Tormented Part 2: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Elginvale High)

by Esme Devlin

  “All being well, work should begin in two weeks,” I confirm, locking my phone and putting it back into my purse. “Had a terrible time finding a competent gardener, but I have a plan for that.”

  “You do?” Alice says.

  “We’ll discuss tomorrow. Are we doing our usual lunch at The Rhubarb?”

  “Of course,” Angela says.

  Lunch at The Rhubarb. The mighty men-folk likely think we discuss handbags and shoes and… gardening.

  If only they knew.

  Stevie returns with Heather and puts a couple of bottles of wine down on the table, and just like that business is over and pleasure begins.

  “I’m going to find Shaun, I’ll be back in a minute.”

  I excuse myself from the table and take the door to the left, back near the entrance. It leads mostly to store rooms and the staff area, and the last time he fought here he had his own little room, so that’s where I go.

  I knock a couple of times and enter.

  Shaun’s standing face to face with his dad, while Granda Jim sits on a folding chair next to them, pipe in one hand and his cane in the other.

  “You’re getting slow, old man,” Granda Jim shouts to Jim, who laughs him off.

  “Tell you who’s slow, this wee shit in front of me.”

  Shaun, who had got distracted when I entered the room, ducks and narrowly misses his dad’s right hand hook.

  “Not slow enough for you though, Da,” he says with a chuckle before he turns to me. “There she is though.”

  Granda Jim does a half wolf whistle as I cross the room, and I tut my disapproval at him, but he just laughs.

  “How you feeling?” I ask Shaun.

  He pushes air through his lips like he’s blowing a raspberry. “You seen the size of the cunt? I’d be lying if I says I wasn’t shite-ing maself.”

  “You’ll be fine,” I tell him, my hand on his cheek. “You always are.”

  “Aye, we’ll see.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Come here.” He wraps his arms around me and I feel his heart beating against my chest.

  I’m proud of him. I’m proud of how far he’s come, of the man he’s growing into. When I think back to the arrogant, cocky, cruel little bastard I met… Okay he’s still a little arrogant, and a little cocky. There’s nothing cruel about Shaun though.

  I’ve seen cruelty. I’ve stared evil in the face, and it looked nothing like the devil in front of me.

  They say the devil comes to you in the shape of everything you ever wanted.

  I believe that now.

  But I no longer care.

  I don’t know what the future brings for us, but I do know we’re both tied to this town until the day we die. And I know whatever happens, we’ll do it together.

  A thousand tiny threads.

  We’ve discussed marriage and babies, of course. Shaun is desperate for one, and while sometimes I think it might not be such a bad idea, there’s too much I want to do first.

  I don’t want all those years of high school to be for nothing. I finished with good enough grades, despite moving around for my entire childhood. The only thing I failed was Spanish, but who cares about that when vacations will be with Shaun?

  But it’s not just the waste of my education. My father thought that was all I was good for, marriage and babies. Maybe there is a stubborn part of me that wants to prove him wrong.

  Either way, I’ve told Shaun he needs to give me a couple of years to get my feet under the table with the business, and then we’ll do it.

  Oh, and he needs to build the cage for them too, because apparently one isn’t going to be enough.

  An army of little Shaun Kegans.

  Non-fucking-negotiable.

  He’d do well to remember who has the power now…

  AUTHOR NOTE

  If you made it this far, then THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart.

  I’m writing this at 2.13am… my house looks like it’s been hit by a bomb, several times, and my kids are beginning to look feral as fuck.

  Hahaha I’m joking — they’re fine.

  But seriously, thank you for reading my stories, for loving my characters, and most of all for your patience with me. I KNOW my writing isn’t always the easiest to understand… I set my books in Scotland because it’s the place I know and love, and I try to inject as much realism into it as possible while still hopefully making things legible and understandable to my readers.

  I started writing because, although Scotland is probably over-represented in romance, our actual Scottish voices are pretty under represented. We all know the words “aye” and “lassie”, but I always felt the highlander stuff we’re famous for doesn’t actually do us much justice. Our language is so vibrant, our humor is so dark, we’re fluent in sarcasm and I’d say there’s a uniqueness about Scottish people that never seemed to be captured in the old bodice-ripper books I read growing up.

  So here I am, on my own learning curve, trying my best to put my own unique voice onto paper.

  A note on the diamond thing. There is actually a teeny, tiny grain of truth in the Scottish diamond thing! I found an old article online dated 1999 which said that it was possible for Scotland to have diamonds (apparently we have all the good stuff in our soil) we’ve just never found them. Yet. And that got me thinking…. what if? And thinking ‘what if’ is always dangerous because it usually leads to a plot and characters and scenes rolling around in my head :-)

  If you can, please do drop by on Social Media (I’m on Facebook and Instagram as Esme Devlin) I absolutely love talking with readers and I’m on a lot of the Bully Facebook groups. Also if you could spare five minutes to leave a review, that would be absolutely amazing.

  I don’t have a mailing list because it’s still on the list of 1000 things I need to do (including sorting out the bomb site that is my house LOL) but if you’d like to keep in touch I am always posting updates online.

  It’s been a pleasure people!

  Esme x