Page 132 of Fuckboy Psychos (Scarlett Force 1)
“No worries,” I say, forcing a smile and tasting one of the meat-mint skewer things. It’s damn good, like melt in your mouth good. “You sure you don’t want any of this? It’s fantastic.”
“It was sitting in the open air with people breathing and coughing and sneezing in the same room. No thank you.” He shivers again, and I shrug.
His loss.
I lean up against the wall, watching the crowd and filling up with delicacies as Alexei stays nearby, silent and brooding, his face slightly scrunched in concern. Thinking about his father, maybe?
“You don’t have to babysit me, you know? I won’t steal anything, and I won’t cause another scene.” Hopefully. I mean, I can’t promise anything, but I sure as hell will try my best. “Just because I made you bring me here doesn’t mean you have to—”
“You’re my date,” Alexei says, aghast as his nostrils flare and he looks me over in annoyance. “I don’t expect you to steal anything. There are much easier places to steal whatever you could find here.” He’s right, but I wonder how he knows that. “But it would be rude to bring you here and leave you.”
“If you want to go home and check on your dad, it’s alright,” I assure him, and he gives me such a dark look that I can’t help but wonder what he’d be like in bed. Plus, he smells heavenly, like soap and vanilla, and I am living for it.
“You would not want to be left alone here with these people, trust me. Don’t bring it up again.” He speaks to me like he expects me to obey. It annoys me and ruffles my feathers at the same time it turns me on. I wouldn’t mind playing this game in the bedroom, but I don’t much like it outside of it.
Anyway, he has a point there.
“Take me around and point out any faces you don’t recognize. I’d love you forever if you did.”
He grimaces at that, but nods, snapping his fingers to summon a waiter who whisks my empty plate and napkin away. We head into the crowd, making our way from one hideous painting to another, and I make careful note of anyone that Alexei doesn’t recognize.
I feel like there should be some family resemblance between Ash and Aspen, right?
“That’s Mayor Kelly,” Alexei whispers, nodding in the direction of a tall, brunette man with a happy smile and a cheerful laugh. Thing is, I live in the southside. I know what a monster looks like when I see one.
This man is one of the worst sorts, the type that hides behind grins and laughter and good cheer. I see him, and I have an automatic physical reaction, just the way I do around Aspen … sometimes.
That is, when I’m not lusting after him like crazy.
I watch Mayor Kelly for a while, seeing who he’s interacting with, who he isn’t interacting with, more like. I figure if he’s so ashamed of his son that he has zero internet presence, zero social media, that he’s basically a ghost … well, he wouldn’t interact with him in here, now would he?
“May I ask what your plans are for Ash Kelly and why you’re so desperate to meet him?”
I give Alexei a look.
“You might be willing to give your information away for free, but I charge by the second.”
Instead of getting annoyed at that, he nods.
“I’ll give you five hundred dollars right now if you’ll tell me.”
“If you have five hundred dollars on you, why’d you need that ten grand back that we stole?” I ask, trying and failing not to find it ironically amusing that I robbed the guy at gunpoint and now here he is, trying to be all chivalrous and upstanding and whatnot. “You clearly don’t need the money.”
Alexei’s mouth tightens into a thin line, and he gives a slight shake of his head.
“My father’s cut me off from any access to our family money because of my grades and also … an accident at my prep school. I had to sell a few select items from around the house to get that money, and I need it for a buy-in. There’s a race in Portland that—”
“In Portland?” I ask him, eyes glittering. I’ve never met anyone who actually has an in with that track and the rich dickheads who run it. “You’ve raced there?”
“I’m not as terrible as I appeared on the track the other night. I’m not used to—”
“Ratchet-ass shit?” I fill in, and he shrugs. See, I figured as much. He has skills, but he didn’t know how to improvise to make up for the random and chaotic hazards of Prescott. “Do you think that, if I gave you the money back, you could take me there? I’d just watch the first time around.”
He seems to consider that for a moment.
