This is for Prescott ears and Prescott ears only. Either you know to tune in or you don’t. They don’t advertise. They don’t sell advertising space. It’s just music, raw and real, hits interspersed with predictions and poor quality, low-budget shit from local bands.
So, everyone listens to KMZI 66.6 because I do—and I listen because Alexis does.
I swing my legs out of bed and stand up, digging through my dresser for a t-shirt that I won when the radio station came to Prescott High once. Just rolled up in their ratty ‘71 Volkswagen bus on career day and encouraged students to think outside the box, beyond college as their only possible escape but also beyond the shrinking confines of reality, that dark despair that hits when a Prescott senior realizes they’re about to graduate but that nothing is going to change.
They will still be poor. They will still live in Prescott. They will be deciding whether to work at McDonald’s or the paper plant or the lumberyard.
But the radio station people in their bus who got out and passed around flyers, and wore masks because they’re fucking cool like that, they made it seem like the world had limitless possibilities if we looked outside the small box we’d been pushed into.
I liked that.
I took it to heart.
Once I’m dressed in the tee and some comfy shorts that are far too big and sag low on my hips, I saunter downstairs and flop onto the couch, glancing over at my grandmother as she sits in her chair with her hands curved around the ends of either armrest. She always looks like she’s ready for action, even when she’s relaxing like that.
Guess that’s how you’d be if you raised six kids, too. Only four of them are still alive. My mom, aunt, and their youngest brother live in town while their other brother lives in San Francisco. My grandmother raised them all here in this shitbox called Prescott and managed to keep them all out of the gang shit and the violence.
Until now.
I bite my lip and look from her gently wrinkled face to the TV. She’s watching some sort of local news program that she streams from her phone. It’s usually pretty interesting, like some sort of true crime documentary except, like, it features stuff that’s actually happening all around us every day.
The hosts are ridiculous, over-the-top upper-crust Eugene residents who report all of this stuff with very serious facial expressions, as if the world will end if we don’t clean up Springfield. God forbid their sister city isn’t as perfect and uptight as they are.
They banned straws and plastic bags, so they’re heroes. Over here in Springfield, we still have meth dens and double-wides on city lots. Get over it.
I look down at my phone for a brief moment, ignoring the unsolved murder in Four Corners that they’re discussing on the show. I pull up Bohnes’ number, and I think about what to say to him.
He said he’d kill Ash Kelly for free. Cute. But I want a solid plan, and I want guaranteed backup. I’ll pay whatever it takes.
I’m so embroiled in my thoughts that it takes me a second to realize that my grandmother’s trying to get my attention.
“Isn’t that your sweet, little blond friend on the TV?” she asks, and I glance over at the face on the screen.
It takes me several seconds to connect the glossy, smiling girl that’s being filmed walking into a fancy benefit at the university in Eugene with the ratchet ass chick I grew up with, the one who could rebuild a carburetor as easily as she paints her mouth pretty as any other Prescott ho.
“Lemon?!” I choke out, eyes widening as I stare at her on Aspen’s arm. The smile he gives to my friend as she turns to him is blinding, thick with charm, oozing self-confidence. He looks nothing like the strange, broken, wild man who rutted me on the roof of his Mustang in the rain. “Oh my God.”
“Look at that ring on her finger,” Grandma says, tsking her tongue. “I never could understand why someone would pay so much money for a rock.”
My mouth has gone completely dry, my throat tight, a sour churning in my belly.
“If I told you that I’d never stick my dick in a girl as pathetic as Lucy Hall, would you believe me?”
He sounded so real when he said that. I almost … oh fuck. What have I done?
“I am not dating Lucy Hall; I promise you that.”
No ya aren’t, are ya, friend? You’re engaged to Lucy Hall. When did that happen? Like, when the actual fuck?!
“I don’t know about this,” Grandma continues as I sit there with my mouth hanging open, and the hosts continue to discuss the charity benefit, how nice it will be to get new equipment for the soup kitchen downtown, and all I can think about is the feel of Aspen’s hard cock driving into me, the way his hands gripped my ass cheeks, the creak of the car’s shocks as we rocked it with the slide of our bodies. “I don’t like the mayor or his cocky son. Never did.” She pushes herself slowly to her feet with a tired sigh. “Didn’t vote for him either.”
She shambles out of the room in her slippers.
Me, I’m still glued to my seat, even though it’s unlikely that Lemon or Aspen will show up on the screen again. She was there. She had an engagement ring on. He was smiling at her, and the expression made me sick to my stomach.
That hot fuck doesn’t feel so hot anymore, more like something cold and shameful.
Did I say I was unaware of the emotion? For what might very well be the first time in my life, I’m ashamed. Of myself, mostly. Aspen played me like Widow plays his guitar, and I fell for it. I fell for that shit.
I’m such a goddamn idiot.
“More so than that: you cannot tell anyone. Not your friends, not your sister, not your other loves … If you can’t agree to that, then I can’t fuck you.”
Wow. Just … wow.
Meet me at the drive-in, I send out, calling Nisha and Basti out for real talk. Not crew shit. Lemon shit.
Oh, girl, I’m sorry, is what Basti sends back, and somehow, I realize that he knows I’ve got some sort of weird crush on Aspen even without me actually telling him—and that he also knows about Lemon’s engagement. How long he’s known, I have no idea.
But I’m about to find out.
“I’m going out! You want anything from Wesley’s?” I call out, rising to my feet and waiting for my grandma to pop her head back in from the kitchen.
“You’ll be gone too long for this to count as lunch. Bring dinner back.” She moves away, but not before adding, “and take some cash from my wallet, baby. As much as you need.”
I ignore that last part—I never take money from my grandma, that’s more my mother’s thing—and head back to my room to shower and change.
I didn’t shower last night because I wanted to savor the experience of having Aspen Kelly on my skin. Now? I scrub myself so hard that my flesh turns pink and starts to ache, and then I put that rag between my thighs and work myself up to a dirty, filthy orgasm while I think about Bohnes.
Because I just need to get rid of any lingering memories of Aspen. It’s too … it’s gross.
“Fuck,” I snarl as I throw the rag on the floor, finishing up with my hair—which takes forever at this length—and then storming out to stare at myself in the fogged-up mirror. I reach up with my tattooed right hand, the one with the upside-down cross inked into my middle finger. That way when I flip people off, I can be extra ornery and offensive. “Shit.”
I drop my head low, wet black hair coiled in the sink.
I need to get myself one of those horrible pie shakes from the drive-in, the ones where they take an entire slice of pie and slop it into the blender with some ice cream. I fucking want it.
Shoving away from the sink, I dress myself in a fairly conservative—for me—outfit consisting of a black patsy romper with a bright red belt. More of that stupid color I hate so much.
I slip my feet into yet another pair of slick-ass designer shoes that I won at the track, these glorious black patent leather beauties that are surprisingly easy to walk in. Big-ass sunglasses, a quick tease of blush on either cheek, and I’m dow
n the stairs and out the door.
Takes me about twenty minutes to get over to the drive-in. It’s not very busy at this time of day. Gets way worse at night, especially on the weekends. If I had to pick two spots in this city where Prescott teens like to fuck, it’d be here while waiting for their food or at this cheesy-ass spot called Hookup Point. Well, that’s what the Fuller High kids call it anyway. Usually, us Prescott brats call it Pussy Point.
I mean, my grandmother still refers to it as Makeout Point, but come on. Let’s be honest: are teens really going there just to kiss? The answer is no. Sorry to break it to ya.
I sprint inside with my white leather jacket held over my head to stave off the rain, shaking it off and tossing it over my shoulder before I slide into a booth with a tiny jukebox on the table and a heaping plate of chili cheese fries already waiting in the center.
“Oh thank fuck,” I groan, reaching out to swipe one, making certain to get copious amounts of cheese with the bite. “I haven’t eaten all day.”
“Did you just get up?” Nisha asks me, leaning away from me so that she can look me over with disdain. “Too tired from riding Bohnes’ cock yet again last night?”
“I mean, do you want me to lie about it?” I quip back, before I make the mistake of keeping even more information from my friends than I already am. What’s the point of having besties if I don’t share the most impactful parts of my life? “Or about the fact that I saw Lemon on the local news with Aspen this morning? When the hell did she go to a charity benefit? And why? She is charity.”
“She was on the news?” Bastian queries in a near falsetto, sitting back in his seat and blinking rapidly. He mostly steers clear of the super-gay type tropes, but when he’s really mad … The way he’s pursing his lips makes me want to squirm and look away.
But … eh, I’m Scarlett Force.
I stare him down.
I’d say unflinchingly, but then, I am feeling shame. Not regret though, which makes me feel even more ashamed. I mean, Basti doesn’t know that I slept with Aspen, but I do. I do, and I know exactly what he would say to me if he did.
“She never told me about any benefit,” Basti offers finally, looking away. I can see that his anger is directed at Lemon, and her very own lie by omission. I should just tell them about Aspen despite what he said to me. It’s not as if I owe a rich guy like that anything at all—not even Prescott-level honesty.
But if it’ll put my friends at risk, then I’ll keep it to myself. For now.
“She went to a charity benefit?” Nisha repeats, sticking her lower lip out in that way she does when she’s really, really mad. “What the hell is that girl up to?”
“I didn’t know about any of that, I swear it,” Basti whispers, forcing a smile to his lips as one of the drive-in’s owners—Sandra Perry—approaches the table, and he gives her this puppy dog look that he’s perfected over his years of coming here. “I’m short this week, Sandy. Can I work it off by washing dishes or something? I’ll even strap on some of those pretty skates and deliver orders to all the cute boys.”
“Cash only or you don’t eat,” she says, but she pats him on the head anyway as I fold another cheesy fry into my mouth. Basti makes a moue, but Sandra ignores him, turning to look at me with a pad of paper in one hand, a pen in the other.
“Order?” That’s all she says. Doesn’t matter, I’m used to it. Anyway, nobody comes here for customer service. We come here because they serve dope shit. That, and the drive-in lies on a sort of boundary line that separates our neighborhood from the middle-class paradise known as Fuller.
There’s a literal set of train tracks between our drive-in and theirs. Ours is authentic, been here forever, and serves good, greasy food for cheap. Theirs is sterile and overdone and the coffee they serve there in the mornings might as well be dirty dishwater.
“I’ll do a burger with ketchup and pickles only and a cherry pie shake.” I reach out to grab Sandra’s hand and she gives me a raised brow in response. True Prescott royalty. This woman is as hard as nails. She lost her son Wesley some years back; the place is named after him. “I’ll be doing a big order to take home to my family. Can you just comp Basti’s burger this once?”
Sandra sighs and rolls her eyes before taking off, but I know that she’ll do it. She loves my grandma, and her daughter attended Prescott High with my mom. On top of all that, I know my aunt comes here every Friday to sit in the corner booth with a vanilla milkshake and quiet tears.
I look back at Nisha because, even with my head turned, her stare is ferocious.
I feel like I’m being picked apart beneath her gaze, analyzed, found unworthy.
“Either of you plan on telling me she was engaged?” I ask, trying to steer the conversation toward Lemon as I glance over at Basti with a bit of a contemptuous expression of my own. “How long have you known, and you didn’t tell me?”
He opens his mouth to talk, pauses, mulls over his words a little more.
“Um, since last weekend?” he says, but almost like that’s a guess on his part.
I make myself take another fry, put it in my mouth, chew it.
Nisha yanks her cherry soda close and sucks on the straw so hard that Basti makes a sound of appreciation.
“You could suck a watermelon through that straw, Nish.” He says her nickname—Neesh—in a wondrous, almost worshipful tone.
She glares at him before turning that sharp expression back to me.
“First I’m hearing about it,” she adds, and we both look over at Basti.
“We’re talking, but not like we used to. She really thinks she’s got it good this time. Big rock on her finger, fancy dinners with steak and shit, getting fucked into the mattress every night. She’s in heaven over there at the Kelly’s place.”
There are so many things in what Basti just said that have me feeling homicidal.
I almost kiss Sandra when she returns and puts a tall glass with a mountain of whipped cream and a cherry on it in front of me, the extra milkshake in a cool metal cup that she places in the center of the table. Basti always says he hates these pie shakes and then ends up drinking my extra from the metal cup.
Every damn time.
“She’s living with the Kellys?” I ask carefully, thinking of the box that Aspen brought over to my house with all of my things in it. Wow. Lemon moved out of her double-wide and Basti knew about it and … I didn’t. I suck on the straw, not caring that the sound is loud and echoing. We’re the only people in here. The few other patrons at this time of day are all outside in the drive-in spaces.
“Yep. Moved in same day she got engaged actually,” Bastian says with a loose shrug of his shoulders and a sigh. He reaches out and drags the metal cup toward him, mumbling something about ruining his diet. “I tried to talk her out of it, but you’ve seen how she is recently. Even more stubborn than usual.”
Fucked into the mattress every night, huh?
I shove memories of last night as far away as I can get them. What was I thinking? I knew that asshole was bad news and yet, something about the way he threw that race made me reconsider.
I mean, I hated it. Feels like a blight on my record, but I needed information about the Cobra, if it was involved in the murder, who was driving it. In the end, it was worth it.
“This is going to end badly,” I say, and Nisha snorts.
“You think?” she queries, pausing when the front doors of the restaurant open and in walks Widow.
He pauses in the doorway, water beading on his colored hair, a deep frown dug into his handsome face. He barely looks at me before glancing down at the sign that says Seat Yourself, I Ain’t Your Mama on it. Widow moves down to the booth in the far corner of the diner and takes a seat.
I stare at him from where I’m seated, but he grabs one of the (usually) sticky menus from behind the silver napkin dispenser and stares down at it with a scrunching of his brow.
Huh.
I slurp on my drink some more and his head finally lif
ts up. Our eyes meet for the briefest of seconds before he drags them away again and then Sandra is blocking me with her body as she takes his order.
I turn back to my friends to see that they’re both staring at me with accusatory looks.
“Really?” Basti asks, turning to glance over his shoulder in Widow’s direction. He flicks his eyes back to me. “The new guy who put a knife to your throat?”
“I did take his car,” I explain, and Nisha just shakes her head, reaching up to rub at her temples.
“I don’t even have time for your shit today, Scarlett.”
I smile at that, leaning back in the booth and stirring my pie shake with the metal straw. My smile is only skin-deep however. I’m … upset. I don’t like being upset. I like to pretend that I don’t have feelings, that I’m nothing but pretty stolen gear and big sunglasses and cars. I’m not a human woman with a heart that can break. Too much vulnerability in admitting that.
Crushing on Widow right now is the least of my worries.
I’ve seemingly lost one of my best friends for real this time, one of my girls lost her life the other day, and here I am feeling butt-hurt that Aspen lied to me when I knew he was lying to me. Of course he’s fucking Lemon. That I should’ve expected. But the engagement? Having Lem move in with him? That’s insane.
“There’s some huge engagement party happening next Friday,” Bastian continues with a long sigh. “Apparently, Aspen took Lem to dinner and asked her to marry him, but like, they’re supposed to have a proper party with the who’s who in both cities.”
That gives me pause.
A party. I know that Ash Kelly doesn’t appear anywhere online—he might as well be a ghost—but surely, he’d be at his brother’s engagement party?
There’s as good a chance as any that I might find him there. But how do I get in? I’m not exactly part of the ‘who’s who’ type crowd.
“Did she invite you?” I ask, and the look of hurt on Bastian’s face gives me the answer that I need. “Right. Lem’s moved up in the world, hasn’t she?” I don’t mean to sound so damn salty, but it comes out anyway.
F*ckboy Psychos Page 28