Page 104 of Fuckboy Psychos (Scarlett Force 1)
“You don’t know me or my motivations,” he says, sliding off the hood and not bothering to offer me a hand to help me up. Not that I expected one. I climb off after him, catching myself on the hood of the car as my legs threaten to collapse.
God, I can barely stand.
I love that freshly-fucked feeling that turns my muscles to liquid, that makes me sit back down on the hood to collect myself, that makes me forget, in its sultry haze, that Bohnes is watching us from somewhere in the trees.
And after all that fuss he made about Widow spying on him and me?
Hypocrite.
“I mean it: next time you see me, act like we’re strangers. Act as if you can’t stand me. Trust me: I’ll make you feel that way regardless. But the more distance you keep between us, the better.”
“Is this about your brother?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer. Instead, he pauses, and his head snaps up, like he’s finally sensed the lurking presence in the shadows.
Bohnes appears out of the rain and the velvety darkness, his shock-white hair easily visible in the glow from my phone screen as he picks it up and bumps the side button, making it light up.
“Shit,” Aspen grinds out through gritted teeth, watching as Bohnes very casually offers me my phone. I take it from him, shivering at the ice-cold touch of his fingers before he pulls away again. He slips a knife out from the pocket of the white hoodie that he’s wearing and then moves up to Aspen’s front tire.
Without a word, he stabs the blade into it, the air escaping in a hiss.
Neither Aspen nor I move. It feels too dangerous to. No, we’re both more than well-aware that it’s better to sit still and let this happen than to fight it. Unless, that is, we’re willing to take it all the way.
Bohnes has a mission in mind, and he’s going to accomplish it. He walks around and systemically stabs all four tires with his knife before slipping it away again and coming to a stop about a foot from Aspen’s dark form.
“One time and one time only, eh, Ash Kelly.” Bohnes emphasizes the use of Aspen’s brother’s name before turning to look at me, sitting on the edge of the hood with my wedge shoes propped against the silver and black paint, knees slightly spread, elbows resting against them. “Get up. I’ll give you a ride back to your car, Scarlett Force.”
He takes off and I nibble on my lower lip, debating on whether or not it’s actually safe to climb into that gorgeous black Chevelle with a fuckboy who just watched me crown another fuckboy for the first time ever. Second man I’ve ever slept with, and Bohnes hates that.
“Go. I certainly won’t be bothering to make sure you get home safe,” Aspen quips, his voice darkening and shifting into that awful tone he used the first day I met him, when I was certain he was one of the worst, most awful human beings on the planet. And from someone like me who’s met a shit-ton of them? That’s a lot.
“Fuck you,” I murmur, but I’m not entirely angry. I see what he’s doing, trying to drive a wedge between us. For whatever reason, he really thinks that me sleeping with him puts me in some sort of danger. Why? Because of his family? Because of the situation with my girls? Whatever the reason, I’m not down for playing games.
I stand up, turning to look at him in the dark, wondering if he’ll really be able to do it, to stay away from me after a fuck like that. But Aspen is already turning away, moving around the back of his car so that he can get to the driver’s side door without passing me.
“Goodbye, Ash Kelly,” I say, offering up his preferred name one, last time. The sound of it makes him freeze with his hand on the door, and he shudders, but it doesn’t make him stop altogether.
After a moment, he climbs in and, even as I’m still standing there, slams and locks the door. He can’t go anywhere with four flat tires, but I see that he’s finished with our interaction, our conversation.
“God, I hate rich boys.” I slide my hand over my face and then follow after Bohnes, finding the Chevelle idling like a dark god on the side of the road. I climb in without looking at him, the soft easy tones of some R&B song oozing out of the speakers.
KMZI 66.6, obviously.
The song ends before either of us says a single word and one of the currents hosts—this one uses the alias Wolfman—takes a minute for some local goss rather than starting the next song.
“So, the house I grew up in—which, you know, I recognize by Prescott standards isn’t all that bad—was just bulldozed yesterday along with about, uh, another twelve or so houses just like it. These were good solid homes, brick exteriors, seventies construction. I remember our next-door neighbor having this sort of pristine, almost time capsule-like mid-century modern design inside.”
