Page 98 of Devils' Day Party
“How so?” I ask, my pulse thundering in my head, so loud that the bird calls perfuming the air around us seem to blend into white noise. After everything I've discovered during this time loop, I thought I'd figured Calix out.
He never liked me. He wasn't lying to his friends; he was lying to me.
But … why would he have come to Diamond Point at seven-thirty in the morning if not to see me?
“Never mind,” Calix says, turning back to the water and frowning with that gorgeous mouth of his. Does he even realize how pretty that mouth is? And how much prettier it'd be if he smiled? I yawn, and Calix flicks his dark eyes my way before turning back to the lake. “What are you doing up so late? Worrying about all the awful things I've decided to do to you, now that you fucked up my car.”
“Not really. I actually haven't thought about you since I hit your car … yesterday.” I try the word out on my tongue and decide that I like it. I miss having todays and tomorrows and yesterdays and next weeks. “I spent the day with my dyke moms that you hate so much.”
“I don't hate them,” Calix says with a sigh and a slight scowl, turning back to the lake. A fish jumps near the bridge, and I let out a small sound of surprise, putting a hand to my chest as my heart thunders. I've been awake too long. I could probably stay up later, if I overdosed on caffeine or something. Hell, Crescent Prep kids are really good at getting cocaine. If I wanted some, I bet Calix would know where to find it.
“You don't? You shit talk them enough,” I say with a snort. Last night, the moms were content to leave their phones off for the whole of Devils' Day. After all, their kids were home and safe, so what could they possibly need them for? They haven't seen the video yet, but I'm assuming Calix has. “Anyway, I just took my phone out of airplane mode for the first time since last night. I saw Luke's text about Pearl, and then you showed up. What do you want, Calix?”
He cringes slightly, and then curls his fingers in his dark hair, closing his eyes briefly against the shimmer of sunshine off the lake. I doubt that he's slept, so he's nursing a morning hangover paired with exhaustion. He looks like hell. And yet, I'm not sure if I've ever found him more handsome than I do in this moment.
Stripped of his pomp and circumstance, there's that tired face I recognize from the gas station parking lot that fateful morning, the one that pissed me off so damn much. It's not fair for him to do that, to shed both his masks. When he looks like that, I start to question everything.
“There's a video,” he says absently, looking back out at the lake. Eventually someone might come along and hit the Aston Martin in a much worse way than I did, but for now, everything is quiet. I pretend not to know how this conversation is going. “Of us,” Calix adds. “I don't know who took it, but it's everywhere online.”
I'm pretty sure he expects something out of me, some iota of surprise. Instead, I just turn my face toward his and smile wryly.
“Why am I not surprised about that?” I ask, trying to remember why I was so upset about it on day one. After living through seventeen time loops, I'd just be happy to see tomorrow, whatever it might bring.
Calix narrows his eyes to slits, looking at me like he's certain this is a Devils' Day trick. There's a darkness in his expression that I'm not sure I've ever seen before. It's as if, even in the sun, with that black makeup running down his cheeks, hair mussed, mask lifted, he's still the dark king.
“I knew it was you,” he whispers, and my eyes widen slightly. “You posted that shit. Why? Are you as much a stalker as Erina?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask, but Calix is already reaching over to grab my shoulder, his fingers gripping tightly, bruising me. “I didn't upload anything.”
“If you wanted to talk to me, you might've just done it, instead of hitting my car … or ruining my life.” He pushes me off the bridge even as I protest, and then just sits there staring down at me like a goddamn devil as I rise to the surface, my teeth chattering as I swim to the shore. I'm certain—certain—that he's going to drive off and leave me here, but to my surprise, he stays.
When I stomp up to the Aston Martin, dripping wet and shaking, Calix tosses me a towel, some oversized sweatpants, and a hoodie that smells like him—like some unsweet dark-blooming flower—and smirks at me. When he looks at me like that, it's really hard to hate him.
