The Bad Boy and Miss Checklist

Author's Point of View: The morning sun streamed through the blinds in neat, slanted beams, stripes of gold slicing across the tiny apartment like rulers on a page. Elise Brooks sat at her desk, straight-backed and focused, the way she always was. Her reflection in the window caught her eye: the tight bun secured at the crown of her head, not a single strand loose. She tugged once at the hairpin to be sure, then returned her gaze to the desk in front of her. Everything had its place. To her left: stacks of color-coded folders—red for assignments due this week, green for research projects, blue for internship applications, yellow for long-term goals. To her right: a planner, each square box filled with neat black penmanship that tilted slightly right, never smudged, never crooked. Her vision board occupied the wall, a patchwork of magazine clippings glued on with careful precision. A perfect job in publishing. A neat apartment with high-rise windows. A photograph of her boyfriend—well, not exactly her boyfriend, more her ideal. She had cut his face from a candid they’d taken together, pasted it over the body of a man in a suit, and pinned it in the center of the board. Her future husband visualized and planned. Life, she had decided long ago, would not catch her off guard. Not when she had worked so hard to make every step predictable, controllable, hers. Like the tightly restrained bun on her head, neat, not a hair out of place. She had rules. Three of them. Rule number one: Get top grades this semester. Rule number two: Apply for that internship at Davidson & Gold, the publishing house of her dreams. Rule number three: Absolutely avoid anyone with a reputation for trouble. Especially the kind of trouble that came wrapped in tattoos, leather jackets, and smirks that promised heartbreak. Her phone buzzed, interrupting the silence. The screen lit up. Miley: Did you hear? He’s back. Elise’s brows pinched. She typed quickly. Elise: Who? Miley: Him. Jaxon Romano himself. The bad boy. Try not to swoon. Elise rolled her eyes and tossed the phone into her bag like it had burned her hand. Swoon. As if. She didn’t swoon. She planned. Still, as she zipped her bag and smoothed her blazer, something stirred—a flicker of curiosity she instantly shoved back down. Jaxon Romano. She hadn’t thought of him in years, not since that playground incident back in first grade. She remembered the dusty field, the scuffle, his gray eyes flashing as he shoved some kid twice his size away from her. Then later, the trouble, the fights, the suspension. Even as a child, Jaxon was chaos personified. But today wasn’t about gossip. Today was about getting to class early, sitting in the front row, impressing her professor, and checking the first item off her carefully constructed list. Elise stood, pulling her shoulders back. She gave herself another once-over in the mirror hanging beside her closet. Light blue button-up blouse, freshly ironed. Beige dress pants that hit perfectly at the ankle, paired with low nude heels. Glasses perched precisely on her nose, the thin gold frames catching the sunlight. Perfect. Controlled. Predictable. She nodded once at herself and performed her morning ritual: hand on the doorknob, deep breath in, three taps with her knuckles, then twisted and stepped out. Except this time, instead of meeting the crisp fall air of campus, she slammed face-first into a wall. A wall that groaned. A wall that reeked of alcohol. Her glasses slid down her nose, nearly clattering to the floor as she stumbled back. Blinking hard, she looked up—and froze. Cold, dull gray eyes stared back at her, shadowed by messy dark hair that looked like it had not seen a comb in days. His jaw was rough with stubble, and the scowl carved into his features looked like it belonged there permanently. “What the hell are you doing in my room?” His voice was gravelly, edged with irritation. The stench of alcohol rolled off him so thick it nearly made her gag. Elise’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “This is 207, which I have been assigned for the past three years.” He leaned one broad shoulder against the door frame, smirking faintly. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but if it’s for some d**k, there are easier ways than dressing like an office intern.” Her mouth dropped open. Heat flooded her face. “Excuse me? Once again—this is my room. 207. I don’t know what kind of drugs you’re on, buddy, but you need your brain checked.” He lifted one brow, glancing lazily at the number on the wall. His smirk faltered. “This is… oh.” He chuckled, low and humorless. “208 is mine. My apologies, princess.” Elise shoved past him, slamming her door shut with more force than necessary. Her heart thudded in her chest. He’d ruined her morning ritual. He’d ruined her carefully constructed calm. And worse—his scent, that mix of alcohol and leather and something darker, clung to her clothes, crawling into her nostrils even as she stomped down the hallway toward class. Her phone buzzed again. Miley. Of course. Miley: Guess who’s in your building? Elise didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Not yet. Not when her hands were still trembling from the collision, and not when she knew, deep down, exactly who she’d just met in the doorway. Jaxon Romano. The name pulsed in her head as she quickened her pace, heels clicking against the linoleum floor. The bad boy of her childhood. The one person she had sworn she would never, under any circumstances, let back into her life. And yet—fate, or bad timing, had other plans. Elise fumed all the way to class, the encounter leaving her infuriated. The audacity of that man. She shot Miley a quick text. Elise: You will not believe who I ran into.