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

“You’ve got what it takes to do whatever you need,” Dad assured me, but there was a bit of sadness creeping into his voice now.

Chapter Seventeen

I shot Sandy a look she didn’t seem to notice, busy as she was taking up all the space on our couch. It seemed enough time had passed since Marcia’s departure that she didn’t feel obliged to pretend she wasn’t all over the place any more. It made me cringe more than I expected, but there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it either.

When Marcia came marching in herding Toby and Tim ahead of her, she hardly seemed to notice Sandy. “Aileen, I’m counting on you to make sure their toys don’t get scattered all over the house not to return in time for my return,” she said as the boys scattered. “When I pick them up from here on Monday I’m going to be ready to take them straight to the airport, no screwing around. How were your exams? What’s it like, finally escaping the grind of a high school education?”

It hurt my head sometimes, trying to keep up with Marcia. Even Sandy was wincing in her awkward corner. It also hurt my heart, because no woman was ever going to bustle around managing my life the way Marcia did for my brothers.

“It’s still sinking in,” I said. “Hey, do you have a moment to talk about the situation with visiting next year?”

Her view was clearly that she didn’t, but she gave me a funny look up and down and then acknowledged Sandy’s presence for the first time by leading me away from her. “What would you like to say?”

There was one possibility I’d never considered at the start of this, a place I felt I wouldn’t go to get what I wanted. But then I’d been up the whole night before thinking, why? Was it such a bad idea?

“It’s not going to be right away,” I said, “but it’s likely we’ll have the money to make at least quarterly visits. I’m just wondering whether there’s going to be space for us at your place, or if I should be factoring accommodation and the like into the deal.”

Marcia quickly covered up for a face that would have gone nicely with screaming of no don’t come! I would have been hurt—Marcia had given me advice on bra-shopping and making certain uncomfortable doctor’s appointments, for goodness sake—but I understood. It had hurt her, badly, that she’d done everything and still found Dad couldn’t be the man who lived up to it. The idea of getting away from the entire scene had no doubt been wonderful to her… and as much as she always liked me, I was still Dad’s daughter, not hers. I was part of that old pain.

She was also a professional at managing old pain. “I didn’t realise things were improving for you two that much, I know your dad has this new job he’s working at, but…”

I couldn’t tell if she was too embarrassed to state the obvious or just didn’t feel she needed to. “We’ve got a few irons in the fire at the moment,” I told her, trying not to think about how much that was a Dad thing to say.

As if I’d invoked him through my thoughts, Dad strode through the door, one of the boys swinging off each arm like monkeys. Marcia actually turned away for a second. I could have strangled him for reminding her at that moment exactly why she would rather have him far away from her young ones. Marcia had always wanted to raise the boys without unnecessary rough-and-tumble. I didn’t see the harm in it mostly, but whenever there were problems at school, it usually came back to something Dad had showed or done with them.

“Aileen was just telling me the two of you already have plans to visit next year.” Marcia went all in without hesitation. Dad reeled back a little, the boys dropping off like overripe fruit and bouncing all over the room.

He recovered fast. “Oh, yeah, we’re onto a good thing at the moment. I’d be expecting to have a bit of money saved up for regular trips.” More like he was counting on me having saved some of the ‘pocket money’ he’d started giving me once it sank in just how much he was receiving. Well as it turned out, I hadn’t spent a bit yet. I didn’t have a problem with Dad accepting money from Axel that Axel was willing to give him, but if anyone was ever going to have to pay for that in the end it would be me, and I wasn’t going to potentially compound that by acting like I was entitled to spend anything he gave me. If he decided to come after us for some reason, I could always offer to pay him some of the damn money back.

“Well…” Marcia had clearly not expected anything like this conversation. “It might be hard for me to say for sure I’ll have room for you at our house. There’s a spare room, but I’m thinking I may get a live-in nanny to make sure the boys are well cared-for while I’m working.”

Sandy, who had crept up behind Dad, was rolling her eyes. Marcia zeroed in on that like a woman who had two kids with an equal talent for screwing with her.

“Maybe that sounds too bourgeois for you, but when I’m in the office feeling guilty because I can’t be with my babies every second of the day and give them the life they deserve as only I can, I’d rather know that someone’s with them who they like and trust, who I trust. When you get older and have more simultaneous demands on your time, you realise just how important trust and responsibility are.”

Sandy shrugged. “As us young ones say, sure, whatever.”

This seemed like it could only end up in a fight, but then Dad took a step backwards and slung an arm over Sandy’s shoulders, dragging her sideways and close into him, and Marcia deflated like he’d hit her.

I hadn’t thought about it before, but there had to be a part of Marcia that still loved Dad, maybe even enough to still be with him if things were different. If he’d still been interested. Dad had always been… Dad, from the start of their relationship. She knew he was an idiot, it was just a few ways in which he’d really let her down, scared her about the future, that had ended things. Now she could manage her own future, maybe she would have been interested in taking him back, taking him with her… but Dad had moved on quickly, like he always did. Always less wounded than the women he left in his wake. He was a good guy, but he was still an arsehole.

Marcia took a step back. “Well… we’ll discuss the possibilities later, when you have a firmer idea of what you might want to do. I’m already late, so I’d better dash.”

“As always,” Dad murmured. Marcia ran out the door, calling a goodbye to the boys they didn’t dignify with a response. As soon as she was out of sight, Dad took a sharp sideways step away from Sandy.

Well, it still felt like a fight was in the air, but maybe not the one I’d expected… and I wanted to stick around for this one even less.

“I’d better run too, Elizabeth might be waiting for me outside.”

My mother wouldn’t even go into Dad’s house. I didn’t think it was because she was still in love with him, though. Elizabeth Anderson had much bigger fish to fry in her life as a super-successful lawyer than my dad.

Yeah, when she’d finally turned her life around after he managed to completely wreck it for a while, she made a comeback in a spectacular fashion. And maybe my lawyer dream wasn’t completely random… but I liked to think it was something I’d thought would be a good match for me all by myself and not just cribbing off a woman I barely knew. There were infinitely more ways in which I didn’t want to emulate Elizabeth than I did.

I still smiled a little when I saw her convertible, possibly even a more tastefully-coloured edition of Callie’s, waiting at the end of our street. I slipped in, a little shy about having to wave to Marcia as she noticed me while getting in her own car. I couldn’t deal with so many women my dad had hooked up with being in the area at the same time.

“Your brothers’ mother?” Elizabeth asked as she accelerated the car, narrowly avoiding swiping Marcia’s on the way out.

“That’s right. Marcia.”