Mayhem at Prescott High

by Stunich, C. M.

  “It’s my wedding gift to you guys,” Hael says, like I’m a crazy person. He turns back to Callum, Aaron, and Oscar, gesturing at them like he expects them to agree. “Bernadette deserves more than a quick dicking every now and again, am I right? Use a vibrator on her. Try a butt plug. Have some goddamn fun, Vic.”

  “Don’t involve me in this conversation,” Oscar says, watching something on his iPad. Probably a true crime show of some sort. He’s goddamn obsessed with them. He’s only got one earbud in though, so I know he can hear us. “What you do with your wife is none of my concern.”

  Fuck, he’s a silver-tongued liar. I scowl at Oscar as I slap some mayo on a piece of bread. When I’m done, I take a quick break to light a joint. It’s from our own special strain of weed: Havoc at Prescott High. It’s a sativa, nice and bright, prone to lending the smoker some much-needed creative highs.

  “None of his concern, huh, Period Dick?” Hael asks, snorting with laughter. Oscar lifts silver eyes to our friend’s face, and I see murder written into the sharp lines of his frown.

  “Period Dick?” Aaron echoes, because he’s the last one to know. To hear about Bernie and Oscar fucking in a pool of blood. Just thinking about it pisses me off so bad that I have to clench my teeth until they hurt. I’m trying to deal with this shit the best I can; makes sense that the easiest way for the boys and Bernie to bond would be sex. Sex is fun, and it breaks down barriers, but Jesus. She’s my goddamn wife now, and I don’t know how to share.

  There’s a reason we made a pact in junior high that we weren’t going to date her. Heh. In elementary school, we made a deal to protect her. Just Havoc and Bernadette, a relationship as old as time.

  “Bernie and Oscar had sex on your couch,” Callum says as I take a long drag on the joint. The weed hits my brain like a freight train, calming me down in an instant. I can do this; I can handle this. “That’s where the new bloodstain came from. Not that it mattered, since we were having trouble getting all of your blood out of the fabric anyway.” Cal shoves a handful of chips into his mouth, chewing on them thoughtfully as he leans his blond head back against the window behind him. “Might want to consider digging into the Havoc account for a new sofa.”

  “You and Bernadette …” Aaron starts, looking over at Oscar like he’s never seen him before. Trust me: I felt the same way when I saw what was going on between them in the kitchen. But I need, need, need them to get along. Our group will break apart if we don’t figure out a careful dance around our emotions. And that’s not acceptable. We are a family. The world is a monster. This is our armor against its razor-sharp teeth.

  “Momentary lapse in judgement,” Oscar says, pretending he still cares about the episode playing on his iPad. I know him too well for that crap. His knuckles are pale; even with all the tattoos on them, I can see that. “Does it matter? We said she was our girl when she joined, so our girl she is, whether I like it or not.”

  “Aren’t you a virgin though?” Hael asks, and I swear to fuck, I can hear the screen on Oscar’s iPad break when he squeezes it too hard. “Or should I say, were you a virgin? I mean, considering you’re most definitely not now.” Hael howls with laughter, but he clearly isn’t paying attention to Oscar’s temper. He has a long fuse, but when it burns down, he’s a fucking maniac.

  “Hael …” I warn, looking between him and Oscar. Aaron looks crestfallen; Callum is clearly amused.

  “You were a virgin?” Cal asks, cocking his head to the side like a puppy. “How did I not know that?”

  “He never talks about sex; I just sort of picked up on it.” Hael folds his hands together behind his head as Oscar sets aside the iPad, rising to his feet, shirtless and furious. I just hope he doesn’t have a weapon on him.

  “Picked up on it?” he echoes, moving across the gargantuan living room in bare feet and black sweats. “Because you’re such a filthy whore, you’re suddenly an expert at sex?” Oscar pauses in front of Hael, but neither of them is going to back down if they get into a thing, so I have to intervene.

  Being the leader sucks ass sometimes.

  “Lay off each other,” I order, before somebody starts shit in here. “This is my honeymoon, and if one of you fucks it up, I swear on the devil’s dick that I’ll cut yours off.” I take another drag on the joint as Hael moves a step back, opening one of the two undercounter freezers to search for more ice cream.

  “Look, I wasn’t judging, just asking. If I could go back in time and save myself for the one, I’d do the same damn thing.” Hael bats his eyelashes at Oscar as I stab the tip of the knife into the countertop. Both boys turn to look at me, but I don’t have to say anything else: they know I mean business.

  “What happened with Bernadette was a mistake,” Oscar repeats, but there’s a bit of strain in his voice that I’m not used to hearing. We look at each other and I know he knows I’m not happy with his obsession with her. He’s always been that way: clinically motherfucking obsessed. He also seems to hate her, but that part I don’t quite understand as well. “Now that she’s married to Victor, I assume we’ll all go back to having romantic lives of our own.”

  “That’s not what Bernadette thinks,” Callum says, hopping off the window seat and moving into the kitchen. Hael tries to snatch the potato chips from him, but he almost quite literally skips out of the way to keep them to himself.

  “She said she’d have no other girl in Havoc,” Aaron adds, pausing at the edge of the living room, one step down from the upper level where the kitchen is. The whole place is open and gaping, not a wall to be seen. I hate that open concept shit. I like a house where you could, say, live in the walls and nooks and nobody would notice you. “It’s pretty clear what she wants.” Aaron crosses his arms over his baggy pink t-shirt. It says Fuck Breast Cancer on it. Pretty sure Bernie gave it to him when they were dating freshman year.

  “We are never adding another member to Havoc again,” Oscar agrees, pushing his glasses up with his middle finger. I’m damn near certain he does that when he’s annoyed but trying to maintain his temper. “That doesn’t mean we can’t fuck or date—with approval from the rest of us.” The sneer he levels on Hael is legendary. “Because your failure with Brittany Burr is still haunting us all. In fact, it almost got Bernadette killed.”

  Hael’s face pales, his hand going white around the ice cream container he’s holding. He stares down at it with brown eyes, like he’s fighting to control his temper. He’s never been very good at that, at hiding his emotions, whatever they may be.

  “Isn’t that why we agreed to have a Havoc Girl in the first place? To keep outsiders out?” Hael pops the top on the ice cream and moves over to another drawer in search of a spoon. “We’re all red-blooded men; we have needs. I just thought we’d finally, after all these years of bullshit, agreed to meet those needs with the one girl any of us has ever wanted.” He taps the spoon against the countertop for a moment. “She asked me not to sleep with another girl without telling her. What do you think that means?”

  “I’m not giving her up,” Aaron says after several long minutes of silence. I flick the butt of the joint into the sink, my muscles tensing up as my gaze clashes with Aaron’s. We’ve had this feud for years, even if it was unspoken. He knows I’m his competition and, much as I’m loath to admit it, he’s mine.

  They all are.

  Goddamn it.

  “We are not letting Bernadette break us apart,” Oscar growls out. His right hand, the one resting on the countertop, balls into a fist. Callum watches him the way an animal watches another when he knows he’s dangerous. Slowly, carefully, he shoves another chip into his mouth.

  “She won’t break you apart at all if you stop fighting,” a husky voice says from the staircase. We all turn to look at Bernadette, her hair tousled from a proper fuck, her thighs bare and white and marked with bruises and hickeys beneath the hem of my t-shirt. She must’ve snatched it from the floor in a hurry to come down here.

  I’m just glad she didn’t wear h
er wedding dress; it belongs to me now, and I don’t want another man to look at or touch her in it.

  “Hey there, Bernie,” Cal says, putting on those bullshit smiles he only wears for her. He smiles like the old Callum, the one that had dreams of dancing. He stopped smiling like that for a while, but the expression is back. I should be happy about that, but I’m struggling.

  I love my friends; I need my girl.

  I slide a hand over my face as Bernadette saunters—doubt she even knows she’s sauntering—into the kitchen, yawning and stretching her arms over her head. The shirt rides up; we almost see her cunt. I growl without even meaning to.

  “Why are you guys talking about me like I don’t have a say or an opinion?” she asks, commanding the room as effortlessly as she walks. I’m enthralled. Doesn’t take a fucking genius to see the rest of my degenerate friends feel the same way. Why shouldn’t they? They’re all dark and fucked-up and dangerous. Only a very special girl could handle us. Only a wicked angel could understand.

  Shit.

  Motherfucker.

  I want to scream because I know I have two crappy choices: keep Bernie as mine (as she rightfully should be) or put our family and my friends over myself.

  I’m going to have to share her.

  I don’t like it, but then, I’m used to doing things I don’t like. Entertaining Ophelia, putting up with my father, digging up rotten corpses. That’s life, man.

  There’s going to be a steep learning curve though. Can’t change a man in a night.

  “Old habits,” Aaron says, before anyone else gets a chance to answer her. “We’ve been talking about you—but without you—since we were eight.” He watches her with an affectionate gaze as she moves into the kitchen. Without a word, I push the plate with the finished sandwich over to her.

  Mine.

  I’ll fuck my girl, feed my girl, kill for my girl.

  “Thanks,” she says, hooking a saucy smile my way. My cock stiffens at the sight of her pretty lips curving up at the edges. “I could get used to this: my man making me a sandwich after sex.” I just bark a laugh out because I don’t care about things like that; I’ll make the sandwiches every time. Society is broken and twisted, so what do I give a shit about some old sexist rules? This thing between me and Bernadette is older than that, ancient, primal. “Still, I want to know why Oscar here is talking about me breaking up Havoc.” She bites into the sandwich as she glares at him.

  He taps his inked fingers on the countertop and glares right back. Looking at him right now, I hate him with a passion for getting to see Bernie in her wedding dress before I did. I bet I know what he was thinking. He probably had that gleam in his eye, that wicked little glimmer that speaks to unspeakable things.

  “He wants the rest of us to start dating, now that you and Vic are hitched,” Hael says, popping the top off the ice cream and digging through the vanilla for a stray cookie dough piece. See, that’s always been his problem: he isn’t patient enough. Take a bite of vanilla and wait for something good. I’ve sort of always figured he was trying to fuck Bernadette out of his system. Apparently, it didn’t work.

  “This is what Oscar wants?” Bernadette clarifies, her eyes sliding over to Aaron and then, surprisingly, flicking to Callum.

  “It’s not what I want,” Aaron says, tucking his hands into his pockets and looking down at the floor. He has red roses tattooed on his left foot that he stares at for a second before looking back up at Bernie. “You know that. I love you; I’ve always loved you. Legal marriage to Vic was for business purposes.”

  “Watch your mouth, Aaron,” I growl out at him. Because I might start breaking faces, I decide to light up another joint. “Legal marriage to Bernadette is my fucking right. I’m the boss.” I take two drags and pass the joint to Bernie. She does the same, and on it goes, into Aaron’s hands. Oscar passes it without smoking, giving it to Callum, Hael, and then back to me.

  There’s beauty in it, the ritual of smoking pot.

  “Cal?” Bernie asks, like she’s genuinely curious. She’s stopped eating the sandwich, so I take it from her hands and finish it off as she wipes crumbs on the front of her borrowed tee. “How do you feel about it?”

  “Depending on your answer, you’ll have mine,” he says with a soft smile. You’d never know by looking at him that he tied a couple up in their bedroom and gagged them earlier.

  “My answer …” Bernie starts as I pass her the joint again. She crinkles her brow in thought, her pink-tipped blond hair mussy and frothing around her gorgeous face. I can smell her from here, too, like something sweet mixed with something urban. Fruit and leather, maybe. But summer sweet fruit specifically. I exhale and adjust my dick in my pants. Hael rolls his eyes. “If I said everything …” she ventures, and Cal’s smile rachets up a notch. He would fucking die for her, Callum would.

  “Then you know what I want,” he adds with a bit of a shrug.

  “You still owe me a blowie,” Hael decides to chime in for no reason other than because he’s a fucking dick. The look I give him could peel paint. He pretends not to notice, as usual. Easier to act like he doesn’t hear me than openly defy my orders.

  “What exactly is it that Callum wants?” I clarify, splaying my fingers out on the surface of the counter. Those blue eyes of his stare right back at me, promising that if I mess this thing up, he won’t be such a tame puppy for me anymore. Maybe Bernadette can’t see it, but I know, always have known. Callum Park is a nightmare in dreamlike clothing.

  He smiles at me, but I stand my ground.

  “You know what I want, Victor. It’s what I’ve always wanted: Bernadette.”

  Cal’s statement ripples through the six of us, making me grit my teeth. His blue eyes are locked on mine, watching, waiting. I don’t doubt that I could bring the other guys to heel. It’s what I do; I’m the motherfucking boss.

  The thing is, I love them. They’re my brothers. My family.

  I look at Bernadette and find her studying Oscar, of all people, like she’s waiting for a statement from him. He gives her nothing, as usual, pushing his glasses up his nose. I think that out of all of us, he’s disappointed at seeing her here, crawling on her belly in a nest of vipers. We are all snakes now.

  “Whatever your conclusion, Victor,” Oscar begins, turning back to me with that stoic mask of his in place. His mouth is a flat line, his eyes as gray as the ocean in a storm. “Make your mind up, and do it quickly, so we can move on. As entertaining as romantic entanglements can be, we have life or death business on our roster.”

  “Is that how you really feel?” Bernie asks him, frowning hard, nostrils flared with anger. I can see her hands tightening into fists where they rest on the counter. My eyes lift to hers, and I see that Oscar’s hurt her. Makes me want to wring his neck, to be fucking honest with ya. “Let Vic decide, move on. Business as usual.”

  “Were you expecting something different?” Oscar asks, setting his iPad on the counter. If I know him—and I do—he’s going to wait until everyone else is asleep before he eats anything. He’ll do it in the dark, by himself, because god forbid we see him with a bit of sauce on his lips or crumbs on his shirt. He’s never wanted to be human. Fucking Bernadette the way he did? That proves he is and he hates it.

  “When I said you owe me a blowie, what I meant was that I’m now officially single and unattached so …” Hael inserts, and I grit my teeth.

  “And Bernadette Channing is a married woman.” I step back from the counter, my eyes finding Aaron’s. He’s been awfully quiet, but that won’t last. He’s only going to keep his tongue for so long before he challenges me. If he does, I’ll have to put him in his place, and I don’t want to do that.

  You have two choices, Victor, I tell myself as I stare at Aaron. Choose Bernie for yourself or choose Havoc.

  There has only ever been one appropriate choice.

  “When you’ve been lied to by everyone around you, when you have nothing else, you realize the one currency you can carr
y is truth. So a single word does have meaning. A promise does hold importance. And a pact is worth carrying to the grave.”

  My own words echo around inside my head, a reminder that when we laid out Bernie’s price, I said our girl. A Havoc Girl. I am as bound and beholden to that price as she is.

  She cannot belong to me and me alone while I still hold the reigns of this family. Those things are mutually exclusive.

  Just … I can’t make any changes today.

  I am not ready today.

  “She’s a married woman, and this is my honeymoon. I am done discussing this shit tonight.” I gesture with my chin toward the stairs. “Let’s go, Bern.” She tears her gaze away from Oscar like she’d just as soon slit his fucking throat.

  “You’re right: we can talk about it later,” Aaron agrees, while still also managing to be an asshole. I resist the urge to flip him off. I gave Bernadette to him to take care of once. Nobody can ever say that I didn’t try. I did. I left her alone. I gave her away. I pushed her away. Yet, here she is.

  A man can only be so strong, even one who’s as stubborn as this asshole right here.

  Bernadette is my blood and my breath and my bone.

  The Havoc Boys are my brothers.

  Something will have to give and, like any true leader can tell you, sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do, make decisions you don’t want to make. Sometimes you have to admit you were wrong and readjust the way you look at the world. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar; beware the silver-tongued serpent.

  Bernie says nothing as I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her close, breathing in the sweet scent of her hair. If I could keep her all to myself, I would. In my heart, I know she is mine and mine alone, but I’m also sure that neither of us will be happy if we let our love and obsession with one another drive away the rest of Havoc.

  Blood in, blood out.

  That statement holds true, even if it’s just me bleeding on the fucking inside.

  “We’ll talk about it when I damn well say it’s time,” I snarl out, cracking my knuckles. Aaron scowls at me, but he can make faces all he wants. Hael rolls his eyes and Callum smiles. Oscar … he simply turns away and heads for a pair of French doors that lead to the deck. Even though it’s just started raining, he walks outside, barefoot and wearing pajamas, and closes the doors behind him.