Page 154 of Devils' Day Party
“You don’t think having the girl I’m interested in tell me she’s in love with two other guys is out of my comfort zone?” Calix purrs back at me, a challenge in his gaze. The sound of Barron’s pencil moving across the page comforts me, making me smile.
“I don’t know. You tell me? All I can say is, tomorrow is never guaranteed. I love the three of you right now, in this moment, so that’s what I want. I want to spend time with you. I want you to kiss Raz for me.” I play with the metal tab on my soda can, watching, waiting, like a queen with an audience.
It feels good, to have the tables turned like this.
I spent day one looking up at Calix on my car-turned-his-throne. He wore a crown. Raz wore a sneer. Barron was an enigma.
Today, everything is different. But in a good way. In a way that feels right, like it was always meant to be.
“Say we play along with this,” Calix muses as Raz sits up, chucking his cigarette butt to the floor. It’s already strewn with leaves and pine needles anyway. I mean, we are in a junkyard. “What happens tomorrow? What will you tell people?”
“What happens tomorrow depends on you,” I tell him, looking him straight in the face. “What I want, is for the three of you to date me. At least until graduation. Maybe longer than that.”
“That’s not asking a lot at all,” Barron murmurs, but when I glance his way, he’s smiling, his attention focused on his sketchbook. “I don’t see why that should shock either of you. We bullied the fuck out of her for three years. Don’t you think you owe her at least three years of groveling?”
“I might owe her more than that,” Calix says, his face drawn and tired, sad. Just like it was at the gas station. He glances toward me, exhaling sharply, and then sits up straight, chin raised, ever the dark faerie princeling. “Do you think you’ll ever forgive me for last year?”
“I already have,” I say with a shrug of my shoulders, reaching up to push the black leather devil’s mask away from my face. “You can’t hold onto hate forever, or it seeps into your heart. It’s the worst sort of venom. I’m done with that. You made a mistake, but if you’re truly sorry, then it’s not enough to keep us apart.”
“Shit,” Raz grumbles, ruffling up his blond hair. His red eyes narrow as he leans forward and looks over the seat at me. “You can’t say crap like that. It makes me feel like a total asshole.” I give him a look, and he laughs. “Alright, fuck, I am a total asshole. Let me guess: we’re gonna have to tongue each other now, aren’t we?”
“One of us is getting tongued,” Calix says, looking me dead in the face. He rises to his feet as I trade out my empty soda can for the vodka again.
“Do you mind if I sketch this part?” Barron asks, reaching up to pull his own mask off.
Now, this is what I wanted.
All four of us, unmasked, open, bare, bleeding in front of one another.
Vulnerable.
I wanted vulnerability.
“Touch yourself, so I can see it,” Calix orders, looking down at me with a devil-may-care sort of arrogance that makes me bristle. And yet, heat flushes through my body at his decree. I watch with gently parted lips as he climbs onto the seat in front of Raz, one of his knees between Raz’s leather-clad legs. Calix flicks his eyes my direction as Raz accepts the joint from me and inhales, waiting until Calix presses their mouths together before exhaling, sharing smoke. Calix pulls back slightly, letting tendrils of smoke curl out from between his full lips.
“I hope you enjoy this because it’s not happening again anytime soon,” Raz quips, handing the joint over to me. He puts his hands on Calix’s shoulders as their mouths slide together. They’re both vicious as fuck, dripping venom, like two monsters entangled in a sordid affair.
The sight nearly undoes me.
I slip my panties off, pulling them over my heeled boots and tossing them at Barron. The black lace hits his sketchbook, drawing his dual-colored eyes up to me. With a suggestive smile, he takes them and tucks them into the front pocket of his leather pants.
When I turn my attention back to Calix and Raz, I find them with their mouths still slanted together. One of Raz's hands is on Calix's bare chest, while Calix's fingers hold Raz's blond hair in a punishing grip.
The joint falls from Raz's fingers, burning a small hole in the old cracked vinyl of the seat, singeing the air with the smell of burning things. It doesn't matter; we can smell the smoke from the bonfire, even all the way over here. The junkyard itself seems to have a smell, too, like iron and rust and forgotten things. A slag heap towers over the place, casting its shadow on the corpses of old cars, just a man-made mountain of discarded things.
