Mayhem At Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #3)(8)

Gritting my teeth, I give Aaron's arm one, last squeeze, hating myself for not having spoken to him about Oscar yet. It feels like cheating, and I don't like that. I mean, I know it's not, and we've just been busy as shit lately, but that doesn't make me feel any less bad about it.

“Period dick,” I snap at Oscar as I walk by him, flipping my hair into his face. Either I just can't hear his reaction over the waves or else he knows better than to talk back to me after just being scolded by Victor.

“Your ass, those shorts, holy motherfucker,” Hael murmurs, and when I glance back at him, I see him sucking on his lower lip. I give him a coy smile, ignoring Vic’s dark glare, and turn back around, making sure to toss and ruffle my hair with my fingers. My cheeks are most definitely hanging out of these shorts; my top is most definitely riding up to expose just a hint of my belly button. I learned a long time ago that monsters will hunt you and eat you, whether you wear trash bags or ho heels.

Besides, it’s my body. I’ll do whatever the fuck I want with it. Victor … maybe needs to get the memo.

The guy who runs the dune buggy place takes one look at the group of us—inked, young, irreverent—and asks for double the usual security deposit.

“Money is not an issue,” Oscar lies, handing the guy a prepaid debit card. I'm not sure if the guys stole it, or if it actually belongs to them. Either way, it's likely untraceable. The employee takes the damn thing like it’s dirty, hands over a contract for Victor to sign, and scrutinizes his fake ID—it says his name is Craig Johansen—for a very painful, very silent three minutes.

“We should raise the driver's age to twenty-one, if you ask me,” the idiot grumbles, like he's either brain-dead or has lived such a charmed life that he can't recognize danger when it's staring him straight in the face. How are his instincts not picking up on Callum's unblinking stare?

He's just lucky that the Havoc Boys take no unnecessary risks.

“Fuck, I hate people like that,” Cal says, glancing over his shoulder as the employee dawdles off, leaving us with the keys and a six-seater Ranger Crew XP 1000. Basically, it's like a souped-up golf cart for fucking around in the sand. “Such a judgy asshole. If I had spare time, I'd hide in his closet and scare the shit out of him when he came home.”

“Goddamn, you're creepy,” Hael murmurs with a roll of his brown eyes. He can joke all he wants about Callum, but I've seen his face dark and shuttered from emotion. Even the way he looked at Vic at the garage, when he was telling him to apologize to me, that was terrifying. I mean, not to me. But I would've pissed myself if I were Vic. “Oh,” he starts, grinning as he glances over at Oscar and lifts up the keys for inspection. Hael jingles them around, like he's teasing an angry cat with a bell toy. “You know you aren't getting that security deposit back, right?”

“I'm fully aware of that,” Oscar retorts, completely deadpan. His face is a perfect porcelain mask, like some sort of obscure art piece, so clean and empty and smooth with a frame of wicked ink at his neck. The lenses of his glasses shine, as freakishly clean as usual. I actually have to clench my hands into fists at my sides to keep from stepping forward and smudging the fuck out of them. “Get in the buggy, Hael.”

“Somebody's cranky,” Hael chuckles, grabbing the helmet off the seat and shoving it over his red faux-hawk. He pushes the visor up, so he can give Oscar another look. “Do you need another dip in Bernadette's period blood, huh? Would that calm you down?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, get in the goddamn buggy and shut your fat mouth,” Vic snaps as the color drains from my face. I'd thought Hael was asleep when I confronted Oscar in the bedroom; I was sort of under the impression that Hael and Aaron didn't know about me and Oscar yet. Victor gives me a look, as if to say well, what did you expect, we're family. I bet he told Hael. Even considering the closeness that Havoc brings, he and Hael are besties for sure.

That means … Aaron is the only one that doesn't know.

Goddamn it.

“Wicked,” Callum snickers, but he's smiling when I glance back at him. He holds out a hand, as if the dune buggy is some sort of carriage led by white horses. I put my fingers in his and let him help me in, even though I could've easily gotten in myself.

“He gets to do chivalrous stuff, but I can't?” Hael jokes as I flip him off and use the hair-tie on my wrist to put my hair into a messy bun at the base of my neck.

“He isn't cocky about it,” I quip back as Callum takes the seat on my left while Vic grabs the one on my right. Oscar sits in the passenger seat while Hael cackles as he sticks the keys into the ignition.

“Babe, if you're waiting around for me to stop being cocky, you'll be prehistoric before that happens.” Hael flips his visor down as I grab my own helmet and put it on. I'd bet my ass that the guys would normally shirk the idea of safety for safety's sake, but then … the helmets offer an element of anonymity. That, and there's a bit of a creepy factor to them, the way they hide the eyes.

Hael lets out a whoop of excitement as he starts the engine and takes off down the winding path toward the beach. We fly over a small bump at the end of the road, and my stomach lurches into my throat. It's fun, and I find myself grinning, despite the notion that we're actually going to see Coraleigh Vincent at some point this afternoon.