with his mouth until I’m crying out, slamming one of my palms into the mirror and coming hard against his lips. Also, I probably soaked the shit out of his face.
We sit there for exactly six breaths before Aaron stands up, and I lift my head to stare in the mirror, my eyes locking with Aaron’s in the reflection. It’s spotty, the glass twisted and warped in spots, but I can still see what’s important: Aaron, me, and our feelings for each other.
I never fell out of love with him, that’s the truth. I just started hating him on top of it. We just made love … and then he hate-fucked me. It’s a dynamic that works. As Aaron steps back and I push up to a standing position, I wet my lips with my tongue.
He groans as he leans back against the wall, fixing his pants while he struggles to catch his breath. I love that, watching his tattooed chest rise and fall with each desperate inhale.
You’re so human, Aaron Fadler, I think, and I smile.
“Don’t lick your lips like that,” he tells me, disposing of the condom and washing his hands. I stay leaning against the counter next to him, watching him. “You’ll get me hard all over again, and the poor Prescott kids won’t get to piss for hours yet.”
“You really think you can go for hours?” I quip back with a grin. I feel weird right now, an emotion I don’t understand flickering inside of me. Since I don’t recognize it, and I don’t want to ruin the moment by trying to delve into it, I just push it aside. “That’s some serious bravado, Fadler. I’d like to see you prove it.”
He turns his head to look at me, a smug smirk taking over his lips. He might be the nicest of the Havoc Boys, but he’s still a boy and therefore, still an asshole.
“Mind if I do that sometime?” he asks, standing up and drying his hands off on his jeans. “Take you to bed and show you exactly how long I can go?”
I just smile back at him. Let him have that smug male sense of satisfaction. The kitty cat inside of me purrs and arches her back. I’ve taken three of the Havoc Boys to bed. I knew that I’d end up sleeping with them when I called out that word. Idiot that I am, I tried to lie to myself and pretend that it was all out of duty and obligation.
In reality, it was obsession.
Do the boys owe me retribution for their wrongs?
Sure.
But nothing is as sweet as salvation.
Someone like Kali or the Thing or Pamela, for that matter, will never be worthy of redemption. But the boys will. Are.
I bite my lip.
“Can we get a burger or something before we go home?” I ask, and Aaron laughs, reaching out to grab me by the hips and pull me close. It’s strange, I’ll admit, how easily we fall back into touching each other. He strokes my hair back, putting his face up against mine. The way Aaron touches me, I can sense it in him: he thinks we’re on a timeline, too. He’s going to touch me as much as he can because he doesn’t know when it might stop, when we might be separated again.
That’s how all the kids at Prescott High live, like we have no future at all.
That’s something I’d like to change, if I could.
Maybe one day.
“A burger, huh?” he asks, and just his breath against my ear makes my body spasm with need. My fingers dig into the skin of his bare back. We should probably find his shirt …
“Well, I’m hungry. You tired me out.” I sound like Bernadette, like the big bitch on campus, but … on the inside, I’m a kitten in his arms. Whereas Vic turns me into a lion and makes me want to roar, Aaron makes me purr like a baby.
“I suppose I can do that, treat you to a burger and fries. Honestly, our milkshakes are probably melted puddles by now, so I’ll guess we’ll have to order another round.” I nod, but for just a split-second there, I can’t speak.
Because I’ve just felt that flicker of emotion again, like a firefly trapped in my soul.
And, I’ve just figured out what it is: happiness.
Aaron makes me happy.
How weird is that?
Two and a half years earlier …
Aaron Fadler
What the fuck have I done?
I’m kneeling in the grass outside of Prescott High,