Brawl: A Bully Romance (King of Castleton Book 3)

by Ellie Meadows

  Dad placed the hammer on a side table and pulled Mom into his arms. “I guess we can’t argue with that, can we honey?”

  “What happened to you guys?” I stared at them, crossing my arms. “I mean, Mom is Mom. But Dad,” I paused, looking at the way they were holding each other like newlyweds. Every week in River Valley seemed to improve their relationship and make Dad less stoic. “you seem really happy here. And you guys aren’t fighting like you used to.”

  “We used to fight a lot? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Mom gave Dad a squeeze and she winked at me.

  “You guys drive me nuts.”

  “We wouldn’t be good parents if we didn’t.” Mom laughed as Dad leaned in and whispered something. “You are naughty,” she gasped out between snorts.

  “Okay, now reparations include pizza money.” I held out my hand and wiggled my fingers. “I am absolutely scarred for life.”

  “Extortionist.” Dad reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Seconds later, I held forty dollars as I raced away from the sounds of my parents being so lovey-dovey it turned my stomach.

  #

  “Your parents are cute.” Sasha was curled up in my bed, shoes kicked off and dark hair falling over her eyes. “My parents don’t really get along like that. I mean, they love each other, but mom with her healthy eating and fasting on Sunday… it really wars with Dad’s insatiable appetite for all things bacon.”

  I laughed. “Division over bacon. I know what side of the conflict I’d fight for.”

  We looked at one another, nodded simultaneously, and then said “bacon.”

  “No question,” Sasha snorted, tossing one of my throw pillows above her head and then catching it.

  “So… as far as pizza toppings go?”

  “Like you have to ask?” Sasha tossed the pillow at me. I dodged to the right, almost dropping my cell phone.

  “All the bacon, obviously. But something a tiny bit healthier too.”

  “Joy killer.” She picked up another pillow, but I skipped out of the room before she could throw it. I was so glad she was here, and I was ready to explode if I didn’t tell her about Drake.

  But pizza ordering first.

  “The Brick Oven. Pick up or delivery?” A pleasant female voice sprang to life after a few rings.

  “Delivery, please.” I stood in the hallway, rubbing the back of my leg with my other sock-clad foot.

  “Great, what can we get you?”

  “Two large pizzas, ham and bacon on one, chicken and peppers on the other.”

  “Anything else?”

  I popped my head back into my room and mimed drinking. Sasha nodded and mouthed ‘coke’.

  “Two regular cokes and, erhm, brownies.”

  “Address?”

  I gave her our address, stomach already grumbling at the thought of warm cheesy pizza, and said my goodbyes after getting the price and estimated delivery time. Pressing the red end call button, I navigated over to my messages and clicked on Drake’s name.

  Me: Everything going okay at your grandmother’s?

  Me: Hanging out with Sasha.

  I waited for a moment, waited to see if the little gray dots would appear signaling that he was messaging me back. Of course they didn’t appear, because Drake was busy. He was with his family doing family things. I thought about texting a third time. But I wasn’t going to become a stage five clinger. That wasn’t who I was.

  At least, it wasn’t who I wanted to be.

  I bit my lip, thinking. A year ago, I’d have never found myself in the middle of a lake half dressed making out with a guy. Drake had been awful to me. Awful.

  And now he was all I could think about.

  “You coming back or am I hanging out alone? Which is fine, but tell me if you keep a diary, and where it is. That’ll keep me entertained until I’m stuffing my face with pizza.”

  I laughed, yet again, and bounced back into the room. “Sorry, never been much for diaries. I’ve got a mountain of science journals in a box under my bed though. Interested?”

  “Super, super, super not interested.” Sasha sat up, stretching and groaning like a dinosaur before stacking up all my pillows and scooting to the top of the bed to lean against them. “What I am interested in is the tea.”

  “You want tea?” I asked coyly. “Chamomile? Earl Grey? We’ve got green I think.”

  “I’m going to walk out that door,” Sash pointed towards the hall, “and you’re going to be left alone with two pizzas, sodas, brownies, and no one to talk to except your pillow.”

  “You’re crueler than I thought.”

  “Guilty,” she nodded. “Now. It’s time, before we’re in food comas and lose the ability to converse like intelligible creatures.”

  I moved to sit cross-legged on the bed and I told Sasha everything that had happened, minus particulars about Lane and the conversation Tabitha recorded. The omissions left a few gaps, but by the time I was describing the lake and the floating dock… Sasha was too wrapped up in the sexiness of it all to pick at plot holes.

  “Oh… my… god.” Her hands were clapped over her mouth, her gaze wide. “You almost did the dirty with Drake freaking Castleton.”

  “Almost,” I held up a finger, “being the operative word.”

  “Seriously, you don’t understand. I don’t think any girl ever has ventured that close to the cold, hard, Castleton cock and not taking the deep water plunge.”

  “You and your way of words,” I gasped out, reaching forward and soft punching her shoulder. “It wasn’t like that. He listened to me and respected that I didn’t want to go further.”

  “Drake Castleton respected you?” She put her hand over her heart and feigned disbelief.

  “Okay, okay. I get it. He’s not been the best guy in your experience.”

  “He’s been a complete asshole in my experience.” She dropped her hand and gave me a ‘look’ that said it all. “I mean, literally he ran my best friend out of town. So it’s hard to believe that he’s changing his stripes, Tarryn.”

  “No, he is. I swear he is.”

  “You sure a near sex experience hasn’t altered your brain chemistry.” It was her turn to lean forward. She tapped my a few times lightly on the forehead.

  “Hey, that hurts.”

  “Not it doesn’t. But I’ll tell you what will hurt. When Drake can’t be the good guy anymore. When he backslides after getting what he wants.”

  “That’s not going to happen.” I crossed my arms, my forehead wrinkling.

  She opened her mouth to say something, but before she could my mom’s voice yelled up to us.

  “Tarryn. Sasha. Pizza’s here!”

  I hopped up fast, grateful for the reprieve.

  “Don’t think I’m dropping this,” Sasha snagged the hem of my shirt and tugged. “You’re my friend now, which means you’re stuck with my way of words. I’m not saying drop Drake before you get hurt. I’m just saying be careful.

  I glanced back at her. She was being serious right now, not the chic goth girl quoting her grandmother’s views on promiscuity or touting feminist propaganda. She was just being a friend.

  “Thanks, Sash. I’ll be careful.”

  “Good.” She let go of my shirt. “Now hurry up with the pizza. Bacon waits for no man.”

  We spent the rest of the evening eating and laughing and burping up soda. Eventually, we fell asleep. And I had so much fun that I didn’t even check my phone obsessively to see if Drake had written me back.

  13.

  T A B I T H A

  L O R D E S

  [perspective, third]

  She had the video.

  But she still couldn’t win against the Castletons.

  Tabitha leaned her head against the hall wall separating her from her parents and the odd man in their living room. He’d arrived before dinner and she’d been promptly sent to her room after he’d introduced himself as a private investigator hired by Birdie Castleton.

>   It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why he was here, why that old hag would send an investigator to her house to bother her family.

  The video.

  Drake Castleton’s deep, scandalous secret.

  Tabitha held her phone in her hands, her whole body shaking.

  She held the ability to hurt the Castleton name, but the opportunity was slipping away. She lifted the phone, furiously working the digital keyboard, her thumbs flying across the glossy surface. The email was quick, drafted haphazardly. That didn’t matter though, what mattered was the attachment. What mattered was the email list that basically included every student at Castleton High.

  It felt poetic.

  To send the incriminating video to the school named after the rich, too-good-for-everyone family.

  “Dammit,” she mumbled as the attachment failed to load, citing the file size. She closed her email app and opened up her editing software. It was crude, basic abilities. But it let you shorten a video into clips. That’s all she needed. Hell, she’d send several emails just so that every second of the clip could be seen by every damn eye in River Valley.

  She’d clipped the first section and saved it, and she was moving on to the next, when her father called her name.

  “Tabitha, come here.”

  She needed longer, needed to stale.

  “Right now, Tabitha.” Her mother’s voice called now.

  Frowning, her heart racing, Tabitha depressed the off button on her phone and shoved it into the pocket of her jeans. She moved away from the wall and down the hall to walk into the living room. The man was standing, hands shoved into the pockets of his suit pants. His hair was shorn military short, his grey eyes framed with too many wrinkles to count.

  Tabitha’s father cleared his voice and then also stood up, leaving her mother alone on the sofa.

  “Tabby Cat, this man says you have a video of the Castleton boy. They’re threatening legal action.” Her father’s voice was stern, but his eyes kind. And he called her Tabby Cat, so he couldn’t be taking this too seriously.

  “I don’t know what he’s talking about,” she stammered, crossing her arms and trying to look confident.

  “Don’t lie, young lady.” It was her mother that butted in now. “Do you think we can afford a lawsuit? Is there a video?”

  Tabitha shuffled her feet, hand subconsciously touching her pocket with the phone bulge.

  The odd man’s eyes flicked down, catching her movement.

  “I’ve been told the video was taken with a cell phone, a relatively new model.” The Castleton goon took a step forward, eyes narrowing.

  “I bought her a new phone for her birthday,” Mr. Lordes nodded. “Tabitha, let us see your cell.” He held out a hand to his daughter, his eyes losing some of their softness.

  Tabitha chewed on her lower lip. She had a terrible poker face—the shuffling, the lip biting, the stammering. Her fingers reached into her pocket and pulled out the large black phone. She hesitated, not wanting to give up the video.

  Or the pictures. The pictures were on there too.

  “I’ll erase it,” she said, exiting the editing software without saving the second clip and clicking the gallery. She scrolled down, past the lake pictures, and found the video. She tapped it, letting the audio begin to play.

  The man took quick steps forward and took the phone from Tabitha. Her father opened his mouth to protest, but then clamped it shut again. He lowered the volume all the way and with his beady, watery eyes, he watched the video. He didn’t need to know what Drake and the girl were saying. He already knew, knew because he had been following the boy for a long time. There wasn’t any dirty laundry he hadn’t washed. Hell, he’d been washing out Castleton dirt for more years than he could count.

  He reached into his own pocket for a micro SD card. These new damn phones were so fucking complicated. Some of them you had to use a heat gun just to take the cover off and get at the battery. Luckily, this one wasn’t that advanced.

  Finding the little flap that exposed the SD card slot, he slid out the existing one and inserted his own into the tiny space. After transferring over the file, because Birdie would want to see it, he switched the cards again and then deleted the file from the girl’s phone.

  As he was scrolling down the gallery, he noted the usual teenage girl fodder. Selfies, food pics, a few shots of the lake outside town. Something about those caught his eye, but he was here for one thing, and one thing only—the video of Drake.

  “Is the file anywhere else? Your computer, email. Uploaded to the cloud.” He fired off possibilities, studying the girl’s face closely. She shook her head.

  “No, I swear. It was only on my phone.”

  “If we find out differently, we will sue you for invasion of privacy, Ms. Lordes.”

  “We understand,” Tabitha’s mother came up behind her and clapped her on the shoulder. “Go to your room now, Tabitha. Your father and I will decide when you get your phone back.”

  Feeling hollow and defeated, Tabitha walked out of the living room and back into the hallway. She didn’t go to her room though. The trio was talking in the living room again, and she wanted to hear.

  “The Castletons thank you for your cooperation, Mr. and Mrs. Lordes. This video never existed and we never met. Assuming there are no other copies, and you keep your daughter in line, Castleton Industries will be happy to bring your mortgage up to date. I’d hate for you all to lose your house.”

  It was a threat, worse than the idea of a lawsuit. Tabitha knew things weren’t great money-wise, knew her parents were stretching paychecks as much as possible. She’d had no idea the mortgage was behind though.

  She loved this house.

  Grew up in this house.

  “We don’t need any money,” her father said quickly, and she could imagine him waving his hand quickly to reinforce his words. “What Tabitha did was wrong. It’s only right that she make it right. And it won’t happen again.”

  “Well then, it was a pleasure speaking with you all tonight. Please expect someone else on Monday with the nondisclosure forms I mentioned earlier. Even without the video, gossip can be damaging.” The man’s voice was getting quieter as he walked away from the living room.

  But Tabitha heard her mother’s voice clearly. “Henry, if they’ll help with the mortgage, we need to take that. We’re so close to losing the house.”

  “We can’t take their money. All we did was correct our daughter’s behavior. And what will we owe them later, Becky? The Castletons hold too much power. I won’t be under their thumb.”

  “You’re being stubborn, Henry. We need the money. You know how much we do.”

  “No. That’s the end of it.”

  The tell-tale squeak of the front door sounded.

  And then it closed, without the man saying goodbye to Tabitha’s parents.

  She might not have the video anymore, but the pictures hadn’t been found out. And many of them didn’t show Drake’s face, only that bitch Tarryn’s. If she could hurt at least her, if she could at least ruin that stupid girl’s reputation, then she’d feel better.

  And maybe it would sever whatever bond had formed between Drake and Tarryn.

  Tabitha could have another chance with him.

  Unless there was another way to play it…

  A way that would bring him to her now.

  If he cared about Tarryn, he’d do anything to protect her.

  And Tabitha needed to see him, needed to be with him again.

  She heard footsteps coming towards her and she bolted to her room, leaving the door open because its hinges whined louder than the front door’s. She flopped down on the bed, tossing her arm over her eyes. Moments later, her father walked into the room.

  Tabitha sat up, waiting for him to say something.

  “You know what you did was wrong right, Tabby Cat?” He sat down at his daughter’s desk chair, staring at her intently.

  She nodded, mouth quivering. “
I know.”

  “You really like that boy, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” she sighed, looking down at her hands.

  “I figure you’ve got to either really like or really hate someone to sneak around and take videos of them.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t want to know what the video was about, I just want you to know that no guy your age is worth getting this bent out of shape over.”

  “Drake’s really—”

  “Special?” Her dad said for her with a cockeyed grin. “All teen girls think the guy they like is special. Let me tell you a secret—your hormones will make a dirt bag look like a white knight.” He stood up from the chair and walked towards her, lifting his hand to reveal Tabitha’s phone.

  “You’re giving it back to me?”

  He smiled. “I don’t get to buy you great things often. I sort of hate the idea of keeping it away from you. But don’t tell your mom,” he winked, “she voted for a month-long cell hiatus.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “Just be smart. Leave the Castleton boy alone. I don’t have to tell you what kind of influence they have in this town.”

  “Okay,” Tabitha said in a small voice.

  But the second her father left the room, she knew she couldn’t follow through. She couldn’t leave Drake alone. It was an obsession she couldn’t kill.

  Thirty minutes later, after fighting herself, Tabitha contacted Drake. Not just with words. No, she sent him one of the photos from the lake.

  Tabitha: I want to see you.

  Tabitha: I want to see you or I’ll send this photo to the whole damn school.

  Tabitha: [photo]

  Tabitha: Don’t think I won’t do it, Drake.

  She waited for what felt like forever, but finally the little dots came to life showing that Drake was writing her back.

  Drake: Thirty minutes.

  Tabitha: My parents can’t see you.

  Drake: Just open your goddamn window.

  He was angry.

  She didn’t care.

  She’d take his anger.

  As long as he showed up.

  And deep in her stomach, where things hurt more than she knew, she wondered how much she’d let her obsession with Drake hurt her. Maybe until it became too toxic to survive.