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

Steven grimaced at me like he’d never gone too far when a girl got his head messed up. “Not cool, man.”

“Doesn’t fucking matter now,” I said. “She knows, she wasn’t pleased, and she’s never going to forgive me.”

Callie perked up. “Do you want her to forgive you?”

“Stay out of this, Callie,” Lucas said.

“I don’t take orders from you,” replied Callie, in this very casual voice that was really getting Lucas going. I could just imagine how I’d react if Aileen spoke to me like that. It’d really piss me off, I’d want to grab her and—and things she would need to consent to if I didn’t want a fight on my hands.

Fuck it, I really did want her to forgive me so we could actually move past this. Get to know one another better. I wanted my hands on her again… and I wanted to be by her side double-teaming some unsuspecting schmuck with her in a dress only I would get to remove.

That was the danger again right there. Fuck her or work with her. Not both.

Well I knew this game. If you were caught up in a negotiation and you didn’t like either of your options, you’d better be a crafty fucker and come up with a third one. All I had was an absolutely crazy idea that was probably going to get me arrested after skirting the edge of it so long, but when the stakes got higher you had to be willing to get a bit dangerous if you still wanted to play.

I turned to Callie. “Where the fuck is Aileen today, anyway?”

“I never know where Aileen is,” she returned. She didn’t need to add that she wouldn’t have told me even if she did.

My mind had already turned over enough stones to come up with some potential answers, though. She’d clearly run straight to Matt with what I’d told her, which I couldn’t blame her for really. I’d never told her not to because I assumed Matt already knew. I’d been responding to Matt all this time under the assumption that he knew and had just… decided he didn’t feel obliged to be apologetic over how it had all turned out.

The point was, someone like Aileen probably felt like she had to keep an eye on Matt after giving him a shock like that, look after him. And there seemed to be one place in particular that Aileen and Matt might have come together.

Aileen and Tamara were surrounded by Matt plus two of the other guys Matt hung out with these days: Phil and Danny. They were giving Aileen this look like an angel had descended into their midst—not some nerd-hating shit on my part either, that was just the effect Aileen had on people. It was so fucking infuriating to see this now, to want to cradle her like a soft sweet flower when I’d already done all that other shit.

Matt, Phil, and Danny got up and formed a kind of protective guard around the girls. “I’m not planning on ripping her clothes off and beating her in front of you,” I said.

Mrs. Donal popped out from behind some shelves, pulling the same trick on us I’d pulled on Aileen a while ago. “Tamara,” she snapped, “there isn’t going to be any trouble here, is there.”

“I don’t think I’m the one to ask, Mrs. Donal,” retorted Tamara. She’d had a clash with Steven in the library recently, and the staff had clearly not yet forgiven her. We had been such terrible news for these girls.

I didn’t want to get Aileen excluded from a place she might actually need to use during exams, so I extended a hand to her and said, “Would you come outside with me for a moment please, Aileen?”

I read the same hard refusal to negotiate in her eyes that had gotten us down this path in the first place, but she glanced at Tamara and said, “Sure, let’s go.” She led the way out, flinching away from my hand when I tried to rest it on her back.

My instinct was to try to get the upper hand as soon as we were out of everyone’s hearing. “Aileen, I’m sure you know your father is.. not conforming to the expectations I set out when I initially gave him a role in my team.”

Aileen’s smile was sweet but her voice was hard. “Your team… that’s just you, Axel. It was just you.”

“It could be you too,” I blurted. “If you wanted.”

She stopped walking, like this was too much for her to take in while she was moving as well.

“I mean it,” I said, and then I fucking hedged again. “I want to give you a chance to compensate me for his fuck-ups, so you can come to me on a regular basis and I’ll beat your—”

“Nope,” said Aileen. “Not happening.”

“Why?” I’d expected her to bargain, to expect me to commit to some ground rules. I was ready to commit to some ground rules. I hadn’t thought after all we’d gone through now that she would refuse immediately.

“Because I don’t want you touching me again. That has to make sense to you, right?”

She looked angry that I was even asking her. That could not be it. “You didn’t really want to do it before and still you agreed, what the fuck has changed?”

Her sudden smile was a little incredulous, and incredibly sad. How had I not noticed until now just how pretty she was? I’d been too busy crushing her face into my bedsheets. I wanted to steal more kisses from her, and this time take my time over it properly. The way a mouth like that deserved to be treated.

“A lot has changed,” she said, “in case you haven’t noticed, but it’s simple really. Last time I decided I would let you do what you wanted, to see how it went, and I didn’t like the outcome, so this time I’m deciding not to. There doesn’t have to be more to it than that.”

“You aren’t even going to give me a chance, you—”