but I can’t help it. Aaron … he’s painful to look at sometimes, a reminder of things that could’ve been. “You were meant to be mine.”
I swallow the lump in my throat and turn back to my shake. Screw you for making me feel fifteen again, I think as I put my lips around the end of the straw. For some stupid reason, I turn my eyes to his just as I take the damn thing in my mouth.
“If you wanted me to be yours, why do you let Vic push you around? Stand up for me, Aaron.” I suck on the straw, and his eyes flash. Aaron reaches out, grabbing me by the elbow and yanking me off of the stool.
“I let him push me around because I feel like I don’t deserve you, Bernie. I let you go once; how can I ask you to come back?” He smirks at me, pulling me up against his chest. It’s impossible for me to miss the hard bulge pressing into my stomach. Aaron has a huge dick; there’s no hiding that. “But maybe you’re right? Maybe I’m thinking about this in the wrong way? I’m not the good guy anymore, and I can never be that person again. So, maybe …” He leans down and licks a bit of chocolate from my lower lip. “I just take what I want, regardless of whether I deserve it or not?”
“I’m not sure that I’d say no to that,” I whisper, my voice hoarse and low, like I’m in a bedroom, naked and wet, and not standing in a buzzing restaurant surrounded by my peers—most of whom I dislike with a passion.
“What if I were to tell you to get in the fucking bathroom?” Aaron asks, and I swear to god, something breaks inside of me. My numbness, my shields … the final piece shatters, and I’m left feeling like I’m floating. All of a sudden, I don’t know who I am anymore. I feel both vindicated and vulnerable, all at the same time.
“Sounds like you’re still asking,” I manage to choke out. Aaron wraps an arm around my waist and scoops the other underneath my knees, lifting me up into his arms like I weigh nothing at all. My breath escapes in a rush as I weave my arms around his neck.
“Stay out of the bathroom for a while,” he announces, loudly enough that everyone in that room hears him. “And if you think you can quite literally catch me with my pants down, I’m packing a .22 in my boot.” Aaron sweeps me toward the bathroom, kicking the swinging door in and setting me down on the counter.
My heart throbs painfully in my chest as he sweeps the stalls, checking to see if there’s anyone else in here besides us.
There’s not.
And there’s no lock on the door, but you’d have to be a total idiot to disobey a direct order from Havoc. You know, like Kali Rose or something. Queen of the morons.
“Do you have a condom?” I ask, and Aaron shakes his head.
“Luckily, we’re not far from South Prescott,” he teases, grinning at me and running his hand over his beautiful chestnut hair. “No condoms on me—I’m not goddamn Hael or anything—but I do have quarters.” He reaches into his back pocket, pulling out his faded leather wallet and dumping several quarters into his palm. Aaron puts them into the dispenser on the wall, twisting the knob until a single condom falls out into the tray. Usually, you only see this sort of shit at, like, truck stops in the middle of nowhere or something, but like Aaron said: we’re close to South Prescott, the worst neighborhood in the city of Springfield, Oregon.
For once, I’m a little excited about that.
“If you really are pregnant,” Aaron says, pausing in front of me and leaning forward to put his face near mine. He puts a hand on either side of me, pressing our foreheads together, just like we did the other day, just like we did when we were kids … just like we did when we fucked in tenth grade that one time. “Then we’ll take care of you. I’ll take care of you, if that’s what you want.”
“You’d raise another man’s kid?” I ask, certain that I’d visit a Planned Parenthood before I’d become a teen mom, but still …
“Well, this wouldn’t be another man’s kid,” Aaron says with a cocksure smirk. “It’d be a Havoc kid.” He kisses me