Bad Influence by Stefanie London

Author:Stefanie London
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2019-01-23T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

“Dear Bad Bachelors, I won’t be using your site anymore. Thanks to you, I’m getting engaged to the man of my dreams, all because you gave me the courage to ask him out!”

—BadBachelorsSupporter

Annie’s heart pounded as she paid the cab driver and then stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of her parents’ place in Bensonhurst. After a night of tossing and turning, she needed to sift through the crap in her head and figure out what to do next.

So she’d fired off a text to Joseph, telling him she’d gone to stay with her parents and not to bother coming over. Her boss would probably flip that she was bailing on work for another day, but she hadn’t taken a single day off this year so she had plenty of vacation days racked up.

Besides, she couldn’t face being in the office, not with everything hanging over her. When was the last time she’d had so many competing emotions? So much uncertainty? Not in eons.

Maybe because you’ve tried your hardest not to feel anything at all for the last three years?

She glanced down at her phone. No response from Mr. Justice after she’d asked him for more time. She didn’t want to close down Bad Bachelors, but she didn’t want Joseph to suffer either. Why had all her biggest life decisions felt like that? Like choosing between her and him?

The one thing that always helped her sort out her feelings was talking with her mom.

Annie stuffed her phone into her bag and looked up at the house. It was similar to every other one on this street—semidetached, about ten years late for a new paint job, and still worth over a million. Not that her parents would ever move. They were the kind of people who committed. Forever.

The sound of her boots echoed in the quiet street as she jogged up the steps to the front door. It was early, seven in the morning. But her parents would have been up for an hour at least. She couldn’t remember a time when they’d slept in past six, even on the weekends. Her stepfather usually tried to be at the café by seven thirty to open at eight. And her mother still prepared a proper breakfast every morning.

The doorbell made a shrill sound inside the house, and a second later, the door swung open. “Bella?”

“Hi, Dad.”

Sal’s deep frown was enough to bring the onslaught of tears she’d been doing her best to fight ever since she got out of bed that morning. They rolled fat and hot onto her cheeks, streaming down to her chin. His arms were around her in a second, her face pressed against his threadbare undershirt, her tears soaking through the fabric. The bristly scratch of his mustache was comforting and familiar against her head, and the smell of him—like coffee grounds and Drakkar Noir—helped what was left of her emotional guard come crashing down.

This house was the only place where she could truly be open. Her safe place.

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