Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance - C.M. Stunich Page 0,167

trying,” I say, swigging the vodka and then choking on the sharp, awful taste of it. This isn’t that pricey shit the boys were passing around at the Crescent Prep party. No, this is cheap shit, but it does the job. “And it feels like you three are as well, which I appreciate.”

“Like you said,” Calix begins, pausing in front of me and putting his hands on the seat backs on either side of me. “It’s Devils’ Day, after all. It’s not supposed to be normal, that’s the point. We revel and we break things and we fuck people we don’t like.”

“Do we?” I ask, tilting my head at him. He doesn’t know what I know, that I’m the only person he’s had sex with. I decide not to bring it up just now. “Is that why you got tested twice after you slept with me last year? Because you fucked someone you didn’t like?”

Barron throws his head back in dark laughter as Raz raises both brows in surprise, like this is new information to him. Calix, on the other hand, tightens his face up like I’ve just seriously pissed him off.

“How do you know about that?” he asks, but I just smile enigmatically, leaning back in the old bus seat, like it’s my throne, like I own the Knight Crew and everyone in it. It feels like I do, wearing that black devil’s mask that Calix has worn every single night that I’ve seen him. It’s as if I’m now the Knight whose name brands this crew of diabolical assholes.

“Does it matter? Why did you get tested twice? You knew I was a virgin.”

“Because my parents found out about you and made me do it,” Calix grinds out, gritting his teeth and glancing away, toward the shattered windshield. He’s the hardest nut to crack, that’s for fucking sure. Barron just needs me to know about the sketchbook, and we’re thick as thieves. A little honesty goes a long way with Raz. But Calix … it’s like his heart is encased in ice, and I have to melt it before I can get what I need from him.

“How did your parents find out?” I ask, taking another drink of the vodka and handing it over to him. He takes it from me, frowning, and sits down in the seat opposite me. Raz is on my right side, and Barron just leans casually against the wall on my left, likely standing where a seat once stood.

“Pearl.” Just that one word, spit from Calix’s lips like poison. He glances away sharply, shrugging out of his coat, and leaving me in a broken-down, old school bus with not one shirtless bully, but three. Three magnificently beautiful assholes to savor. Like jewels dug up from the earth, just waiting to have their rough edges polished, smoothed, the dirt cleaned away so they can shine.

The devil inside of me purrs with pleasure.

“Don’t you feel sorry for her though?” I ask, knowing that I’m steering this conversation with knowledge that I shouldn’t rightfully have. “About the baby and everything?”

Calix glances my way with a sharp look, like his eyes are knives, blades glinting.

“I hate what my brother’s done, what my parents have done. But I also hate Pearl for getting me sent here.” Calix pauses for a moment, like he’s considering his statement. He reaches up to ruffle his ebon-dark hair. “Or I did.” He looks back over at me. “Maybe not so much anymore.”

“Your parents think I’m STD-ridden or something?” I ask, and Raz snorts.

“You think my dad is bad? Or Barron’s folks? Calix’s parents are the monsters behind-the-scenes who pull all the strings. My dad takes hush money from them to keep their dirty secrets hidden. Of course they think you’re disease-ridden. You’re the opposite of everything they stand for.”

“Which is why I’m in love with you,” Calix says, and it flows off that whiplash tongue of his like it’s nothing. He taps his fingers on the back of the seat nearest him as I just sit there, dumbfounded and mind blown. Maybe I shouldn’t be, considering he was willing to admit that under duress.

No matter what happens with this time loop, there’s one thing I know for sure: the things we’ve been through, that I’ve done, they weren’t for naught. The feelings, the revelations, the progress we’ve all made … it’s still here.

“Good to know,” I choke out as Barron bends down and digs a cherry cola out of the cooler, passing it