it with Aquaphor, but ouch, the knuckles are a hard place to take the needle.
“How’s it healing?” Aaron asks, pausing to stand beside me. I glance his way, and my breath catches in my throat. How can he do that to me, leave me breathless and aching? We were always star-crossed lovers, too sweet to find a happily-ever-after, destined for some bittersweet ending that stings the tongue. Yet here we are, freshly fucked, and gazing at one another like we’d rather be naked and alone somewhere.
“The bruise you left on my hip?” I ask, pressing my hand against my pelvic bone and smirking. “Or the tattoo?”
“Well, since you brought it up,” Aaron starts, eyes sparkling with surprise. With the exception of Wednesday at the garage, I’ve been avoiding him a bit, and he knows it. Unlike Vic however, he’s giving me space to breathe. I’m not sure if I love that or hate it. Mostly, I just want him to touch me. “Feel free to discuss either.” He tosses back his cherry coke and then leans down to put his lips near mine. “But I’m more interested in hearing about your sexual battle scars.” He pauses, licking his lips, smelling like roses and sandalwood, his breath sweet with cherry soda.
“In that case, my ass still hurts, and I have finger-shaped bruises on my thighs,” I whisper back, wondering if I should touch him, curl my arm around his neck, kiss him.
As Aaron’s leaning over me, I spot Kali standing down the hall, staring at the two of us from her bruised and swollen face. She’s got Billie, Ivy, and a few of their trashy friends standing at her side, but she doesn’t approach us. Obviously, there’s been no sign of Danny, and the tension in Prescott High is ratcheting up to dangerous levels, but despite their poking and prodding against Havoc, we haven’t moved on the Charter Crew.
Yet.
The way Kali is looking at me … I can sense something beyond her usual hatred, a longing, a reaching, a silent pleading. After all, she’s known Aaron about as long as I have. I remember her in junior high, twirling her hair around her finger and watching him from across the grassy area in front of the school.
“He’s the kind of boy you want to marry,” she’d told me in her thirteen-year-old voice, like she knew the secrets of the entire world.
Vic appears before I can decide what to do, and Aaron pulls back slightly. But not out of fear—out of respect. He hates Victor, but he respects the hell out of him. That, and he desperately wants his approval.
“We need to do something about Kali,” I say as she turns away abruptly, heading for the front entrance of the school with her girls in tow. Stacey Langford watches them carefully from the vicinity of her locker, eyes narrowed. In general, it’s her job to deal with girl drama at Prescott. Kali and Billie are ruining her carefully crafted empire, one that shines, even with Havoc’s shadow cast over it.
“We will,” Vic says, nodding briskly, eyes tracking Principal Vaughn. He’s kept his distance from us. In fact, he hasn’t even looked our way since he got back. I wonder how long he thinks this careful dance is going to last? Everyone knows that once the requiem is over, the mourners leave the cemetery. “Actually, Callum and I have a special present planned for their crew. We’ll drop it off tonight.” He lights up a cigarette, passing it my way after a drag. Our eyes meet and something dark travels through me. I’d call it a shooting star, but it’s much more wicked than that. Still, it streaks through the endless blackness of my soul before disappearing into the infinite depths of the universe.
Hael catches up to us next, but he isn’t smiling.
“I’m going with Brittany today to talk to her dad,” he says, raking his fingers through his hair. “Oh, and she wants us to take care of a Fuller High football player that she fucked while we were at the lake house.”
Vic raises both brows, glancing over at his friend as I smoke my cigarette. Aaron finally tears his gaze from mine to look at Hael.
“The one she cheated on you with before school started?” Vic clarifies, and seeing someone as built and beautiful as him say something so inane twists up my sense of reality. He’s too muscular, too big, too brutal to be a high school student. At least