about subtext? What kind of writer are you?”

Now tears were actually rolling down her cheeks, the cheeks he’d covered with kisses. “Jon, I love you. I made love to you . . .”

“But not until you changed me. Not until half of the women in Seattle had slept with me first.” He finally got his fucking bike chain. Tracie came up beside Jon and gently touched his arm. He pulled away from her so violently that she stepped back. “I wasn’t good enough for you before. You didn’t notice me, or you took me for granted or . . . something. Anyway, you didn’t want to make love to me then.”

Tracie put her head down and her hands up to her head. He wouldn’t let himself care how pathetic she looked. He’d seen her look this sad over morons she’d dated once. When she did answer, it was a whisper. “I think I always did want to make love to you. You were the only one who really knew me, Jon. But I was stupid. And I think I was afraid. Jon, do you know how much our night together meant to me? Do you know how much I loved it, how much I love you?” she asked.

Jon turned to her. “And you weren’t afraid of Phil?” he asked. Tracie raised her head and gave him a guilty look. And then his hope was smashed, because he knew her well enough to know she’d done something very wrong. Despite his accusation, she wasn’t a liar. Maybe the article had been a mistake. So what was it that she had now disclosed with
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that look? What had she done in the last twenty-four hours that she shouldn’t have? . . . “Who did you sleep with last night, Tracie?” he asked.

Tracie lowered her gaze, but not before he saw her blush. Now he knew he was right. “Phil, but I . . . but he had just . . . we didn’t . . .” she stammered.

He didn’t want to hear another word. He actually got sick to his stomach and thought he might throw up right there on the macadam. “I was alone, Tracie. And that’s what I’d like to be now,” Jon said abruptly, then mounted his bike and rode off.

Jon’s mother kept giving him two pieces of useless advice. “Call Tracie, Jonathan,” she said. “And get yourself a dog. A nice golden retriever maybe.”

“I don’t want to call her. I want her to be struck by lightning,” he muttered, his mouth full.

“Why, Jonathan Delano!” she exclaimed, but then she backed off.

The problem was that he couldn’t find anything that assuaged the pain. He wasn’t so
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humiliated anymore
‌
—people were such jerks that having his picture in the paper had made him a celebrity on campus and some geeks had taken it seriously enough to try to emulate his “style.” He put an end to that by stopping at the Micro/Con shop on campus and going back to his usual T-shirts and khakis. The hell with the pants thing.

But he couldn’t seem to snap out of the pain he was in. One night, in total desperation, he picked up the phone. But he didn’t call Tracie. He called Allison.

She seemed delighted to hear from him when he called. He’d tried not to
‌
—for both of their sakes
‌
—but in the end, he couldn’t face another long night alone. By the time he picked up the phone, it was too late even to pretend to meet for dinner, so Jon asked if she wanted to join him for a drink, which he guessed was Bad Boy Talk for wanting to fuck. Or maybe Bad Boy Talk for wanting to fuck was asking her if she wanted to fuck. He wasn’t sure. But he knew he needed a drink or two, or six, and some company.

He met her at Rico’s, and he had already had a couple of shots of Southern Comfort before she got there. First, he’d asked for Dewar’s and it was harsh, but now he was drinking in memory of his father
‌
—even if his father wasn’t dead yet. Jon couldn’t understand how anyone could like the taste, but after three drinks, he had to admit there was a certain logic to his father’s drug of choice. It tasted like paint remover, but it was effective. He wasn’t drunk,
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though. Tracie’s betrayal and the bet she’d made with Phil would take at least a bottle of Southern Comfort
‌
—or paint remover itself
‌
—to erase.

He stared into his glass and wondered if he’d ever known her. He couldn’t believe the Tracie he knew would make love to him the way she had when all along she was angling to get Phil to move in with her.

Phil! Jon ordered another drink, and the bartender was only too happy to oblige. Jon wanted to put the cold glass up against his forehead, but he took a sip instead. Maybe if Tracie’s choice hadn’t been Phil, he could have lived with it. Maybe. But Phil was a true idiot, pretentious and self-involved and
‌
—Hey, let’s face it, he thought
‌
—not too smart. Jon had already vowed that he’d never see Tracie again, but earlier that day, he could swear he’d seen Phil walking across the Micro/Con campus. It couldn’t have been true, but if he did see him anytime soon, Jon promised himself he’d do everything he could to beat the living crap out of the stupid bastard.

Just when he felt drunk enough to want to get drunker, he looked up from the bottom of his Southern Comfort glass and saw Allison walking along the bar toward him. All of the men turned their heads to follow her progress. She was beautiful; he knew that. Prettier than Tracie. Definitely prettier than Tracie, he repeated to himself. Taller, and her breasts were bigger.

Every man at the bar wanted a chance to
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touch those breasts, but he was the only one who would be able to tonight. That is, if he didn’t drink too much more Southern Comfort.

“Hi,” she said, draping one arm around his shoulder. Every other guy, all the Phils and all the losers, tasted disappointment along with their booze. He knew what that felt like. The problem was, he didn’t care that he’d triumphed over all of them.

“What’s your poison?” he asked her, just the way his dad did. She ordered an Absolut on the rocks, and Jon hoped she wouldn’t drink too much, because she had to drive them both to his place, manage to get up the stairs with him, take off her clothes and then his. Sorry, boys, he almost said aloud. He’d take this one home. Fuck Tracie.

For a minute, he thought about fucking Tracie. He closed his eyes, not because he wanted to make the memory more vivid but because he wanted to push it away. He would sleep with Allison; he would rub his body against hers and it would feel good to both of them, and he hoped that on the other side of Seattle, where Phil and Tracie were rubbing their bodies together, she’d be thinking of him.

Allison moaned and Jon moved his hand to her shoulders, lifting himself up so that he could improve his thrust into her. “Oh, Jonny,” she moaned again. He stopped, and then
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after a moment, when he didn’t continue, she opened her eyes.