“Have you heard from Thad?” Luke asks as April stands up straight and takes her proffered arm. The three of us head toward the front steps together, the Knight Crew following behind us.
Erina Cheney frowns when she sees me, but she doesn't say anything. She's clearly unstable, and it isn't my job to ‘fix’ her, but I also don't have to add to her problems. Pearl's, either. I wave when I see her, smiling as she pauses and then, hesitantly, waves back.
Eventually, I'll talk to Calix about her baby, but it's a complicated issue and not entirely my business. But I'll do what I can. That's all any of us can ever do, but if we all try, then it's enough. It's more than enough.
“Thad is flying in next week,” April says with a private little smile. Luke and I both recognize that look, exchanging grins of our own. “He's going to stay here until the baby comes, no matter what his parents say.”
“Fuck his parents,” Luke declares as we pause near her locker. I glance back to see Calix, Barron, Raz, and Sonja standing near the front entrance. They're acting casual, like this is any other day, but every now again, a pair of eyes flicks toward us. Watching. Waiting. This is a new normal for us; it's going to take some adjustment. “We're moving to New Orleans together at the end of the year and starting our own family.”
“I'd like that,” April says, rubbing her belly and then sighing as she looks up at us. “Just … if you guys are bringing them”—she gestures in the Knight Crew's direction with a tilt of her head—“then we're going to need a big house. Huge.”
“We can't predict the future,” Luke says, blushing, but the way her eyes seek Sonja … It's fate, it seems, that my best friend and I would fall for another pair of besties. Pretty sure she didn't figure me falling for three assholes though.
Three jerks, all to myself.
“No, we can't,” I agree, thinking on my own experiences. “And every day, we make a dozen decisions that affect everyone around us. Today, I'm going to assume we're all moving to New Orleans to live happily ever after. That's good enough for me, that I'm happy right now, here, today.”
“Whoa, when did you get so profound?” Luke asks, but I just laugh.
“I'll explain it all later, I promise,” I say, fingering my butterfly necklace and closing my eyes for a brief moment. “Tomorrow, actually.”
Tomorrow.
What a novel fucking idea.
I actually have a tomorrow coming, and it's the best thing that's ever happened to me.
“Okay then, weirdo,” Luke snorts, ruffling up my hair as I open my eyes. “Whatever you say.”
Footsteps sound behind us, and I turn to see the Knight Crew waiting.
“Did you like my drawings?” Barron whispers, sliding the sketchbook from my hands. “I dream of you every night, and then I sketch what I see.”
“I love it,” I tell him truthfully as Raz approaches, hands tucked into the pockets of his slacks. He has idle hands, that boy.
“Love what?” he asks, blue eyes narrowing in on me.
“You,” I respond, looking right at him and then turning my attention to Calix as he moves over to us. “And you.” My gaze moves to Barron. “And you.”
“I don't know how to process that,” Calix tells me, but I notice he has to pause and swallow a few times before he can keep talking. “But this year, you can do what you want. We owe you that, at least.”
“After this year … come to New Orleans with us,” I say, gesturing back at my friends. “Don't think too hard about it. Just say yes. If you change your minds later, that's okay, but for now, just say yes.”
“I'm down for New Orleans,” Raz says, hands still tucked in his pockets. “Party central.”
“Vibrant art scene,” Barron adds, giving me a secret smile.
“And you,” Calix says, nodding and then taking off down the hallway.
I can't decide if he's saying and you as another bullet point on the list of why New Orleans would be an interesting place to live.
Or if he's telling me he loves me.
Either way, it doesn't matter.
Because he does.
And so does Raz. So does Barron.
I know because they told me.
I know because they showed me.
The bell rings, and I take a moment to reach up and fix my tie, straighten my blazer, and adjust a button on my shirt.
“Shall we?” Raz asks, holding out an elbow for me to take. “C'est l'heure d'aller à notre putain de cours de français à la con.” It's time to head to our stupid, fucking French class.
“I'm impressed,” I tell him, and he grins back at me, nice and sharp, as devilish today as he was on September 25th. Just as naughty. Just as full of tricks. “Let's go.”
We head down the hallway, April, Luke, Barron, and Sonja just behind us, Calix just in front.
To them, it's just another day.
For me, it's a tomorrow I never thought I'd see.
And I thank the universe with every single breath I take for giving it to me.
Each moment we have here on this earth is worth being thankful for because it's more than we're owed.
I wave goodbye to Calix and Barron, Luke and April, before Raz, Sonja, and I step into the classroom and into our own version of tomorrow.
Two years later …
The full moon casts a silver glow on the gravel as the boys and I move across the frozen ground together, heading for the stone steps that lead up to my aunt Donna's cottage.
“God, that was weird as fuck,” Raz snorts, lighting up a cigarette and pausing near the retaining wall as he inhales. “No wonder I've never done a ghost tour before.”
I push my mask up and off of my face, giving Raz a raised brow and a look.
“Theodore Rasmus Loveren,” I scold, and he shudders as Barron chuckles and Calix smirks, enjoying his discomfort. Just because they're no longer bullying me, that doesn't mean they're finished being bullies to each other. “Were you afraid?”
“Like hell I was,” he snorts as Barron pushes the hood of his red sweatshirt back. “I just don't believe in ghosts, so really, we just forked over cash for a boring-ass history lesson.” I grin, but Raz can complain as much as he wants; during our tour of the old morgue in the basement of the Crescent Hotel, he grabbed my hand and squeezed. The little pissant was scared, whether he wants to admit it or not.
“I enjoyed it,” Calix says as I look over and meet his eyes, a sharpness arcing through me as I remember our breakfast at the Mud Street Café and our subsequent tryst in Michael's room. I swear, when we were in there today, and I met Calix's eyes, something strange passed between us. That feeling, it can't be faked or manufactured. In his own way, he remembers. “Besides, it's Halloween. Don't be an asshole, Raz.”
Raz narrows his red eyes on Calix as Barron sits down and flips his sketchbook open. I admire that, the way he falls into his work at every available opportunity. I'm learning from his dedication. I mean, that's not the only thing I'm learning from Barron Farrar, but the rest of his lessons are a bit darker, a bit more sensual.
“Seriously, do you believe in that shit, Lix? Ghosts and faeries and crap.”
“He might not, but I do,” I say as I grin and then head up the wide stone steps, using the code to let us in the deck-side door. The boys follow after me, stepping into the dark house as I turn on all the lights, filling the place with warmth.
“You really do?” Barron asks, carrying several reusable grocery bags into the kitchen, filled with the food we picked up at the store yesterday. We're going to need it, considering that we'll be staying here for the next week; the moms’ trailer is not big enough for me and my three boyfriends. I almost choke on laughter at the thought of them staying with Jane and Cathy; it wouldn’t go well for long. “Believe in faeries and ghosts and shit?”
How could I not, after everything that happened to me?
“Sometimes things happen that we can't explain,” I tell him, helping to unload the groceries. Calix and Raz spend the
time arguing with each other instead, but that's alright. They have their own issues to work on.
When I start a pot of coffee, Raz finally gives up and moves into the kitchen, pausing near the peninsula and putting his palms on the epoxied brick surface. His eyes widen as I glance over at him, the bag of coffee grounds in my hands. We look at each other and something passes between us, a fragment of memory that'll never truly be lost, not so long as I keep it in my heart.
“I'm never doing a ghost tour again,” he murmurs, but I just laugh as he slips out the door with Barron to light up some joints.
“There was something else I wanted to say to you tonight,” Calix starts, coming into the kitchen to stand beside me. He leans back against the counter, his velvet doublet unbuttoned, his leather pants low-slung enough that there's a bit of a sexy gap between the top of his waistband and the bottom of his shirt. I appreciate the boys wearing their Devils' Day costumes tonight, truly. It felt … important, somehow. I mean, it is Halloween, and we’re home for the first time in months. We’ve been living in New Orleans since graduation, and we don’t get back to Arkansas as much as I’d like. I only wish Luke and April could’ve come with us. Sonja, too, I suppose.
“And that is?” I ask, pouring four mugs full of coffee and turning to look at him, my heart racing frantically inside my chest.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you this for a while now, actually.” He crosses his arms over his chest and looks up at me. “I didn't have the courage before.”
“But you do now?”
“I do now,” he says, exhaling and lifting his dark gaze to focus on mine. “Karma, what I meant to say was … I want you to marry me.”
My cheeks flush red, and I find that the words have left me, stolen away by the spirits of All Hallows’ Eve. Too bad for them that I've tangled with much deadlier spirits on Devils' Day. These assholes could never compete.
“We're still in college,” I whisper back, because that's the right thing to say. “Plus … Raz and Barron …” But holy god, I want to say yes. I'd probably say yes to all of them, if they asked. So what do I do about that?
“Don't reply to me now,” Calix says, giving me a rare smile, as perfect as the jack-o-lantern outside on the porch. “Think about it.”
“I will,” I tell him, choking back tears as the door opens and the other boys step back in.
We take our coffees outside and sit on the deck, listening to the sounds of owls, the rustling of the deer in the brush, the distant scream of a cougar that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
When we head upstairs, we head up together, shedding clothes. Their hands are worshipful, their attention focused.
I spin around, now in nothing but a bra and panties, and push the door to the master bedroom open.
When I flick the light on, I gasp and clamp both hands over my mouth.
The room … is filled with butterflies.
“Diana fritillary,” I choke out as Raz gives me a huh, what? sort of look. Calix moves into the room, turning in a circle as he stares up at the rafters, covered in black butterflies. Some have orange-tipped wings, others blue. He moves to the window and pushes it open while I reach down and press the switch for the fan.
The movement in the air stirs the butterflies up from their resting places as my gaze slides over to Barron's. He's looking right at me, a smile lighting his lips. We both turn in unison as the swarm beats their wings like a single entity and takes up in a collective cloud, swirling toward the window and out into the night sky.
The moon smiles down on them, the silver light limning their wings, giving them a glorious send-off into an endless sky.
“That was beautiful,” I whisper as a warm hand circles around my own, pulling me toward the bed.
Together, we shed the rest of our clothing, naked bodies intertwined in the most sinful of ways. Wanton. Ribald. Lascivious.
A bacchanalia of devils.
We didn't start off our relationship in an easy or average sort of way, and that's not how we're going to continue it.
That's not how we're going to live today.
There is no blood on my steering wheel, no crashed car, no script to follow.
Just … life.
Unscripted.
Raw.
Real.
Mine.
The boys, and the future.
Because I don't have to choose between those things.
My name is Karma Sartain, and I can have it all.
The End…
The Havoc Boys, Book #1
Rich Boys of Burberry Prep, Book #1
Adamson All-Boys Academy, Book #1
Death by Deathbreak Motorcycle Club, Book #1
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About the Author
C.M. Stunich is a self-admitted bibliophile with a love for exotic teas and a whole host of characters who live full time inside the strange, swirling vortex of her thoughts. Some folks might call this crazy, but Caitlin Morgan doesn't mind - especially considering she has to write biographies in the third person. Oh, and half the host of characters in her head are searing hot bad boys with dirty mouths and skillful hands (among other things). If being crazy means hanging out with them everyday, C.M. has decided to have herself committed.
She hates tapioca pudding, loves to binge on cheesy horror movies, and is a slave to many cats. When she's not vacuuming fur off of her couch, C.M. can be found with her nose buried in a book or her eyes glued to a computer screen. She's the author of over a hundred novels – romance, new adult, fantasy, and young adult included. Please, come and join her inside her crazy. There's a heck of a lot to do there.
Oh, and Caitlin loves to chat (incessantly), so feel free to e-mail her, send her a Facebook message, or put up smoke signals. She's already looking forward to it.
Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance Page 44