Mayhem At Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #3)(25)

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 her 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.”