Page 294 of The Trouble With Bad Boys

“Yo.” A knock sounded on the opened door. “You busy?”

I glanced up to see my two friends, Godfrey Romano and Hudson Gao. Both were dressed in jeans and a light sweater, looking casual as if they had all the time in the world. It hadn’t always been like that. We shared a dark history that bonded us forever. Godfrey owned a renowned jewelry company, and Hudson was a high-powered lawyer with his own practice.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Godfrey folded himself into the leather chair in front of my desk.

Hudson occupied the other seat. “We’re meeting for lunch, remember?”

Shit. I’d forgotten about our lunch plans today.

Godfrey had dark hair and olive skin, making the women at my gym swoon whenever the Italian heartthrob taught one of my self-defense classes.

Hudson stared at my plants and furrowed his eyebrows. “Someone donate these? They seem out of place.”

He was another popular trainer who women couldn’t get enough of. Classes always filled up when this Vietnamese-Chinese-American lawyer traded in his tailored suit for athletic clothes. Women asked him out constantly, but he’d always declined. My boys knew their place. My fitness studio wasn’t a hookup lounge. They respected my space as I respected theirs.

I’d met a few of their women before. But none of us had long-lasting relationships. Perhaps we were cursed. There was probably too much dark energy around us. God knew we’d been through hell.

I couldn’t speak for them regarding women. But for me, I hadn’t connected with any woman to want her around for long. The clingy type irritated me, and I didn’t have time for that shit.

“Plants produce oxygen.” I rose from my chair. “And this office needs more of it.”

Godfrey and Hudson both laughed.

“Since when do you care about oxygen?” Godfrey asked.

“Are you sick, bro?” Hudson tried to touch my forehead, but I swatted his hand away.

“I just want a change. It’s good feng shui, okay?”

Hudson snorted while ogling at my plants. Christ. They were just plants. So what if they looked lonely on the empty floor inside a room that desperately needed more furniture? What was wrong with these guys today?

“Feng shui?” Godfrey gawked at me. “Fuck. You’re definitely not okay. Let’s go eat. Maybe you need food.”

Three

EVA

I was wrong when I thought Grandpa would be irritated with the noise from the crowds and traffic in Coolidge Corner, a busy section in Brookline. Instead, Grandpa Collins smiled as he surveyed the various shops, the bicyclists sharing the road with the cars, and the Green Line train that screeched to a stop to let people on and off.

“Wow. Look at all those people squished on the train. They look like sardines. Must be smelly in there.” He stood on the sidewalk, staring at the train.

I laughed. “You get used to it. It’s not that bad.”

The track ran parallel to Beacon Street, giving the residents a convenient way to travel into Downtown Boston and nearby cities with ease. Like any crowded city, parking was rare and expensive. City transportation had been helpful to me. I didn’t need to use my car unless I wanted to drive back to the peaceful countryside of Vermont, where Grandpa lived in a seniors community. My grandmother had passed a few years ago from pneumonia, and Grandpa had been living by himself. My parents visited them often, since they were just a town away.

We waited at the curb for the walk sign blinker to go on.

“Eva, this is such a lively place to live.” Grandpa’s eyes widened as people poured out from the doors of the train and crowded the sidewalk. “There’s so much to see! So much to do.” Like a kid at an amusement park, he turned this and that way with curiosity.

I thrived on the energy of city life. Coolidge Corner was just outside of Boston, so though it was alive, it wasn’t crowded like Boston.

The joy on Grandpa’s face delighted me. Unlike some of his friends who were bald, Grandpa had a head full of white hair. He wore it short because that was how Grandma liked it. At seventy-five his eyes and mind were still sharp, and he looked ten years younger than his friends, who were the same age. I hoped to age gracefully like him.

This vacation was exactly what I needed to clear my head about what I wanted in my life. And what I wanted in a man. I’d turned down four potential dates in the last two months. They were customers who had come into the shop to buy flowers for their significant others.

Assholes. Jerks.

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