Page 105 of Anarchy at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 4)
“Tell me then,” I challenge, coming down the two steps into the garage. Our gazes meet, and I feel my breath being siphoned from my body. Hael is like an inferno, a fire that burns so hot it draws all the oxygen from the room. There’s no question as to how he’s been able to have any girl, anytime, anywhere. There’s an exciting magnetism to him that none of the other Havoc Boys share, a lightness in the face of so much dark. While Callum has accepted that he will always live in the shadows, while Victor seeks to command them, Hael is determined to be happy. Ultimately, that’s the only thing he really wants.
And somehow, I seem to factor into that equation.
“How do you do that?” he asks me as the song on his phone changes to Jace Everett’s “Bad Things”. It suits him, this song. I reach down and curl my fingers under the hem of the t-shirt—it just so happens to be a Batman tee—as Hael runs his tongue across his lower lip. “Look at me like you can read me in a single glance.”
“I just make shit up in my head,” I retort, slowly pulling the shirt up to reveal the creamy whiteness of my thighs and the vibrant pink splash of my dragon tattoo. “In reality, I don’t know shit. I’m as lost as you are.”
“Bullshit,” Hael retorts with a ragged laugh, running his hand over the seam in his jeans and taking hold of his thickening cock through the fabric. “It’s because you’re a writer, a poet. You see into people’s souls.” He winks at me, but I know he’s being serious right now.
“And you’re avoiding my question,” I reply, letting the shirt fall back into place. Hael lets out this low, deep chuckle and shakes his head, like he’s about to leap across this room after me. “What does it mean for you to have me here?”
He watches me carefully and then begins to circle toward me, past the Eldorado, as I match his pace, staying just ahead of him. We end up walking in a circle as we face each other, those same fat moths fluttering around in the in-between space beneath the light.
“It means …” Hael starts, grinning at me like the devil he is. His bloodred hair matches mine now, like we were forged from the fires of hell just to find each other. “Avec toi j'ai l'impression d'être une personne et pas juste un bon coup.” He pauses, and I frown at him. Speaking in French is hot as fuck, but I can’t understand a word he’s saying, and he knows it.
“Cop-out,” I murmur, and he laughs. “I guess you’re not interested in seeing what’s under this shirt then?” I lift up the hem a bit, teasing him with a clear view of my upper thighs but stopping just short of revealing my cunt.
“Blackbird, ne me chauffe pas comme ça,” he purrs, reaching up to run dirty fingers through his hair. Hael pauses near the door, and I stop where I am, my hand resting on the rusty hood of the Cadillac. His honey-almond eyes find mine, a smear of black grease on his cheek. His muscular arms are dotted with beads of sweat, like little magnifying glasses highlighting the ink underneath. There are hot girls and cars and Sailor Jerry style hearts. He’s got skulls and roses and bluebirds. I could look for hours and still find something new in all that art that wraps his hard muscles. “I’m not great with vocalizing my feelings,” he continues in English, licking the corner of his lip.
My body is aching for the feel of his hands, that sweet coconut oil smell that clings to his skin because he uses it so often to remove the grease and motor oil from his body. But not tonight: I really do want him to be as filthy as possible.
“Try,” I reply, knowing I’m playing hard to get here, but needing something from him. These boys like to play cat and mouse with me. Despite their declarations of obsession, our strange history, their single-minded focus on me. They all need to work on the touchy-feely shit. “Tell me, Hael. What does it mean to have me here?”
“It means I can be saved,” he replies in a rush, like the thought’s just occurred to him. This time, when he gives me that shit-eating grin of his, it feels genuine. “Fuck, maybe I could be a poet, too?” He moves through the middle of the room, underneath the light with the fuzzy white moths, and then stops just short of touching me. “Having you here tells me that maybe, just maybe”—he pauses to point at Batman’s logo on my borrowed shirt—“that the idea of good versus evil, of happy endings, of great romance … isn’t all bullshit. Possibility, Blackbird. That’s what you are to me, what you have been since we snuggled up together in a homeless shelter on a shitty, stormy night.”
