Page 110 of Fuckboy Psychos (Scarlett Force 1)
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?”
