Chapter 19 #3
I crack the top and hand it out. Interlocked inked fingers, his and mine.
A shared smile. He knows I’m going through it for him and he loves it.
What was it he said to me outside the speakeasy party house that night?
That he wasn’t getting with me until I admitted that I want him?
I should do that, just in case we die and everything. I love you is not the same thing.
“You own another house?” I query, because he said it like it’s normal for people to own multiple properties at the tender age of eighteen. “What if the Mayor and Co. check public records or something?”
“Everything I own is under a trust,” Bohnes explains casually, sipping the soda and lifting his eyes past me to examine the other three men behind me.
I know Widow’s got the spider name, but I hope they understand that they’re caught in the web of Kellin Bohnes as thoroughly as I am.
If they ever betray us, if they leave me, if they cheat on me, he will summarily execute them.
Depending on their crime, he might torture them first.
I turn around, finding the other three watching us.
Can they tell that Bohnes is near perfect?
I’m not asking any of them to aspire to his greatness: I want to see them shine for who they are.
Ash needs to accept that his soft, gooey core is his strength.
Alexei is a gentleman and a strategist. Widow is…
moving up to stand in front of Bohnes with a resigned expression on his face.
“I hate to say it, but you’re an impressive bastard.
” Widow’s jaw is tight, but I watch him close his eyes and work out that aggression and tension by clenching and then forcibly relaxing his hands.
That is his superpower. Self-control. And love freely given.
Ew. “Where do you want the, uh, guests?”
“Aw, do you have a crush on me now, too?” Bohnes teases, but Widow doesn’t respond with anything but a shrug of his shoulder. No anger. No rude quips. That’s a big deal. My heart explosion catches fire. Blue and gold eyes, poor boys, fuckboys, Prescott boys.
“Denying that you know what the fuck you’re doing would make me look stupid, don’t you think?” Widow tucks his hands into the pockets of his holey jeans, still shirtless. Still not lookin’ at his nipples. “Tell me where to unload the idiots.”
“I have a special holding facility for our friends.” Bohnes gestures with his chin in the direction of the bus and the pair of them take off, leaving me alone with the rich boys.
I turn around to see that Ash has set Frog-Aspen’s terrarium on the dining table.
He’s fixing the water that got spilled during our two high-speed chases.
His hands are shaking. There are angry tears at the edges of his eyes.
The samurai sword lies across the tabletop, caked with Maryanne’s dried blood.
Alexei has on a fresh pair of gloves—pink ones that go up to the elbows.
He must’ve fished them out from under the sink.
I see the packaging torn open and lying next to him.
The muscles in his arms bunch as he hangs his head, hands flat on the countertop, pale hair falling over his forehead and shadowing his eyes from me.
“I need to be straight honest with you, Grove. I didn’t expect you to hop in and help break those cars down.
You impressed me.” I take a sip of my soda, my mind doing her damnedest to reconcile the pair of them in my Nightmare’s house.
Two worlds collide, rich and poor. Nah, more like five worlds collide.
From this point forward, we’ll be spending ninety-percent of our time together.
Hope they like group activities. My mind flashes with a dirty memory of Widow and Bohnes, fucking me in Gram’s living room.
Shit. Group activities is right. If I have four fuckboys, I should be able to fuck or be fucked by four fuckboys—at the same time or in rapid succession.
Alexei turns his head to look at me, peering with haughty disdain and unparalleled arrogance in my direction.
He slides his gloved hands off the counter with a squeak and turns to me, walking over until his toes and mine are touching.
He puts one gloved hand on the side of my neck, like a germaphobic serial killer.
“I may have…proclivities, but what sort of weak, limp-wristed man would I be if I let those feelings get in the way of my life?” He looks into my eyes like he wants to say something, like he’s one inhale away from letting it out.
Alexei closes his eyes and turns away, his hand still on my neck. I also don’t stare at his nipples.
I’m so tired. Need sleep. Need it desperately.
There’s a lot my fatigue-smoothed brain needs to process.
Alexis. Lemon, in a cardboard box. My grandma hating me.
The home I grew up in, burned to the ground.
The idea that we’ve antagonized the Mayor and Co.
(TM, all rights reserved, copyright for eternity).
The boys teaming up on me at the track when they should only be teaming up on me in the bedroom.
Losing the race. Losing my very first race.
I put my hands on Alexei’s midsection, my palms sliding across his naked skin.
He tenses up and the hand on my neck tightens.
But then I lean in for an impromptu hug and he releases that hold abruptly, adjusting his arms to slide them around me.
My cheek rests against his chest, my eyes fluttering closed.
“I’m so very sorry about your sister,” Alexei murmurs, putting his lips near my dirty hair.
I’m as desperate for a shower as I am for sleep.
There’s blood on me from the massacre Ash conducted in his living room.
Oil and grease and dirt from our game of grand theft auto parts.
I’m surprised that this oligarch brat is holding me as tenderly as he is.
“You’ve experienced too much loss lately. ”
His voice catches, and I know that his loss is just as great.
Pavel Borisov, for the brief few moments I knew him, seemed like a really cool dude.
He didn’t treat me differently because I had tattoos and was wearing a slutty dress.
He didn’t ogle me or leer at me. And fuck, the way Chet Archer looked at him, like he was scum, meant he was probably the opposite.
Alexei and I both have broken hearts. Maybe that means we can more easily fit our jagged pieces together?
“You smell good,” I mumble, halfway to sleep even while I’m standing up. I sag into Alexei and he keeps me upright. I force my heavy lids open, catching Ash’s eyes by accident. He’s seated in the velvet throne chair at Bohnes’ table, his frog in front of him, sword on his lap.
Unlike last time he caught me and Alexei in a compromising position, he doesn’t try to blow the other rich boy’s brains out. That’s some marked character growth on his part. I’m proud.
The man that killed Alexei’s father is outside, locked up in some cage and awaiting his just deserts.
It’s a gift that Ash bestowed on his compadre, and I know Alexei won’t soon forget.
Widow either. And then with Bohnes acting like Daddy-with-a-capital-D of the group, we’re on the road to becoming a cohesive unit.
“Man, I forgot how much I hated Trish,” Widow mumbles as he follows Bohnes into the warehouse, pausing to turn and throw the heavy doors closed like they’re made of paper. The muscles in his back and arms bunch and release as he secures them.
Bohnes glances briefly at me wrapped in Alexei’s arms, flicks his attention to Ash and the frog. Tosses his empty soda can into a recycling bin like he’s not an immortal ghoul.
Can’t be easy for a recluse like him to have so many people in his house. No, not just people: fuckboys. Ouch. I should be as nice to him as I can be.
“Sorry about all this, Kellin, you having to bring my other lovers into your space.” I squeeze Alexei once more and attempt to extricate myself. Doesn’t work. He tightens the circle of his arms and exhales, breath stirring my hair.
“A nest of kicked hornets isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
” Bohnes tilts his head to the side and then bares his teeth in a threatening smile.
“One bee sting hurts, a hive is deadly.” He drags a beer and some blueberries from the fridge, and I don’t bother to mention that hornets and bees are different things. It was a good analogy anyway.
Here we are. A merry band of freaks. I’m the only one amongst us who has family left.
The mayor doesn’t count in Ash’s case. Their relationship as father and son has long been cancelled.
Only one of the two will live through this.
I have to make sure it’s my kawaii Kelly-Kitagawa.
We could be a family, the five of us. Nisha, Basti. My crew. Gram.
“What are the sleeping arrangements?” Widow asks around a yawn, giving the killdozer another look. But then he’s just too tired to care. “I assume that’s what we’re doing, sleeping here?”
“That’s the plan.” Bohnes unscrews the Mason jar and pours blueberries in a bowl, snatching a handful up and putting them in his mouth with a shudder.
He’s hungry. My stomach growls. I’m hungry.
Ash is gazing at the bowl longingly and, in an act of magnificent magnanimity, Bohnes pushes the bowl in his direction.
“Thank you,” Ash murmurs, taking a handful for himself. “I’ll have a beer, too, if you don’t mind.” He stands up, but Bohnes pushes the one he just opened over and then gets another from the fridge. Whoa. I’m not sure how to interpret this interaction.
We’re moving fast here. That’s okay with me. If an opportunity strolls by, you sprint after it and tackle it to the ground.
“I’m mildly upset with myself for wanting to decapitate you and put your head on a pike in my front yard.” Bohnes sighs and slumps into the golden oak chair, slamming his elbows on the table, and putting his head in his hands.
Fuck. Even my Nightmare is exhausted.