Diary of a Bad Boy
Meghan Quinn
The Secret to Dating Your Best Friend’s Sister Excerpt
Prologue
Dear Diary, Fuck, it sounds like I’m a hopelessly besotted teenage girl with heart beams spewing from her hormonal eyes. Yeah, there is no fucking way I can write Dear Diary. I need a different name. Something manly, something with giant balls, something that will scare away any little punk who tries to read this. Let me think on that.
And yeah, I fucking wrote besotted. I might be a whiskey-slinging party boy with the luck of a four-leaf clover, but I’m also a goddamn gentleman. A gentleman who occasionally writes words like besotted.
Unfortunately, this “gentleman” got himself into a wee bit of trouble. I blame it on the Irish temper and the tawdry hoodlums who thought they could get in my face while I was flirting with a fine-as-hell lass. But I guess the court system looks down upon punching someone in the nose while still expertly holding a tumbler of whiskey—didn’t spill a goddamn drop.
Thank fuck for a good lawyer. Well, I thought he was good until I realized what I had to do instead of jail time. Eighty hours of community service and anger management therapy sessions with Dr. Stick Up Her Ass, who requires me to write in this godforsaken diary about my . . . feelings.
Guess what I’m feeling?
Horny. Thirsty. And in the mood for a hot dog.
And that’s as much as you’re going to get out of me, Diary. Sorry if you were expecting a grand confession of childhood dilemmas or an outpouring of hysterical and exasperating diatribe. Not going to happen. Not with me.
Until our next unwanted engagement,
Roark
Chapter One
SUTTON
“It’s late.”
“It’s eleven thirty in New York City, so that’s early,” Maddie says, tugging on my arm. “Come on, live a little.”
I scan the dark streets, my dad’s warning about being a single girl in the city running on repeat in my head. “I don’t know, I think I should get home.”
I’ve lived in the city for two years now and have yet to be out this late on my own. Grad school and studying will do that to you. Also, the pure fear of being scooped up by a human trafficker—thanks, Dad—instills enough fear inside me to never go past my front door any time after nine at night.
But I’m supposed to be celebrating today, at least that’s what Maddie told me. After two solid years of doing nothing but studying, I graduated with a master’s in philanthropy, and I’m about to start my new job . . . working for my dad.
I know what you’re thinking—nepotism at its finest. And maybe . . . BUT I also earned the position, interning under the director of operations for four years. For free. I spent four years working my butt off—twenty hours every week—proving to the team I’m not just Foster Green’s daughter, but a valuable attribute to Gaining Goals, a non-profit foundation founded by my father, the four-time All-Pro quarterback for the New York Steel.
And all that hard work paid off when Whitney Horan hired me as public relations manager.
“You’re not going home. What happened to experiencing life? Remember that little New Year’s resolution you made?”
This is why I shouldn’t share anything too personal with Maddie. She always holds me to it. Although, I guess that’s what a best friend does. Also . . . she found my New Year’s resolutions on a notepad on my kitchen counter. At first, she admired the different colored pens I used for each resolution—five in total—and then memorized each and every one of them. Maddie and I met our freshman year in college, and she is the yin to my yang. Where I am more reserved, she’s outgoing and adventurous, an attribute I wish I possessed. But I would never tell her that.
“I don’t think staying out past eleven thirty defines living life.”
“It sure as hell does.” She loops her arm through mine, our puffy jackets clashing together to form one huge ball of warmth. “This is the beginning of living life. We did your thing and saw a Broadway musical, now we’re going to do my thing.”
“What’s your thing?” I ask hesitantly.
“Getting a hot dog.” Maddie hails a cab and rattles off the intersection of two streets like a true New Yorker.
“A hot dog? That’s living life?”
“Yes, and didn’t you say you wanted to try all the iconic food of New York?”
Darn it, another resolution, although that resolution has been my favorite and the easiest to accomplish so far, going around the city and trying all the different food the urban jungle is known for. But along with that resolution came a gym membership, one I’ve used quite often.
“I do want to try all the food,” I answer, biting on my lip.
“That’s why we’re going to Gray’s Papaya to get some famous hot dogs and mango juice.”
Thoughtfully, I ask, “Isn’t that the hot dog place in You’ve Got Mail?”
“And Fools Rush In,” Maddie adds. “If Matthew Perry is so fond of it, so am I. And from what reviewers have been saying, you’re supposed to get the dogs dressed in mustard and their famous onions. So get ready, we’re about to have dragon breath.”