Bad Boy by Night

♱ Prologue ♱

𝓟𝓸𝓻𝓽𝓮𝓻
𝚃𝚠𝚘 𝚆𝚎𝚎𝚔𝚜 𝙰𝚐𝚘

The box was placed squarely on my desk.

Transfixed, I lingered in the threshold of my bedroom before I managed to locate the willpower within me to close the door so my brother wouldn't observe my erratic behaviour or go near the box. As I was the eldest sibling, I had a certain power and behaviour standard to set as an example for them to follow, though if they were privy to my night activities, I would undoubtedly be banished from the house. That was a given considering how strict and governed by rules my parents were.

Good boy by day, bad boy by night. That's what my friends incessantly said about me. They couldn't have been any more fucking accurate.

As savvy as I was to the bizarre and perilous, it was mutually exclusive to the feelings of caution and cool-headedness, licensing me to speculate my surroundings and determine the least risk exit of a dangerous situation. And considering there was an inexplicable box on my desk and I hadn't ordered anything online for a long while—to my knowledge—I was wary. Something was so very fucking wrong.

Having garnered enemies over the years of my nights spent incriminating myself in the shadows and the moon's presence and even under the lethally blazing sun, I didn't endeavour to figure out who could have possibly wanted to send something threatening after potentially breaking into my house. It would have just been redundant. After all, there could have been a simple explanation. Perhaps Jacob, my brother, answered the door earlier to the mailman and he took the box off his hands, depositing it in my room. Perhaps they had spotted it on our doorstep. Perhaps—

There was a knock at my door. "Porter?"

Startled, I realised I was still standing in front of my door so I side-stepped to my bed immediately, plonking myself down on the edge before Mom could enter and inadvertently smack me in the back of the head with the door. She poked her head through the gap she produced with a smile on her lipstick-stained lips before opening it further and stepping into my room, deeming it safe to do so.

After she walked in once while I was with a girl, she'd decided to adopt the knocking approach before barging in devoid of preamble ever again. Since then I've been a lot more careful when bringing a girl home. You never forget those harrowing moments.

Before Mom could say anything, I asked, "Mom, did you leave this box into my room?"

My mom shifted her gaze from me to the box I had neglected to touch that was still in the same position on my desk, placed almost meticulously in the middle of it. She shook her head but concern didn't lace her words as she announced, "It might have been your father. Or Jacob. It's addressed to you, isn't it?"

"Yeah. You're probably right."

"You probably ordered something online so long ago you've forgotten all about it by now." She smiled at me. "I'm going to start dinner, okay? It'll be half an hour."

"Okay, Mom. Thanks."

My mom was a petite woman, slim and shorter than me. Despite her small frame, she was never seen without makeup—especially crimson lips. Her dark hair was always styled in some way, whether it was in an updo or she'd spent half an hour curling her hair. She had high cheekbones, something I had inherited, as well as a lack of freckles. Everything else, including my build/height, fair hair and piercing grey eyes were all derived from my dad. Jacob shared our build but had taken after my mom with her hair and startling blue eyes.

I took my Calvin Klein baseball cap off and pushed my light brown, almost blonde hair back from my eyes. It was wavy and shaggy and thick, but girls always moaned onto my lips that they loved being able to run their fingers through my hair. Typically I sported a dishevelled appearance with my hair, but my attires consisted of skinny jeans, baseball or graphic T-shirts and jackets over the top. Mom had surrendered long ago endeavouring to get me to wear branded clothing considering we were rich and there was a wordless obligation to flaunt it around town. So I negotiated with the baseball caps. I had a broad variety ranging from random sports teams to extortionately expensive brands.