“Easy.” The voice is familiar, but I can’t place it until I turn around and look at her.
“Camila!” I give her a tight hug and then step back to look at her. Camila is the daughter of Javier Rojas, King of the Mexican Mafia. You wouldn’t know it looking at her though unless you knew her father closely. “I love the red hair!” She fluffs her hair dramatically and that’s when I notice the group of people behind her. A few of them I know from around campus, like Lex, and I can see the Rojas family genes in one or two others.
“Why are you here?” We step closer to the edge of the yard for some privacy.
“Extra back up. Your guys protect the Mafia Princess when we need it, so we protect the MC Princess when she needs it.” She lowers her voice when she notices a few people inching closer to us. It's normal for the pot heads to hang out around the edge of the yard so I bet they are just looking to score.
“Do you have a cigarette?” I ask no one in particular. I know from personal experience that most of the people around here who smoke weed think they are gross. Two of the guys behind Camila reach for their pockets but she is faster. She pulls one out for herself and then hands the pack and the lighter to me.
“Well aside from that, I’m happy to see you. It’s been a while!” I tell her.
I light the smoke and take a long drag. I keep a pack in my car but being that I don’t drive it often it’s been a few days. The campus doesn’t have a no-smoking rule but none of the girls in the sorority smoke and I just feel weird lighting one around people that don’t smoke, so I started leaving them in my car.
“It has been a while. I heard you met my boyfriend, Lex?” The man in question steps forward and I still hate the way he looks at me. Like he is trying too hard to be an Alpha male, and he thinks women are beneath him. He is the boyfriend of the Mafia boss’s daughter though so he can’t be that bad.
“We did meet, he is the TA in one of my classes,” I leave it at that because telling him it’s nice to see him again would be a lie.
“We are just here to lend a hand at events that your guys would stand out at…” Camila offers with a laugh because it’s true, while mafia men are dark and dangerous, all that hides on the inside. MC men tend to show how rough they are on the surface.
“Yeah, my guys would stand out like a sore thumb around here.” The words are out of my mouth before I have time to think about them, and the look on everyone’s face shows that they caught that I didn’t just mean the guys in the club.
“Guys? Please tell me that you are dating Bell! The way that man looks at you is like a moth to a fucking flame. He doesn’t care if it would kill him, he wants his hands on you regardless.” I laugh, I had never noticed how he looked at me before, but the more people point it out I can remember times that I caught him staring and I just ignored it.
“God, can you imagine how awkward this would be if he wasn’t one of the club members that I am dating?” I give her a funny look as I take another drag and she covers her mouth; she hadn’t considered that.
“Okay, so I did hear that right. You are dating MULTIPLE club members?” One of the guys with her asked, I can’t remember if I have ever been told his name before but either way, I don’t remember it now.
“Yes, you heard that right. I am dating Scar, Bell, and Pyro.” Camila looks at Lex and then seems to pick her words very carefully.
“Well, that is interesting, and I’m glad that Bell is in that group. I remember the last time we were at the clubhouse…” Lex rolls his eyes and moves closer to the guys, the rest of them starting up their conversation, not wanting to be a part of the girl talk. “Okay, please explain how in the hell you got three hot as sin men to agree to date you at the same time? How does that even work? Do you guys have a schedule or something?”
“It’s all still really new, but the guys decided that they all cared enough that they didn’t want to make me choose, so I’m not. We will live our dysfunctional relationship loud and proud and the people that don’t like it can get fucked. As for how it works, I can’t answer. I would think that we will make some kind of schedule when I move home at the end of the year…” I start thinking about trying to schedule time with them and it makes my head hurt. “Or we will just do what we did the first night and sleep in the middle of one very large bed in a pile of limbs.” Her eyes go wide and she stares at me for a solid minute before she can get words out.
“That sounds like some erotic book type of shit.”
She’s not wrong, “it was, but it was the best sex I have ever had. Of course, then I ran from them.”
“Like literally or figuratively?”
The party is continuing to grow around us but we have managed to tuck ourselves into the perfect spot where people are leaving us alone, I can still see Raven with Allison and I know that Zoe is safe with the guys. I settle against the retaining wall that’s on this side of the yards and Camila follows my lead.
“Both? I told myself that I didn’t want to be a part of the club anymore. I wanted to get away and live a normal life,” I have told this excuse to so many people that it's starting to fall flat, even in my ears. “No, I think the truth is I was kind of scared. Scared of what my life would become and scared to watch those three fall in love with someone else, or even just be with someone else. Sometimes I get a little too bloodthirsty and I wasn’t sure if that was what I wanted for my life.”
“It’s impossible to not be like that with the life that we grew up in, don’t worry about it though, I have been thinking about taking some time away from my family as well.” I whip my head toward her and she chuckles at the look on my face.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I am the heir to this throne, but I have been thinking about going away for a while and figuring out how to live alone before I am handed the keys to a kingdom that I didn’t ask for.”
It makes me feel better to know that I am not the only girl that grew up in our world that wants to see what’s on the outside. I only lasted six months before I was back in the swing of it, I wonder how long she will last.
***
I like to sleep in on Sundays, but I wake to the sound of my phone ringing, the light is barely coming through the window. I groan loudly and then a pillow lands near my feet.
“Make it stop!” Raven cries.
I scramble to untangle myself from my blankets and grab it off the table beside my bed, I don’t even look to see who it is before I answer it and put it to my ear.