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

Suddenly Brad couldn’t quite meet my eyes. “Honestly, I was a bit selfish about it. I was semi-famous at the time, on my way up to the big leagues. I knew if she made any allegations about me, they’d be splashed all over the newspapers with my face next to them, and I’d never play a big boys’ game in my life.”

“But you never played anyway,” I said, then realised what I was revealing. “I, uh, did a bit of research once I knew your name. All the biographies I’ve read said you just vanished, almost without a trace.”

“It weighs on you,” Brad said. “Even if it’s a totally made-up accusation you know you could fight if you needed to. Even if you know you’re doing everything she asked, not even trying to call to check how the kids are, even if your own parents have gone cold on you because you won’t let them know where their grandkids are now. You can be doing everything right… but once someone is making those demands of you, there’s really nothing you can do to save a career like that. It’s gone, Tamara, from that moment on. You have to let go of it eventually. What could have been is just too fucking heavy a burden.”

“That’s not fair,” I protested. “If you didn’t do it, and she never really believed you did it…”

“Nobody ever claimed life was fair, Tamara.” That really hit me in the gut: the first fatherly advice I could remember him giving me. “So I found myself with two choices at the time. Assuming Sue wasn’t going to deliberately come after my career, I could at least count on some grubby journalist finding out about Jess and her mum, and that Sue and I weren’t together any more. That I hadn’t seen my kids in months… eventually, years. I’d at least look like a deadbeat. And if she did decide she wanted my head as well, I’d either be ruined in a way that would hurt my new family, or I’d have to discredit Sue to clear my name. Hurting you and Ryan in the process.”

I felt like I needed to catch my breath. Was I seriously going from an absolute certainty my father was an abuser Mum had saved us from… to the possibility that he might have changed—to this completely crazy idea that he’d never hit anyone at all? That my mum was a liar?

The thing was, I already knew Mum would do some pretty strange things to, in her mind, protect me. She had her own issues, I’d always known that. I’d always accepted it maybe more than I should, because she was the only parent I had around. The only family I had, other than Ryan. Now here was Brad—my dad—with a possible sister for me, with an explanation for why things were the way they were.

“You have to understand, I can’t just believe this without thinking about it some more. Without taking some time over it.”

“Of course, of course.” Brad was grinning in a way that seemed pretty weird when I was basically cooling things down on him. “Honestly I wanted to reach out to you now you’re legally an adult and can make your own decisions. I wanted to reach out to Ryan too. But it just seemed like it had been too fucking long, you know? Like I would have had to get either of you to even hear me out first… and I knew that bi—” He broke into a coughing fit that rattled the table and made me jump in my chair. I knew exactly what he’d been about to say, too.

If it had really happened how he said, could I blame him?

“Did you ever do anything violent towards any of us?” I asked. “Something that might have made her think you were capable of…”

Brad spread his arms wide, nearly knocking over his cup. “I’m a big bloke, I can’t hide it. I did shout at your mum once or twice, I admit it. I’ve got a temper sometimes. I probably scared her a lot of the time without meaning to.”

But he’d calmed down quickly after his initial burst of temper. We were in public, of course… but it didn’t look to me that he had gotten out of control. He didn’t seem to fit the profile of a guy who would go off the rails enough to hit a small kid. It was like with Steven—not that I wanted to be thinking about Steven right now.

I didn’t feel anything in his presence, either. Like, there wasn’t some trauma buried deep inside me, no knowing that he was dangerous. Maybe I was being an idiot, but that meant a lot to me.

Brad cleared his throat. “Like I was saying before, it means so fucking much that you reached out to me first. It’s what I’d decided I needed, if I was going to come back into your lives. I couldn’t just push my way in. Made me fucking miserable to think about though, because I never thought it would happen. Takes a really brave, smart girl to get past that sort of poisoning…”

I was starting to feel warm inside, and that made me think it was time to get the hell out of here.

“I want to see you again,” I said. “But it’s going to have to be just me for the moment. I’m not going to be able to get Ryan here.”

“I don’t expect Ryan to ever come to me,” Brad said. “If he remembers the fighting he might be genuinely pissed with me still for his own reasons, and… Boys are different, you know? He’s always going to have that loyalty to his mum, and I don’t want to get in the way of that. It wouldn’t be the right thing to do.”

I gulped the rest of my coffee. “I have to get back to school now, but I’ll let you know when I’m free again.”

I might have to work out if Steven was going to cause trouble first. I almost expected, as I was walking out through the same doors he’d used, that he would be waiting there to bother me, watching from a distance… but I was more observant now I had that scary encounter out of the way, and I was almost certain he wasn’t anywhere near.

He’d left me alone to talk with Brad without even having to worry about him, and I had to appreciate that. It still burned, all the ways he’d made a fool of me, but maybe like Brad he was still trying to look out for me. In his own way.

If I could have done it all over, I would have shut my mouth about the restraining order. I’d been so stupid to use something I should never have known against him.

Steven was about as likely to forgive me now as Mum was to forgive Brad. I would just have to live with the consequences of the choices I’d made.

I couldn’t get over Ryan’s face on our trip home. Did he know how much he looked like Brad?

My mouth was going before I could manage to think better of it. “Ryan… do you ever think about our… our dad?”

Ryan stiffened so fast I felt the car sway on the road a little. “In what way?”

“Do you wonder what he’s doing these days? What he’s like? If we look like him?”

“Do you?”

I wanted to be honest, tell him exactly where I’d been that afternoon… and at the same time, I knew I couldn’t. Once he knew, everything would become a big fucking mess. If I wanted to talk, I should save it for Callie… but I

both did and didn’t want to talk, and the didn’t part was enough to keep me from trying to speak up with anyone not already involved.