Page 48 of Fuckboy Psychos (Scarlett Force 1)
“What about the party tonight?” Papa asks, finally lifting his head to look at me. He rests his arms on the surface of his desk, his mouth turned down in a severe frown. He had initially promised me that moving to this culture-less wasteland of an Oregon town would cure all our ails—his and mine.
“It’ll be refreshing, you’ll see. We’ll escape city life and all the trappings that come with it.”
Instead, my father—Pavel Borisov—has more silver hairs woven throughout his dirty blond locks than he ever had before, and the lines around his mouth are deep channels, making him look a decade older than he did when we lived in a penthouse in New York City.
Now, here we are … in Springfield. Even the name sounds tacky. I’d have at least preferred to move to Eugene—the larger city across the bridge—but no. Even though one could walk from Springfield to Eugene in an instant, as there’s no true delineation between the two, the city limit means everything.
Because Springfield is the project. Springfield is the endgame. Springfield is the ticket.
“The party tonight,” I repeat, realizing that I’ve gotten completely lost in my own thoughts. “I’d rather not attend.” I speak in Russian, just to make sure that Papa knows how serious I am.
“Alexei,” he starts, his voice more strained than I’ve ever heard it. His computer is off, his phone nowhere to be seen, his numerous assistants dismissed. It’s just him and his desk and a sea of papers scattered across the surface of it. Whatever he’s up to, it’s something he wants to keep to himself. “I could really use you there. What could possibly be more important?”
Quite literally anything.
That’s what I want to say to him. I would rather eat broken glass than attend the party tonight. And not just because I lost the buy-in for the race tomorrow and the thought of coming face-to-face with the boys I’d have been up against is humiliating.
My father’s tightened the purse strings as of late. To get that cash, I had to actually take some items from around the house and pawn them. He’s shut off my credit cards, and he hasn’t given me cash in weeks.
His excuse was that I’d gotten out of control, that my grades were plummeting—which was true. I’d been spending more time racing than studying, but I’ve pulled my grades up lately and he hasn’t relaxed his ironclad control over my finances.
I’ll have to find more items to sell …
“I thought that moving here was meant to give us both a reprieve from this sort of thing?” I ask, moving up to his desk and reaching out a single finger to touch the picture frame on the corner. If I were to turn it around, I’d see my mother’s face smiling back at us.
It’s only been two years since she died, but it feels like it was yesterday. I try my best not to think about her. With all the happy memories, there’s an inevitable rain of despair that follows along after.
“These parties are no different than the ones we attended in New York,” I explain, letting my gaze rake across the papers as I try to get a read on what it is exactly that’s got my father so upset, locked up in his home office like a prisoner. Unfortunately, he’s covered up anything telling and flipped several pages over so there’s nothing but a blank page to look at. “These people are no different. Look at yourself, Papa. You’re falling apart.”
“I’m just tired, Alexei,” he says, looking up at me, his eyes the same green as my own. Coincidentally, my mother’s eyes were the same color. It’s her last name that I have—Grove. My father’s last name— Borisov—has deep, twisted roots that neither of them wanted to pass down with their genes.
Not that anyone would ever mistake I wasn’t a Borisov in blood, if not in name.
“Tired doesn’t cause gray hair and wrinkles,” I offer up, moving around the side of the desk and squatting in front of my father. “Don’t work yourself to death for these people.”
The smile he gives me is a tad patronizing, but it’s also kind and full of heart. Unlike many of the other students at my fancy new prep school—or any other that I’ve ever attended in my life—I have a father who loves me. A mother who loved me.
It’s more than most of them can lay claim to.
“It’ll be okay, son,” he tells me, still speaking Russian. That’s how I know that he’s not as alright as he’s pretending to be. He speaks English more often when he’s in a good mood since he knows I prefer the language that I grew up with. But when he’s upset? Sometimes, I’m not even sure that he knows he flip-flops between languages.
