All the Little Lies: A High School Bully Romance

by S. J. Sylvis

  “What are we going to do about school tomorrow?”

  My voice grew tired, raspy. “What do you mean?”

  Her head angled up to mine, but I kept my eyes closed. “I mean, are we going to tell people? I don’t really like attention, and you’re all anyone really cares about at English Prep.”

  “Oh, people will know, regardless of whether we tell them.”

  “Why is that?” Her hold on me grew tighter.

  “Because now that I’ve had you, I’ll never be able to keep my hands off you again. You’re mine now, Hayley. There are no take-backs like in sixth grade.”

  “I’m not your property, Christian.” If I were to look at her face, I could guarantee she was rolling her eyes and scowling.

  “Maybe not, but I’m yours.”

  And with that, we both fell asleep until her alarm went off the next morning.

  The following morning started off with a bang—literally. I talked Hayley into letting me shower with her at Pete’s. A six-minute shower shared by the pair of us wasn’t a feat, but keeping myself from bending her over the tub was.

  Once we got back into her room and successfully shut the door before Pete or Jill descended from their room, it took us seconds to have our mouths on one another.

  I’d never been so lust-crazy before.

  Even now, an hour later, as she pulled up in Piper's BMW in the school parking lot, the only thing I could think about was her lips. Both sets.

  Ollie sauntered up beside me and stared in their direction. “So, I talked to Dad.”

  “Mmhm,” I mumbled, swiping my lip with my thumb. Hayley climbed out of the passenger side with her hair still damp from the shower. Her skirt somehow appeared sexier than ever, and I was certain it was because I’d tasted what was underneath.

  “He told me about your talk on Friday. Is everything okay with you?”

  “Mmhm,” I mumbled again.

  “Dude!”

  I felt a shove to my shoulder. “What?” I asked in a daze.

  Ollie’s mouth split in two, and then he started to laugh. Our group of friends all stopped what they were doing and stared. “Dude, I’ve never ever seen you like this.”

  “Like what?” I asked, keeping my eyes off Hayley.

  “Fucking shit... I don’t even know.”

  Eric popped up beside Ollie. “I think the word he’s looking for is…not a fucking asshole.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not always an ass.”

  “You surely aren’t right now, which means…” His line of sight left mine. “Does this mean what I think it means?”

  “Does this mean what?” April, along with her catty friends, sauntered up, all of their faces burning my irises. Did I really find any of these girls attractive before Hayley?

  “Christian?” Eric snagged my attention, and I gave him a small flick of my head.

  Hayley doesn’t want unneeded attention, and I understood that. I respected it. I told her I'd try my hardest to keep things level on my end when it came to us. Keeping things under wraps for now was okay with me.

  I wasn’t going to stop staring at her, though.

  And it probably wasn’t going to stop me from sneaking in touches every chance I got.

  But I’d try.

  For her.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Hayley

  Christian was absolutely awful at keeping his distance from me at school. It’d only been two days since the treehouse incident, and basically, the entire school knew something was up.

  I smiled more, and Christian wasn’t his usual, brooding self.

  We’d get caught staring at each other, and someone would make a comment. Christian wouldn’t correct them, and neither would I. I was at a point where I didn’t care much about high school drama. Madeline’s secret dirty looks in PE did nothing to faze me. April and a few other girls rolled their eyes at me or made comments about my uniform being too worn, but I only shrugged.

  Things were good.

  Christian snuck in kisses and forbidden touches under the stairwell at school, and afterwards, when his hands would leave my waist because the bell rang and soon students would start pouring through the hallways, I felt indifferent.

  Unwanted attention was something I’d always been against.

  But now that it stole Christian away from me, I was second-guessing my decision. I didn’t care if people knew I was a poor foster kid, and I shouldn’t care if they knew I was with Christian. Most girls would have been flaunting it everywhere, if they were me. But that was the difference between me and other girls my age. I didn’t want to flaunt it for them; I wanted to flaunt it for me. I didn’t want to hide him, because I actually felt better with him by my side.

  I wanted him by my side.

  Just as the thought escaped me, a large hand wrapped around my waist and pulled me around the hallway corner. I yelped and spun around, exhilarated. “Hi.”

  Christian’s lip tipped upward. “Hey.” Then, his hands wrapped around my face, and he kissed me. He swooped his tongue into my mouth, which left me breathless.

  I pulled away quickly, butterflies floating in my stomach. My hands clasped onto his wrists.

  His brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?”

  I swallowed, my gaze bouncing back and forth between his gray eyes. “I don’t think I want to hide this.”

  Christian’s head tipped to the side. We were tucked away near the library, hidden in the corner at the far end of the hall.

  “You don’t?”

  I slowly shook my head.

  His grasp grew tighter on my face. “So, what does this mean then?”

  I shyly shrugged. “I don’t really know.”

  Christian’s hands dropped from my face as he reached up and grabbed the straps of his backpack. “I don’t either.” He licked his lip. “Let’s just do what feels right. Yeah?”

  “What feels right to you?”

  Christian looked away for a second before pinning me with an intense look. “Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve never done this. I’ve never been this way before.” He looked away again, and I could have sworn his cheeks grew pink for a second. “The old Christian, from five years ago, was completely infatuated with you. Then, I grew to hate you and everyone around me. My feelings were superficial at best. Girls hung on my arms, but it was all for show. My heart didn’t beat for them.” Christian stepped closer to me, his body heat enveloping me. He swallowed roughly, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “I know there’s been a huge gap of time between us, and other constraints of the past, but this…” Christian took my hand and placed it on his chest. I could feel his heart thumping against my palm. “This has always beat for you. Even when I wanted to hate you, it beat for you.”

  My eyes glossed over at his words. I gulped back a lump as I watched the hope gleam in his eye. He was waiting for me to say something. He wanted confirmation that I was feeling the same way.

  Three days of accepting my feelings and my heart was already attached to his like it was when we were barely teenagers.

  “What are you thinking?”

  A smile found its way onto my face. I hurriedly grabbed Christian’s large wrist and pulled him down the hallway. The farther we moved from the corner, the more our peers appeared. Every one of their faces was stricken with confusion. I kept pulling Christian until we were outside the school doors. Mostly everyone was getting ready to leave for the day, slowly walking to their overpriced cars or mingling in the courtyard, gossiping.

  I stopped just a few feet away from Christian’s group of friends. My hand slipped from his wrist, and when I peered up into his face, a gust of crisp autumn wind blew leaves around us. I reached up on my tiptoes and placed a long, full-of-life kiss on his lips. My mouth moved over his languidly as his hands wrapped around my waist. I was pulled into his body roughly, and somehow, everything and everyone disappeared. This kiss wasn’t for them. It was for us. I wanted to show him what felt right to me. And it was him.

/>   He felt right.

  As soon as we broke our embrace, we stood and stared at each other. He smiled first, and then I followed suit. We didn’t break our stare until people started clapping, which caused the both of us to chuckle.

  “There,” I said, still staring up at him. “That’s what feels right to me.”

  He tipped his chin once, grabbed onto my hand, and pulled me over to his group of friends. I may not have fit in right away, but nothing seemed impossible with Christian being mine.

  Nothing at all.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Hayley

  The next week at school, things changed dramatically. Dynamics were shifted. Some stared; others gossiped; teachers were shocked. Even Headmaster Walton came out of his office to see if the gossip mill was being truthful.

  Christian, the unattainable king, was no longer single. And to everyone’s surprise, the girl to snag him was one from the wrong side of the tracks.

  Whenever Piper and I would pull up a chair at his lunch table, the room would grow quiet, as if people lost their sense of verbiage. It was funny, but a bit unnerving.

  It did nothing to affect Christian and me, though. All the stares and curious whispers behind our backs didn't bother us a bit. We sat together, walked the halls together, and kissed when we felt like it. Butterflies swarmed my stomach 24/7, and they were the good ones. Not the dreadful, ominous ones with black wings.

  It was like that all the time now. I fluttered around the school and Pete and Jill’s like I was a butterfly myself. Even Ann noticed a change when she’d stopped by to check in the other day. And it was a damn miracle that Pete and Jill hadn’t caught on to Christian and me yet. If they were to pay a little more attention to me, they’d know something was different. I was surprised they hadn’t caught him in my room yet, either. He popped in through the window around nine every night, which was a rule I laid out so I could still get my homework and studying done (there was absolutely no hope with him near), and we’d either end up talking for hours or stripping down underneath the covers. It was usually a bit of both. We’d gotten out of hand a few times now, but still, no one came looking.

  One week of being Christian’s and it felt like no time had passed between us at all. The hate was gone. The past was in the past. Every day with him felt like the start of forever.

  “Madeline is staring again.” Piper bent her head down to me as we all sat at Christian’s lunch table. His hand was resting on my knee as he casually talked to Ollie and Eric about this week’s game. I slowly swiveled my head to Madeline and caught her thick-mascara-laden eye. I flicked an eyebrow up, and she glared.

  My ears felt hot, but I told myself not to engage in her catty behavior. A feud with Madeline was the last thing I needed. Things were finally calming for me—at least at English Prep.

  A small squeeze of my knee had me glancing up at Christian. His sexy grin was plastered on his face. “You’re coming to the game, right? With Piper?”

  “Piper is definitely coming.” Ollie’s grin matched his brother’s.

  Piper’s head swung forward. “I’m not coming for you, Ollie—in either sense—so I don’t know why you’re so excited.”

  He rolled his eyes. “We’ll see about that.”

  “We’ll see what?” she asked, but I tuned their argument out as I glanced back at Madeline. She was still staring.

  “Want me to say something?” Christian’s whisper hit my ear.

  “No. I can handle it on my own.”

  I could tell he was grinding his teeth back and forth.

  “What?” I asked under my breath.

  His stormy gaze found mine underneath his thick eyelashes. He messed with the tie hanging around his neck. “I’m your boyfriend. I’m supposed to stick up for you.”

  I bristled at the thought. “Not to someone like Madeline.” I glanced around the table, and thankfully, no one was paying any attention to us. “She's just jealous that she could never truly snag you.”

  “If she bothers you, let me know. I don’t like the idea of someone messing with you.”

  A ghost of a smile touched my lips. I leaned in closer to Christian, my knee touching his. “I can handle much more than you give me credit for.”

  His tongue darted out to lick his lips. “Trust me. I know.”

  My core started to tighten, but I ignored it.

  “Then let me handle Madeline. A scowl or two from her is nothing compared to the real threat out there.”

  Christian’s lips formed a straight line as the reminder of my father’s past lingered in the air. It was something we both tried to push away, but it never truly left our minds.

  “I know,” he finally said as the bell rang for class.

  “I’m gonna go to the bathroom real quick,” I said, reaching up and planting a small kiss on his lips. Piper and Ollie were still in some sort of feud, so once I said my brief goodbye to them, I headed for the navy doors, clutching my books in my hand.

  “Hey, wait.” Christian pulled me back by my shirt and whipped me around. Our peers were walking past us slowly, pretending not to sneak a glance at their king with his girlfriend.

  “What?”

  Christian’s hands wrapped around my face as he brought his lips down to mine. My entire body grew warm as his tongue swiped over mine. All the breath left my body when he pulled away.

  “I just wanted to kiss you.”

  Butterflies flew around in my belly when he winked at me and started to follow his friends. I shyly glanced around the hallway and met the eye of several people. The girls’ mouths were hanging open, and the guys were all shaking their heads, wearing grins.

  My face was still flaming as I entered the bathroom and even as I washed my hands afterwards.

  The whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing was new territory for me. I thought I wouldn’t like it. I thought the attention would bother me. But turned out, not much bothered me with Christian by my side.

  My head swung to the left as the bathroom door opened, and soon, my light and fluttery feeling disappeared.

  Madeline’s eyes dug right through me. Here we go.

  I continued to wash my hands as she stared at me, blocking the door like a bouncer at a bar. Doesn’t she know I can knock her flat on her ass in seconds?

  “Well, spit it out, Madeline. I know you have something to say.”

  Her foot tapped the tiled floor as she waited for me to look at her. I took my sweet time drying my hands and gathering my books, knowing very well I was going to be late to class.

  “So, how does my pussy taste?”

  I couldn’t help the laugh bubbling up my throat. “Are you serious? That’s the best you've got?”

  Madeline’s face wavered for a moment as I stepped closer to her. “Madeline, I’m not that dense; I know that you and Christian used to fool around and have sex.” Although, the thought made me recoil inside, the past was the past. “But for you to stand here and act like he just fucked you this morning and I got your sloppy seconds is a bit desperate. Don’t you think?”

  She growled, “You took everything from me.” Madeline paused for a moment before darting her glistening eyes away from me. Was she crying? A small part of me felt bad almost instantly. She didn’t deserve it. But I did feel a little bad. Something had to have made her this way: cold, detached, craving everyone’s attention at all times.

  “Madeline, you did this to yourself. Take a step back and evaluate your actions. Your motives. No one wants to be friends with someone who’s conniving and mean.” I walked over and stood beside her until she finally moved out of the way. The late bell rang above our heads. “I think you should know that better than anyone.”

  She held her chin up high. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Her voice dripped of unshed tears.

  I shrugged, placing my hand on the door. “Someone made you feel inferior once; that’s why you are the way that you are.”

  Her face twisted and grew red. “You know nothing about me. Y
ou’re the one that feels inferior.”

  I laughed sarcastically. “You’re damn right. I’ve been put down more times than I can count.” I turned around and pushed through the door, but not before I said over my shoulder, “But at least I can admit it.”

  Then, I left her to think about what I'd said. Madeline was mean and callous—conniving, at best—but I knew people weren’t born that way. Something or someone caused her to do the things she did. I knew better than anyone that there was more than met the eye when it came to one’s actions.

  “I can’t believe they crushed them that badly.” Piper laughed as she pulled onto the highway.

  My fingers fiddled with the holes in my jeans as we drove out to Eric’s cabin for the after-game party. “I know. I’ve only been to a few football games—ever.” I laughed. “But that was, by far, the worst beating I’ve ever seen.”

  Piper glanced over and smiled. “Christian probably played so well because he knew you were watching.”

  “Oh, whatever.” I laughed. Then I cocked an eyebrow. “I wonder why Ollie played so well…”

  Piper grunted.

  “Is something going on with you two?”

  “What? No!” Her voice squeaked at the end of her sentence, and I couldn’t decide if she was hiding the truth or if it was a coincidence. “We’re just thrown together a lot because of you and Christian.” Piper quickly tried to change the subject. “By the way…how are things with you two? People still haven’t gotten over seeing Christian act so…happy.”

  I smiled as my body grew warm. “It’s weird, you know? But in a good way.” I shrugged, tucking a braid behind my shoulder. “I don’t know how to explain it. There’s just this comfort with him, but excitement, too. One curl of his lip gives me butterflies and makes me feel wild, but his hugs calm me almost instantly.” I shook my head a little. “It’s hard not being so independent with him, though. I’m used to being alone and relying on myself, and now he’s there, wanting to fix all my problems. Even Madeline.”