Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance - C.M. Stunich Page 0,160

to acknowledge, no matter what.

It feels suddenly sad, sitting there with the Knight Crew boys and not knowing if something good might blossom out of my new relationship with the three of them.

“Why today, all of a sudden?” Raz asks as Barron loads a small plate with heaps of shortbread cookies. He even dips one into his tea before snapping the end off with those pretty white teeth of his. “I thought you were fucking with us, but then, you never did show up to school.”

“She could still be fucking with us,” Barron muses, but Calix is looking at me like he's fairly certain I'm not. That's a surprise, seeing him on my side so easily. I maintain that some fragment of yesterday is haunting him, reminding him that life is temporary. He said he loved me, at gunpoint. The thought is both thrilling and terrifying, the ultimate truth spoken from lips about to be bloodied with violence.

I shiver and pour a bit of cream into my tea before taking a sip.

“I assure you, I'm not,” I say, curling my legs up in the chair and wondering if I ever manage to get past today, if I might have hangout sessions with all three boys more often. They seem so out of place here: rich, cruel, arrogant. Yet … I'm comfortable with them in my space, more so than I expected. “I'm in love with all three of you. What should I do about that?”

“What do you mean what should I do?” Raz snaps, pushing his tea aside and sending hot liquid splashing onto the surface of the table. “Yesterday, you told me to eat shit in French. Today, you're confessing your love? Sorry if I don't buy that crap. Too sudden.”

“Not as sudden as you might think,” I say, looking down at the decorative black runner that lines the center of the table. It has glittering silver stars and moons; the moms sewed it just for Devils' Day. I only see it out one time a year. “My feelings have been developing for a long time. Maybe since freshman year.”

“What would you do, with all three of us?” Barron asks, his voice as shadowed and dark as always, smoothing over my body like fog. I love the sound of it; I could drown in it and die happy. “That is, if not a one of us actually hated you. If, in fact, we all reciprocated your feelings?” He smiles at me; it isn't a particularly nice smile. “This is all hypothetical, of course.”

“Of course,” I reply as Calix picks up his tea and stares into the cup like it holds all the answers. There are a few loose bits of tea leaf in there, so if he's got some Harry Potter shit going on, maybe he really can read his future in the Darjeeling? “What would I do? I guess I'd offer up a truce. You three play at being devils—and not just on Devils' Day—but every day. You've treated me like shit for years, so … I'd ask you to consider my feelings. Date me, share with each other, and we'd see how things went. Hypothetically speaking.”

“Hypothetically,” Barron agrees, his not-so-nice smile turning into a grin. “That's quite the offer you've presented us with.”

“This is fucking stupid,” Raz says, red eyes burning with fury as he leans back in his chair, balancing precariously on the rear legs. I notice he doesn't stand up and leave though. He's still here, and that has to count for something. “We're not going to share you.” He practically gags on the word.

“Why not? From what I hear, you and Calix were into each other in junior high.”

Silence descends on the table, the tension thickening like fog in the woods, obscuring a clear way out, trapping us all.

I stand up and pad over to the cabinet to grab some incense, lighting the stick with a match and then carefully blowing on the end until it burns bright and perfumes the air with smoky sweetness.

“Where did you hear that?” Calix asks, his voice dark. “Erina? She's been stalking me, you know.”

“Stalking you?” I ask, turning back to see Raz's jaw clenched, his face burning with rage. I can't decide if I struck a nerve, and what Pearl told me is true, or if his internal homophobia is starting to show. “Since when?”

“I've been struggling with her since last year,” Calix says, frowning hard. “Since, likely, she filmed us fucking in the cabin.” He takes