KENNEDY

After leaving Tyler’s house in a fit of rage, I drove straight to Sydney’s apartment. I had an overwhelming desire to punch him in the face as I stormed off. But I played it off as if he meant nothing to me. I like Tyler, thought maybe he was different from what I had assumed about him. Clearly, I was wrong.

Now, I’m sitting in front of Sydney’s apartment, beating the shit out of my steering wheel and crying my eyes out. I made it all the way across the bridge and into Philadelphia before having my nervous breakdown. It wasn’t the first time I hooked up with a guy and it ended in complete disappointment.

And it sure as hell wasn’t my first almost one-night stand. If it weren’t for Roxie, we would have had sex at least a few times before I left his house. At least bitches stick together in his house because she saved me from making a horrible mistake. I hate men. They are so much better on fucking paper.

Focused on smashing my fists against the steering wheel, I don’t even realize I sounded the horn until I hear someone knock on my window. I look to my left and see Sydney standing outside my car, her hand raised in the air and an odd expression on her face. Concern, maybe. After all, I do look like a crazy person right now.

Trying to compose myself before rolling down the window, I wipe the tears from my eyes and suck in a deep breath. Sydney taps again, more impatient this time, and I hit the unlock button and open my door, desperate to free myself from this car.

“What the fuck happened?” Sydney swings her black curls over her shoulder and places her hands on her narrow hips, taking in the sight of me with mascara running down my face, the tears still welling in my bottom lids.

“It’s nothing,” I mutter and grab my bag from the passenger seat. “Stupid fucking Tyler is all.”

“I am going to kick his ass. What did he do?” Her face turns a shade of pink, the blush spreading down her neck and chest.

Holding onto the door jam, I slide out of the car and sling my bag over my shoulder. “Well, like an idiot, I hooked up with him.”

She gasps, throwing her hand over her mouth in shock and speaks between her fingers. “You had sex with Tyler Kane. Shut the fuck up. How was he?”

“I wouldn’t know his dog kept getting in the way, but we did other things.”

“You saw his stick? Oh my God! So…how big was it? Give me every skanky detail.” I hold up my hands to show her, and she squeals. “Get out of here! He’s rich, a pro athlete, and has a porn star dick. That’s like hitting the trifecta of man candy.”

“Yeah, except he’s a fucking jerk. Everything was going fine until I asked him about his personal life. Then, he nearly threw me out of his house. As if my humiliation wasn’t bad enough, I had to dress like a cartoon character for our experiment and then leave looking like this.” I point at my clothes. “I have no idea how I even held my head up without any shame when I am wearing a fuzzy pink sweater that is part of your Halloween pimp costume. This idea was stupid. Tyler liking me in this outfit proved that men would fuck anything with a vagina. They could care less what we wear.”

She tugs at the arm of my sweater, the corner of her mouth turning up into a tiny smile. I can tell she is holding back and wants to laugh her ass off. I would not blame her because this outfit is awful, which seems fitting since it matches the rest of my day.

“C’mon. I have something that will cheer you up. I bought more of that French Roast coffee you like, and I went to the bakery this morning. I have chocolate chip and sugar cookies with your name on them.”

After I lock my car, Sydney drags me through her front door and up the stairs to her apartment. Her living room is three times the size of mine with high ceilings, a view of the city, and gorgeous decorations and furniture to match. Her place is something you would find in a magazine but in real life.

I plop down on the crazy expensive couch she had imported from Europe as she heads into the kitchen to fix our coffee. The gray fabric is soft yet rough and unlike anything I have ever felt. Even with all the wealth I had for most of my life, I don’t recall every touching something as unique as Sydney’s couch. Sydney made it big right out of high school with her first romance novel, a super smutty teacher-student book she based on the affair she was having with our hot English Lit teacher.

He was five years older than we were at the time and the things they did together make for good bedtime reading material. Over the years, people speculated that her book was about Mr. Delaney because of the out-in-the-open flirting she did with him during class, but no one could ever connect them together. She has a habit of writing about her life experiences, and those conquests are what land her on the best-seller lists.

“Here you go,” Sydney says, handing me a coffee mug on a saucer with two chocolate chip cookies on the side. “Cream and sugar. Just the way you like it, babe.”

She settles in next to me on the couch, her pinky turned up as she sips from her cup. While Sydney is far from a snob, she sure as hell looks like one when she drinks coffee or tea. For the ten years we have known each other, she has never been able to break that habit she says comes from her mother showing her how to drink tea from her play set as a child. Unlike Sydney, her mother is a snobby elitist, just like my mom and sister.

“I’m done with this social experiment, Syd. I gave it a shot, and it worked, but I just can’t repeat this again.”

She lifts her laptop from the coffee table and sets it on the couch between us. “Then, do what I would do and write about it. Our readers will go apeshit over a story like this, and you know it.”

“Yeah,” I try to hide my irritation and fail, “but Tyler has been reading our blog. He even commented on some of the posts.”

She rubs my shoulder and sets her coffee on the table. “After what happened today, I doubt Tyler will read our silly little blog. I’m sure he has better things to do with his time.”

I frown, drowning my sorrows in my mug. “Like throwing women out of his house. He seemed experienced in that department. Everything was going great, and then I asked about these pictures he had on his mantle, and he just went psychotic over them.”

“Which tells me that whatever you found is important to him. You struck a nerve, and if he’s that sensitive, you don’t need a man like that. How many losers have you been with in the past year alone?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer because it was a statement, not a question. “At this point, it’s safe to say that most of the men in this damn city have no idea how to treat a woman. But,” she says, slinging her arm around me and pulling me into her side, “you still have me, and what more could you need?”

Finishing up with a goofy smile, she releases me from her grasp and lifts a cookie from the saucer, holding it up to toast me before taking a bite. “Now, get writing.” She speaks with a mouth full of food and shoves the computer into my leg. “I want to hear all about his porn dick and don’t leave out a thing.”

Right. Check my humiliation at the door along with my self-respect just so I can entertain our followers. Since when do I have any shame? I talk about sex on the regular on our blog and with Sydney. Why would talking about sex with Tyler be any different?

After I drink half my coffee, I set it on the table and lift the computer onto my lap. The first thing I find when I open the lid is a porn site with a paused screen, followed by a Word document containing Sydney’s latest naughty manuscript. Unfortunately, this is normal when it comes to Sydney. She says porn helps her write the super smutty stuff that no one dares to write.

Opening a new document, I think of all the things I want to tell our followers, my mind drifting back to when I ran out of Tyler’s house, too prideful to cause a scene or make myself look like more of an ass in front of him. That much I learned from my mother. She would have said a lady holds her head up high and acts accordingly, whatever the fuck that means.

I wanted to scream and yell and tell him he was an asshole, but what good would that have done in the grand scheme of things? It would have served zero purpose other than make me look like a child having a temper tantrum. So, what else can I do now other than taking out my anger on the keyboard and shame that bastard the only way I know will hit him where it hurts?

“To all the tiny sticks I ever sucked before: a hate poem to small sticks,” I say aloud while typing.

Sydney leans over my shoulder and laughs at my title. “Good one, except that is far from true if he’s that big.”

“But our followers don’t know that. For all they know, his dick is the size of my thumb.”

“You’re just trying to get under his skin, aren’t you?”

“Maybe. I doubt Tyler will ever read this anyway. Stop interrupting and let me finish. Then you can read it all you want.”

She sinks back into the couch, sipping her coffee and pretending I am not in the room. I go back to typing fast and furious, imaginary smoke coming off my fingers they move so fast along the keyboard.

Hello, Puck Bunnies! Hope you are having a fabulous day. This week, I decided to conduct a social experiment to see if men are as dumb as we think they are and guess what? It turns out they are even dumber. Shocker, right? Well, no, not really. Going into said experiment, I knew it would work on at least one man, and the man in question just so happens to be famous.

“You cannot write that,” Sydney says, laughing. “Why don’t you write the truth and just leave him out of it? I’m sure knowing he was a project to you will piss him off more than you stick shaming him, and it doesn’t sound like he has anything to be ashamed about.”

“Fine,” I huff, my fingers moving again at a rapid pace.

Fuck. Fuck. Motherfucker!

I hit the keys so hard my hand hurts and glance over at Sydney. “How’s that? Maybe I’ll write him a poem that goes something like, There once was this guy who thought he was the shit—”

“Okay, babe, I think you’ve had enough for the day.” She takes the laptop away from me and sets it on the coffee table, shaking her head. “Maybe writing is not the best therapy for you. We can either talk about it or get drunk. My vote is for filling up our wine bras and walking along the waterfront. What do you say?”

“My wine bra is at home.” I pout and fall back into the couch with a loud sigh.

“I have extras, and they’re all yours so cheer up.”

“I need something stronger than wine to help me forget about Tyler.”

“You like him, huh?” She sounds surprised as if liking Tyler is the worst thing in the world.

I didn’t think so at first, not that I knew him well. Giving into him was one of the dumbest decisions I have ever made.

“I’ll get over it. It was just so humiliating how Tyler threw me out of his house like that after everything went so well. I thought we were hitting it off and then—bam! It’s as if he flipped a switch and went into asshole mode. His attitude change is making me want to find out what he’s hiding.”

She props her left foot up on the coffee table and sips from her mug. “What kind of secrets do you think pretty boy is keeping?”

I shrug. “He has at least a dozen pictures of a young boy with blonde hair and blue eyes who is the spitting image of him on his mantle. I asked Tyler if the little boy is his son, and he checked out on me. The next thing I knew he was asking me to leave. I tried to apologize, but there was something about him, a look in his eyes, that I could not place. Guilt, maybe, but I don’t know—”

Sydney shoves her palm out in front of her, cutting me off. “Tyler Kane has a secret love child that no one knows about except for you. Babe, don’t you think you could use this story to help your paper? The media would flip shit over this, and you could be the one to break the story.”

“If he has a son, one of the big news outlets would have discovered it by now.”

She hands me the laptop, her face glowing with excitement as she scoots closer to me on the couch and places the computer in my hands. “You’re a good reporter. Do your homework. I’m sure you will figure out what Kane is hiding. Everyone has skeletons in their closet. You can be the one to find his. Plus, you need the money to keep Sports Buzz alive.”

I groan, resting the laptop on my thighs and flip open the lid. “Don’t remind me. My dad already called on my way over to Tyler’s house to tell me for the hundredth time that my paper is not making any money and that Lockwood’s are winners.”

She snorts and flips her hair over her shoulder. “Your dad needs to get off your ass about that after he pissed away his money.”

“You got the same crap from your parents when you told them you were going to become a smut writer instead of going to college.”

“Well, in my defense, I didn’t need college. The advances from my publisher were insane, and money changes everything in my house—yours too, which is why you need to make some money off this story. Tyler was a jerk so forget about him, do your job, and report the news.”

“Yeah, but what if there is a child involved? I don’t want to drag a kid and his mother into a publicity nightmare. Tyler might be a giant ass, but they don’t deserve to be thrown into the spotlight.”

“Good point. So, what are you going to do?”

“For now, nothing, but I would like to find out more about his personal life. I want to know why he would hide a child. Plenty of players are private, and I don’t blame them, but Tyler looked upset, which tells me something happened that is keeping them apart.”

Sydney lowers her head, a strand of black curls falling into her eyes, and points at the screen. “Get to work, K, you have some dirt to dig.”

Feeling guilty about doing research on Tyler, I open the web browser, hoping there is nothing there for me to find.