Page 25 of Savage Lover

I was planning to hold really still and hope Bella didn’t see me, until Patricia yells, “Hey, Bella—where’s your bookends?”

Bella frowns at us, annoyed that we got the first shot off before she even saw us.

“They’re not here tonight,” she says.

“That’s weird,” Patricia says. “I thought they were surgically attached.”

“It’s called having friends,” Bella says, in her sweetest, most condescending tone. “That’s why we’re The Queen Bees, and you two losers are barely Ds.”

I shake my head at her.

“You really haven’t changed since high school,” I tell her. “That’s not a compliment.”

“Yeah. You know you guys gave yourselves your own nickname. That’s lame as hell,” Patricia says.

I snort.

I don’t know who first called them The Queen Bees, but I can certainly imagine those three bitches sitting around brainstorming. Probably took them all afternoon.

Bella narrows her eyes at us until they’re like two bright blue vertical slits.

“You know what else hasn’t changed since high school?” she says. “You two are still ugly, poor, and completely jealous of me.”

“Well, you got one out of three right,” I tell her. “I am pretty broke.”

“Obviously,” Bella says, letting her eyes sweep over the whole of my person. Then she turns and stalks away, to rejoin the boyfriend who doesn’t seem to have noticed she was missing.

Patricia laughs, totally unconcerned by that little encounter.

“God, I thought she’d be living somewhere else by now,” she says. “Torturing some other innocent citizens.”

“Innocent is a stretch . . .” I say.

A few of the cars are already lining up—the tight, efficient Japanese models, and the roaring American muscle. I see a white Supra with a long scratch down the side waiting alongside a purple Impreza.

Patricia looks keenly interested in this particular race. She’s watching closely, biting the edge of her thumbnail.

The cars take off, screeching off the line. The Impreza jolts ahead first, quicker off the line, but the Supra starts to catch up along the straight stretch. There’s a curve before the finish line—the Supra is forced to the outside, but pulls ahead again when the cars straighten out. They whip across the finish line, the Supra ahead by an inch.

It’s only a quarter-mile. It lasted a total of fourteen seconds.

Still, I failed to breathe the entire time. My heart is in my throat, and I’m hit with a vivid bolt of joy.

Patricia seems equally thrilled—she lets out a whoop of happiness, like she was cheering for the Supra the whole time.

“Who was that?” I ask her.

She blushes, looking mildly embarrassed. “This guy, Mason,” she says. “We’re sort of dating.”

The two cars pull back around. Patricia hurries over to meet them, running across the beams of their headlights. I follow after her, curious to see this Mason guy.

He climbs out of the Supra: tall, skinny, with lightning bolts shaved into the side of his hair, wearing a pair of ripped-up skinny jeans.

He’s laughing at the driver of the Impreza.

“I told you, you don’t have the top-end speed—”

Mason breaks off when he sees Patricia.

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