Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance - C.M. Stunich Page 0,143

end, taking off her shoes and socks and dipping her feet into the water.

“And how would you go about managing that?” Sonja asks, swimming circles around Raz.

“I’d tell them all about how you cried to me when you got your first period, and I had to rub your back for four hours and feed you chocolate-covered marshmallows. Oh wait, I just did tell them. My bad.”

“You fucking prick!” Sonja snarls, and then the two of them get into a water fight, splashing each other as Luke and I swim up to the end of the dock to be near April.

“How’s Thad?” Luke asks, glancing back at the two troublemakers we’ve somehow invited into our lives. It seems surreal. And it is. Because it isn’t going to last, is it? You don’t know that for sure. Pearl might … she could be okay, right?

“He’s good,” April says with a soft smile, looking down at her reflection in the water. She lifts her head up and I follow her gaze, across the water to where a pair of angel statues dance in a silent swordfight, forever doomed to be trapped in a violent altercation neither can ever win. Although, I suppose if you note their cracked and broken wings and moss-covered faces, it seems that mother nature is the true victor in this scenario. “He wants to be here when the baby is born. He told his parents we’d consider giving up our baby to them if they bought him a plane ticket to come over here.”

“Total lie though, right?” Luke asks, sounding a little nervous. She loves with her whole heart, Luke does. Now that she’s decided she’s going to be this baby’s aunt, nothing will stop her from lavishing affection and care on it.

“Total fucking lie,” April says, grinning. “Nobody’s getting their hands on my baby. If my parents want to cut me off, if his parents do … It doesn’t matter.”

“All you need is love,” Luke agrees, and Raz snorts from behind me, surprising me as he wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me close to him, kissing down the side of my neck and across my shoulder.

“That, and a trust fund,” he says, grinning. “Luckily for you, Sonja has one. Her great-grandmother Marguerite left her a shitload of cash when she died. Marry her and you’ll be set for life. Of course, I’m pretty sure she’s half black widow, so you might get your head bitten off after the wedding, so there’s always that risk to consider.”

“I’m going to drown you, and you’ll never get the chance to consummate things with your dream girl. Be careful: your dick is just sort of floating around down there.” Sonja gestures to the surface of the water and then clacks her long, black fingernails together. “I could very easily rip it off.”

“You two have an interesting relationship,” I tell them, glancing over at Luke and seeing her brows raised, her lips in a soft smile. “But carry on. Just … maybe don’t rip his dick off? I’d sort of like to keep it.”

“That all depends on his behavior,” Sonja gloats, smirking and pushing off the edge of the dock. She takes Luke’s hand and drags her away. They end up swimming across the length of the spring and disappearing behind the limbs of a bowed tree, its branches dipping low to kiss the water.

“Go,” April says after a minute, her pale green eyes focused on the blue of the sky, and the gently drifting clouds. “I’ve got my baby, and thoughts of Thad to entertain me. Get out of here.” She splashes me with water, and I grin.

“Thank you, babe,” I say, pushing up and out of the water. I give April a quick kiss on the cheek before jogging across the dock, hopping over broken boards. With some beers and plastic-wrapped snacks in hand, I get back in and join Raz at the island in the center of the spring.

Later, when it gets dark, we make our own fire using some dry branches and Raz’s lighter. It isn’t anything like the raging bonfire back at the party, but we don’t need it to be. It’s just big enough for the five of us to huddle around it for warmth, wrapped in the blankets Luke bought for April. No big deal, she already has dozens.

I sit in the circle of Raz’s arms, wondering how he managed to hide this side of himself from me for so long. Even at