Havoc at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #1) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,76
be Havoc’s girl, right? I’m supposed to screw all five of them. Isn’t that the point? “What’s your problem? How can you fuck a man who treated you so poorly? Vic annihilated you during sophomore year, and yet you’re panting after him like a bitch in heat.”
I draw back and slap Oscar as hard as I can. The crack of flesh on flesh echoes around the quiet room as he snatches my wrist in an iron-clad grip and pulls my hand away. There’s a smile on his face now that wasn’t there before.
“Everything okay?” Zoe asks, peeping in the door with a nervous look on her pretty face.
“It’s fine,” I say, staring back at Oscar, refusing to drop his gaze. “We’ll take the damn dress.”
It isn’t until Wednesday that my mom finally checks her messages and finds out about the suspension. I wake up to her call, lying in Aaron’s bed with Heather beside me. Staying here, I find that I sleep like the dead. It’s nearly noon. I can’t remember the last time I slept in this late.
Even though I know I shouldn’t, I answer it.
“Hello?”
“What the hell did you do now?!” Pamela shouts, and I can hear in her voice that she actually cares. Not about me, obviously, but about the stain on her reputation that I might cause by being suspended. Springfield isn’t a small town per se, but people do talk. And Mom, I think she’d sacrifice me to a sea of vengeful gods if it would grant her the money and status she had back when my dad was still alive. “Why am I getting calls from the school telling me your ex-boyfriend stabbed somebody and that you were involved?”
“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” I say as I sit up, and my sister stirs beside me. My arm aches where Billie cut me, and I find my fingers subconsciously teasing the edges of the wound. “It’s just a two-day suspension, no big deal. I’ll be back to school tomorrow.”
“And where are you now, exactly? I’m coming to pick Heather up.” Pamela sniffs, and I can just imagine her checking her nails for any signs of imperfection. Imperfection should be buffed away and forgotten about, covered up, replaced. That sick, hollow feeling in my stomach opens up, threatening to swallow me whole.
“She’s at her friend Kara’s house,” I say, which isn’t even a lie. Not that I give a crap about lying to my mom. She long since lost the privilege of my honesty. “When you’ve been lied to by everyone around you, when you have nothing else, you realize the one currency you can carry is truth.” I lick my lips and wonder when Vic’s words started to get inside my head like that. “I’ll pick her up in a bit and we’ll be home in time for dinner, okay?”
It literally makes my mouth hurt to be that nice to her, but it’s the only way I can diffuse the situation before she starts making threats.
“Well, we’ll talk about this suspension thing when you get home,” she says absently, her attention wandering when I don’t prove to be the target she wants me to be. “I had a few calls about some classes you missed, too. If you don’t want to finish your senior year, fine, I didn’t, but I had your father all lined up and turns out I didn’t need a degree.” She pauses as I close my eyes, quietly seething. A deep inhale brings Aaron’s scent into my lungs, and I feel myself calming against my own will. Ugh. Who knew I was such a sentimental bitch?
“I had a bad period and cried in the bathroom during those classes,” I say, not caring if the missed days match up to a proper cycle. Pamela won’t pay enough attention to notice.
“Okay, honey,” she says, clearly bored with me already. “Be here at five, or I’m calling your father.”
She hangs up, and I find myself clutching my phone so hard my knuckles hurt.
“He’s not my fucking father,” I grind out, slipping out of bed and throwing on a hoodie, so I can go outside and smoke. It doesn’t occur to me until I actually step out the back door that it’s Aaron’s hoodie I’ve got on.
Speak of the devil …
“Morning,” Aaron says, sitting in one of the outdoor chairs and smoking a cigarette of his own. He offers me a light, and I take it, curling up in the chair next to his. My