The Bad Boy's Palything: A Dark High School Bully Romance

by Lannah Smith

  Before I could tell him to go to hell, a roaring noise distracted my irritation from him. Alec was coming towards us from the side of the house, sitting astride on a snowmobile. Blinking, I watched him steer it to a stop in front of us, the wheels spraying snow everywhere, including at Christopher and me.

  Spitting snow out, Christopher shouted over the noise from the snowmobile. "You couldn't park better?"

  Alec tinkered with the snowmobile and the noise stopped. Climbing off and without a word to either of us, he started to walk back to the house. Christopher shook his head, muttering about rudeness, before he tugged me towards the ride.

  "Wait, wait, wait," I breathed, pulling on his hold.

  He stopped to look at me. "What's wrong?"

  "There's no seatbelt."

  His brows drew together. "Seatbelt?"

  "Yes," I said, staring at the snowmobile. "Don't you think it's dangerous to ride this thing without a seatbelt?"

  "It's perfectly fine, honey," he reassured me but I wasn't comforted by his words.

  "Maybe we should just go back inside—."

  "We will be alright. Now let's get on."

  My gaze went to Christopher's face and I snapped, "You're very impatient!"

  "You're not getting out of this, honey," he chuckled. "You deserve an adventure."

  "How about helmets? Tell Jackman to get us helmets."

  He tilted his head to the side. "I won't let you get hurt, April."

  "But—."

  "I promise you, honey. I won't let you get hurt."

  Looking into his eyes, I saw they were serious. He wasn't teasing, he wasn't irritated and he wasn't impatient. He was... considering my concerns with genuine earnestness.

  I took a deep breath. "I'm not a coward."

  "You aren't," he assured, squeezing my hand.

  "I'm just being careful."

  "I know, honey."

  I glared at him. "Quit calling me honey."

  A smile graced his lips. "Now are you going to climb on?"

  "Yes," I whispered.

  He smiled.

  Then he climbed on the snowmobile and helped me up behind him, reaching back to yank me closer until I was practically plastered all over his back.

  Initially, I had thoughts of pulling away from this closeness but he suddenly yanked the ignition cord, making the engine roar to life. Startled, I put my hands around his waist. Grasping the throttle, he slipped into gear and I clenched my teeth when the snowmobile surged forward.

  Chapter 31

  The cold air felt like an ice storm against my face.

  At first, I was terrified. But fear melted away as the trees slid by and the views became unbelievable. So beautiful that I didn’t realize I had dropped my chin on Christopher’s shoulder, drinking in the view. We ran the side of the mountain that had a river running the length of it. And there, Christopher halted the snowmobile, turning it off before I was ready for our ride to end.

  Christopher sat back and immediately, I realized that my front was pressed tight to his back, my arms around his waist. I lifted my head and pulled away. Coming off the back of the snowmobile, Christopher helped me down. His hands lingered on my waist for a few unnecessary seconds before he let go and I didn’t give him lip for it. I was frozen in wonder.

  The Canadian mountains had been beautiful but the view here was different. And I love beautiful landscapes. Walking close to the edge, I stopped, glancing at the crystal blue river below, flowing and unbothered by the freezing temperature. Christopher got close to my back and I couldn’t avoid him without going over the edge. But he gave me space, he wasn’t too close or too far.

  “Afraid I’d jump?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder.

  “No.” His voice was soft. Rough. “I just want to capture the view closely with my eyes.”

  He said that but he wasn’t exactly looking at the view. He was looking at me, drinking me in.

  I turned my gaze to the front and let out a low exhale. Deciding to ignore him, I stared at the vista, wishing I had a camera, or even a pencil and paper. Just to capture this beauty.

  But then everything seemed to be so familiar, hitting me all at once.

  The snow.

  The isolation.

  Everything suddenly reminded me of Dan.

  "Tell me about him."

  My body turned to stone and my fingers tensed reflexively into fists. "About who?"

  "About Dan."

  I turned and gave him a fulminating glare. "Why would I talk about him with you?"

  "To help you heal," he said with a shrug.

  "You've been reading too many nonsense articles on the internet. I don't need your help in that."

  "Still," he pushed his hands into the pockets of his coat, "Tell me about him."

  I raised a brow at him. "You know everything. What more should I say that you don't know?"

  "What he meant to you," he suggested. "Start from there. And what it took for him to mean so much to you—.”

  "I'm not telling you anything," I cut in sharply, my emotions well in hand now.

  "You don't have any problem talking to Alec about anything," he pointed out.

  That's because he wasn't an ass like his boss. And that’s because I was strangely comfortable around the guy.

  Still, it was a too nice a day to spend it arguing with Christopher. And he probably wouldn’t give up if I didn’t give him something.

  “Dan and I grew up together,” I quickly recited before the wound open again. “He was a friend. A confidant. A brother. A savior. Then my father put a bullet in his head and killed him. The end.”

  Christopher was silent for a few moments.

  Then he said, "You're not crying."

  "I'm crying inside," I answered him stiffly. "You just can't see it because you're as sensitive as a rock."

  "Well, thank you for that. When you cry, I cry inside too, you know."

  My upper lip curled in disgust.

  "Alec will be thanking you for sparing him too. He never could abide a female's tears."

  My brows rose. "You mean I could have just wailed in front of him and he'd do anything to make me stop, including helping me get out of here?"

  "He will just have to close his eyes, April."

  "Doesn't it bother you that your watchdog can't take his eyes off me?" I smirked.

  "No. He knows he can watch but he can't touch what's mine. Or I'll cut off his dick."

  All the humor fled me as I stared his way.

  "That is, if I can catch him," he chuckled. "Out of everyone I know, that asshole runs the fastest."

  Seriously.

  I could never tell if he was being serious or not.

  "Do you want to be the one to drive us back?" he offered with a smile. "I'll teach you."

  Drawing in a breath, I exhaled slow and tilted my head to the side. "You're not afraid I'll launch us off the cliff?"

  "I'll be right behind you, honey. I won't let you launch us over the cliff."

  I thought about it. Then I shook my head. With my luck, even not on purpose, I might just drive us off the cliff.

  His smile turned into a grin.

  Then we walked back to the snowmobile, we got on, and after Christopher drove me around for a long while, we went back to the house where Alec was waiting for us with mugs of hot chocolate.

  "Here."

  Christopher quickly took the DSLR camera Alec thrusted at him. Leaning back against the pillows, he got comfortable on his bed and scrolled down the images on the tiny screen with ill-concealed delight.

  "You're disgusting, you know that?" he heard Alec say in a biting tone. "This is borderline stalking."

  "It's our first outing together," Christopher said in defense, studying one image with a smile. It had captured April perfectly. She was smiling widely as she formed a snowball in her hands.

  "Be that as it may but do you seriously have to ask me to take your pictures discretely?" Alec asked incredulously. "I'm not the fucki
ng paparazzi."

  "Yeah, but they're really good," Christopher praised him as he pointed at the screen. "You should consider a career as a photographer. I could look at them forever."

  "You know as well as I do that I didn't take them."

  But he wasn't listening anymore. "I want these printed out in large sizes so I could frame them and put them on my wall."

  "You'll seriously lose your bet if you do that."

  "She's pretty here too."

  "You're not listening to me anymore, are you?"

  "And she has fucking good aim.”

  Alec let out a long and loud exhale. "Give that to me. I'll have them printed out in wallet sizes for the meantime so you don't scare her further away from you."

  Christopher chuckled and gave the camera back to him. "You do that."

  "I can't believe she still has it in her to smile," Alec said with a hint of admiration in his voice as he put the camera in its bag. "After all the shit that has happened to her..." he trailed off, shaking his head.

  "I fell in love with a strong woman," Christopher exhaled. "Of course, she can still smile. Especially since I'm the reason behind that smile."

  Alec's eyes went to him. "Sure you are," he deadpanned. “You know the rumors, right?”

  “The rumors?” Christopher asked distractedly, reaching for his phone on the bedside table.

  “About her mother.”

  His hand stilled as he felt a barbed sensation press at the back of his neck.

  “That her mother committed suicide.”

  Slumping back in his pillows, he released a sharp exhale.

  “Yes,” he muttered. “Yes. I did.”

  It was fucked up; the way April grew up.

  Her childhood was all kinds of fucked up. The years after that too. Christopher knew it in keeping tabs on her all those years.

  April’s life was all kinds of fucked up.

  But it didn’t have to be any more now that he was here for her.

  Alec let this sink in then he started, "I know you blame yourself.”

  Christopher’s jaw worked for a moment but no words came out. "Of course, I blame myself," he finally murmured back. "I waited."

  "Waited?"

  He drew in a breath. "I waited for her to come to me."

  That was it. He had waited. Kept waiting for her to come to him when he should have taken what he knew was his.

  And just when he decided to go to her, he didn’t have that chance anymore when she disappeared.

  As he spoke, his face darkened but Alec merely listened, his eyes intent, his face revealing nothing of his thoughts. And Alec had no further words to that.

  Christopher hated to see April upset. He'd conceded he'd gone in the wrong manner about this thing but he would not apologize or repent his actions of the past few weeks with her.

  He loved her and he was going to bind her to him, make her his wife if it was the last thing he did.

  Chapter 32

  I poured some cat food on Cow’s bowl in the kitchen, telling myself it was high time I get myself out of winter wonderland and go back to being a smart person again.

  I hadn't wanted to admit I enjoyed my little outing with Christopher so I didn't say anything about it when we returned. I also didn't want to admit he was right. That it was hopeless to get out of here. All I had seen while I was on that snowmobile ride were trees and more trees and not a single house in sight. Nor a road or highway. I wasn't sure if it was Christopher being careful when he drove us around. But I definitely wouldn't put it past him.

  Speak of the devil, I thought when Christopher came into the kitchen. There were two empty mugs in his hands and he put them in the sink. I knew he was with Alec, they were always behind the closed doors of the study when they weren't antagonizing me. And from the exasperated look on Christopher's face, it might have been Alec's turn to try and piss him off.

  "There's something strange about you," I commented as I studied him.

  His brown eyes turned to me as well as his body and I instantly regretted having spoken.

  "Strange?" he asked with a smile.

  “Nothing,” I mumbled. “Forget I said anything.”

  Putting the bowl down on the floor, I bent my head and watched Cow happily crunching away for a long minute, shielding my face from his watchful gaze, unable to settle my thoughts. I had spoken without thinking. I had spoken knowing that I didn’t want this conversation with him yet here I was again. This darn curiosity finally got the best of me.

  God, but was I on some kind of self-destructive jag?

  “What’s strange about me, April?”

  My eyes flickered to Christopher as I straightened. He was still looking at me, waiting for my answer.

  Staring at him for a few more beats, I then said on a sigh, "You're too... happy."

  He laughed and turned back to the sink again. "I am happy," he said as he washed the mugs. "I have you back after all."

  "No," I shook my head. "You're too unnaturally happy."

  "Are you trying to get a rise of me again?"

  "As if I could," I replied wryly to his back. "And rather than you actually growing up and becoming an adult, it's like... you've become a totally different person."

  "I'm liking this," I heard him say. "You're finally showing interest in me."

  "Because there's something off about you."

  This time, he didn't answer. And I continued to stare at his back.

  "You act like someone who's living in a totally different environment," I murmured. "Back when we were in school, you didn't have anything holding you down. You were a person with no responsibilities. A person who was carefree. Someone who had nothing to fear."

  "I didn't think you'd pay close attention to me."

  I didn't take the bait. I was lost in my sea of thoughts.

  "Now you hold secret meetings with Jackman," I ended with a frown. "And you're rather concerned with the news, aren't you?"

  Again, he didn't answer.

  "You know what else is strange?" I didn't wait for his reply and went on, "The fact that you have armed men surrounding the house."

  His hands stopped their actions and his head lifted to the window in front of him. "I don't have armed men here, April," he said in an even tone. "In fact, it's just the three of us."

  My lip curled. "I know when someone's looking at me. I grew up being watched, Christopher."

  He glanced at me over his shoulder. Nothing on his face said that he was surprised.

  "How many do you think are here?"

  I leaned back against the counter and crossed my arms, "Beside from us and Alec? Eight."

  He grinned at me then returned to wash the mugs. He didn't have to say I was right. I knew I was. When I was still under my father's thumb, I never went to school without a driver. I never shopped on my own without someone watching me somewhere. And I didn't walk down the streets without a bodyguard hovering behind me because with my tendency to get lost, I might cross a road and end up in someone else's turf or in another group's territory.

  "I remembered the times I tried to escape," I muttered in irritation. "You never looked worried. Irritated, yes. But never worried... well except that time I tried to climb down the cliff."

  "Because that was reckless of you."

  "They kept watch of me, didn't they?"

  "Yes," he admitted.

  I blew out a sigh. "Thankfully, you're not as stupid as I thought and actually being careful. You should be because I know you know about my father since we were in high school. He was one of the names Pete Ward told you, wasn’t he?"

  "And how did you know about that?" Christopher placed the washed mugs on the shelf. "Did Leon tell you? Rohan?"

  "You think I wouldn't find out?" I asked, insulted. "That's funny. You thinking that I wouldn't know anything about that world when I was born there."

  "Oh, I know that you'd know, honey. But you're clean. You've always been clean."

  Christopher’s back w
as still to me and I was glad for it. If he was facing me, looking at me, he'd seen how tears had sprung to my eyes.