Page 128 of Devils' Day Party
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I tell him, raising my eyebrows and then pausing to glance over my shoulder as Luke turns up the stereo loud enough that we can hear the music from all the way over here.
“No? My dick seems to have some idea.” Raz reaches down and gives his junk a squeeze. Pretty sure I can hear Sonja gagging from all the way over here, too. He leans down to look at me, red eyes bright in the sunshine. “You want to find a private spot to, you know, talk? And then fuck. Preferably, we’d actually fuck first, talk, then fuck again.”
“You’re the worst,” I groan, pulling off my sopping wet mask and leaving it on the island. I’m the only one wearing it, perhaps more attached to the idea of Devils’ Day than I pretend to be. Maybe I’ve always put too much stock in that party? Last year, I swore I wasn’t going to go, even after I’d put all that work into my dress. Calix showed up at my house when I was home alone, and he convinced me to go. Then, later, he found me at the spring and urged me to come with him to the treehouse.
And it was exactly what I’d wanted to happen, even if I refused—still refuse—to admit it to myself.
“Or maybe I am? I think I care too much what people think,” I murmur, not expecting Raz to really respond to that. He’s shown a lot more depth of character today than I expected, but I’m not going to crack him wide and find out all of his secrets on day one. Luke is right. We need more than one day.
We need that.
I want to develop a real relationship, not just start a new one every fucking day.
But, like everything else on this journey, Raz manages to surprise me.
“Not you,” he says, shaking his head and then slicking wet hair back from his face. Droplets of water bead on his lower lip and slither down the hard surface of his chest. It seems impossible to look away, like I’m the studying the face of some young Adonis, only … one that’s been carved of shadows and stuck here in this field of forgotten statuary. Beautiful, yes, but a demon, surely. “You don’t care what people think. You dye your hair weird colors and paint faerie murals on your house.” He looks askance at me, and I remember him confiding how much he wanted to dye his own hair. “Nobody in your family seems to care. Trust me, I’d know if you did. Mine does. They care so much about what people think that my dad’s going to freak the hell out when he finds out we’re together now.”
“And what are you going to do about that?” I ask with a small sigh, kicking my feet in the water and appreciating the fact that we’re even able to swim in fall whatsoever, especially since it rained this morning. But while the water’s cold, it’s not impossible. No, the initial temperature shock was a small price to pay.
“I don’t know,” Raz admits, shaking his head and sending stray droplets of water everywhere. The demon statue next to him doesn’t seem to mind. “He already hates me because … Well, Pearl told him some things.” He shrugs his shoulders again and looks at me like he’s afraid I’ll judge him. I just want the chance to prove to him that I won’t. “Anyway, he hates me because of that. He hates me because I couldn’t hack it at football. He hates me because I don’t want to be him. All of it.” Raz looks at me with an assessing gaze, like this is something he’s thought about before. Based on what he said at the cottage, I’m certain he already has. “There’s nothing he could do to keep me from you, now that I know.”
“Know what?” I ask and Raz smiles, not a grin, but a smile. Okay, fine, it’s almost a smirk, but it’s close enough.
“How you feel about me,” he says with another shrug. “I wanted you to like me, at first. But then you reported us for beating up that kid freshman year, and I figured you didn’t like me and never would.”
“Why did you hurt that kid?” I ask, and Raz sighs, narrowing his eyes slightly.
“He snuck his phone into the Devils’ Day party.” He glances my way, as if searching my face to see how I’m going to react to this. “He was threatening to ruin a good twenty students at the school, including me and Calix. He had videos of you, too, dancing in your bra around the fire.”
“Everybody dances in their bra around the fire at the Devils’ Day party,” I reply easily, but at least I’m finally starting to understand some things that I’ve wondered about for years. “What about you and Calix? What did you guys do?”
