Off Campus by Amy Jo Cousins Read Free Book Online

grimaced. “Sorry. Just drop it, okay?”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œSeriously? Because I don’t want to fucking talk about it, okay?” But he could already see where this was going. He only wondered if Reese would wait until he left the room to do it.
    His roommate stared at him speculatively for a moment, tapping his bottom lip with one index finger before shrugging and grabbing his phone off the desk.
    Nope. Guess not.
    Reese looked up after a second.
    â€œWhat’s your last name again?”
    It figured. The kid didn’t even know his last name. Shit. Who knew how long he could have flown under the radar here, with this guy having no idea who his last-minute roommate was. Tom flashed back to the rugby chant a Pakistani dishwasher had taught him in the month last year he’d spent working under the table in the kitchen at a local chop house, knowing if he used his social security number for a legit job, some reporter would track him down faster than he could say breaking news.
    â€œShit-damn, fuck-a-damn, fuck-a-damn-damn,
    Some motherfucker just fucked my man,
    I’ll fuck another fucker better than the other fucker,
    Shit-damn, fuck-a-damn, fuck-a-damn-damn!”
    Strange, the crap that got stuck in your head and insisted on popping up at the oddest moments. But as he sat there, staring at Reese, this kid with the soft mouth and the tired eyes who’d perked up for all of two minutes at the idea of figuring out what he probably thought was a fun bit of gossip, Tom couldn’t think of anything else but that foul-mouthed rhyme, sung in a British accent. Tell the kid or not? If he didn’t, it wouldn’t get him more than ten hours of grace, since all Reese had to do was dial up Res Life in the a.m. and ask “Who the hell is this guy in my room again?”
    For a minute, those ten hours seemed as if they might be worth it. The last little bit of peace he could hold on to. One more night. Who knew what would happen then. Worst case scenario had the kid taking naked pictures of him and selling them to some gossip mag. He could see the made-up headlines now. Price-Fixing Jailbird’s Son Does Porn. He remembered the days, and then weeks, months, of having flashes blow up in his face every time he tried to set foot out the door of their Beacon Hill home. Of trying to sneak out in the middle of the night, only to realize that the paparazzi never left. That there was always someone watching them, watching him. He started referring to the pack of them as the Evil Nemesis. He remembered the first time he’d tried to argue with a reporter who shouted out lies about his father as Tom pushed his way through the crowd blocking the gate to their front walk, wanting to get inside and hide.
    â€œDid you know your father was embezzling money too, Tom?”
    He’d been told later that it was a trick question, designed to draw him out. The PR company that had been working on his father’s press, until the corporate board decided that working to repair the image of a man who was absolutely, positively going to jail was a waste of money, sent an agent around to coach him after that disaster.
    Losing his cool sure had made for good television. Tom had watched himself on television that night and even he didn’t believe himself. All of his sputtering furious protests about his father’s innocence looked like a fucking cover-up. With their enormous red brick Georgian townhouse visible behind the eight-foot-high wrought iron fence that surrounded their property, he looked like a spoiled little rich kid who was throwing a temper tantrum because someone wanted to take his toys away.
    A pretty accurate picture at the time.
    The PR guy had shown him how anything he said could be twisted around to mean the opposite by the time reporters were done with it. The guy had advised him to keep his fucking mouth shut and tattoo the words No Comment across his forehead.
    â€œAlso,