Boys And Their Toys: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Troubled Playthings 1)

I scrubbed at my breasts with my fists, trying to erase the feel of his hand on me. Nobody had ever touched me like that before, and I hated that I had actually enjoyed it.

I hated the idea that maybe, if he had me alone where nobody else was likely to interrupt, I might allow him to touch me like that again, and worse. That I might find myself encouraging it, really wanting it. I hadn’t wanted anything to do with Lucas Starling for years, and now I was old enough to know that had been a very wise choice. I wasn’t going to let grown-up woman hormones ruin what I’d managed to escape when I was first entering the world of preteen crushes and had no idea what was happening.

Chapter Four

Even though all the scans and tests turned up absolutely nothing wrong with me, not even whiplash, I was in such a state they almost didn’t want to discharge me from the hospital. Only an aggressive campaign from my dad, who pointed out in about half a dozen ways I would likely be much more relaxed in familiar surroundings, tipped the scales for me.

I could see as I walked somewhat gleefully out the front doors of the hospital with all my clothes back that my parents, standing one on either side of me grabbing a shoulder each like they were about to launch into a tug-of-war, were not happy about something. But I stayed in the dark until we’d been travelling for a few minutes, when Mum lifted her head to check on me in the back seat and said, “Oh, you needn’t worry about having a car for work, Callie. Lucas has promised to help replace your car, and to drive you anywhere you need to go until that can be arranged. We sorted out some of the paperwork for the new car while you were being taken care of, and Lucas said he would touch base with you if there was anything more he required.”

Dad gagged a little at ‘touch base’. I grabbed at the door alongside me to brace myself, suddenly feeling like I was back in the midst of those moments after impact: the world spinning, nothing around me stable.

I should say something. But what, exactly? My mother already bloody well knew Lucas had run into me with his car. That didn’t exactly fit into the profile of the sort of guy you would encourage your daughter to get back in a car with. Of course she didn’t know he’d deliberately run into me… but there seemed to be two probable outcomes if I told her that. Either she would think they hadn’t found whatever was really wrong with my head… or I’d have gotten Lucas in a lot of trouble.

If getting Lucas in trouble was the key to saving myself from him, I should be willing to do it.

I didn’t say anything.

“Where’s Lucas going to get a car to drive her?” Dad muttered. “He just drove his existing car into our daughter’s.”

At least he was on my side… and if he knew everything, I was pretty sure he’d turn the car right around that instant so he could hunt Lucas down and punch him. Twice.

But there I was, desperately wanting to get away from this problem, and still I said nothing.

“It sounds like they each contributed more or less equally to the accident,” Mum said. “And it’s still very nice of him aside from that. He could just leave the whole mess for insurance to clean up.”

“I have a feeling he’s trying to avoid getting insurance involved entirely,” said Dad.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Mum protested. “He never said anything about Callie not making a claim… a

nd are you suggesting he’s afraid his premiums might increase? You realise how much money his family has, don’t you?”

I felt like I was watching another slow-motion car accident now—well, listening maybe. Even if I’d had something to contribute I couldn’t have made myself break in for anything.

“That Lucas has always had a soft spot for Callie, anyway,” Mum said. “Remember how he used to be around her when they were kids?”

My paralysis was over. “Mum,” I complained. “When are you going to let that go?”

“Oh, Callie,” said Mum, “when was the last time I even mentioned it?”

“Probably about a year ago,” I said, “which is about once a year too many times. It’d be nice if the whole thing would just disappear from oral history.”

“Agreed,” said Dad.

“Simon, your daughter is going to have a boyfriend sooner or later,” Mum said. “You had better get used to it.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to pimp her out to the first young man who has an inheritance and pouts at her like a fish!” Dad snapped.

“I don’t even know if I’m going to accept his offer, Mum,” I said, because hostilities were clearly about to escalate.

“What are you talking about?” Mum said. “Of course you’re going to accept. You have to get to school and work somehow, and I seem to remember you loudly declared you were never taking the bus again, in your life, this morning.”

We had made it home, which put a halt to my taking Dad’s place in the fight against Mum’s lack of common sense. It was a rough claim to make against your own mother, but Dad had already been telling her for years she didn’t have any to speak of.

I guess when I was younger, I used to take her side and think Dad was just being mean to her because she was more fun-loving, but as I started living more in the same world my parents occupied, I realised her kind of wilful ignorance could have done a lot of harm to me if I’d listened too much to her when I was impressionable enough. So I’ve gotten to a point in my life where I’ve moved away from her. I haven’t really moved closer to my dad or anything, though. I guess I’ve just ended up striking out on my own a lot more, which makes sense given I’m technically an adult now and should be finding something other than my parents to be the centre of my life. I just hadn’t worked out exactly what that other something was supposed to be yet.

Tamara was waiting for us on our front porch. My parents must have called her while they were waiting for me to wake up earlier.

“Callie!” she shouted as I stepped out of the car, and ran over to hug me. She stepped back immediately and found a nice patch of ground to stare at. Tamara and I spent a good amount of time together at school, but we didn’t really see each other outside of school much these days. We didn’t play netball together any more, we both worked, and we’d fallen into a bit of a trap of feeling tired on weekends when we were free, so we’d just chat half-heartedly on social media or text. It made me sad a lot of the time that I had this one ‘good’ friend and I didn’t even know how we were going to manage to keep in contact once we no longer had school to force us into the same set of buildings for most of the week, but if I couldn’t figure out how to arrange an in-person catch-up I was definitely not up for a D&M about the future of our relationship.