Boys And Their Toys: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Troubled Playthings Book 1) Read online

  Boys And Their Toys

  Tiffany Sala

  Thanks for picking up Boys and Their Toys!

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  — Tiffany

  Boys and Their Toys is a dark bully romance and as such will feature confronting situations and topics not all readers will be comfortable with or able to read about without distress. If you feel dark themes might be too much for you at this point in your life I encourage you to use your own understanding of your comfort zone to protect yourself, even if that means selecting another book to read.

  Chapter One

  I hadn’t realised how much I was missing my car until I was on my way to reclaim it from Rob’s repair place that afternoon. I was practically dancing up the street, the sun on my face feeling about ten times as warm as it was normally supposed to. I was already imagining how the weight of my key would feel in my hand once again.

  It had been a long road since some idiot had plowed into the side of my car while pulling out of a parking spot—with me inside at the time—and roared off, never to be seen again. I had the special good fortune of parking in one of the few locations in the city where no security camera had captured the fleeing driver sufficiently well enough to identify him. They’d never found him. I still cowered whenever someone slammed a door anywhere near me.

  Contrary to what the save-the-planet mob wanted to put out there, public transport was not the promised saviour. It added time to my journeys I hadn’t been able to afford while working overtime to pay the excess on the damn car repairs, and every other day I was waiting at a bus stop, some guy would hit on me under the pretext of noticing I ‘looked worried’.

  Damn right I looked worried when that sleazy nonsense was the least of the terrors ahead of me. At worst, if it happened to be the day all the low-lifes were out to withdraw their welfare bucks, I could look forward to being squashed into a quarter of a two-person seat with some asshole in trackpants talking loudly on the phone about the crimes the cops hadn’t managed to pin on him while trying to jam his knee up my nose. Now I was about to have my car back, I was never going to let anyone convince me to get on one of those nightmares again.

  “Calista? Is that you?”

  Speaking of nightmares…

  I turned my head enough to acknowledge Ashleigh Tanner, who had come up from behind me with an entourage in tow, all of them trailing down the street at a distance of a few feet apart as if they all had the right to claim that much space for themselves, fuck anyone else who got caught in the midst of them. Exactly what I would have expected of people who hung around with Ashleigh, in fact.

  I had been going to school with Ashleigh since we were four-year-olds in kindergarten, but in all that time Ashleigh had hardly talked to me. I didn’t blame Ashleigh that much; it was clear from that far back that the two of us did not really exist in the same world. Even as a four-year-old Ashleigh had a future already mapped out for her. She’d stood up in front of the class and told all the other little kindergarteners she was going to be a lawyer when she was older, with a set of offices that had her name printed on the front (last, not first) and six male assistants. She’d somewhat uncertainly explained that her office would have a glass ceiling that she was going to smash through, something to do with being the only girl there. This was what her parents had told her.

  My parents had told me I should probably finish high school, because you never knew when that thing could turn out to be useful.

  So I didn’t like Ashleigh at all, but that was hardly Ashleigh’s fault. I tried to achieve at least minimum politeness. “What can I do for you, Ashleigh?”

  “You live around here, right?”

  Apparently she’d managed to pick up one detail about me, even if she hadn’t noticed it had been Callie and never Calista since I was seven.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Somewhere around here.”

  “Don’t suppose you know how to find a car repair place that’s somewhere in this neighbourhood? I don’t know the name.”

  “Rob’s? I’m heading over there right now to pick up my own car,” I said before thinking.

  “Great!” Ashleigh said. “Lucas needs to get his car as well. We can go together.”

  No, I told myself, don’t— But my head did an anxious little quarter-turn backwards anyway, and as advertised, there was bloody Lucas Starling at the back of Ashleigh’s little queue of ducklings, but weaving his way forward to come to the head of the pack.

  I was not surprised that Lucas Starling was a part of Ashleigh Tanner’s crowd. More to the point, that Ashleigh Tanner was a part of Lucas Starling’s crowd.

  “Hi, Callie,” said Lucas, and edged in next to me so that Ashleigh was forced to drop back. “Picking your car up too, you said?”

  I did not want to have to collect my car with Lucas watching. I didn’t want to give him and his friends a chance to see what I drove up close, especially when his car was undoubtedly some shiny monstrosity that cost five figures new—and I bet he did get it new, too. And there was no reason I should humiliate myself in front of someone who would go back to not giving me a second of his time once this encounter was over.

  I couldn’t exactly say that, though. That was the thing about dealing with that end of the social scene: we all knew exactly how it worked, but we weren’t allowed to draw attention to the fact that things were a certain way. It just made it embarrassing for everyone. I was supposed to pretend I enjoyed the crumbs of attention the likes of Lucas Starling would give me… and then, when they weren’t interested in offering them, stay silent on a shelf out of the way until they had a use for me again. Like some doll from the last season.

  No thanks.

  I wasn’t going to make more trouble for myself than I needed to, though. “Yes,” I said, “that’s right.”

  “Is the place out here any good, then?” Lucas asked. “I usually have a man I take mine to in the city, someone who’s been doing my family’s cars for years, but he was completely booked up this week—lots of people getting their services done I guess—and I didn’t want to wait, so I had to get in where I could. Still had to pay a bit extra to get a rush job on it.”

  How nice to be in a situation where money could smooth out any wrinkles in your experience. I didn’t say something snarky like that, though.

  Honestly, I was too distracted trying to stop myself from sneaking peeks at Lucas. Growing older had definitely been a good deal for him. The big dark eyes and black hair that had seemed a bit over-the-top on a ten-year-old had come together nicely now he was eighteen—a better haircut and clothes presumably not chosen by his mother were helping with that, too. He looked like the sort of guy who would have girls falling over one another to get their hands on him—and I knew for a fact he’d had his mouth on most of the girls we’d grown up in school alongside: the ones he thought were worth his time, at least. The ones who’d come from other, cooler schools.

  Well, and technically he’d had his mouth on me, too… not that it had been in any sense anyone would care about. I doubted he even remembered.

  “Rob’s great,” I said. “Doesn’t charge more than the work’s worth, doesn’t talk down to you assuming you’re too stupid to understand what he’s done—not that you’ll have that problem, not being a woman.” Lucas shot me an amused smirk. “Nothing s
eems to bother him, either. I brought my car in with the driver’s side door all bashed in and, I shit you not, he took a look at it and said, ‘nah, she’ll buff right out mate.’ He’s that kind of guy.”

  Ashleigh and one of the other girls in the crowd were giggling away behind me. Suddenly I felt like an idiot for the way I’d been babbling to Lucas. There was something about that guy that got past all my usual common sense, just as it did for all those other girls I supposed.

  “Great,” Lucas said, “because my car was a fucking mess.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

  He shook his head and gave me a huge smile. I remembered his lips had seemed too big when he was ten too, his teeth protruding. The years and probably a quality orthodontist or three had done the most. “Don’t worry about that; trust me, the other guy came off a lot worse.”

  “Oh,” was all I said. Wasn’t really going to express happiness over that. He made it sound like he and ‘the other guy’ had been using their cars in a pitched battle.

  The thing was, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure that hadn’t been the intention.

  Chapter Two

  We arrived at Rob’s place before I could gab myself into a situation I really didn’t want to be in, and the first thing I saw was Rob waving at me, calling out, “Callie!”—but then Lucas Starling stepped right in front of me, holding out his hand.

  “The titular Rob, I take it?”

  “Um, yes…” Rob shook his hand, glancing at me where I was now surrounded by Lucas’s entourage of Ashleigh and the other two girls and one guy who had come along with them.

  “Lucas Starling,” Lucas introduced himself, as if his name mattered. Probably it did. “I hope you have a minute to go through the work you’ve done on the car. At the prices you’re offering, if I’m pleased with what you’ve done, I might consider taking my business to you again in the future.”

  “Ah,” said Rob, tearing his eyes away from me. He knew I had to get to work after school and had promised he would have my car ready so I could save myself from having to endure another day on the bus. “Yes, very good… I won’t be a moment, Callie.”

  I knew he couldn’t really afford to be dismissive of Lucas on my account. Lucas was a class of customer Rob didn’t normally see in his shop. Even with the both of us just wearing our school uniforms still it was obvious we were not the same type of person. I was an occasional few hundred dollars for Rob when I could no longer avoid getting my single car serviced, and Lucas probably already had three cars of his own and lots of friends who would listen to his recommendations. I got it. Rob was struggling through this world, just like me.

  I sat down on a bench outside the shop to wait. Ashleigh and the others didn’t bother me with another glance once Lucas was gone. They started mucking around the yard, chucking wrenches and hub caps at one another. I watched them acting like preteen idiots who didn’t know any better about respecting someone else’s property, but I didn’t say anything. It’d just land me in trouble with the lot of them that would follow me to school for weeks, and though I was sympathetic to Rob just leaving me there so he could fawn over Lucas, that didn’t mean I was going to hang around guarding his property while he fucked me over.

  I tried not to even watch them while they waited. After fifteen minutes, I shot a text to my boss to let him know I’d be late. It didn’t really matter, because Dane handled calls from new clients himself and the work I did could be taken care of at any time, but I was going to have to stay late now if I wanted my full pay. Mum got shitty with me whenever I missed dinner, like I was ruining some cultural institution instead of having to reheat baked chicken and chips.

  I’d been waiting for twenty-five minutes when Lucas strode back out into the yard. The others dropped whatever they were doing and came together in front of him, like a bunch of ducklings who’d sighted their mother.

  “Rob’s bringing the car around,” Lucas reported. Even though Rob was just the guy who fixed up my car occasionally, it bugged me the way he was speaking about him now. Like Rob was someone he owned instead of a guy he’d never even spoken to before that day. “Now…” His eyes ran over the group in front of him, and then flicked over to me. I hadn’t bothered to get up from my seat. “Callie,” Lucas called, “get over here.”

  “What’s up?” I called, without doing more than shifting into a more comfortable position. That asshole had known Rob was about to speak to me first, and he’d deliberately cut in. I could have fucking been at work already and he apparently had nowhere particularly urgent to go.

  “You’re coming with us,” Lucas said. “In my car.”

  “What?” I said, speaking without thinking because it sounded like some joke I just didn’t get yet. “There’s already five of you here. Am I supposed to sit on someone’s lap?”

  “You can take mine any time you like,” said the other guy in the group, winking. I thought he’d started school with the rest of us only a couple of years ago; I didn’t know him as more than a face and a pair of big arms.

  “My car’s a seven-seater, Callie,” Lucas said. “No need for anyone to put their ass in anything but the proper place. Although my lap is wide open for you here sweetheart, no need to resort to Steven.”

  I’d never heard of anyone my age having a seven-seater car. The only seven-seaters I’d ever encountered were the sorts of vehicles well-off single mothers with half-a-dozen kids drove.

  Then Rob rolled around this sparkling BMW, which was when I realised I’d wildly underestimated the situation here. This was not a five-figure car, more like six. And I was definitely certain Lucas had gotten it new. Rob must have been practically soiling himself at the chance to play with that car. No wonder he was willing to give Lucas all the time he wanted.

  I had no place getting in a car like that. Especially not the way Lucas and his friend were leering at me.

  I got it now. I could see exactly what was happening, even if I couldn’t believe it. I guess I’d already heard from a few people that I was turning out to be a bit all right these days. Not that I was sexy, like the sorts of girls Lucas was noticing for the first time at the age of ten were now, but I had breasts and hips and my face had apparently improved over time the way I’d been thinking Lucas’s had.

  So now, Lucas had happened to notice me today after eight bloody years of nothing, and he’d happened to notice I was an improvement on the girl he remembered from primary school, so he was going to have a go. Play with me a little, while he was between girlfriends or whatever.

  And I’d be lying if I said the thought of doing that sort of thing with Lucas Starling didn’t send a little bit of heat through me. But I was done bothering with him a long time ago, and I was also smart enough to know exactly where all of this would land me. The best possible outcome was that he and his friends would be laughing about me a few weeks from now, while I was a mess of regrets who’d given him something I had never wanted to hand away like that.

  So, even if I hadn’t had a perfectly good reason to not get in that car, I knew better. “I’ve got to work,” I said.

  Lucas shrugged. “Call in sick.”

  “I just let my boss know I’d be there a little late.”

  “Great,” said Lucas, “now you can say you’re not coming at all.”

  “I’m not doing that,” I snapped.

  “Why not?”

  I resisted the pressure to answer that question with the lot of them staring at me. Nobody reasonable needed an answer to that.

  Rob had stepped out of Lucas’s car and was looking from me to Lucas’s group. “Everything all right here?” he asked. I was pretty sure he knew exactly what was going on, but he had his reasons for not wanting to get involved.

  “Everything’s fine, Rob,” I said. “I’m starting to be really late for work, so could I get my car back please?”

  “Oh yes,” said Rob, “of course.” He hurried across the yard between our two warring camps, clearly delighted to have a
way out of this situation.

  “I’m a little uncomfortable that you’re trying to pressure me to go with you when I need to work,” I told Lucas. “I’d like you to get in your car and leave now.”

  I could tell right away he hadn’t liked the tone of that. “Oh,” he said, adopting a wide-legged stance like he was bracing for a storm, “do you tell me what to do now, Calista?”

  “I just want you to leave me alone now, please,” I said. Of all the terrible luck I’d had lately, the worst might be having the money to get my car fixed right when Lucas Starling was needing his fixed.

  “Let’s get out of here now, Luc,” said the other guy, Steven.

  “Well I don’t understand why you’re trying to make out I’m doing something to you,” said Lucas, “but I’ve got better things to do with my afternoon than bother some girl who wants nothing to do with me. So I’m out. Have a nice time at work.”

  He got into his car, started it up while the others piled in, and almost crashed into Rob driving my car out. I put my face into my hands until I could hear he was gone.

  “Callie?” I looked up into Rob’s face, took the key he was dangling in front of my face. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’ve made you very late for work now, haven’t I?”

  He sounded bewildered, like he’d just found himself saying and doing a lot of things he hadn’t really wanted to. I wanted to be mad, but I understood. I’d learned a long time ago that Lucas Starling had the power to make people do things they wouldn’t do in their right mind. I was just lucky enough to learn when I was still young enough to also learn how to steel myself against him.

  “Don’t think any more of it,” I told Rob. “I’ll still be back here whenever I need some work done on my car again. I just hope you won’t hold it against me if I hope that’s not for a long time.”

  It was well after six by the time I had served out my two hours at Stacks Brothers. It was the wrong time of year for it to be dark that early, but it had been an unusually cloudy day and the world around me felt particularly grey as I stepped out to my car. At least I would not be home that much later than I’d been managing while dealing with the bus schedule.