Bad Boy by Olivia Goldsmith Read Free Book Online Page A

said, pulling away from her. He swung his long legs over the p. 47 side of the mattress, sat up, and reached over to the night table for a cigarette. “I have to call him about rehearsal tomorrow,” he told her.
    “Whose number is it, Phil?” Tracie asked. She picked up the phone, prepared to dial.
    “Jeff’s,” he said, his back still to her. He lit a match, sucked in a deep lungful of smoke.
    She hated him right then. She wasn’t stupid, after all. It was probably the phone number of that skinny little girl from Friday night. She should have known! She began to dial. “Phil, if I dial this number and I don’t get Jeff, I’m going to cut off your hand, so your penis never has a friend again.”
    “Go ahead, baby,” Phil said calmly as he did a French inhale. “Of course, you’ll look like a psycho bitch and I’ll look like an asshole, but hey, I don’t mind.”
    Tracie paused. Was he being casual or just acting as if he was? She couldn’t tell. And did she really want to know? Phil took a deep puff, then exhaled. “I mean, I can’t help it if Jeff’s old lady answers the phone and gets mad. She hates him to get calls there. Especially from women. And so late.”
    “Late? It’s only ten-thirty.” God! She’d be late for Jon!
    “Why don’t you stop fussing and come here and get what you really want?” Phil asked her. Sometimes she hated him. He put his cigarette down and opened his arms again to her.
    “I miss you already and you’re not even gone,” he said, and rolled on top of her and p. 48 kissed her again. His long body wasn’t heavy enough to really pin her against the bed, but she liked the sensation of almost being pinned. His mouth tasted sharply of tobacco, but his tongue was so warm and alive. It searched hers like a friendly little vole looking for a home. Tracie dropped the phone and reached for the water bottle she kept on her bedside table.
    “I’d like some of that, too,” Phil said, and started to get up on his elbows.
    “It’s all yours,” Tracie replied, and doused him with it. Just in case he was a liar. He yelped, but she paid no attention. She had no time to find out ‌ —and maybe she didn’t want to know. She’d be hellishly late for Jon. She pulled on her clothes, slipped into her shoes, and crossed the floor. “I’m outta here,” she called from the door, laughing. Her last look at Phil was of him untangling the wet gray sheet from his lanky body.
     

Chapter 5
     
    Jon’s office was impressive in size and location, occupying the corner of a building on the low-rise Micro/Con campus, with a view of the topiary garden. But instead of the usual corporate chairs and sofa he had been offered, Jon p. 49 had used his decorating budget to buy vintage beanbag chairs upholstered in leatherlike Naugahyde. A lot of Naugas must have died, ’cause there were at least half a dozen shapeless mounds of chairs spread around the room. In the center of them, there was a coffee table actually made of coffee beans suspended in a clear acrylic. Jon particularly liked the coffee table. Narrow shelves lined one wall ‌ —not for books, or even software CDs, but for the vast collection of action figures he had acquired for work (he had a huge annual budget for them). They shared space with his numerous Pez dispensers (his own private collection). Jon had more than four hundred, including the rare Betsy Ross, the only Pez dispenser ever created based on a real person.
    He more than liked the nonsense of his office. There was a method to his madness. It put people at ease, and encouraged playfulness, hence creativity. But there was no nonsense on his desk. Only three photographs were set at the corner of the shining (renewable) teak surface: a picture of his mother, a picture of Tracie and him at college graduation, and a picture of a much younger Jon standing with his mom next to his father, just after they’d planted the wisteria around the doorway of their house and just