Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #5) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,105

got a fucking cougar. Watch my claws when you take me to bed.

So, if we’re running with the dogs of war or the wolf pack reference, then I guess I’m a snarling canine with slaver dripping from its jaws. Also, slaver means saliva in case you didn’t know. Mr. Darkwood once tried to correct that word in one of my poems, so I wrote the definition in chalk on the back of his car and got detention for a week.

Poor Mr. Darkwood.

According to the Prescott goss circulating on social media, he’s still alive but in critical condition. I truly hope the man pulls through, much as we disagree on particular word choices. It’s not his fault if he’s a boomer who doesn’t know how to use Google.

“Stupid Cupid” by Connie Francis is playing over the speakers, and I swear, I spot the elderly owners dancing inside the eat-in portion of the restaurant. There’s an old-fashioned jukebox in there, black and white checkered floors, and booths outfitted with cracked red leather. Somehow, the image reminds me of that 1942 painting, Nighthawks by Edward Hopper.

“The Charter Crew really did a number on this place, huh?” Hael asks, whistling as he leans back and looks up at the ruined sign near the entrance to the parking lot. It’s about forty feet high and on most nights, blazing with light to invite customers into the drive-in. It might be dark now, but with the nearly full moon blazing above us, I can see the cracked and ruined surface covered in graffiti.

There’s a silhouetted clown face emblazoned there now, but that’s okay. We brought a few cans of spray paint with us.

At the opposite end of the lot, Sara and Constantine sit in their car, watching us. Sara doesn’t like what we did tonight because she knows it has something to do with the GMP. The thing is, no matter how hard she tries to figure it out, she never will. In her wildest dreams, I doubt she’d ever consider that I shot Mason Miller in the head.

Also, that missed call I felt coming in on my phone at the club? It was from Sara. I called her on the way back, but my explanation about our brief visit to Portland didn’t seem to satisfy her.

“Could you just not with the ice cream?” Aaron asks, looking at me like he’s very much interested in recreating our visit to the drive-in when he fucked me in the backseat of the Bronco and smacked my ass. “Lick it like that, I mean?”

I open my mouth nice and wide, sliding the length of my tongue up to the pert pink tip of the ice cream. Aaron groans, slouched on the top of one of the tables, his foot outstretched, his medical boot still conspicuously absent. He says he’s okay to walk, but I caught him wincing when he climbed out of the Eldorado.

“I will eat my ice cream however the fuck I want,” I declare, leaning back in the skeleton hoodie, booted ankles crossed. My miniskirt rides up a little further than it should, the black buckles of my garters glinting in the lights from the diner window.

“Let her do it,” Hael purrs, hopping up beside me on the hood of the Eldorado. “Personally, I’m enjoying the show.”

“It’s not that I’m not enjoying it,” Aaron says, cupping his denim-clad crotch with a bit of a groan. “It’s that I’m enjoying it too much.”

“Why don’t you two just fuck in the backseat the way you did last time you were here?” Vic suggests, and I smirk at the jealous note laced through his voice. He’s watching me from the bench seat of the table where Aaron reclines, dark eyes drifting toward the street and then over to the woods on the other side of the lot.

“No fighting,” Cal warns, shaking one of the cans of spray paint as he glances over his shoulder. “We’ve had a good night tonight. Don’t ruin it by being jealous, Vic.” He stands up and strolls off in the direction of the portable toilets that line one side of the parking lot. This place gets busy enough that the single toilet inside isn’t enough, particularly when Prescott girls are always in there fixing their makeup. Or screwing. Plenty of kids go in there with that specific purpose in mind.

Anyway, Cal is able to slip into the shadows and out of Sara and Constantine’s view. I surreptitiously flick my eyes toward the metal pole of