Page 55 of Havoc at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 1)
It’s hard to bring myself to care.
Instead, I open the door in nothing but a towel.
“I can’t wear these,” I say, tossing the underwear and jeans his direction. They land in a heap at his booted foot as he regards me with dark eyes, his expression impossible to read. Impossible. Just fucking impossible. “I’m not going back to school in cum-stained clothing.”
“Nobody asked you to,” Vic snaps back, snatching the items from the floor and disappearing into the kitchen. A few moments later, I hear the rushing sound of water in a washing machine. When Vic reappears, he can barely look at me, storming past and up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time.
I lean against the doorjamb and close my eyes, completely numb.
I don’t feel a thing.
That is, until I feel his heat, his gaze, watching me. Always watching me.
Warily, I crack my eyes and find him there, staring at me. For the briefest of seconds, the expression on Victor’s face matches mine. But that doesn’t mean it’s any more explainable or understandable. He’s an enigma, a lone planet floating in a faraway galaxy. Yet if I can discern anything from this moment, it’s that as soon as he’s within my orbit, I don’t feel numb anymore.
“Here.” He hands over a pair of underwear that look brand-new as well as a pair of Prescott High gym shorts. They’re his, so far too big, but at least they have a drawstring. I step back and close the bathroom door, slipping into the undies—dude undies, but oh well—and the shorts. “How are your stitches?” is what he asks me when I open the door back up.
“Fine,” I say, but they’re bleeding a little. I mean, he did throw me into a wall.
Vic grunts and grabs an extra hoodie from a hook near the door, chucking it at me the same way I chucked my dirty jeans at him, and then we head outside to his bike. I have to hide a small grimace when I straddle it, that ache between my thighs burning now that the adrenaline of the moment has faded.
Neither of us says a word until we arrive back at the high school, parking a block away and walking back.
Hael meets us out front.
Must be lunchtime. Seniors are the only ones allowed off-campus during lunch. Either that, or the Havoc Boys have paid off the new security guard to look the other way when they break the rules, the same way they did the last one.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Hael demands, sliding his palms over his red hair, muscles in his inked arms bunching with the motion. “Shit is going down. Those Ensbrook and Charter fuckers are all over our dicks.”
“I told you to wait until I got back,” Vic snaps, ice-cold, iron-clad.
Fuck, I hate him.
And yet … when I close my eyes, I can feel him buried inside of me, and that heat I work so hard to fight back begins to creep into every single cell.
Luckily, Hael is too flustered to notice either of our strange behavior, or the fact that I’m wearing Victor’s gym shorts. His goddamn name is written across one leg in Sharpie—a school requirement since we have so many problems with theft.
“What happened?” Vic demands as we start toward the front steps where Oscar, Callum, and Aaron are waiting. Unlike Hael, Aaron notices the shorts right away, and his gaze flicks up to my face and the slightly damp tips of my hair.
His mouth purses into a thin, hard line.
“The Charter crew won’t let us near Billie or Kali,” Callum says, his voice that rough, broken sound as he flips his hood back, revealing mussed-up blond hair. “And they’re spreading rumors about Bernadette.” He looks at me with bright blue eyes ringed in thick liner, and then turns his attention over his shoulder as the front doors of Prescott High open and Mitch, Logan, Kyler, Danny, and Timmy step out. Two Charter boys—Mitch and Logan—and the three Ensbrook brothers. Two families, all trash.
My lip curls.
“What kind of rumors?” Vic asks, as if he hasn’t noticed the horde of assholes descending the steps toward us.
“That she fucks her stepfather. That she’s joined us in order to rat our crimes out to him.” Oscar says all of this without skipping a beat, his gray eyes raking my body from head to toe. I can tell right away that he knows about me and Vic in an instant. Unlike Aaron, he isn’t surprised, and he doesn’t care. I also note that he’s wearing his original glasses again, like maybe the ones he wore to deal with Don were throwaways, so they couldn’t be identified.
I open my mouth to defend myself, but Vic is already sweeping past the other Havoc Boys to face off against Mitch—the apparent leader of this new rebel group. For three years, Havoc has ruled these halls with an iron fist. I can hardly believe what I’m seeing as Billie and Kali bring up the rear of their little team.
