The Big Boys' League: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Troubled Playthings 3)

“Axel made him do it, I’m certain of it. That’s why he wouldn’t tell you… Axel must have something on him he doesn’t want to get out.”

I realised as I was saying it that what I was putting forward sounded like a literal conspiracy theory, but I couldn’t help it if reality was ridiculous.

“Interesting,” said Mr. Henderson. “Why do you think Axel is involved, Aileen?”

I reluctantly started on the explanation about Dad’s patent, even pulled out my phone to show him, but part of the reason I was so enthusiastic was because I could tell from the start he wasn’t buying it. I was used to that look. I’d been getting it from teachers since primary school, when I would tell them about how my father was an inventor, a genius who had come up with ideas for toys better than the stuff everyone else was buying from the shops, and they would tell me that must be so amazing while never believing a word of it. How would a single dad have time to come up with the best toys in the world—and anyway, they’d all met my dad, and so they were definitely wondering how he even managed parenting.

Until that moment with Axel at that stupid party, I’d been doing so well at not talking to anyone in my new school community about Dad’s ‘interest’. I’d been worrying for a while after we moved and I switched to Sands whether my prior big-mouth behaviour would come back to haunt me. But it had been years now, so I was feeling pretty safe about it. These days, I asked people to tell me about themselves rather than bragging about what I had. I knew I didn’t have anything to brag about.

Axel was the first person who’d believed me, and he’d only made me aware my situation was even more pathetic than I’d previously realised.

“That just sounds like a silly fight to me, Aileen,” said Mr. Henderson. “Not the sort of thing that would make the scenario you’re putting forward come to pass. I mean, you know what Axel’s like.”

“A complete arsehole who doesn’t care who he has to go through to get what he wants?”

Mr. Henderson just made a noise at me that sounded rude and impatient. “If you can offer any suggestions for why Matt might choose to target you like this, I’m eager to hear them.”

He was never going to see Axel as being potentially involved in this, was he? The problem was, Axel and Mr. Henderson were too close to being the same person. It was a kind of person that was very popular now everyone was embracing technology with pretty much every part of their body except their brains. Halfway-popular guys who got into technology were destine

d to become even more popular… and guys like Matt who actually cared about technology for more than money and popularity couldn’t relate.

It really pissed me off that Axel was going to bring Matt down along with me. There was no way Matt had done anything to deserve it, and besides, at least the thing with me was that this would be just an inconvenience in my life. Something I might even be able to laugh about in the future. Being busted for hacking into a government computer was potentially everything-ending for Matt.

“Have you already, um, reported Matt?” I asked.

Mr. Henderson gave me a look that suggested he was getting curious about me again, and I had better be careful. “We agreed to gather more information before we move forward with anything like that.”

“Can I talk to him privately first? I… I might be able to get him to talk to me if he feels like it’s just us.”

“I’m probably pushing things giving you his name in the first place…”

I met Mr. Henderson’s eyes and tried to think of nothing but how the two of us had a mystery to solve, and one inconvenient old-school geek in the path of that solution. “I don’t see any other way we’re going to figure this out, Mr. Henderson. If he won’t speak up now to save himself from what he must know will be really bad consequences, once he’s tied up in some official process he’s definitely not going to talk.”

Mr. Henderson grimaced through a silent argument with himself, then stood up. “I want you to try to keep this between us, okay? I don’t know that the principal will understand.”

You knew life was getting complicated when people kept asking you to share secrets with them.

Matt was being kept in an unused office on the second floor, now set up sort of like an interrogation room with a piece of black cardboard tacked crooked over the glass panel on the door. When I finally met his eyes after closing the door behind me, he looked panicked enough to explode.

“Aileen, I—I—”

To help me along, I tried to think of myself as the ‘bad cop’ interrogator in all those crime shows. Or did I mean the ‘good cop’? They weren’t exactly my type of television. “I’m going to get right to the point, Matt, because we might not have much time. What did he threaten you with to delete me from my own education?”

Matt’s jaw dropped. “Who—”

“Axel, obviously, I’m not as clueless as everyone else around here. I know he’s got something on you.”

Matt shuffled his feet on the floor.

“For goodness sake,” I said on impulse, “did he find out what kind of porn you’ve looked up or something?” I put my hands over my face when he looked like he was suddenly biting back tears. “Were you seriously going to sink your entire life because of something everyone does?”

“It was… pretty weird stuff,” Matt muttered. “I mean it was only once but—”

I put a hand up to silence him. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but… was it weirder than spanking?”

“I—”

“Because that’s what I’ve looked up once or twice… well, a few times. It kind of does it for me and I am incredibly embarrassed that I’ve just told you this, but that’s how desperate I am to get through to you. Is whatever he has on you really worth destroying your life for?”