Games Boys Play: A Dark High School Romance (Troubled Playthings 2)

I needed to make things right with Steven when I could see him next. I would make sure he knew he didn’t have to worry about me getting pregnant, or sharing his secret with anyone else. We probably wouldn’t be sleeping together any more—and after his response to Rowan’s sleazy behaviour, I wasn’t sure I cared. I needed a guy to be a bit more willing to jump in and fight for me.

And that seemed to be it as far as that situation went. I’d discovered how good sex could be, but I might not be having any more for a while. Maybe that was a good thing, too. A good partner who didn’t want anything to do with me any more couldn’t hurt me.

I moved on to the really important issue: my father. I needed to find a way to get in contact with him… but how?

I got out my phone to search for his name, just in case he had a business or something… and my jaw dropped.

Suddenly my father’s face was there on my screen, right in front of me. I knew it was him even though I didn’t remember seeing him before, because that man standing with each of his arms around another equally muscular guy looked almost exactly like Ryan.

Twenty years ago, Brad Chalmers had been a footballer based in Melbourne. Every team had been salivating to sign him.

Then… he hadn’t been picked up by any of them, and he’d dropped out of the footy scene. A ‘where did they go?’ website said they’d gotten in contact with him where he was now living quietly in Tasmania, and he’d been happy to reminisce over the old days but wouldn’t tell them why he’d quit such a promising career. A mystery for the ages—at least to anyone who hadn’t been in his family back then.

Well, if he was trying to stay under the radar now, he wouldn’t have his phone listed anywhere. But I put his name into a residential numbers search anyway… and came up with a local match. B Chalmers was not exactly a unique name, there were a few others in other parts of the country, but I could easily rule it out, at least.

I should wait until I didn’t have the worry of Mum or Ryan hearing, but I couldn’t help myself. I carefully typed the number in and waited with my phone almost shaking out of my hand, expecting… well, not sure what I was expecting. Mostly just for the call to ring out—"

“Yeah?”

I reeled back a little at a rougher voice than I’d expected. Well, I was either talking to an ex-footballer… or some random Tasmanian bloke who lived a little bit out in the sticks.

“Hello, is that, um, Brad Chalmers?”

Suddenly, even the way he breathed changed. “Might just be, for the right sweet little lady.”

Well, the last thing I needed was for him to get pissed off because I’d let him think I was some ordinary girl he could hit on. “My name is Tamara Hills.”

I let him just take that in, and heard his breathing shift again. “How old must you’ve been when I last saw you? Two, three?”

“Something like that, I’m told.”

A little growl in my ear almost made me pull away from the phone again. At the same time, I was desperate to hear everything. “That’s right, you wouldn’t remember me. You wouldn’t remember anything.”

“I’ve been told some things,” I said. “I’ve heard one side of how things went down back then.”

“I bet you have.” There was a silence I wasn’t sure would ever break, and then, “So why you calling, then?”

“I’d like a chance to hear your side of things.” A heavy tread elsewhere in the house reminded me I was playing a dangerous game here. “But not over the phone. Can we meet some time?”

“Fuck,” said Brad Chalmers. “There’s nothing I’d like better. I’m sorry, I can’t ask you to mine though. Assuming you’re even still living in the state, I… well, I’ve got another family these days. I’d love for you to meet my daughter—my other daughter—but I think we need to meet privately first before we get around to that. Well… privately in public.”

“I’m still local.” And I probably sounded not that much better than the groupie-type he assumed he was talking to when he first answered.

He named a shopping centre not that far from my school, and suggested that Friday afternoon. I would have to sneak out of school during lunch to be there, but at least that meant I wouldn’t have to deal with explaining my movements to Ryan and then Mum. Honestly, any time I wasn’t spending at school right now was a complete relief.

“Well, there we go.” Brad Chalmers sounded almost like a kid all giddy because his birthday was coming up. It was not what I’d expected, but I liked it. “I suppose… you’ll be coming on your own?”

“I haven’t even talked about this to my mum or to Ryan, if that’s what you’re asking. They wouldn’t understand.”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s what I thought.” He sounded pretty okay with that, which was a relief. The last thing I needed was him thinking I had any power to convince the rest of my family to deal with him. “Look, Tamara, I’m so fucking pleased you’ve reached out to me like this. I just… it’s not what I ever expected. You’re a really special girl, that’s for sure.”

That made me feel warmer inside than I could ever have expected I would when I started this conversation. “Well, I look forward to seeing you on Friday.”

And I really was looking forward to it, more than I’d been able to look forward to anything in days. Maybe I should have felt some fear at what I was embarking on, but there didn’t seem to be any of the danger here even that I’d put myself into being alone with Steven. Brad Chalmers—I couldn’t think of that man I’d spoken to as my father right now—had seemed like he might be a bit of a challenge, but everyone in my family seemed to be a bit of a challenge. This was going to be right up my alley.

The thing I’d never anticipated was another family. I had a half-sister? I’d been a little disappointed back in the day that Mum never had more kids with Mike who could be my baby brothers or sisters. Apparently, I’d had a baby sister for a while.

I wondered if she was very young or a preteen. If her mother would accept the two of us spending time together—assuming the sister even liked me enough to want to.