LEGEND: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Rosewood High Book 7)

by Tracy Lorraine

  “Yeah,” I say slowly, nodding as I do. Then I rip my eyes from his and stare right into Kyle’s ice-blue ones. “We need to talk.”

  Zayn’s curious gaze flicks between the two of us as we stare at each other. My face burns every time he looks at me.

  “Why? You wanna compare my cock size to Rich’s?”

  A round of jeers and dirty remarks sound out behind me.

  “Fuck off, my little sister ain’t going anywhere near this motherfucker’s cock, ain’t that right, bro?” he asks Kyle.

  “Too fucking right.” Kyle’s eyes burn down the length of my body “Why would I go there when my brother brings home women every night.”

  “Oh hell yeah, bro,” someone calls out, probably Rich and I fight the hurt that threatens to bubble up within me.

  I want to say he’s lying. He spent the night with me. But not the whole night.

  You stupid, stupid, naïve bitch, Harley Hunter.

  He told you he wanted to hurt you and you fucking let him.

  “Great, well now we’ve got that cleared up.” I put as much sass into my words as possible as I hold Kyle’s eyes hoping like hell he can’t see how fast I’m crumbling on the inside.

  “I’ve got nothing to say to you,” he spits as if last night didn’t even fucking happen.

  Asshole.

  “Bro, I said don’t touch her not insult her,” Zayn mutters in an attempt to soften the blow. “I know you two got issues but shit.”

  “Whatever. It wasn’t important anyway.” I wave them both off and continue down toward my first class, my heart in my throat and tears burning my eyes the whole way.

  Thankfully, the bell has not rung and when I push through into my classroom, I’m the only one in there.

  I take my seat at the back of the room and suck in a shaky breath.

  Last night didn’t change anything and I hate that I’m being such a girl about it, thinking that he might have suddenly treated me differently today.

  By the time others start filing in, I’ve somewhat got control of my emotions.

  “‘Morning,” Ruby sings, dropping down in her seat next to mine. “How’s it—what’s wrong?” she asks the second she looks at my face.

  Damn her.

  “Nothing, everything is fine,” I lie and the guilt of doing so to one of my best friends threatens to eat me whole. But I can’t admit what happened last night, how stupid I was. I fell for every single word he said and it was all a lie.

  Every touch, every kiss, every whispered word. All lies.

  Pressure builds behind my eyes once again but thankfully, our teacher arrives and Ruby is forced to look away from me as he asks her a question.

  Behind him, the door opens and the one person I don’t want to have to even look at walks into the classroom.

  He holds his head high as he makes his way to his seat. Right before he turns to sit down, he looks right at me. My entire body jolts at the look in his eyes but I’m too shocked and the contact is too brief to really decipher what he’s trying to tell me.

  I’m still staring at the back of his head when Ruby turns her attention back to me.

  “Did something happen, you’re shooting more hate at him than usual?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I seethe.

  “I’ll take that as a yes then,” she says lightly. “You know where I am.” She places her hand on my forearm and squeezes in support as our teacher gets the lesson started.

  My cell buzzes in my pocket, I know exactly who it is, I’ve been watching him type for the last few seconds. I knew it was coming but it doesn’t stop my heart rate increasing to dangerous levels the second I feel it. Knowing that his words are sitting there waiting almost gets the better of me. Especially when he sends me another three that also all go unread.

  But at no point does he attempt to turn to look at me. I know this because while our teacher talks, my eyes are stuck on him and my head is firmly still back in the events of last night.

  I breathe a sigh of relief the second the bell rings out and everyone around me begins to pack up and move toward the door. That was my one and only class with him today. If I avoid the cafeteria at lunch then I shouldn’t have to look at him again with any luck.

  He disappears from the room before I’m even off my chair. Good to know he doesn’t actually want to talk to me then.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Ruby asks as we finally make our way out and toward our next class that, thankfully, we share.

  “Yeah, I’m good.” My voice gives me away because it sounds broken even to my own ears.

  “You wanna skip and go and get ice cream.”

  I laugh, it’s either that or I’m going to cry. “I can’t. If Mom found out…”

  “What if she wouldn’t?”

  “I can’t.” I shake my head at her. I so badly want to say yes and throw caution to the wind, but I can’t. I’m not that girl, I’m not that student. Plus, I’ve got math later and we all know that I need to be present for that class.

  Second period is uneventful although I spent the entire class with my head in the clouds while my heart continues to ache inside my chest.

  I gave him too much last night. I gave him things that I can’t get back and I’m starting to wonder if that’s something I’m going to regret after not feeling that way in the slightest this morning.

  I knew it wasn’t going to be all hearts and flowers today. But the reality was so much worse than anything I could have imagined.

  “What are you hiding?” Stella says the second I join her in our art class.

  “Um…”

  “Oh come on, you never wear scarves.” She raises a brow knowingly.

  “Do we really have to do this?”

  “We certainly do, girl.”

  We both grab the paintings we started last time and take our seats as someone puts some music on and our teacher doesn’t even bother to stand from her chair. Fine by me.

  “Show me.” She reaches for my scarf and I keep my hands at my sides, allowing her a peek at my neck.

  “Whoa, girl. Someone had a fun night.”

  “You’ve no idea,” I mutter, dropping my head into my hands.

  “Tell me all.”

  So I do, much to her delight. I feel bad not confessing to Ruby earlier and instead trusting Stella with the events of the night before, but with her being outside of our circle, and more importantly, not close to Zayn, I feel a little safer talking about it.

  “He just turned up in the middle of the night and…” She wiggles her eyebrows. “That’s really fucking hot, Harley. Does he have any friends who might be up for doing the same thing but you know, at my house.”

  I make a show of gasping in shock. “Stella Doukas, are you a secret little slut?” I whisper.

  She shrugs and tries to look innocent but seeing as she expressed her desire to have a bad boy sneak into her bedroom under the cloak of darkness, she fails massively.

  “Don’t judge,” she says lightly. “I’ve met a lot of different… boys over the years.”

  “Okay, I think it might be time to turn the tables on this conversation. Tell me all…” I encourage, dropping my brush into the water pot between us and resting forward with my elbow on the table and my chin in my hand, ready for story time.

  “Christ, where do I even start?”

  “Well, this is getting better by the second,” I joke, glad to be able to focus on someone else’s bad choices for a while.

  Stella and I end up staying in our art classroom over lunch, continuing our riveting conversation about her past conquests and slowly but surely working on our paintings. She slips out at one point to grab us both some lunch, totally understanding my need to remain hidden and when I get to math, I do so without seeing him.

  I think I’m winning until Mr. Wilson’s first words to the class are, “Surprise test.”

  I groan as I pull my pens out and wait for him to place the paper on my desk.

  “Yo
u’ve got this, Harley,” he says encouragingly as he passes.

  I roll my eyes, knowing that there’s no way that can possibly be true. But then I look down at the questions before me and I find equations exactly like Kyle and I were doing last night.

  I tap my pen against my desk for a couple of seconds as I recall everything he told me while we were on video chat and I get to work, actually feeling confident about a math test for the first time in… well, ever.

  “Okay, time is up,” Mr. Wilson calls right as I’m finishing off the last question on the paper. “Grab a different color pen, let’s self-grade them. Here are the answers…”

  He projects the answers onto the screen and the second I realize the first one is exactly the same as what I’ve got written on my piece of paper, I can’t fight my smile.

  Holy shit, I did it.

  I laugh to myself before covering my mouth with my hand before anyone notices my little freak out.

  I go down the rest of the answers and those tears from this morning return but this time, it’s with joy.

  I did it. I fucking did it.

  Noticing that something isn’t right, Mr. Wilson walks over. “Is everything okay, Harley?”

  I look up at him, my eyes full of unshed tears. I must look like I’m on the verge of a breakdown.

  “I got them all right,” I whisper, not able to believe it despite marking them myself.

  “That’s great, Harley. Well done.” He smiles down at me and my chest damn near bursts with pride for myself.

  He moves on to another student while I squeal internally at myself.

  In a moment of madness, I reach for my cell and before I know what I’m doing, I’m staring down at the messages from Kyle that I’ve ignored all day.

  “Shit,” I mutter to myself, feeling stupid for my sudden need to tell him that I nailed this.

  He won’t care.

  He got what he wanted.

  He hurt me.

  I let out a sigh as I stare at his words from earlier.

  Asshole: I’m sorry.

  Asshole: Talk to me.

  Asshole: Kitten.

  I can hear his growl of frustration in the last one and it makes goose bumps prick my skin.

  When I start typing a second later, it’s not to Kyle, but instead, Stella.

  Harley: Wanna do something tonight after cheer?

  She doesn’t see the message straight away—as she shouldn’t, she’s in class as well after all—so I pocket my cell and try to force myself not to feel bad for ignoring his requests.

  I spend the rest of class hanging on Mr. Wilson’s every word as he explains what we’re moving on to next, my confidence at an all-time high and ready to attack the next challenge sent my way.

  Before I know it, class is over and I’m making my way down the packed hallway ready for cheer practice.

  “Hey, sorry, I didn’t reply. Miss Ash was on us all class,” Stella says as we walk into the locker room together.

  “No worries. You up for it?”

  “Yes, I need to go home first though.”

  “Sure, I’m good with whatever.”

  “Do I get the feeling you might be avoiding going home?”

  “Whatever might give you that impression?” I ask innocently.

  “He was in my last class. He looked pissed.”

  “Good, he should. He’s a dick.”

  “You mean you want his dick,” she deadpans as we drop our bags to the bench and start getting changed.

  The others join us, and after a few minutes, Ruby and Chelsea come marching through. I watch Ruby as she listens to whatever Chelsea says.

  I smile at the two of them, I’m so damn proud of my girl. She’s about to be an incredible captain.

  “Harley Hunter,” Stella gasps. “You did not tell me about that.” Her eyes almost bug out of her head as she stares at my thigh.

  Reaching out, I cover the bite mark and writing with my hand.

  “Oh no, no-no.” She knocks my hand out of the way and stares down at my skin. “He fucking branded you. That’s so hot.”

  “He made me bleed, Stel. And then wrote all over me.”

  “You know why, don’t you?”

  “To piss me off?” I suggest.

  “No, he’s claiming you. That boy wants you, Har. He wants you bad.”

  “Oh yeah, and that’s why he acted like he did this morning.”

  “Boys are douchebags, Har. They do all sorts of stupid shit in front of their friends—in front of the brother of the girl they’re fucking.”

  “I’m not fucking him,” I hiss quietly, trying to argue with her.

  “Evidence would suggest otherwise.” She nods down to my thigh and raises a brow knowingly.

  “Let’s just get changed, eh?”

  Stella laughs at me as I pull a pair of shorts out of my bag and stare at them in horror. I thought I’d stuffed yoga pants in there this morning.

  “Shit.”

  “Here, swap,” Stella offers, taking my shorts and handing me her pants.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m sure I’ll figure out a way to pay you back.” She winks at me and I hurriedly step into the fabric to cover up the evidence from last night, hoping that the hoodie I opted for does the job on my top half.

  “Wow, your house is gorgeous,” I say, climbing out of my car after following Stella here after school.

  “Thanks,” she mutters, slamming the door of her Porsche and coming to join me.

  I knew she was wealthy, you only need to look at her car, her clothes and the way she wears them to know that, but I wasn’t quite expecting this, or for her to live quite so far out of town.

  It’s great though. Perfect, actually. Kyle will never find me here.

  She leads us to a huge hallway. The walls are white, the floor tiles are white—probably some expensive marble or something—and all the fittings are matte black. It’s really quite something.

  “Okay wow. This is… wow.”

  “My dad has a thing about interior design.”

  “Well, he’s certainly got an eye for it.”

  She leads me through to her kitchen which is similar to the hallway, the units are all white with black countertops, tiles and handles. Even the faucet is black.

  “What did you say your dad did again?” I ask, looking around and taking it all in. There’s a huge canvas at the other end of the dining room which is similarly just black and white but it looks like it’s probably hella expensive.

  She shrugs as she pulls open one of the doors to reveal a refrigerator enclosed behind it. “No idea. Soda?”

  “Please.” She passes one over before grabbing a bag of chips and tipping them into a bowl. “You’ve really no idea what he does?”

  “Security of some sort, but that’s about all I know.”

  “And you don’t ask?” I ask, finding it odd how she can really have no idea.

  “I used to. I gave up after a while when he wouldn’t tell me anything. Apparently, it’s better I don’t know. Whatever.” She throws a chip in her mouth and chews. “So what did you want to do? We’ve probably got the house to ourselves. There’s a pool and jacuzzi, and sauna in the basement if you’re down for it.”

  My chin drops, although I don’t know why I’m surprised. Ethan’s house is similar, although less modern. I guess I just didn’t think there were any other houses around Rosewood that were this… big. But then after driving up the long-ass driveway that allows this place to be hidden in the trees, I shouldn’t be surprised.

  “Sure, if you’ve got a suit I can borrow.”

  “You got it. Shall we?” she asks, grabbing her soda and the bowl and heading for the door.

  My cell starts buzzing almost the second I place it on the coffee table in Stella’s bedroom—she has a full on living area at one end of her ginormous room. It’s insane.

  “Is that him?” she asks, glancing over at where it’s flashing.

  “Sure is.”

>   “You gonna reply?”

  “Nope.” Picking it up, I go into the settings and turn the vibrate off because I have a feeling he’s not going to stop at a few messages.

  “He’s gonna kill you for that.”

  “I’d like to see him try.”

  “Girl, he branded you on your first time. He’s not going to have second thoughts about spanking your ass for ignoring him.”

  I can’t deny that a flash of heat races through me at her words and the image they conjure up.

  “O-oh, is that your plan?”

  “What? No. I don’t have a plan aside from showing him that he can’t order me around and talk to me like shit and expect me to roll over and accept it. That’s not who I am.”

  “Damn right, girl,” she says, snapping her fingers and giving it all the attitude before she falls about in a fit of giggles. “Okay, this is for you.” She hands me a tiny fire engine red swimsuit.

  Bathroom is through there. She points toward a closed door and I take the scrap of fabric with me to change into.

  Unlike the rest of the house, Stella’s bedroom and bathroom is all cream and golds. It’s stunning and much softer than the harsh black and white everywhere else.

  In only a few minutes I’m attempting to make the swimsuit cover some of my marked skin but I soon decide that it’s pointless even trying.

  “Whoa, I think that might have been made for you,” Stella says when I emerge. While I was gone, she changed into a silver suit that fits her like a second skin. “You want me to send him a photo, show him what he’s missing.”

  “No,” I say in a panic as she takes a step toward where my cell is.

  She laughs at me as she picks up her soda.

  “Let’s go chill. I think you need it.”

  25

  Kyle

  I stare down at my cell, my teeth grinding.

  Usually, I wouldn’t give a shit if a girl doesn’t text me back.

  But Gray is on the prowl and the thought of him putting his hands on her makes me murderous.

  Kyle: Where are you?