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“But it’s so hot,” he groans, dragging me into his arms and kissing me. He sucks my lower lip between his, then darts the tip of his tongue into the corners of my mouth, tasting himself on my lips. His big hands tighten on my waist, and I remember to suck in my tummy while he holds me, moaning softly into my mouth and sliding his tongue against mine. At last, he pulls back and rests his cheek on top of my head. “Want me to eat you out?”
“I’m good.”
“You sure?” he asks. “You know I love eating your pussy.”
“You love eating all pussy,” I point out, drawing away.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he says, a smile tugging up the corners of his beautiful, damning mouth. I lift my fingers to skim them over his square jaw to his sculpted chin, with just the hint of a dimple in the center. He’s so painfully perfect on the outside that people don’t bother looking much deeper, at how fucked up he is inside. That’s something I understand all too well.
I angle my head and press my lips to his in a soft kiss. He pulls me tighter into his arms, and I let myself melt into his hard body, giving him the closeness I know he craves. I taught myself not to need anything from them a long time ago, but I think Duke’s mom didn’t hug him enough, and he seeks out comfort in whatever arms he can find to hold him. I can spare another moment for this broken boy, even though I know it won’t help either of us. I can’t fix him, and he can’t save me. If his brother puts me on the pyre this year, he’ll light the match and dance in the firelight while I burn.
After a few minutes of long, lingering kisses, I pull away.
“Rain check?” I say, searching his dark, unreadable gaze. “I want to take a drive. Can you take my sisters home?”
“Sure, babe.” He holds out a hand, and I press the wad of used wipes into it.
“Thanks.” I lean in and give him a quick kiss, then check the parking lot. Unless they’re behind schedule, most seniors have half days at Willow Heights, with the afternoon reserved for the independent study project. That means anyone could be in the parking lot, and I’m not going to climb out of the car with my makeup wiped off.
“All clear,” Duke says, checking the other side.
I hop down and climb in behind the wheel of the shimmering, forest green Mustang I’ve named June Bug for obvious reasons. Turning the key in the ignition, I close my eyes and let the noise of my life fade away, replaced with the sweet, sweet sound of the engine chatter.
An annoying shriek cuts through the noise, and I open my eyes and glare into the rearview. Colt has Dixie pinned up against his truck, her knee hitched up while he grinds against her. God, could they be any more tacky?
I wrench the gear stick into reverse and shoot out of my spot, shifting roughly and stomping the gas pedal. I boil the hides as I turn out of the lot and race past the gorgeous stone buildings that make up Willow Heights Preparatory Academy, home of the Knights that I dutifully cheer for under the lights every Friday night and service under the sheets every time they call.
I hate them.
I hate every single one of them. I picture dousing the entire school in gasoline and throwing a match on it, preferably while the secret society is locked in the basement, trapped inside. I wouldn’t help. They never helped me. I’d stand there and watch the flames dance, as hypnotized as Duke Dolce, while it burned. While they all burned.
And then I’d soar high into the sky on the heat waves that rose from it, spiraling like a scrap of ash into the night, and disappear forever.
I turn onto the highway and let the two-ninety horsepower show me what it can do. I feel it charge through me, flattening me against the seat and bringing a smile that I don’t have to fake. I feel it spread over my face like the summer sun on the beach. I can almost feel the breeze in my hair, making the strands tickle my skin as they dance across it; can almost smell the salt air and hear the rush and thunder of the waves. I may not be able to go home, back to Savannah where life was simple and my family was whole and my love was pure, but for a few precious hours, I can escape my life and every ugly thing in it.
I can be myself, alone in this car, where no one can see me and expect me to be anything I don’t want to be.
Faulkner falls behind me, and then the rice fields, and then Ridgedale. I wish I could drive forever, until there was nothing left. But no matter how long I drive, I never reach the end. Something always turns me around and points me back home. Something calls me back. I can’t leave Faulkner, because if I did, I’d be leaving my sisters to their fate, with nothing between them and the Dolce boys.
I push the thoughts away and let myself sink into the purr of the engine, the freedom I feel only when I’m inside my June Bug or under her hood. When I was a kid, Mom’s uncle would come visit us in Savannah once or twice a year on his cross-country treks for one of the car clubs he belonged to. Dad didn’t like him, but Mom would never turn away family, even her eccentric uncle, a rich old paranoid prepper. I guess it paid off, since he left her the house and all his cars when he died.
He’s the one who taught me how to care for and maintain a car, something he said would come in handy if society ever collapsed. Dad would just shake his head and point out that if society collapsed, we wouldn’t have gasoline to run our vehicles. But that didn’t stop my great uncle from teaching me how to change my own oil and spark plugs, in addition to basics like how to change a tire and add fluids. The day I successfully hotwired the 1969 Boss 302, he let me name her and promised he’d leave her to me in the will. True to his word, she’s all mine now, from her JUNE BUG license plate to the mustang emblem on the hood.
She’s my prize possession—my only possession. The feds demanded we hand over our house, our money, our every possession down to our phones and the shoes in our closet. They took our family and shattered it. They left us with nothing, which is how we ended up moving in with my great uncle.
And then he died and gave me this.
When the Dolces took everything the feds hadn’t, things I thought could never be taken, this remained. They ordered me to hand over my innocence, my dignity, so they could dictate every part of my life from my phone to my clothes and makeup. They devoured my soul and left me with nothing to call my own, not even my body.
No matter what they’ve done to me, though, they’ve never bothered my car. This alone is mine.
She’s the one thing they haven’t touched, which makes her even more sacred, even moremethan my own body.
A song by the Regrettes comes on the radio, one I used to love back in Savannah. I pull off and take a winding road to nowhere, through the wilting trees and smothering afternoon heat. I miss the Spanish moss that hung over the sun-dappled roads back home, the ones we’d take to go out to the beach on Daddy-Daughter days. Dad would put the top down on his shiny new Lambo, and the twins and I would scream out the lyrics at the top of our lungs, high on the thrill of cursing when Mom wasn’t around to correct us and tell us that proper ladies don’t talk like that.
Dad would just smile indulgently at his three perfect blonde daughters like we were put on earth for the sole purpose of making him proud.
I don’t want to think about him rotting in a prison somewhere, about that car being impounded and sold. Instead, I put the top down and sing along at the top of my lungs, as if my voice alone can drown out all three of us in my memory. As if I can erase the memories by willpower alone, replace the ones I made back home with this afternoon alone on a winding road in Arkansas, with just my June Bug for company.
