Bad Boys

  Table of Contents

  TITLE

  BLURB

  FREE NOVELLA

  READER GROUP

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  RICH RIOT: Arcadia High Anarchists #3

  ALSO BY MAX

  MAILING LIST

  THE MUSIC

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BAD BOYS

  Arcadia High Anarchists #2

  Copyright © 2019 Max Henry

  Published by Max Henry

  All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Max Henry is in no way affiliated with any brands, songs, musicians, or artists mentioned in this book.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy.

  Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Lacey Williams: Good Girl.

  At Riverbourne Preparatory, that title made me desirable. All a rich boy wants is a pretty and obedient woman on his arm. And I was most definitely both of those things.

  But at Arcadia High? Being a good girl made me a target. I became a trophy for the spoilt, an end-of-year reward for those willing to play the game: bad boys.

  Each side wants me so the other can’t have me. Schoolyard bullies who fight over the same damn toy.

  The city kids have arrived to reclaim what’s theirs, and the country? Well.

  Those boys sure don’t give in without a fight.

  ARCADIA HIGH ANARCHISTS

  Reading Order

  Good Girls

  Bad Boys

  Rich Riot

  Loyal Love

  Want to come hangout with some like-minded chicks?

  Then click here to jump into Max’s Madhouse on Facebook and get committed!

  Resilience

  re·sil·ience

  /rəˈzilyəns/

  noun

  1.

  the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

  TUCK

  “You’ll need to move the yearlings from the gully up to Hill Climb today. This rain isn’t forecast to let up, and the last thing we need is those idiots churning up the track again.”

  “Yes, Sir.” I shovel a spoonful of Weet-Bix into my mouth, hoping it’ll shut my father up.

  No such luck.

  “Take Sally. You won’t want to risk Major injuring himself if the ground is already unstable.”

  “Snaffle bit or Hackamore?”

  “Hackamore.” He leans back in his seat at the kitchen table, the wood creaking beneath his weight. “She’s still giving trouble on the bit, so give yourself fewer distractions and use the Hackamore.”

  I nod as he picks up his coffee cup to down the last of the contents. “Yes, Sir.”

  My father hesitates, his steel-grey eyes trained on me as though he thinks over what to say next. To my frustration, I feel the familiar pull of hope: a deep knot in the pit of my chest.

  Will today be the day?

  “Don’t muck around.” He rises from the seat, reaching for where his hat rests on the table. “The days are short this time of year. I don’t have time to come rescue you if you lose half the herd in the dark.”

  “No, Sir.” My chin drops, gaze trained on the silver of my spoon as I swirl it through the milk that remains in my breakfast bowl.

  Kurt Brallant is a man known for his level-headed and straight-forward approach to everything. His children included.

  But as he strides across the floorboards, the heels of his boots making a solid tap as he goes, I can’t stop the pang of rejection from settling in like a clamp around my heart. I don’t want much from the man. A simple question about how my week has been would be enough. Just a sign that the man cares.

  “Bianca.” He nods to our housekeeper as they pass in the doorway.

  I bring the bowl to my mouth and sup the milk from the edge, watching Kurt over the rim as he steps out into the morning light. The greys in his hair catch the sun, shifting to an almost white shade when he lifts his chin to squint into the bright sky.

  “Good morning, young Tuck.”

  My father dons his hat, the door swinging shut behind him as I shift my gaze toward Bianca.

  “You know,” she scolds with a smile. “You shouldn’t drink from the bowl. It’s bad table manners.”

  I set the ceramic on the worn and grooved tabletop. “Good thing we ain’t in a five-star restaurant then.”

  She shakes her head; her tight black curls bob when she turns away.

  I push out from the table and carry my dishes to the sink. Bianca takes them from me, setting herself up for the day of chores ahead of her. We’d be lost without her influence in our lives. My older brother, Carey, lives three hours away with his wife and young family now. All that remains on the farm are Dad and me.

  Two bachelors without a spare second in the day to do a damn thing about the housework.

  “Have you got your lunch?” Bianca calls after me.

  I hesitate in the hall. “I’ll grab it on my way out the door.”

  “No worries.” I catch the rattle of the fridge door. “I’ll leave it on the counter so that you don’t forget.”

  “Thanks.”

  She flicks the radio on. The gentle lull of her favourite easy-listening station filters down to my bedroom while I hunt out a school shirt. Probably be a damn sight easier if I actually hung the clean laundry she leaves on the foot for my bed for me. Ah well.

  The tail of one peeks out from beneath my bed.

  I snag the fucker up, brush it off, and jerk the sleeves on while trying to slide my feet into my boots at the same time.

  School is usually the last place I feel like being; I’d spend the day riding the hills of our farm if I could. But today? Yeah. Today I have a reason for my haste to get down to the stable and saddle up Major.

  She’s all of five-foot-nothing and a naïve little lamb lost on our grounds.

  The new girl.

  A pretty girl.

  My pet project.

  TUCK

  Women rock babies
as a way to soothe the senses, the gentle motion supposedly doing something to our concentration so that all we can focus on is the rhythmic movement back and forth. I remember hearing somewhere that it’s to do with the pace matching that of the mother’s heartbeat—the same reason why infants like being patted on the back.

  I guess that’s why I can always count on the steady rise and fall of Major’s quarters, back and forth, to ease my mind when I feel the chokehold of stress starting to make it difficult to draw my next breath.

  Back and forth. Left to right. Roll and sway.

  The afternoon shows the first signs of giving way to night while I ride up the verge toward Cate’s driveway. Orange tinges the horizon, bleeding through to the brighter blue clinging on for life overhead.

  My heels itch to tighten and nudge Major into a canter, but I don’t want to tire the guy out too much before our race later tonight. He’s a quick horse with great stamina. But he’s always better after a gentle warm-up, which is why I thought I’d ride over rather than float him in.

  All I want to do is get to the damn party already so I can see if Lacey’s there. Her stoic stare is etched into my mind; the way she glazed over and silently nodded while we explained what it is about her name that gets under everyone’s skin.

  She took the news well. Still, I’d hate to be her brother when she got home. I get the feeling that girl held a rage in check that she wanted to reserve for the right guy.

  A fucking tool like her brother, Colt.

  Major steps to the left, the sudden dip of his back beneath my seat waking me from my trance. I tighten his reins and bring my focus back to what’s around us to find Maggie’s beaten up little car pulling off to the side of the road ahead. She throws her door open, striding back down the roadside toward where I pull Major up.

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  She lifts a hand to shield the low sun from her eyes while she stares up at me. “Have you heard from Lace?”

  “Should I have?” My heart quickens, my grip tightening on the reins.

  Major takes a half-step back, sensing my tension.

  “Her bitch of a mother told me to leave while I was waiting for Lacey to grab her shit.”

  “Why?” It could be nothing. Maybe she thought her parents could drop her off?

  Maggie shrugs. “I don’t know, but she wouldn’t let me talk to Lacey before I went. Her mum seemed angry.”

  “Have you tried to call her? Lacey?”

  Mags nods. “Won’t answer. Hasn’t seen my message, either.”

  I run my bottom lip between my teeth and glance toward Cate’s gate in the distance.

  “What are you thinking, Tuck?”

  I fix my gaze on Maggie. “You head up to the party and wait in case she shows up. Where does she live?”

  “Old Works Road. The cream weatherboard by Adam’s. What are you going to do?” The girl pops a hand on her hip, still shielding her face with the other.

  “Find out what the fuck is going on.” I tug on Major, turning him back the way we came. He paces impatiently, sensing the run ahead. “It could be nothing.”

  “I don’t think it was.”

  Yeah—neither do I.

  Which is why I leave goth-girl in the dust as I push Major into a gallop. He tears up the verge, hooves kicking up clumps of dirt and grass. Ears pinned back, my best buddy gives me a new kind of rhythm to zone out to: his grunted breaths and pounding hooves.

  Froth gathers at the corners of Major’s mouth by the time we ease back to a trot through the streets of Arcadia. He’ll be spent for the race later but fuck it. Those other pricks can win it for us for once.

  My gut tells me this is way more important.

  I don’t know what it is about Lacey that has me so trapped in her spell, but I’m like a damn sailor caught in the siren’s song; I can’t steer away from certain destruction. Her snotty attitude made me want to throttle her at the start, but at the same time, there was an underlying curiosity that set Lacey apart from her jerk of a brother. She seemed interested in this new lifestyle for them.

  I could see the real girl smothered underneath all that perfect hair and makeup, begging for a reason to be set free.

  Her house comes into view at the town end of Old Works Road, right on the borderline of where the acreages become smaller suburban blocks. Her brother’s truck sits in the driveway, packed to the gills with shit.

  Major blows out a frustrated breath. Yeah, I know, buddy. I think we made the right choice too.

  Going to the front door seems like a recipe for disaster. If Lacey’s not in trouble, then me showing up could make it so that she is. Equally, if they’ve got some family shit going down, then rocking up to steal their daughter off to a party will go down as well as a cold cup of sick.

  Major snorts, stopping when I apply a little backward pressure to his mouth. With slow, deliberate steps, he backs up toward the alley that we passed a few metres back. I steer him off the street and down between two houses, three down from Lacey’s. The path leads to a stormwater drain that runs behind the properties. If I edge along there, I can hopefully figure out which of the two rooms at the back is hers.

  My phone vibrates deep in my pocket as I turn onto the grassy maintenance lane. I let Major do his thing, trusting his instinct, and fish it out.

  Beau.

  B: Where the fuck you at, bro?

  T: Talk to Maggie. Give her my number.

  B: Do I ask why?

  I blow out a heavy breath.

  T: Relax, man. I ain’t making moves on your woman.

  The pussy needs to grow a pair and tell that girl how he feels about her. Dickhead is still far too invested in what everyone else thinks to let Mags know that he likes her. Not so long ago, I understood his hesitation, but after meeting Lacey, I also know that when you find the girl for you, nobody else’s opinion should matter jack shit.

  You get what’s yours. Simple as that.

  I pocket the phone as Major crests Lacey’s neighbour’s hedge. He stalls, and then picks up again, appearing to notice the same as I do: Lacey, legs hanging out her bedroom window as she sits in the open space and softly cries.

  Fuck this shit. No way.

  No girl of mine should ever need to cry unless it’s goddamn happy tears.

  Yeah—I said it. My girl. She might not acknowledge it yet, but she was always going to be mine.

  “Why the sad face, buddy?”

  Her head jerks up at the sound of my voice, and she damn near falls back in the room. “Holy hell, Tuck. You scared the shit out of me,” she whisper-yells. Her brow twitches. “No. Wait.” Those long legs scramble to get back on the right side of the sill. “You can’t see me yet.”

  I lean an elbow on the horn of my saddle and grin. “Why not?”

  “I look like hell,” is the hissed response I get out the window before she disappears into the bowels of her room.

  I check the windows beside hers, but there’s no sign of her brother or parents.

  Lacey returns a few minutes later with a woollen hat pulled low over her golden hair, fingers dabbing lightly under her eyes. “What are you doing here?”

  “Seeing if you needed a ride.”

  Her shoulders drop with a sigh. “Things aren’t the best right now. It’s probably better if you—”

  “Come and drag you out that fucking window?” I grumble.

  Like fuck, she’ll blow me off that easy. I swing myself off Major, ignoring Lacey’s panicked hands as she frantically gestures for me to stop.

  “They’ll hear you.” Her head swings to check her bedroom door. “I’m supposed to be packing.”

  Packing? “What the fuck for?” I loop Major’s reins loosely over a thick branch.

  The fence between her house and the drain is a low three-slat timber construction. I leap it easily.

  “I can’t explain.” She looks close to tears again. “Just go.”

  “No.” I stride right up to her goddamn window a
nd slam my hand under the frame as she reaches to slide the sash down. “Tell me why you’re upset.”

  “Because you won’t leave.” Her eyes are red-rimmed, hair frizzy as though she’s run her fingers repeatedly through it.

  “I call bullshit.” She makes no attempt to stop me when I lean both elbows on the sill and stick my head in her room. “You always cry about things that haven’t happened yet?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to tell Maggie,” she whispers. Her chin dips, hands fidgeting with the hem of her white strappy tank. “Don’t say anything.”

  I fix the collar of her pale purple cardigan and flick her hair out over the shoulder. “You know I won’t if you don’t want me to.”

  “When I got home this afternoon, our parents told us they’re getting divorced.”

  Shit. I fist the side of Lacey’s cardigan in my hand to save from jerking her toward me. I can’t hug her like I want to when there’s a fucking wall between our bodies. “I’m sorry.”

  “I think it’s been coming for a while,” she explains. “I want to stay here, but they said I have to move back to Riverbourne with Mum.”

  I’ve got nothing. I don’t know what to say when all I can think of are the reasons why that sucks for me.

  I don’t want her to go. Not when I feel as though we were getting somewhere. Lacey had started to thaw. The real girl was on the way to the surface.

  I almost had her.

  “So, yeah,” she says, breaking me from my stupor. “You should get back to the party.” Her gaze drops to where I still have her clothing in my hold.

  I don’t let go.

  “Grab a jacket.”

  “What?” Her fair brow pinches beneath the rim of her woolly hat.

  “Get a warm jacket for later.”

  “I’m not going to the party, Tuck.”

  “Good. Because neither am I.”

  Lace’s head tips to one side, her frown deepening.

  “I’m taking you out for our first date.”

  TUCK

  “Are you crazy?” Lacey jerks free from my hold and takes two steps back into her room. “My damn family fall apart, and you want to steal me away for a date?”

  “Lacey?” A deep male voice calls from further in the house. “What are you doing?”