“You shouldn’t be making anymore bets,” I tell him, flicking my gaze in his direction. He flashes a sharp grin at me because he knows exactly what I’m thinking about. Us. The Eldorado. Our oral sex bets … “Not when you’ve just finally paid yours back.”

“But I did pay you back—and it was epic,” Hael starts, leaning toward me and flashing one of his signature cocksure grins. “Bet you didn’t expect the ass play part though, huh?”

I give him a look as Cal chuckles and Oscar finally lifts his eyes from the screen of the iPad.

“Ass play?” he queries, in such a mild way that I know he’s immediately fascinated by the idea.

“Dude, you don’t get to take credit for the ass play when I was the one that shoved my finger up your ass first.” I quirk a brow to emphasize my point.

Hael roars with laughter, interrupting Aaron and Vic’s conversation with Tom. Both of my boys glance back at us, wearing similarly wry smiles.

“I didn’t come here to listen to your whore talk about anal,” Tom growls, and then Aaron is grabbing the man by his hair and wrenching him off the stool. The elderly owners of Wesley’s—those poor parents who lost their Prescott High alumnus son once upon a time—act like they don’t see any of this happening.

Even the adults in the Prescott neighborhood know who we are. Eventually, every person in this city will know. That, or they’ll remain blissfully ignorant because they walk in the light and have no need to see us creeping through the shadows.

Aaron shoves Tom to his knees and, at a subtle nod from Vic, removes a pistol from his belt. He presses it up against the side of Tom’s head. There are no cameras here, and we have—I glance at my phone—about nine minutes left before the cops catch up to us.

“Call my girl a whore again,” Aaron says, his face hard, his green-gold eyes honed-in on his prey. “I’ll wait.”

“What do you want from me?!” Tom wails, sounding frustrated and broken and sad. To be quite frank: I couldn’t give any fucks less how the bastard feels. He sells girls. He abuses his son. He was in love with Ophelia Mars, of all people.

“All we need you to do is include one of our girls in the group you’re sending to Kay’s on Friday. That’s it.” Vic leans in close, and I swear I can hear him growling under his breath. “And don’t you fucking dare ask me something asinine like and why should I? If you do, I might lose my shit and decide to shove the broken pieces of that beer bottle down your throat.”

“Send your girls to Kay’s?” Tom repeats, blinking stupidly in Vic’s direction before flicking his eyes up to Aaron’s face. He must know how close my lover is to pulling that trigger, just for the hell of it, and immediately softens his approach. “The GMP will kill me. I can’t betray them. And you shouldn’t either, not if you want to finish up high school.”

Aaron puts the gun away and then bends down beside Tom.

“I think the problem here is, you’re acting as if we asked you to send one of our girls in the group. Let me rephrase it so that you can understand: you will send one of our girls. Nobody has to know about it. Even the GMP won’t know what’s happening.”

“Mason will,” Tom chokes out as I check my phone yet again. We have six minutes left. Fuck.

“Six minutes, Aaron,” I warn, and he curses. We need Tom to get the fuck out of here before our police escort shows up. His police escort was left back at a café in town where one of our crew members shoved Tom out the restroom window and drove him here to meet us. The clock is ticking on that, too.

“Fuck Mason,” Aaron growls, yanking Tom’s head around by his hair yet again. “And fuck you. I already said I wasn’t asking. You’ll do it. Give us the details on where to send our girl.”

“Give me the money you promised,” Tom snarls, but he doesn’t resist Aaron’s grip on his greasy slicked-back hair. “I want cash right now, up-front.”

Hael snorts, and I give him a look. Shit, well, I guess he was right.

“Our crew member will give you half back at the café. The rest you’ll get after it’s done. Do we understand each other?”

Tom says nothing and Aaron gives him a little shake for emphasis, leaning in to hiss in his ear.

“If you fuck this up, we will kill you.”

“Mason will likely get me first,” Tom mumbles, but Aaron just shakes his head, releasing Tom and rising to his feet.

“We’re out of time.” Aaron grabs the pen and paper off the counter—a guest check pad he charmed out of one of the waitresses—and tosses it onto the floor next to Tom. “Details and quick.”

With another scowl, Tom scratches a number, a name, and an address on the pad and then chucks it at Aaron’s feet.

“Alright, up.” Victor grabs Tom by the back of the shirt and hauls him over to the side door, shoving him outside on the pavement where two boys in black hoodies and skeleton masks wait. They take Tom by either arm and manhandle him into the backseat of a ’75 Buick Riviera—according to Hael—and take off.

Two minutes later, our favorite police cruiser pulls into the parking lot to find us seated at the table together, sipping shakes and eating burgers. I’m sure they’re pretty pissed off by now that we keep giving them the slip, but that’s what happens when you chase a snake in its own burrow. We know exactly where we’re going and what we’re doing.

“Sara isn’t going to like this,” I say, stealing one of Cal’s fries and swiping it through a puddle of ketchup that looks like blood. “Us giving her the slip all the time.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing?” Aaron suggests, breathing just a bit harder than he normally would, wound-up on adrenaline and rage. “Next time we take off, it’ll be for Kay’s, and then maybe she’ll come looking for us herself? Just in case something happens, I’d rather have the VGTF than the SPD at my back.”

“Can we actually go back to discussing ass play?” Callum suggests mildly, and Vic darts his ebon—ebon, ebon, ebon—gaze over to him. Yeah, I’m a snarky bitch. Yeah, I bring up politics a lot. Yeah, I have personal vendettas and blah, blah, blah, but if you didn’t catch onto that from the beginning then there isn’t much hope left, is there?

“You didn’t tell me you played with each other’s asses at Pussy Point,” Victor says, almost accusingly, and Hael gives him a sharp look.

“Do we have to tell you everything?” he queries, and I sense the tension between the two of them right away. We need to hash out our shit now. There isn’t any time left to play games. “Are you and Bernadette the ‘primaries’ in this polyamorous relationship?”

“The fuck is a primary?” Victor shoots back, taking a flask out of his pocket and spiking his soda.

“A primary is like … the main person in your relationship, even if you’re with other people,” I explain, and Vic grins. I cut him off before he can stick his giant ass foot in his stupid ass mouth. “But no, you are not my primary. I don’t have a primary.” I look over at Aaron for a moment before switching my gaze to Oscar. “You’re all equal to me.”

“What you’re saying is,” Cal starts, lifting the empty basket of fries up as the waitress tentatively approaches our table. She takes the hint and scurries off to get another order—on the house, of course. “We don’t have to tell each other anything … but maybe we should try to be open?”

I give Hael a look and he curses, swiping his fingers through his bloodred hair.

“Alright, alright.” He turns in his seat to face Vic and exhales sharply. “Okay, I’m super pissed at you for having a threesome with Aaron when you kicked my ass out.”

Aaron snorts, but he doesn’t say anything, using the metal straw to stir his shake as I look between Hael and Victor.

“Whoa there, Harbin,” Vic starts, leaning back in his chair and crossing his hands over his belly. “I didn’t know you gave a shit.”

“You knew,” Hael corrects, giving his friend a sharp look. “You just didn’t care. I appreciate you saying you’d share Bernadette with the rest of us, but I need you to …” Hael gestures randomly and then sighs, glancing over at Callum for help. Oscar finally closes the cover on his iPad and sets it aside. Guess he doesn’t need to make any notes on ass play or the delicate dance of threesomes. “I need you to admit that you’re not sharing her at all, that she has just as much of a right to any of us as we have to her. That’s what I want to hear.”

Victor thinks on that for a moment, giving a long, slow blink as he processes the information.

Eventually, he just gets up and goes outside, letting the glass front door of the drive-in slam shut behind him.

Hael sighs, but he doesn’t seem particularly displeased.

“He’ll come around,” he says, nodding and leaning back in his chair. The waitress approaches like a timid mouse and practically chucks the fries on the table before fleeing yet again. Aaron watches her go with something akin to sympathy, like he knows his liberal use of the pistol is part of what has her so goddamn terrified. “He will. He just has to let it percolate for a bit.”

“You have more faith in him than I do, apparently,” Oscar drawls, staring down at the basket of fries like he’d very much enjoy having one or two or seven. It occurs to me then that maybe he has an eating disorder of some sort. Callum seems to agree with that sentiment, pushing the fries directly in front of his friend and then sitting back in his chair.

“Remember that ‘sleeping schedule’ that Vic wanted to make?” Cal begins, letting his blue eyes swing over to me. “And that you said you would make?”

“Yeah?” I ask, wondering where he’s going with this. He reaches out and runs a single, blue-nailed finger down the bridge of my nose. I swat him away, but I’m not entirely displeased. My mouth twitches and I reach out to steal Aaron’s shake. He lets me grab hold of it and then, at the last second, ends up yanking me into his lap.