Page 192 of Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 5)
As he always does, Vic smells of amber and musk, he’s big and warm and dominant and annoying and perfect. My soul mate with ebon eyes—one more time, ebon, ebon, ebon—and purple-dark hair and tattoos and a monster dick that belongs to one woman and one woman only.
“Let’s do this,” he purrs, licking up the side of my neck and making me shiver.
Oscar rolls his eyes, but he isn’t actually upset. He just likes to quip and pick and needle because it’s how he survived for so many years.
“Miss me?” I ask as he adjusts his glasses on his perfect nose, as I take in the ink crawling up his neck and over his hands. The way he looks at me, with eyes the color of gravestones and fog and full moons edged in starlight, tells me all that I need to know. He does. He did. He’s as obsessive as I am, as any of the other boys are.
“Of course not. Why on earth would you think that?” he quips as I grin at him and give him a hug anyway, breathing in that distinctive cinnamon scent of his. His hair is still black, he still dyes it, and that’s okay. He can manifest his pain in whatever way suits him best.
“I saved you a seat,” Cal says, perching on one of the swivel chairs behind the counter. The tattoo artist looks on, unamused but also unable to say a goddamn thing. Because we’re still Havoc. And there’s still one gang you don’t want to piss off in the city of Springfield.
“I see that,” I say as he stands up and then hops over the back of the chair as easily as anything, moving over to embrace me in a sweet-smelling cotton and Tide scented hug. He still smells like talc and aftershave, and he still teaches dance in a big, beautiful studio in the southside that never charges a dime. His eyes are still blue and endless and perfect, and his mouth is still that of a fallen prince’s. His hair is still gold and reminiscent of sunshine. “Thank you for that. Because, you know, if I hadn’t gotten here soon enough, it’d have been taken.”
We pull apart with a bit of reluctance as I look up at Hael.
Hael, with the bloodred hair who still wears it in a fauxhawk, who still has a scar on his arm from a dad that didn’t love him enough, who still blames himself for what happened to me and sometimes wakes up with nightmares that I soothe away with the sweetness of my cunt.
We are a family, but we’re still broken in some ways. And that’s okay. Nobody expected us to heal into perfect model citizens overnight. Or in five years. Or, like, ever.
“Blackbird,” he says, indicating the chair with his hand, like he’s performing yet another chivalrous act. An act like, say, fixing our cars after that shootout so that I can still drive around in a Cadillac with the top down and my red-dipped hair tousled by the wind. This boy, he smells like coconut oil and grease, and he still plays with vintage cars. He just does most of that work in the five-car garage that Victor built beside the old house. “Your throne awaits.”
I sit down and somebody—maybe Vic—puts that stupid ass crown back on my head.
It’s mostly symbolic, mostly just for fun.
Oscar kneels down on the floor beside me so that he can watch. He can watch as the tattoo artist cleans the left side of my neck and transfers the design we’ve been working on for weeks right there, beneath my ear.
Five names.
Not just letters.
But names.
“Necks hurt,” Oscar tells me, his eyes half-lidded and protective. “Horrendously so.”
Our hands curl together, and I close my eyes as I think about all the hiccups and potholes and bumps in the road we’ve been through in the last half a decade. He still gets scared sometimes, still brings me to the tattoo or piercing parlor, so that he can feel that sharp slice of pain and remind himself that physical pain is never as bad as emotional. Never. And also, that it’s okay to hurt and bleed and maybe even cry, although he never does.
The boys sit with me while I get my tattoo, and then they each get their own (even Aaron who already has Bernadette etched into his flesh).
My name, their skin.
All of us marked, drawn together with blood and ink and bullshit.
Then, even though we’re hurting a bit, we go out. We party. We drink. We dance.
We go home together, and that’s the best twenty-third birthday present I ever could’ve asked for.Ten years later …“Stop it, Bernie,” Heather snaps at me, slapping at my hands. I’ve got a cigarette hanging from my lips as I desperately try to fix a stray strand of hair that’s clinging to her forehead. She looks beautiful—of course she does because I’m a Prescott bitch through and through and I know just how to do makeup—but she keeps fussing like she’s second-guessing herself. “My date will be here soon.”
