Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #5) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,205

do. Hard for me to believe it, too. Especially the peaceful part. Because after everything I’ve been through, I assumed that when I finally lost control of my body, I would find myself on a rapid descent to some sort of hellish existence. Instead, all I feel is joy because I made those last few moments count. I smile because I know my boys are there with me. It seems too soon to say goodbye, but some part of me understands that I’ll see them again, somewhere, sometime, someplace.

Because love like ours doesn’t die along with a body.

You really think Havoc’s love is so fragile?

Fuck no.

So when the doctors—this beyond brilliant group of women at Joseph General that I never gave proper credit to—get my heart to start beating properly again, I come to with a sharp shock of recognition. This, Bernadette, this is where you’re meant to be right now.

My eyes roll in my head, and the people around me are blurry enough that they may as well be angels.

“We’ve got a fucking pulse!” one of them screams, which is just about the most Prescott thing you could ever say in an ER. That’s the last thing I remember before I fall back asleep. Not sure if my lips are smiling for real, or if I’m just smiling in my soul.

But it’s there.

And it’s painted in the bright red color of victory.

Aaron Fadler

Two months after graduation day … again.

Lying there on my bed, earbuds tucked in, her phone on her belly, is Bernadette Savannah Blackbird.

A smile teases the edges of my mouth, and I close my eyes, remembering the words that fell from that surgeon’s lips like a miracle I felt beyond unworthy to receive, like a supplicant at the feet of an all-powerful god.

“Mr. Channing, she’s alive.”

Of course, the surgeon said many other things after that, but I got caught on that word and couldn’t seem to pull myself away from it. Alive. She’s alive.

Bernie pulls out the left earbud and glances over at me with a brow raised. Even though the master bedroom technically belongs to all of us—her and Vic most of all maybe, but still—if she needs to think or she needs a moment, Bernadette always comes up here.

“We’re ready,” I say, and then I move into the room to offer my hand. Bernie reaches out and takes it, and even if she isn’t entirely back to her old self physically speaking, well, her mouth and her sass were in full force even back in the hospital.

“Finally wrangled the brats up, huh?” she queries as she falls into my arms and I look down at her with every ounce of love and affection brimming inside of me. It’s almost too much sometimes, like it feels as if all of that desire and want will overflow and flood the world. That’s how much I love her, so much that I could bury the world beneath a blanket of that feeling.

“Brats officially wrangled,” I say, dropping my mouth to hers for a kiss, one that tastes like the very first we shared. It zings across my mouth at the same time that it cuts straight through me, bleeding any insecurities or vulnerabilities that I have right out onto the floor. This is perfect, this is exactly where I need to be right now, in this place where each kiss tastes like the first one all over again. “We’re going to hit Wesley’s on the way back, so … everybody’s going.”

“Oh, uh-huh,” Bernie says as she buries her face against my chest, her hands clinging to my shirt. “That’s why everyone’s going? For French fries and shakes? It has nothing to do with the fact that I got shot and you guys are obsessed with trying to take care of me?”

“I wouldn’t just say obsessed,” I begin, stroking my fingers through her hair and trying my best to hide the smile that lights on my lips. “I’d say fanatical. Or zealous. Something like that.”

Bernadette laughs, and I swear, it’s the prettiest sound I’ve ever heard in my entire life.

“Fine. Hot-blooded, impassioned, ardent, blazing, demonstratively charged men.” She gives me another kiss but on the cheek this time, and then pulls away to head for the door, dressed in a pair of my old sweats and a t-shirt that says something political on it. Bernie stuffs her feet into boots as I follow her down the staircase and through the living room, out the front door and toward the