Page 45 of Fuckboy Psychos (Scarlett Force 1)
I don’t expect blondie to recoil the way he does, shrinking away from me like I’m a venomous snake intent on sinking its fangs in.
“Wait, wait, wait,” he grates, the words snapping out more like a command than I feel like they should. I frown at him as he reaches into his pocket and withdraws his wallet, chucking it out the window and onto the ground by my feet. “There. You have what you want. Now, please leave me alone.”
“You’re making this awfully intriguing,” I say as Nisha throws me a warning look from across the guy’s car.
Her expression clearly says to leave this dumbass alone and move on.
“What’s the matter with you?” I ask as Nisha slams the door and moves around the rear of the car in my direction. “Afraid that we’re going to have our way with you?”
The driver carefully settles his gloved hands on the steering wheel, refusing to look at me.
“I have nothing else to take. If you insist on pushing the matter, I’m afraid I’ll have to escalate the situation.”
That makes me laugh, but then Nisha is right there, and her dark brown eyes are boring into me from behind the gold fabric of her balaclava.
“There’s more than ten grand in that envelope,” she whispers, and I glance her way in surprise. These stops are usually pretty lucrative—which is why we do them—but we don’t usually score quite that much in cold hard cash.
My curiosity is piqued, both by the boy’s disturbing level of aversion to us, his easy willingness to hand over this much money, and now his barely veiled threats.
But, at the end of the day, this is a job, and it’s done. We’ve tarried too long as it is.
“Alright, load up,” I say, giving the command to the other girls to get in their cars and leave. I’m the last to go, keeping the weapon in hand as I back away. At the last second, the guy directs his attention back to me, and our gazes clash in a sweeping wave of heat.
I blink, and it’s gone. His window’s being rolled up, and then I’m climbing into the Pantera and taking off.
I will not, however, forget that face anytime soon.
Scarlett
Later that week, I’m sent to the grocery store with a list of items for the house. My grandmother offers me her debit card to take, and I accept it—even if I don’t plan on spending any of the money in her account.
Instead, I stop by an ATM and make a deposit, taking the rest of my share of the haul from our last ‘job’ with me. Since it’s my money anyway, and I’m in a mood, I skip the grocery store down the street, a spot where drug deals regularly take place in the parking lot, and I head for the fancy health food store in Eugene.
Just crossing the bridge from one city to the other is dramatic, especially when coming out of the southside and finding myself in the West Hills. Everyone here is what I like to call ‘a snooty hippie’. They drive Teslas and Priuses, and preen about how progressive and awesome they are while blowing hundreds of dollars on bottles of wine and fancy cheeses inside the uptight market.
Its real name is Market of Choice but everyone in Prescott calls it Market of Cost.
I’ll give you one thing: it’s a much more pleasant experience than navigating the overcrowded aisles of the supermarket near my house. There’s something inside of me that’s always been contrary, that’s always reveled in being able to piss other people off whilst doing absolutely nothing at all.
I have but to waltz into that store in leather pants and a crop top, and all eyes are on me. I see a woman actively sneer after giving me a once-over, but I just grin right back at her and grab a cart.
Everyone that looks at me, I greet with a polite hello, how are you doing? That throws ‘em off like crazy. If there’s one thing other humans don’t understand, it’s niceness. Freaks them all the way out.
A man with his wife glares daggers at me but only after checking out my tits. I cook up something extra special for him.
“Hey baby, I haven’t seen you in a while. Why’d you stop coming by?”
The look his wife throws him before storming off with the cart is priceless. Pretty sure I’ve just ruined his day.
With a chuckle, I move past irritating bourgeois customers and onto the list at hand, grabbing the best version of everything while I’m flush with cash. Grandma wants tomatoes? Organic, locally grown heirloom tomatoes it is. Aunt Anita is craving chocolate? There’s an ethically sourced dark chocolate bar crafted in the fancy sweets shop next door. Alexis wants a new face wash? Handmade goats’ milk cleanser right there.
