How to Misbehave (Camelot 1)

He didn’t. The inside didn’t match the outside. Tony was beautiful, but he was damaged.

She wanted him anyway.

“Can I buy you dinner?” he asked.

“The Cove?” Camelot only had a few options to choose from. The Cove was greasy pizza and subpar Italian food.

“I was thinking the pub.”

“I could have a drink,” she said.

“You don’t drink.”

“I was thinking about starting. I need to keep working on my misbehaving. I don’t want to lose any ground, you know?”

He slanted her a look. Not quite mischievous, but interested. “Don’t go thinking it’s as easy as it sounds, babe. It’s tricky, figuring out how to misbehave properly.”

Then a silence as the words sank in. He probably hadn’t meant to remind her, but there it was. He’d done a lot of misbehaving, and the end result was a lost child. Ruined lives. Terrible guilt.

She wished she could make it better, but she understood that there really wasn’t any way for him to atone. He could stay put, sink into the past, or he could move forward. She wanted him to move forward with her, but it was too soon to assume that he wanted that, or that he could even do it, just by wanting to.

“I imagine it’s tricky to misbehave just the right amount,” she said cautiously. “Too little is bad,

of course. It sucks all the joy out of life, trying to be good all the time. Trying to be safe. But then, if you overdo it, that’s dangerous, too. I think maybe everybody should have somebody to help them figure it out. Keep them in check. Misbehave with them, you know?”

“A teacher,” he mused.

“A partner,” she said.

“You asking me?”

“Do you want me to be asking you?”

He squeezed her hand and then let it go.

She couldn’t read the expression on his face. Another rejection, or indecision, or fear? So hard to tell, looking at him, what was going on inside his head.

The pub sat on the corner right at the edge of downtown Camelot, a two-block stretch that also contained the deli, bookstore, and market. On the other side of a gravel path that cut right through campus was the post office, bank, and Village Inn, where there was another restaurant.

The pub turned out to be less depraved than she’d expected. Just tables and chairs, the bar on one side, and plastic-coated menus sitting in a caddy with ketchup and mustard.

“What does one eat at the pub?”

“They do decent cheeseburgers and fries.”

“Sounds good.” She stuck the menu back where she’d gotten it. He hadn’t sat down yet, which didn’t feel like a good omen.

“I’ll order at the bar. What do you want to drink?”

“I have no idea. Not beer.”

One corner of his mouth curved up. “You don’t like it?”

“I tasted my dad’s once, and it was vile.” She cast around for some kind of sophisticated drink to order, then blurted out, “Oh! Can you get me, like, whatever the alcohol version of a Shirley Temple is?”

That earned her a real smile. A bubble of hope expanded in her chest.

“I’ll see.”