I was uncomfortable. My chest was tight and my heart raced at a mile a minute. I looked at the girl on the other side of the table. She was staring steadily into her Diet Coke as she fingered the remnents of her almond brownie.

Could I reall confess this? I am – was – the town’s bad apple, and I enjoyed that reputation. Scrawny kids cowered from the gaze of my lined eyes and even some police officers were scared of me. I always got booze and girls just fell over me; they all wanted to be the one who made me change.

This girl, she had taken the bad out of me. I hadn’t even slept with her yet, and we had been dating for a month. My prior record was a week without sex.

“I think,” I said. She looked up at me and her Bambi eyes knocked the wind out of me.
“You think?” she smiled. “Think what?”
“I think… I love you.”

Her eyes lit up. “So I was the one. This will be a brilliant spread!”
That’s when I saw the tape recorder and felt utterly squashed. That was it: reputation out the window, along with my heart.