All the Little Lies: A High School Bully Romance

by S. J. Sylvis

  Chapter Twelve

  Christian

  My father hadn’t been home for two weeks, except for a few hours last weekend. This was nothing out of the norm for Ollie and me, but lately, I'd been extra thankful for Ms. Porter. Once a week, when Ollie and I went to school, our maid/nanny/housekeeper, Ms. Porter, would come and do all the laundry in the house and make sure the fridge was stocked. It was a small gesture on my father’s part to hire her a couple of years ago, and I was glad. I couldn’t imagine slaving myself on the field, looking after Ollie’s childish ass, and acting like a Stepford wife, busying myself with laundry and cooking at home. That was what I was thinking about when I began throwing on my shorts and shirt that I wore during practice. Two more weeks and we faced our biggest competitor, and Coach was working us so hard I didn’t even have time to think about anything extra, let alone do anything extra.

  Thank fuck. Even if I found football to be unavailing some days, at least it served as a welcomed distraction.

  Out of nowhere, Kyle came flying into the locker room, slipping on his ass before sprinting up with a stunned look on his face. “HOLY SHIT.”

  “Did you forget your ADHD meds again, Voorhies?” A few of my teammates laughed, but I was being serious.

  He looked at me, surprise still etched on his face. “I just saw New Girl walking down the hall in her bra and panties, rocking those kickass Converse she wears every day. I don’t know where the fuck her uniform is, but damn! You all have to go look. My spank bank is now full of New Girl images.”

  Pure anger rose out of my chest, and I couldn’t figure out if it was because Voorhies said his spank bank was filled with my old best friend or if it was because I was pissed that she was parading around the halls like a stripper. Regardless, it didn’t matter. My legs were sprinting out of the locker room, not giving a shit that Coach was going to bitch that I was late for practice.

  What the fuck is she thinking? Walking around my school half-naked. Jesus Christ.

  I heard Ollie yell my name as guys tried to plow out of the locker room.

  “I’ll take care of this. Cover for me,” I shouted back.

  If it had been any other girl, I wouldn’t have cared nearly as much, but Hayley? No. I was looking for a reason to get her kicked out of this school, and I thought I had just found it, especially with the tinge of jealousy that I just felt.

  I knew what Ollie thought when I’d told him I’d take care of this. He thought I was trying to do damage control, to keep things under control and running smoothly like I’d done for the last two years in this school. After all, he had no idea how much I truly hated Hayley and wanted her gone. He didn’t know what was said between us the other night. For all I knew, he thought we were making amends. Or hell, there was even a rumor going around that I was in there fucking her. Madeline would surely shut that down soon.

  My blood pumped as I jogged the hallway, and when I rounded the corner, my breath hitched. My knees buckled. A perfect, round ass stared back at me. Jesus. Christ.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I seethed as I caught up to her. I rested my hand on her forearm and quickly spun her around. Hayley yelped and jerked her arm out of my grasp and flew backwards into the lockers, a loud clang echoing in the hallway.

  Fucking shit.

  “Get in here,” I chastised, opening the door to the stairwell. Hayley reluctantly followed me inside but put a clear distance between us. Her shoulders, which were bare besides a tiny strap from her bra, stiffened, but her face…it wasn’t the brave, unemotional, bored expression she wore every time I caught her in the hallway. It wasn’t the I-hate-the-world expression, either. She was wounded. There were worry lines around the crinkles of her eyes.

  “What the fuck are you doing walking around like that?” I asked, placing my hands on my hips. “Do you want the entire school to see you half-naked? What is this? Proving something?”

  She rolled her eyes. “What on earth would I be trying to prove by walking around like this?” She gestured to her body, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. I traced the curve of her perky boobs down to her flat belly, and I had already gotten a glimpse of her ass. My chest grew tight, and I had to internally shake myself to remember who she was and what one look at her from across the room made me feel.

  Guilt.

  I felt even more guilty thinking she was the hottest thing I’d ever seen.

  Because fucking shit, she was.

  “Then what gives? Wanting to get kicked out of English Prep to put you out of your misery?” I asked, erasing a few feet she had put in between us.

  “Why are you so concerned?” She erased the rest of the space between us, peering up into my face. “Afraid to see me go?”

  I laughed sarcastically. “Quite the opposite. I’m marching your ass to Headmaster Walton’s office right now. I just wanted to be present when he booted you back to Oakland High.”

  Something flickered across her face. Fear? I recognized that look. Her blue eyes grew distant, her arms going around her middle. She nibbled on her bottom lip, and naturally, my eyes zeroed in on them.

  “No,” she breathed out, keeping her gaze fixed to mine.

  For a moment, I forgot I hated her. It was like I was under a trance, under the same spell she had put on the rest of the guys in this school. They all talked about her—no longer in front of me after I threatened them all, but there was still distant chatter. Hayley was mysterious, different. But she’d always been that way to me. Different. In the best of ways.

  But I no longer knew Hayley, and she no longer knew me.

  “Yes,” I ground out. “I want you gone, Hayley.” Scratch that. I need her gone. “Now, you and I are going to walk to Headmaster Walton’s office, and I’m going to tell him I found you trying to seduce the guys on the football team by walking around like that.” I pointed with my chin down to her body. “And then you’ll be gone. My word against yours, and we both know I’m the powerful one here.”

  She let out a hiccup of air. “I can’t go back to Oakland High. I know you hate me. But I can’t go back there, Christian.”

  Why did hearing my name on her lips cause a war inside my body? It erased the past, jumbled up the present, and somehow predicted the future.

  Hayley’s pink-tinged cheeks were now ghostly white. Her blue eyes were no longer distant, but instead, wide-eyed and crazed with fear.

  Her words rushed out. “I know something; something you’ll want to know. But I’ll only tell you if you keep this under wraps and let me stay.”

  Intriguing, yes. Worth me letting her go scot-free and having to deal with seeing her face every day, given what it does to me? No. “I’ll decide after you tell me,” I countered, still towering over her. At least from this angle, I could keep my eyes on her face and not her body. Teenage hormones were a goddamn bitch sometimes. My dick didn’t care that I hated her. In fact, it made her even more tempting.

  She thought for a moment and realized she didn’t have another choice.

  “Madeline was the one who took my clothes.” Her tongue darted out to lick her lips. She kept her eyes off mine as she spoke. “She said she found out we were in a room alone together at the Wellington Prep party….and…” Hayley swallowed, crossing her arms over her pink bra.

  “And what?”

  “She said she made up the part about Cole messing with her friend so you’d beat him up.”

  I laughed. “You’re lying.”

  She shook her head, her dark hair covering her face for a moment before she looked at me. “She said Cole passed her up and she wanted to get back at him, and she knew you’d react if she told you he messed with one of her friends...inappropriately.”

  I paused, thought for a moment, and then my blood began to boil even hotter than it did when I saw Hayley a few moments ago.

  Before I knew what I was doing, I was ripping the shirt off my back and flinging it toward her. She hesitantly took it with a shaky hand.

  “Put it on.”


  She didn’t even think twice. After she pulled it over her slender body, moving her hair to the side, I put my hand underneath her chin and brought her gaze up to mine.

  “This means nothing.”

  She tore her face from my grasp and all but snarled at me.

  I left her alone in the stairwell and tried to calm myself before getting back to practice.

  I still hated Hayley Smith with all of my might, but maybe even a little more now because I knew what she looked like underneath her school uniform. And let me tell you, it was far better than what my twelve-year-old self conjured up before she left town.

  The next day of school came too quickly. After practice last night, I went straight home and holed myself up in my bedroom, even through Ollie’s protests and asking what had happened with Hayley. He tried to get a rise out of me by asking, “Did she look as hot as Kyle said she did?” I gave him a death glare and slammed the door in his face.

  I had to dissect my thoughts. I tossed around a stupid kid’s basketball from the hoop I got for my tenth birthday. My room was the same as it was then: a blue comforter, navy walls, the pitiful basketball hoop on the back of my closet door. Nothing in our house had changed since Mom died. Not even her vanity with her expensive jewelry. Dad wasn’t home enough to even care, or maybe that was why he wasn’t home to begin with. Too many reminders. I understood that; I couldn’t even stomach going in their room.

  It felt wrong to change anything in the house, and as vast and expansive as it was, it was easy to hide out in my bedroom alone.

  I tried to shove away my thoughts of Hayley and focus more on Madeline. What to do, what to do. It didn’t bother me at all that she was fucking with someone else—or attempting to. We weren’t exclusive and were never in an actual relationship, and I hadn’t fucked her in a long, long time. She hadn’t sucked my dick in a while, either. But to lie to me and tell me he fucked with one of her friends so I’d beat his ass so she’d have a way to retaliate? That was crossing a fucking line.

  Did he deserve to get his ass beat? After seeing him try to man-handle Hayley, probably. And who knew, maybe he had fucked with a girl against her will a time or two, but it sent me straight to the red at the thought of me plummeting my fist into his face over the fact that he didn’t want Madeline’s pussy. The entire situation made me look like a complete fucking idiot, and that didn’t sit well with me.

  It also didn’t sit well with me that I took Hayley’s word right off the bat. I knew she wasn’t lying to me, and the fact that I didn’t feel the need to fact-check her story proved a small part of me trusted her, which went against everything I stood for when it came to her.

  I needed her gone, and the one chance I got, I forfeited it.

  I looked over at her in class this morning, waiting for the familiar feeling of anger to pop up. I needed that feeling of resentment to seep in so I could bask in the comfort of knowing our up-close-and-personal conversation yesterday meant nothing. Remember, she started the spiral, Christian. She was the start of it all.

  The past tried to creep into my head, begging me to remember who she was before everything happened.

  She tucked her hair behind her ear, showing off her naturally pink-tinted cheeks and clean face. She reached up and adjusted the little bow tied around her neck, scratching at the material. I hated that she was so mesmerizing. Was it the mysterious vibe she held? Was it because she was a little rough around the edges but also had a sort of silent beauty about her? Or was it because she appeared perfect on the outside, but I knew she was tainted with flaws on the inside?

  I wasn’t the only one in the room staring at her. Voorhies was licking his lips while tracing his eyes up and down her body, and Clayton and Zach had their heads huddled together, whispering about her. Annoyance slithered up, and I shoved my book off my desk and onto the floor, causing a loud bang to go throughout the room. All eyes were on me, and I gave each of them a glare. Voorhies rolled his eyes, but Zach and Clayton were oblivious to my nonverbal threat. Quit fucking looking at her, and quit fucking lusting over her, my eyes said. I slowly slid my gaze back over to her, and she was staring at my book on the floor. Her rosy cheeks were replaced with a whiteness that matched her shirt. She let out a shaky breath.

  My eyebrows clustered together as I bent down to gather my book. Ollie had a smirk on his face and eyed me suspiciously. I ignored him as I came upright at my desk again.

  Class hadn’t even started yet when Ms. Boyd buzzed into the intercom and asked for me, Ollie, and Hayley to come to the office. Hayley’s head snapped over to mine, and I swore, the blue hue of her eyes was replaced with a simmering red. I knew what she thought. She thought I went back on my word, that I told Headmaster Walton about the half-naked debacle from yesterday. Her eyes portrayed just that.

  As soon as the three of us were out of the classroom, whispers floating all around us, Hayley jerked in front of me and poked my chest. “I guess I should have listened to you when you said nothing had changed!”

  I looked down at her finger on my chest, poking my tie, and then back at her face. I smirked. I had no idea why the three of us were called down to the office, as I didn’t tell Headmaster Walton anything. In fact, no one really knew anything other than Hayley and me, but letting her sweat was fun.

  I liked seeing her bothered.

  Hayley backed away slowly, the anger receding rapidly. Ollie stood and looked back and forth between us, trying to figure us out. Hayley began to shake her head, wrapping her arms around her body. She mumbled, “Shit.” Then her gaze traveled to her shoes. I followed her every move. My ears perked for more of her mumbling. “I can’t go back there. I’ll just have to ask Ann to transfer me. She’ll understand.”

  “She’ll understand what?” I asked, divulging in her hidden world. The need to know more was eating at me. I liked control, and Hayley was too far out of reach.

  “None of your business!” she all but shouted. Hayley took several breaths, but it was almost as if she were gasping for air. Ollie took a step closer to her cautiously, toeing the tiles one by one until he was right in front of her.

  He looked at me, and his worried expression bugged me. I growled, striding to the pair of them and stopping right in front of her. “She’s having a panic attack.”

  Ollie kept his eyes on her. “I know.” Then, he brought his attention to me for a second. “I recognize it. She’s doing exactly what you used to do.”

  My teeth clanged together. I hated thinking about a time when I was the weaker link. For a year after Mom passed, I’d have random panic attacks. My heart would speed up, viciously trying to climb right out of my chest, my vision would get spotty, and I couldn’t breathe. Ollie was always the one to calm me. He was my anchor.

  “Hayley.” He bent down to her level. She somehow slid to the floor and had her back resting along the lockers. “Tell me something you smell.”

  Her breathing was still rapid, her chest rising and falling quickly. I found my own chest rising a little faster, watching her.

  Ollie spoke again. “Hayley, focus!”

  It was like Ollie wasn’t even there. My pulse quickened with every passing second. I was becoming more and more bothered at the sight of her. I thought back to her file that I had momentarily stolen. Did it say anything about Oakland High? What the fuck happened there?

  Finally, I could no longer take it. I bent down and snapped my fingers. “Hayley!”

  Just like that, she jerked her chin and met my eye. “Tell me something you smell.”

  Through her gasps, she said, “Wh—what?”

  I drove my eyes into hers. “What do you smell?”

  “Woodsy…pine… cologne. You.”

  I nodded. “Tell me something you feel.”

  Her breaths became a little steadier. “Cool tiles.” Her fingers brushed over the floor.

  “Tell me something you see.”

  “You. I see you.”

  We stared at each other. Her eyes conne
cted to mine, mine connected to hers. The color was coming back to her face, and her body became more relaxed. Her breaths evened out. There you are.

  “You good now, Scrapper?” Ollie asked. Shit. I forgot he was here.

  I stood up quickly and fought the urge to run in the other direction. Hayley nodded, peering up into his face. She slowly gathered herself and pulled herself up using his hand, smoothing out her not-long-enough skirt. My eyes lingered on her legs for a fraction too long. That didn’t sit well with me, either. None of this did.

  Shit. Maybe I should tell the headmaster that she tried to seduce the football team and get her a one-way ticket out of English Prep. No, not before figuring out what she’s so damn afraid of at Oakland High.

  Her voice was soft, like a feather floating to the ground. “Yeah, thanks. I’m fine.”

  “So, what the fuck are we all three doing going to the headmaster’s office?” Ollie asked as he stepped back, giving Hayley some space.

  She puffed a lock of hair out of her face. “Ask him.”

  I scowled in her direction. “Fuck if I know. I didn’t go to him like you think.”

  A sarcastic laugh fell out of her mouth. “I don’t believe you. You’d do anything to get me out of your kingdom.”

  Ollie threw his head back and howled with laughter. “Kingdom?”

  She crossed her arms. “Not my words. But regardless, Christian likes to think he’s the king of this school, so...”

  I snarled. “Well, if the crown fucking fits…”

  Ollie laughed harder this time, and I pushed past both of them, heading straight to the headmaster’s office.

  I glanced back and saw that he had flung his arm over her shoulders as they trailed me. He better not even think of befriending her. She was the enemy, and that was how it had to stay.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Hayley

  My leg bounced up and down as I sat beside Ollie in the waiting area. Christian was asked to go into Headmaster Walton’s office alone, so Ollie and I had to stay out here.