He glances in Bohnes’ direction as he pauses by the girl who’s serving as our grand marshal of the night. That is, the person who’s in charge of arranging each race and recording the bets. Occasionally, people bring small gifts for the grand marshal, like travel-size bottles of vodka or hand-rolled joints. Not to curry favor or anything, just out of appreciation.
The way Bohnes is standing gives the three of us a very clear view of his ass in his tight leather pants. I should’ve grabbed it more when he was naked, really felt up those sculpted cheeks. Fuck. He better not lose this thing tonight.
On the other hand, my eyes shift to Widow’s huge form, bathed in dancing shadows from the bonfire as he signs the document on the grand marshal’s clipboard. Once all bets are paid, each page is burned, and no records are kept.
If there are any outstanding payments, the pages are filed in alphabetical order of the winner’s last name and kept in a file cabinet at the lumberyard where my car was stored. We used to pay a few hundred bucks a month to rent it out. That, and we allowed guys from the mill to race—even ones that were far too old to be playing with high school students.
Now, Jennifer’s practically engaged to one of the younger guys that works there—I think he graduated like two or three years ago—so we use the warehouse for a pittance. It was the perfect spot until recently.
Widow didn’t seem to have much of a problem getting in and out of there without incident. I don’t like that. Either it speaks to my incompetence, or it speaks to his competence. There’s something decidedly wrong here.
“Okay,” Basti declares, yanking me close for a hug. He squeezes me nice and tight, and I throw my arms around his neck, giving him a look with one, cocked brow. “I’d have given my permission. He’s not my type—I am not one to play bottom—but hey, you do you, girl.”
“Whoever said I was a bottom?” I snap back, pushing at my best friend’s chest as I glance back to see both Bohnes and Widow staring at me. They both look like they want to kill Bastian. They wouldn’t be so nervous if they knew how grossed-out he is by vaginas. I turn back to Basti and ignore them, running my palms up his chest and curling my fingers over his shoulders, just to tease them a little bit more.
Let those two assholes make bets regarding me. That’s their problem. If Bohnes screws this up, maybe I’ll just start sleeping with Widow? A fuckboy is a fuckboy is a fuckboy.
“I enjoy a good, hard fuck every now and again, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that puts me at the bottom of anything.”
Nisha nods in agreement and lifts up her beer.
“Okay, okay, Queen, calm your tits. We get it.” She pauses, a frown tracing her gold lips as the Shelby Cobra rolls into the lot, and I feel my heart drop to my stomach.
Aspen Kelly is back.
I haven’t mentioned our encounter at the market to anyone. I’m not sure that I want to. I’m not even sure that I understand what really happened between us. He almost kissed me? I almost let him kiss me?
“Do you think Lemon’s with him?” Nisha asks as Basti’s face drops. Out of us all, he was the closest to Lem. At least, recently. She and I used to be inseparable, but then she discovered men and I discovered power, and we started to drift in separate directions. If women could truly gain power over men with sex, it would’ve happened centuries ago. Her ‘feminine wiles’ are not going to save her from this hell we call Prescott.
I watch as another car—a motherfucking Lamborghini Miura—pulls into the lot behind the Cobra, my brows lifting up in surprise. My lips part in shock and my palms tingle. Here I thought the Cobra was big money; that ’69 Miura is worth almost two million.
Another car that’s worth a shitload of cash, and another newcomer to the track.
The two vehicles park side by side, and my teeth clench as I see Aspen Kelly’s long leg, encased in expensive black slacks, emerge from the Shelby. One leg, then the other, then the rest of him, tall and lean, diamond cufflinks shining, his feathered black hair falling around his face. It’s longer than most of the guys at Prescott would ever wear theirs, but it still isn’t long by any means, just enough so that it falls in razored perfection around his ears and against the collar of his shirt.
Out of the passenger side steps a girl that I almost don’t recognize. Her brassy hair is now a soft, unassuming natural blond, her makeup heavy but done in such a way that it’s clearly intended to look like she’s a walking, talking filter instead of a person. Her dress is worth at least a couple grand, her platform heels intended to skirt the mud without ruining that pretty, little pedicure.
“Lemon?” Basti chokes out, and we exchange a look. I’m already moving forward when Nisha reaches out to take my arm.
“Don’t start any shit tonight,” she warns me, gesturing in the direction of the track. Both Widow’s purple ‘Vette and Bohnes’ black Chevelle are on their way down the curving road that leads to the starting line.
Considering it’s my sex life that’s on the line here, I should probably watch.
Instead, I find myself fixated on Lemon as she moves over to cling to Aspen’s side like some sort of deranged trophy wife. Doesn’t she know that rich guys only come down here to see if Prescott pussy is as good as everyone says it is (it is), but that they never marry girls like us.
“Motherfucker,” I curse, turning my attention to the other car. The driver has yet to climb out, but, seeing as his ride is even more expensive than the Cobra, his presence can only mean trouble.
I watch as Aspen ignores Lem, even when she clings onto his arm, focusing instead on rapping his knuckles against the driver’s side window of the Miura. Looks like the gash on Aspen’s cheek has healed up. Either that or whatever makeup artist painted Lemon fixed it for him. I’m betting on the latter.
Aspen steps back and, after another long, seemingly interminable amount of time, the door finally opens and out steps a vaguely familiar blond guy—with gloves on his hands.
“Wait a second,” Nisha starts as my eyes go wide. Our mark is here, at the track. It’s fucking Lambo guy. We exchange a look as Basti makes a sound of surprise. This time, when I head in that direction, nobody tries to stop me.
Only way to walk through mud while wearing heels is to stand on your toes. Trust me, I’ve had plenty of practice at it.
I make a tiptoed beeline straight toward Blondie, ignoring Aspen as his dark eyes rake over my body, like he’s trying to undress me with his gaze alone. Just for that, he deserves a knife to the gut, but I choose to ignore him in favor of my new friend.
Lemon narrows her eyes at me but says nothing as I pause in front of Glove Guy, noting the sweat beading on his face, the way he keeps swallowing and staring down at his expensive loafers in the mud.
“Well hello there,” I say, and he finally drags his pale green eyes up to mine. They widen in recognition, but only for a second. Then he’s staring down at his feet and swallowing again like he’s about to have a heart attack. “Didn’t expect to see you around here.”
“You two know each other?” Aspen inquires, his voice edging on something cold and dangerous. “Alexei, you should’ve told me.”
Alexei.
Glove Guy is named Alexei. I commit that to memory, somehow certain that it’ll come in handy at some point. That is, if he doesn’t pass out on the ground right now.
“Don’t mind him,” Aspen says, smirking at me in such a way that I wonder if he even remembers that I clocked him at the market just a few days prior. His eyes aren’t red anymore, so I guess I didn’t blind him with that washing powder.
Too bad.
But that’s life, I guess. Not everything works out.
“Alexei here is a bit of a germaphobe.” Aspen claps his friend (or whatever he is) on the shoulder, and Alexei allows a cataclysmic scowl to stretch over his full, pink mouth.
“Kindly remove your hand from my shoulder,” he grinds out, nostrils flared. Aspen tightens his grip briefly as Lem stares daggers at me, as if challenging me to a
ccept that I was wrong, that Aspen truly is the love of her life.
I wonder what she’d think if I told her what happened between us at the grocery store, that he almost kissed me. What would she believe then? I know that I’m right, regardless of what it looks like currently. He might have given her some sort of glow-up makeover, but that doesn’t change the reality of the situation: he’s using her for something.
Whether it’s sex, or to look more legitimate in the eyes of our fellow Prescott students, or what, I don’t know. I don’t fucking care. Whatever it is, it isn’t going to work out in my friend’s favor.
I'm almost certain that Aspen and Alexei are going to start fighting when Aspen finally drops his hand, his attention swinging to me.
“Are you up for another race?” he asks, but I just shake my head, pausing at the sound of engines on the track. Widow and Bohnes are about to start, and I can’t miss this. If they’re going to fight over me, I may as well watch.
“Not tonight, sweetheart,” I grind out, offering Alexei another quick once-over. He stares right back at me, seething and sweating and looking like he’s torn between running away and following after me. “If you don’t like dirty things, you’ll hate it here.”
I toss that out and then turn, ignoring Lem completely, even as Basti and Nisha try to catch my attention to bring me back. I walk away, finding my way up the single set of bleachers that we have left here. They’re up at the top of the track, not on the sidelines where I normally like to be.
There’s only one real spot for bystanders to observe the race down below without risking their own lives and that’s the cage. It’s part of the original track, the reinforced chain-link fencing offering up a small amount of protection. Paired with the half-stone wall beneath it, it helps.
I’ve seen cars fly up against that and topple over, leaving the crowd relatively untouched.
I was also here when the other portion of the intact cage that was on the opposite side of the track caved in, and three Prescott students died in the accident. I’m not going to sugarcoat it: we loaded their bodies up and drove them to a nearby lake to dump them.
If word had gotten out that they’d died at the track, the well-meaning but ignorant as fuck middle-class idiots from the Fuller neighborhood would start petitions and picket lines. They’d cut us off from our one source of joy and entertainment over here in the southside.
It’s interesting how people sometimes act like they care but really, in their ignorance, make things so much worse for those they’re pretending to care about. Anyway, it didn’t bring any of us any pride, and we held a makeshift funeral service at the track every day for a week.
But we could not lose this spot.
Losing this track will destabilize our entire neighborhood.
I know it seems like all we do is gallivant and carouse like demons in the night, but really, there are so many worse things we could be doing.
I stand on the top row of the bleachers, looking out over the track as the green flag is waved and both Widow and Bohnes start slow. Bohnes knows this track, most especially he knows what it can be like after a fresh rain. Widow, apparently, learned his lesson by watching Aspen spin out.
They both hug the inside of the track on the first curve, and then speed up on the straight. Bohnes pulls out in front right off the bat—no surprise with the Chevelle—but then, for whatever reason, he starts to slow down, allowing Widow to catch up with him.
The Chevelle jerks to the side, slamming into the Stingray and making me gasp.
“What the fuck is he doing?!” Nisha chokes out as Aspen and Lemon take a seat on the bottom bench of the bleachers, and I do my best to ignore the way she climbs into his lap like some sort of simpering moron instead of the bad bitch that I know she is.
I ignore her as best as I can, focused more on the idiot fuckboys instead.
Well, one idiot fuckboy. The other is … just some dude who left his cum in my car. It was clear that he tried to clean it up, but I don’t think it was an accident that he left just enough of a mess to let me know what he’d done.
Silver sparks fly between the rims of their cars as Bohnes attempts to push Widow off the track and into the muddy pit in the center. There used to be a proper service station there, but it burned to the ground a long time ago. The center of our track is just an empty circle with chunks of old concrete and a long-forgotten foundation covered in mud.
Widow slows down, but so does Bohnes, and the two of them remain neck and neck, weaving erratically through the mud until Widow finally breaks away and takes off. He’s careful to stay on the inside of the track, giving himself a chance to outpace Bohnes.
I put my hand to my forehead to block out the overwhelming glow from the spotlights. The city keeps ‘em nice and bright for us. Somehow, the idiots have gotten it into their heads that keeping the place brightly lit will keep the riffraff out.
Instead, it lights up our muddy circle of hell in a way that makes it look somewhat legitimate.
Somewhat, because we race on our rules and our rules only. Nobody here gives a shit about leagues or competitions or anything else. Well, except for maybe me. I have plans to turn my skills into a career of some sort. What, exactly, I’m going to do and where is still up for debate.
The boys come screaming around the track, spraying mud everywhere as people cheer and shout, enjoying the less than legal way that Bohnes is slamming his car into Widow’s, heedless of the damage to both vehicles.
There are no rules against it here in Prescott. You want to crash your car into your opponent’s? That’s on you.
Bohnes jerks his car sharply to the left, hitting Widow so hard that he actually spins out, sliding through the muck and coming to a stop in the opposite direction. Shit. He’s fucked. He’s completely fucked.
He does an admirable job of trying to recover, making a sharp U-turn to face himself in the right direction and then taking a risk by gunning it faster than he probably should, wheels spinning in the slick mud. He takes a note from my book this time and uses the outer edge of the track and the stickier, more clay-like mud for purchase.
But he can’t catch up. He’s lost too much time, and Bohnes laps him like it’s nothing.
Within minutes, the race is over, and the black-and-white checkered flag is being waved.
I purse my lips, watching as the boys make their way back to the parking lot and the next set of drivers take their places at the starting line.
“This is barbaric,” a voice says from down below. I glance over to see who it is and find that Glove Guy—Alexei—staring out at the track like he’s been mesmerized. Rich guys always look like that when they find the shadows of Prescott, like the brutal violence on the track suits them in a way fancy parties and yachts and mansions never could.
I move down the bleachers as if they’re steps, my muddy heels loud against the metal. Aspen watches me the entire time, stroking his finger up Lemon’s thigh as he watches me with undisguised want.
Boys like him aren’t used to being told no.
Lucky me that I get to teach him a lesson that he should’ve been given in fucking preschool.
I pause next to Alexei as he looks over at me, his face covered in sweat, his body shaking. We exchange a look as I pass by, but hey, if he isn’t going to complain that we robbed him at gunpoint the other night, I suppose he can stay.
Even though I was wearing a mask, I know he recognizes me; he must recognize my car, at the bare minimum.
I move past him, pausing when I see a couple of boys—some of the more well-known troublemakers at the track—come up on Alexei, as if his quivering and sweating has announced him as easy prey. To be fair, it has.
Although I have no horse in this race, I decide to watch.
“Hey you,” one of the guys says—this idiot’s name is Pete—as he circles the trembling Alexei with a cruel smirk on his thin mouth. “You want to race me, rich boy?”
“No thank you,” Alexei replies, lifting h
is chin in an imperious sort of way. “If you’d kindly maintain a three-foot distance …”
Pete steps in and shoves at Alexei with two dirty palms, and the next thing I know, Pete’s howling and there’s a knife buried in his thigh.
Alexei releases the weapon and steps back, staring down at the blood on his hands with wide eyes and a stricken expression.
“What the fuck?!” one of the other boys shouts, lunging at Alexei as Pete howls in rage and Aspen watches absently from his perch on the bleachers. As soon as the second boy—this one is Dale; I know everybody at Prescott High, okay?—goes for him, Alexei turns into a machine.
He slams his palm into Dale’s solar plexus, and the other boy gags like he can’t breathe, stumbling back and falling to his ass in the mud as Alexei spins and nails the third boy—a senior kid named Wayne—directly in the face.
Once all three of them are on the ground, Alexei stares at his bloodied gloves again. With gritted teeth, he turns and takes off for his car at a near sprint, making a wide berth around me as he tears the tainted gloves off finger by finger, careful not to touch any of the crimson color, and then hucks them into the rusted barrel that serves as a trash can.
Whoever loses the most races in a single weekend is charged with dumping it. Nobody cares where they dump it—someone else’s trash can, a store’s unlocked dumpster, the side of the highway—just so long as we have an empty can to use.
Nobody gives a shit about Pete either or the sight of him wailing on the ground and bleeding from a knife wound. He started it, by trying to attack Alexei in the first place. And, to his credit, Alexei only used just enough force to get the three of them to back off and nothing more.
Based on what I just saw, he could’ve killed all three of those boys without breaking much more of a sweat than the one he already has going on.
F*ckboy Psychos Page 15
