Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance - C.M. Stunich Page 0,8

of that. He spit in the vice principal’s face freshman year when she asked him to remove his red contacts.

Corralling troublesome kids in the middle of the woods is hard enough. Harder still when most of them have the net worth of a small country. They might be in exile, but they get what they want anyway. Most of the things the Knight Crew puts their energy into are awful yet on this one thing, I applaud their efforts. My own purple hair dances in a quiet breeze.

“Exactly, what?” I ask, raising a brow as she steps directly between me and Barron, cutting off his intense stare. I shiver as I look up at her.

“I want to live in a world where I’m free to be as weird as I want without judgment, where other people care more about living their own lives than they do about how I live mine.” She glances over her shoulder at Sonja and Calix, their faces close as they whisper about something that I just know is going to end badly for me. I don’t just get to hit the Knight Crew’s leader’s car this morning and walk away unscathed. “Tonight, I’m making a move on Sonja.”

“Stupid idea,” I murmur as April sips a fruit smoothie, her pale green eyes nearly hidden behind the thick, black frames of her glasses as she listens intently to our conversation. The pair of black tourmaline bracelets rests against the pale skin of her left arm.

“Really? Because I let you make the worst decision known to man last year, and I didn’t say anything about it.”

“What decision?” April asks, sitting up and groaning as she cups her belly with one arm. She’s, like, maybe five foot two and pregnant as fuck. It’s a bit terrifying to look at sometimes, her dress shirt untucked, purple blazer unbuttoned to accommodate her belly. “I feel like I’m missing part of a story here.”

Luke turns to her with a puzzled expression, and then flashes a grin. I give her a warning look in response, but I can tell she’s undeterred. Maybe I’m just not that scary? If I were, maybe I wouldn’t be subject to so many awful Devils’ Day pranks. Like, for example, the one I just know is about to come out of Luke’s mouth.

“Last year, Calix Knight”—thankfully she lowers her voice some—“confessed his supposed love for Karma.”

“What?!” April squeaks, sitting up and leaning forward, her mousy brown hair plaited into pigtails and slung over her shoulders. Her mouth hangs open, the straw from her smoothie stuck to her bottom lip. I roll my eyes and stand up, but Luke isn’t done.

“Oh, it gets better. Not only did he confess his feelings, he told Karma he’d been in love with her for years, that he thought about her every night, touched himself to the very idea of her …”

“Luke, come on,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest, my pleated wool skirt dancing against the pale white of my upper thighs. “I think she gets the picture already.”

“After that, Calix took her up to one of the treehouses—the fancy ones meant for tourists—and fucked her virginity sweetly away.” Luke casts a disapproving glance in my direction as I frown, my cheeks flushed with heat. I try very hard not to glance in Calix’s direction, but it happens anyway. He’s staring right at me, his devil’s mask an ebon black to match his eyes. I look back at Luke, willing her to shut the hell up with every fiber of my being. “And I mean all of her virginity. I’m not sure there’s a position or variation on the sex act they didn’t cover.”

“The sex act?” I choke out, shaking my head, and adjusting my own mask, glitter smearing across my fingers. My mother—not Jane, but Cathy this time—made it for me. She’s a professional artist. They both are, actually, and they own a shop in Eureka Springs that manages to support our family. Of course, we do live in a trailer park, but I’m not ashamed of it. The trailers there are all nice, well-maintained, surrounded by flowers and winding paths made of local limestone.

“The sex act?” April repeats, casting a sympathetic look my way. “That’s what my parents called it when they caught me in bed with my boyfriend. Come on, Luke, up your vocabulary.”

“Well, I happen to still be a virgin,” Luke says, touching her fingers to her chest and then frowning. “Although I’m not sure I