Page 95 of Fuckboy Psychos (Scarlett Force 1)
He stares at me for a minute before offering up another tight, strange smile.
“You ready, Scarlett Force?” he asks, and I nod, gesturing for the grand marshal of the night—a guy named James Scott—to head our way and offer up the clipboard for Aspen’s perusal.
My body versus classified information.
Doesn’t have to say what that information is on the sheet. Classified means we agreed on it, and words are currency here. If Aspen reneges on this shit, I’ll destroy him and everyone else in his family, just to make sure I get the culprit.
Nobody touches me or my crew and walks. I can’t allow that. Not even if I’m planning on skipping this town and taking my skills behind the wheel somewhere else after graduation.
Prescott pride, it’s a thing.
I’ve fought day in and day out since freshman year to whip this track and that school into something presentable. Might be ‘trashy as hell’ as the Oak Valley kids say, but it’s ours, and we have a thieves’ honor that runs deeper than a lot of the surface level bullshit that I see in other neighborhoods.
So yeah, I’m going to defend my girl’s honor, my school, and this track.
“I was born ready, Aspen,” I say, and maybe I imagine it, but … did he just cringe a little at the mention of his own name?
There’s nothing like that quiet moment at the start of a race, when you’re sitting behind the wheel, strapped in and ready for a ride, when the adrenaline is singing sick songs in your blood and your heart is beating so loudly that you can hear it even above the roar of the engine.
I squeeze my hands on the wheel and release a long, slow exhale, eyes focused on the track. Weather conditions dictate how a race will go here in Prescott. That’s part of the fun, part of the challenge, learning the way your car reacts on a turn when the ground is dry and dusty or when it’s six inches deep under water, when the mud is sticky like clay or slick as ice.
It starts to rain as soon as Aspen and I line up, side by side, waiting for the flash of that green flag in the bright white light from the city’s misplaced spotlights. Within seconds, that sprinkle turns into a shower, and I’m already counting my lucky stars.
I know what it’s like to race this track under summer’s fading twilight sky or in the pitch-dark when the city temporarily cut power to the lights in an attempt to get rid of us. I know how to race when the track is covered in a thick, slimy blanket of autumn leaves or when winter’s cold kiss has turned the mud to an ice-skating rink.
I’ve got this.
Monsoon rain presents unique challenges; Aspen won’t know what those are.
The flag waves by in a blur, and I slowly ease onto the clutch, letting Aspen take the lead, spraying my windshield with mud. The wipers flick to clear away the debris, but it’s raining so hard that mother nature gets the glass clean quick enough.
Not that I need to see the track to race it. I could do it blind. Have, in fact, put a blindfold on and ran the track on my own, just to see if I could do it.
I did. I can.
I let Aspen put some space between us before I pick up speed on the straights, forcing the Devil to take the turns down the middle of the track. The inside gets these deep, wet pockets that slow you down too much, and the outside turns into slick slush in the rain. Normally, the outside of the track is a safe bet, even in the rain.
Just not when it comes down like the sky is falling.
I catch up to Aspen fairly quickly when he makes the mistake of hugging the inside of the track, passing by him in a flurry of muddy water. He hangs back which makes me suspicious as hell, and I intentionally hit the outside of the track, anticipating the slide and turning into it to control the direction of the Pantera’s nose.
Once again, he passes me, and I can’t help but wonder if he wasn’t trying to learn my tricks by following behind me. With that thought in mind, I make sure not to outpace him, letting him keep a small lead so that I can watch and learn his habits.
We’ve got twenty laps on this track, but each one only takes about thirty seconds, so while there’s time to maneuver, there’s no time to play games.
The deal with the Prescott track is this: everything goes. A hidden chunk of old cement rises up from the mud during a storm and you hit it? Your problem. Got stuck in a new rut that wasn’t there the last time you raced? Your problem.
