Bully: A High School Bully Romance (The King of Castleton High Book 1)

by Ellie Meadows

  “So the great Drake Castleton wants to pay me to date a girl simply because he thinks we’re a good match?” Aiden’s voice dripped with suspicion, and rightly so. “Color me skeptical.” He crossed his arms and all the guy needed was the symbol of hope across his chest to complete the stance.

  “Oh, I have my ulterior motives.” I paused, seeing if he’d say something more. He didn’t, so I continued my sales pitch. “It’s five hundred a day until you’re not needed anymore. Today, at the very least, I need you to get her contact info. Social media handles, email, anything she uses. She’s not using her real name on any websites that I could find.” I’d thoroughly searched, like the stalker I was becoming.

  I could tell the money was giving Aiden pause, cutting through his good guy persona. I wondered if even superman had a breaking point for morality.

  “Look, I’m not going to hurt her or anything.” It was a patently-untrue promise. All I did was hurt girls. And I fucking liked it.

  Slowly, Aiden nodded. “Alright. 600 a day, and you’ve got a deal.”

  Laughing, I saluted. I respected a person who didn’t take the first offer. “You drive a hard bargain.” Digging into my back pocket, I pulled out my wallet and dug out the cash plus a black card with my phone number on it. “Here’s today and tomorrow. Text me whatever info you get.”

  Aiden took the money quickly, looking left and right like we were doing a drug deal in front of the school that had my family name plastered all over it. “Chill, Aiden.” I clapped him on the shoulder. “This is going to be fun.”

  I watched my very own Cyrano de Bergerac walk away and I felt a thrill of excitement. This was a new type of game. And I had a feeling it would ruin future pursuits for me. But, fuck, I was going to enjoy every minute.

  Tarryn didn’t need me to show her around now; she had the hang of the school layout. I kept my distance, playing the long game. It wasn’t until after lunch that Aiden had his chance. We were all in Calculus together—there was no Advanced Placement for lack of enough students, otherwise Aiden would be separated out.

  He made it a point to sit next to Tarryn—who was early and already poised for action with four colored pens atop her notebook. He didn’t say anything though, and when class started, I was beginning to wonder if I’d wasted my money.

  Halfway through the hour, Aiden’s pencil rolled off his desk and landed at Tarryn’s feet. I watched her look down inquiringly and then pick up the pencil. Her eyes met Aiden’s and she smiled. She smiled, and I felt a twinge of... jealously. I wasn’t jealous of fucking anybody. At least, I never had been before.

  Tarryn mouthed the question ‘yours?’ as she held the pencil out to Aiden. He nodded and reached out to take it back. Their fingers touched for a moment, and there was a pause, and I swear to god it was excruciatingly long. I had to fight the urge to get up out of my seat and push their damn hands apart. She smiled again and pushed a pale brown curl away from her face, tucking it behind a dainty ear. I noticed the piercings then. Two on the lower lobe, one higher up. She had secrets. I wondered how many.

  I wanted to know them all.

  At the end of class, Aiden and Tarryn stood talking while the other students filed out of the classroom. I wanted to hear what they were saying, but I needed to keep my distance and look like I’d taken the hint—that I’d accepted she didn’t like me, and would never like me.

  So I walked out into the hall and I didn’t even glance at her, though every particle of my body kept pulling me towards the duo. What the hell was wrong with me? I didn’t get this bent over a girl. I just didn’t. They get bent over me. That’s the way it fucking works.

  It wasn’t until the end of the school day that my phone pinged.

  Aiden: She’s not on a lot of social media sites and she didn’t give me her email. IG is NormaGENE. She has FB, but doesn’t use it really. Though she has messenger on her phone. That’s- @NormaGeneMonroe

  No wonder I hadn’t been able to track her down online. In true nerd fashion, she’d made a science reference instead of just spelling her name like a normal human being. Again, not for the first time or the damn last time, it ran through my mind that Tarryn wasn’t my type, not at all. She shouldn’t even matter to me. Who the hell cared if she didn’t end up one of my many hotel screws, one of the numbers I scroll past and consider calling when I needed a distraction.

  Who cared? The school was full of girls.

  But none of them were Tarryn.

  Fuck knows why, but she was it. It had to be her.

  Whatever it was.

  7.

  T A R R Y N

  “You’re awfully smiley,” Mom commented, steering the station wagon towards home. The whole car smelled like Thai food—coconuts and open-air spice markets. It made my stomach gurgle in happy anticipation. “I’m guessing you maybe had a good day?”

  I looked over at her, trying not to blush, but of course I did. “It was okay. Better than Monday and Tuesday.” I kept my tone even and shrugged like it didn’t matter.

  “Well, you know what they say. Third time’s the charm. Or third day in this case.” Mom reached over and soft-punched me in the shoulder approvingly. “So what made it better?”

  “No twenty questions Mom,” I sighed. “It was just better, that’s all.”

  “Was it a boy?” She pushed. “It was a boy wasn’t it? Ohhhh. Just think, I felt so bad about moving you out here, but it might turn out great! Your first real boyfriend.”

  “Mom, seriously,” I groaned out. “Stop it.”

  She pouted, sticking out her lower lip. “You never tell me anything anymore.”

  “That’s not true,” I mumbled, knowing it was absolutely true. “I tell you plenty.”

  “No, you don’t.” Mom took one hand off the steering wheel and rubbed her other arm. “But that’s life, I guess. I grew distant from my own mother as I hit the teen years. And then I went off to college and met your dad. Things never went back to the way it was when I was younger and we were close.”

  “That’s not going to happen to us.” I reassured her, though again I knew it was probably true. Life kept moving; we were all hamsters on a spinning wheel. Even when we tried to take a break from things, the wheel kept moving. It was a rotational force, unstoppable and tiresome.

  “Sure, sure it won’t, sweetheart.” She puts both hands back on the steering wheel and takes a turn without her blinker. As we move down the next street, I see the stop sign at the next intersection, but I can’t feel the car slowing down. I press my foot hard into the passenger side floor, willing her to slow the heck down, but I don’t say anything. Commenting on my mom’s driving whilst she’s driving will agitate her so bad that she’ll become a worse driver. Worse. You’d not think that was possible if you took a single ride with my mom anywhere.

  When we got home, Mom and I ate Thai and I drilled her about the new job. It didn’t take much to get her going, spilling every detail—the most annoying employee, the gossip in the break room, the rival that had wanted internal promotion versus bringing in Mom and Dad to head up marketing. It made her feel better about our closeness, I could tell.

  “So, what time is Dad home?” I rinsed off our plates and stuck them in the dishwasher while Mom closed the fast food containers and put the food away.

  “Ugh, probably after midnight. There’s a new interface thing going live on the town’s website and he wants to make sure it all goes smoothly. Hopefully he’s not there all night to work out bugs.” As soon as she put the food in the fridge and closed it, she reopened the door and grabbed a spring roll, skipping the peanut sauce. “Nervous eating,” she mumbled around bites. “It’s always hard at a new job to do the first ‘big’ thing. You know?”

  I laughed. “No, I don’t know.”

  Mom laughed too. “Right…you’ve never had a job. But you get the pressure. Big test, SATs. Oh! You had that job two summers ago with Mr. Duane.”

  “I don’t think gardening for the elderly man next
door counts as a real job, Mom.” I scrubbed down the table and counters before wiping off my hands. “Okay, homework time.”

  “Already? It’s the first week.”

  “Well, it’s not elementary school anymore.” I went to walk out of the kitchen, but turned around. “Hey, can you call Grover High tomorrow and see about my transcripts? They’re supposed to come on Friday, but I just want to be sure. I don’t even have my text books yet.”

  Mom nodded absentmindedly. “Yeah. Will do, but I’m sure they’ll get to your new school when they’re supposed to.”

  “Thanks. Upstairs if you need me.” I grabbed my backpack off the hall bench on my way towards the stairs, which I took two by two. The back of my thighs protested the stretch. I should run again; I’d been slacking off since the move. I mean, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go out for cross-country here, but in case I decided to, I probably should stay in decent shape. Though, I’d missed late summer tryouts and most of the fall sports were already in high-gear—training and planning for events. There were second-round tryouts in two weeks though, and cross-country events spanned both semesters. I liked having the motivation of a sport to keep my body in decent shape. It didn’t take many months of carb-loading and couch-sitting to gain several sizes. At least, it didn’t for my metabolism.

  I changed into sweats, yanked my hair up into a haphazard bun, and got comfy on my bed. My notes from Mr. Paulson’s class were spread out on the bed, a glorious rainbow of ink. He’d dropped hints about a pop quiz today during class. And by hints, he’d all but said ‘we’re going to have a Friday pop quiz’, in his monotone, exhaustive voice. But, gosh, he knew so much. I didn’t even care that he put the kid next to me to sleep today. The boy had literally snored the entire class.

  Reading over everything, I made a few notations and then booted up my computer. I found a paper on carbon capture and utilization. I could use that for the bonus ‘advancements in modern chemistry’ question he’d blatantly mentioned at the very end of class when all the students were rushing out the door and not paying attention. I’d found, all my life, that if you only waited a short while after everyone else lost interest, often you’d catch things no one else did.

  As I was finishing the article and about to jump to a new one, my laptop pinged a notification. I looked down at the task bar and found a message notification on my FB icon. I hadn’t talked to Becky in a while. Thinking it might be her, I fished my phone from my backpack and turned it on. I didn’t like to use social media on my laptop. It was way too distracting. Instead of reading science journals and articles for school, I’d get lost in Post-land—reading about the lives of people I’d never met in person, clicking on videos of cute cats and awesome singing. If I just used the messenger app on my phone, I didn’t get so sidetracked.

  The phone buzzed as it turned on and then pinged shortly after, mimicking the computer. The blue speech bubble announced the message. Fully expecting Becky on the other end of the application, I was surprised to see a message request from someone I wasn’t friends with. Normally, I wouldn’t have pursued further—I mean, I didn’t answer unknown numbers either—but something made me go to the message requests tab.

  And I smiled when I saw that the profile name was Aiden Quinn.

  Eagerly, I clicked on the message.

  Aiden: Hey, Tarryn. It’s Aiden from school. I know you said you’re not much for social media, but I thought I’d see if you’d make an exception for me.

  Even after only talking to him for a short while, I could hear his voice reading the text in my head.

  Make me laugh, and I’ll think about it. I hesitated before hitting send, worried I sounded corny. But I decided if I scared him off now with my personality, better that than another failed actual date.

  Aiden: How did the mathematician get drunk off root beer?

  I’ve no idea. How? I wrote back, though I did have a guess.

  Aiden: He put it in a square cup. Then it was just beer.

  And I did laugh, despite having already deduced the answer.

  Aiden: Well, are you going to make an exception?

  You’ve no proof I laughed.

  Aiden: But you did, didn’t you?

  I did. I admitted, grinning from ear-to-ear now.

  Aiden: So what are you doing?

  Studying for Paulson’s class. There’s going to be a quiz on Friday.

  Aiden: He’s never gotten the fact that you can’t call it a ‘pop quiz’, yet also give out a million hints that it’s going to happen.

  It’s kind of endearing actually. What are you doing?

  Aiden: I’m equally entrenched in nerd activities.

  What class?

  Aiden: AP English.

  I should be moved into there when my transcripts arrive.

  He took longer to respond this time. When he did, for some reason it felt different. Not light and breezy. Heavy almost.

  Aiden: It’ll be nice to have more classes together. You’ll still have Paulson. AP is just a different period. Are you liking the classes you’re in now?

  Sigh. **disgruntled emoticon** I’d enjoy them more if a certain person wasn’t in all of my classes.

  Aiden: I can take a wild guess.

  Is he always like this with new girls. I mean, really?

  Aiden: Yes… before I could respond, he started typing again. and no. He’s not used to rejection.

  Well, he seems to have taken the hint now, thank god.

  Aiden: Lucky for me. **smile emoticon**

  Get to know me a little better, and then say that.

  Aiden: Challenge accepted.

  I laughed, thinking of something clever to say, but again he started typing.

  Aiden: Okay. I’ve got to go. See you tomorrow. Lunch together?

  I’d like that. We’ll have to drink root beer.

  Aiden: Only if the cups are square.

  It felt like a natural end to the convo, though we’d not technically said goodbye.

  I went back to studying my notes and reading articles, but I wasn’t retaining much. All I could think about was Aiden Quinn, gorgeous and tall and smart. At some point, I started shopping the internet for square cups.

  Which was patently ridiculous.

  ***

  Thursday went fairly the same as Wednesday. Aiden and I continued our meet-cute courtship, from a dropped pencil, to flirty messages during study time, to sharing a soda during lunch—unfortunately not root beer since the cafeteria was out. He’d actually sat with Sasha and me, though she’d read a book the whole time and kept her distance.

  He didn’t ask me out though. And there were so many opportunities.

  So by the end of the school day, I was completely, utterly confused. Maybe Aiden only wanted to be friends. That would be my luck, to be friend-zoned by the guy and not the other way around—which felt more socio-typical.

  I was so grateful it was Dad that picked me up after school. He wouldn’t notice the shift from yesterday to today, how Wednesday had been the ‘third day charm’ and now Thursday was the ‘mood shift mania’ of a hormonal teen girl who couldn’t figure out if a guy liked her or not. I was annoyed with the situation, but more annoyed with myself for letting the possibility of dating Aiden get me so twisted. He was just exactly the kind of guy I’d been hoping for—brains, looks, a sense of humor.

  Sighing, I leaned my head against the seat and closed my eyes. As expected, Dad didn’t notice, or if he did, he didn’t comment. He was good like that.

  Around five, Mom and Dad had one of their fast-and-furious eating sessions before setting up camp on the dining room table to work. Good or bad, that left me to my thoughts and studies.

  Before bunking down to read the English assignment, I made sure my phone was on. Just in case.

  Desperate.

  I was acting desperate.

  And I didn’t like myself that way.

  Annoyed, I shoved my phone into the drawer of my side table. I wanted to forget about it, and
Aiden, for a while.

  Of course, the second I close the drawer and decide to give Macbeth the entirety of my attention, the phone pinged. And I yanked open the drawer and grabbed for the device like the hungry-for-attention loser I was.

  Aiden: Did you hear the one about the paranoid Chemist?

  No… **overzealous flirty emoticon… two of them**

  Aiden: He was suspicious of everyone, trusted nothing. He said atoms were the worst liars.

  I waited for the punch line, my brain not putting two and two together tonight.

  Aiden: You see, the chemist heard they made up everything.

  I couldn’t help but smile, even if I was a ball of stressed-out girl emotion.

  Cute.

  Aiden: I figure I need to continue giving you a reason to make an exception for me.

  You know, it’s surprisingly hard to find square drinking cups. I realized how random that sounded after I sent the text.

  Aiden: Ha! Did you really look?

  Maybe…

  Aiden: That’s kind of adorable.

  I didn’t know how to respond. This didn’t sound or feel like being chunked into the platonic zone, but I was the world’s worst expert at reading guys. So I just freaking asked. I mean… it was better to get a straight answer.

  Hey. Do you like me? Like-like, not friend-like.

  Yet, the second I asked, I realized we’d only been talking for two freaking days. And I was the most impatient person on the stupid planet. Also, I sounded like a middle school kid asking another kid to check yes or no on a slip of paper. Juvenile. Freaking childish.

  I’m so sorry. It’s way too early to ask. Ha. I’m awful at this.

  Oh… my… Christ on a cracker. I was making it worse with each word. I started to type again, but I stopped myself. He didn’t answer, not immediately. The typing symbol would pop up, then disappear, and then pop up again. This was going to be amazing. Freaking amazing. And I’d thought my date with Dennis Hogan and his flexing muscles had been the shortest ‘romance’ possible.

  Finally, my phone pinged with a new message from Aiden.