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

I took a moment to check on Axel. He was still waiting by the steps, his face now a mixture between intense amusement and horror.

“So that’s really most of what I wanted to say,” I told my stunned audience. “I hope you can see now that those breasts were not my breasts, bear absolutely no resemblance to my breasts. Not that it matters, because all of you knew those were not breasts that were meant for you, and you’re all more than old enough to know better than to insert yourselves into a situation that has nothing to do with you. So I hope those of you who didn’t treat me with the respect I deserved just because I couldn’t see it at the time—I hope you guys think about my real boobs a lot. I hope they turn you on a little when you do, and that you feel really bad because of it. That’s going to be my lasting gif

t to you.” I bowed, took a few steps towards the stairs, then stopped again. “Have a nice life, everyone!”

I tripped two steps from the ground level, of course. Axel caught me, and gave me a hard squeeze against him as if he hoped to protect me from all those interested eyes just a little too late. “You just had to try to make that point to me, didn’t you?”

“What point? Like you said, people didn’t have to act the way they did because of that photo. The point was for their benefit.”

Axel slung an arm around my neck and walked me away. “Oh, you’re not wriggling out of it that easily because I know exactly what you’re doing. I already get it. If I think for a second you’re not as strong as me, that I can call your bluff… that’s the second I’ve lost. We’ve already passed that second, Aileen. You didn’t have to expose yourself to…”

I had been keeping careful track of my feet so I didn’t fall over with the pace he was dragging me out of there, but when he trailed off I looked up. Mrs. Hitchens and Ms. Miller were standing in front of us.

“Aileen,” Mrs. Hitchens began, but she didn’t seem to know where to go from there.

“It’s been a lovely turnout, hasn’t it?” I continued for her. “I know a few people who were uncertain about coming, not convinced they’d enjoy it… but I feel like there’s been something for everyone so far.”

Mrs. Hitchens started coughing a lot. Ms. Miller opened and closed her mouth several times, then thought better of it in general.

“Just in case I don’t see you again,” I added, with a very big slice of unspoken I hope not. “Thanks for being there for me when things were tough. None of this could ever have turned out as it did without your input and guidance.”

They were both staring at how little space was between Axel and I, and I could tell it was pushing the limits of some non-interference policy of Ms. Miller’s to not address that.

“So what’s ahead for you, then?” Mrs. Hitchens finally got out. A safe inroad.

“It seems like life is pushing me in the direction of a law career.” Suddenly I was settled on this idea. Something about my impulsive decision to talk with Ashleigh about her knowledge had made it clearer to me. Ashleigh was just in it for the money and the status, because her super-successful family expected something similarly high-flying for her career. I could make this matter a little bit more. “I think at first I’ll just be doing whatever I can in the industry, but long-term I have a real passion for getting into patent law.”

Axel choked on a drink I knew he didn’t have at that time. “I see some real opportunities for me to enact positive change in that space. So many trolls and would-be trolls… someone really needs to come in and sort the lot of them out.”

Mrs. Hitchens spoke over the top of the strangled noises Axel was making, like they had her nervous. “I see, Aileen… it’s wonderful that you’ve found something that can really… fill you with passion.”

“Oh, she’s very passionate,” Axel agreed.

“But Aileen,” Ms. Miller put in, “are you… concerned that if you go into that field, where personal character and reputation counts for a lot, that your… past might catch up with you?”

She seriously thought I should be worried that my flashing my entire graduating class was going to put me in bad standing with my peers. I’d only been talking to Ashleigh for a few minutes earlier, and she’d told me a ridiculous number of stories that got back to her from relatives in the industry. The things that men had shown at office parties should have had them kicked off the edge of the planet. Of course it really didn’t apply the same way for women… but that was exactly why they needed me.

“I think I’ll be fine,” I told her. “I’m pretty resilient.”

As they nervously melted away, Axel grabbed me and dipped his head to kiss me with ferocity that felt like it would strip away all my clothes and probably my skin as well—a display far more obscene than anything I’d just put on, making a complete mockery of the guidelines handed down for intimate behaviour at the event… but nobody stopped us. There are some things too powerful for anyone to want to interfere in, even if they go on for a lot longer than four seconds.

Chapter Twenty-One

I felt sorry for the three people who had to sit between Axel and I at our graduation ceremony. I’d heard from Callie, who still couldn’t look me right in the eyes, that my little stunt was known across every graduating class now and there might have even been one copycat stunt at a formal event a week after ours. I was more personally legendary for four seconds of totally inappropriate behaviour than I’d been through all those years of being a reasonably nice person to almost everyone I met, or even the past weeks of being the target of someone nobody wanted to point the finger at.

The same someone who was shooting me rather searing looks every time I turned my head in even almost the right direction.

We had a busy late afternoon and evening ahead after we got this last ceremony at Burgundy out of the way. There was a package of Axel’s newly-manufactured gizmos waiting at his house for us to evaluate, then box up and send on to Cowen if they lived up to expectations. Then there was a dinner with Axel’s dad at some restaurant I would never have paid attention to previously. My dad had been invited too, but I thought he’d declined. At least, he said a lot of rude things about people with so much money they didn’t have anything better to do with it than go to flashy eateries, and then he told me he had plans even though I hadn’t gotten around to telling him the exact date of the planned event yet. I’d considered asking Matt if he knew anything about Dad’s possible plans, but if it was with Sandy instead of his mum, or even a third party, I didn’t need to add to the drama in my life.

Even though Dad was behaving worse than he ever had after that brief flicker of improvement, I had a lot more sympathy for him now that I was spending so much time in Axel’s sphere, helping with his product launch. There was so much doing. It was a hundred times more intense than school, where you were at least not reviewing things online and taking calls during lunch breaks. Dad would never have been able to keep up in that world, he just didn’t have the right character for it. It was hard enough for me and I thought my personality was pretty suited to learning new ways of being.

Maybe I would end up learning that this world was too poisonous for me to successfully inhabit long-term. It felt incredibly likely… but until I’d made that decision, I was going to keep trying and avoid judging what I found too aggressively.

I copped a light elbow from Elliot Andrews, the lucky occupant of the seat next to me. “Could you keep that mooning down to a minimal level please? I’d like to not lose my lunch.” Then his eyes met mine and he whispered, “Sorry,” and planted them firmly in his lap for the rest of the ceremony… almost including the part where we each had to walk up to the front and accept our certificates. When you were caught up in someone else’s game in this world, those around you became too afraid to touch you… when you were the one acting in ways nobody else could control, they were afraid of you.

I think Axel was afraid of what he’d unleashed, so I tried not to rub it in too much.

I had only a dim memory of receiving my certificate, produced on Burgundy’s one colour laser printer and having absolutely no significance in the real world. At least nobody insisted that this ceremony was going to be something I had to remember for the rest of my life. I was pretty sure in the future they would be counselling kids at Burgundy to make sure they didn’t make their formals too memorable. When our formal photos were added to a growing display in the main office they’d conveniently forgotten to put up any photo from that night that I was a part of. I don’t know what they’d expected to have happen from pictures where I still had all my clothes on.