Page 127 of Vile Bastards
“They’re filthy, Scarlett Force. Just like you.” He shoves me forward, my front against the door, his body pressed so firmly against my back that I can feel his cock, hard and hot and needy. “And—just like with you—I can’t seem to resist wanting to defile myself.” Alexei pulls my sweats down, lining himself up with my opening at the same time that he releases my wrist.
He pushes even closer, almost inside of me … almost …
And then he draws back, yanking his own sweats up before he pushes me aside lightly. He barely touches me, but I’m so surprised that I stumble slightly, eyes going wide as I jerk my own pants into place.
What the ever-loving fuck is this?
I’m pissed. Oh, you better believe that I am ticked all the way off.
“Get back here, you disrespectful, little fuckboy,” I hiss, forgetting just briefly that my entire family is in the living room downstairs.
I come around the corner at the bottom of the stairwell to find them all—plus Widow plus Bohnes—staring back at me. While the former looks almost like someone who could be a proper boyfriend (albeit in a slightly twisted alternate reality)—the other looks … um.
Yeah, Bohnes with my grandmother, with Geneva, with my aunt, my sister. It’s a weird sight. Also, he brought flowers—live ones this time.
“Disrespectful, little fuckboy?” my mother echoes, but I ignore her as Alexei pauses beside me, gloved hands tucked in his pockets. He doesn’t look at me. I reach up to scratch at the back of my head, the front of my sweatshirt lifting up and revealing my absurdly low-slung pants. “Christ, I know we live in Prescott, but could you put some clothes on? We have guests.”
“Fuckboy guests,” Alexis murmurs because, really, this is weird. Fuckboy psychos have no place at the dinner table; they’re not civilized human beings. Yet, here I am, standing in my living room of all places with three of the four assholes.
Three because the fourth … can’t come. And not having him here makes me want him here, almost desperately. Guess Alexei knows how to play my field, right? I wouldn’t want him if he were easy.
I nibble on a thumbnail. You are a failure as a Prescott Queen. No proper southside queen bee bitch would bring a cluster of fuckboys home to meet the parents. What will my descendants say about me? Oh yeah, that girl from way back when who got swindled by sidepieces.
“Shall we set the table?” I suggest, moving over to take the flowers from Bohnes’ hands. He raises a brow without releasing them, leaning in to whisper—loudly, and obviously staged.
“Oh, no, Scarlett, darling, these aren’t for you.” Bohnes releases me and stands up straight, passing the bouquet over to my grandmother. She frowns at him slightly, but in that way of hers, the one that’s really more like an upside-down smile—and then gives me a look.
She murmurs something under her breath, and I know I’m in trouble later. Probably get swatted with a rolled-up magazine again. I scratch absently at my cheek.
“Help me in the kitchen?” Patricia suggests, and I follow her in, wondering what Basti would say if he were here. Probably something like, “you are batshit insane, nena.” And then he’d howl and howl with laughter until my eye twitched, and I stabbed him under the table with a fork. God, I wish he was here. Nisha, on the other hand … it’s probably best that she’s not.
I do not think about Lemon.
I don’t.
I really, truly don’t.
Also, I am a consummate friggin’ liar—mostly to myself.
My grandmother sets me up on stove duty, stirring shit while she huffs and eyes me strangely. I focus instead on tasting the mashed potatoes. Needs more butter. I add some, pausing at the sound of footsteps behind me.
Emma Jean appears in the doorway, wearing a wool coat and looking like an extra in some nineties rom-com. Very, um, Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail. She smiles prettily at us, taking off her coat and draping it over the back of a chair.
“Where can I help?” she asks and my grandmother puts her right to work, setting Emma Jean up on the counter beside me. “Thank you for inviting me.” She’s smiling so stupidly over there that I get annoyed.
“I didn’t invite-you-invite-you,” I correct her, glancing in her direction. She eyes my low-slung sweats like she, too, is my seventy-year-old grandmother. I’d say age is just a number, but I don’t want to sound like a pedo or anything. Anyway, Emma Jean is seventy years old inside of her heart place, that’s for sure. “You’re here because I need to keep my eye on you as much as possible, just to make sure you’re not working with the mayor.”
I glance back to make certain that my grandmother’s stepped out for a moment; it’s just the two of us in here for the time being.
