Savage Lover Page 2
I speed over to the location of his little blue dot—or at least, I speed as much as I can without overheating my car’s ancient engine. This car is older than I am, by a lot, and I’m mostly keeping it alive by sheer force of will these days.
It’s only a seven-minute drive to the house. I could have found it with or without the app—the thudding music is audible from three blocks away. Dozens of cars line the street on both sides. Partygoers are literally spilling out of the house, climbing in and out of windows, and passed out on the lawn.
I park as close as I can get, then hurry up to the house.
I push my way inside through the crush of people, looking for my little brother.
Most of the partygoers seem to be in their twenties. This is a full-on rager, with beer pong, topless girls playing strip-poker, keg stands, couples halfway to fucking on the couches, and so much pot smoke that I can barely see two feet in front of my face.
Trying to spot my brother, I’m not exactly watching where I’m going. I plow right into a group of girls, making one of them shriek with rage as her drink splashes the front of her dress.
“Watch it, bitch!” she howls, spinning around.
Oh, fuck.
I’ve managed to bump into somebody who already hated my guts: Bella Page.
We went to high school together, once upon a time.
It gets even better. Bella is standing with Beatrice and Brandi. They used to call themselves “The Queen Bees.” Unironically.
“Oh my god,” Bella says in her drawling voice, prickling with vocal fry. “I must be drunker than I thought. ‘Cause I swear I’m looking at the Grease Monkey.”
That’s what they called me.
It’s been at least six years since I heard that nickname.
And yet, it instantly fills me with self-loathing, just like it used to.
“What are you wearing?” Beatrice says in disgust. She’s staring at my coveralls with the kind of horrified expression usually reserved for car accidents or mass genocides.
“I thought something smelled like hot garbage,” Brandi says, wrinkling up her perfect little button nose.
God, I was hoping these three had moved away after high school. Or maybe died of dysentery. I’m not picky.
Bella has her sleek blonde hair cut into a long bob. Beatrice definitely got a boob job. And Brandi has a sparkly rock on her finger. But all three are still beautiful, well-dressed, and looking at me like I’m shit on the bottom of their shoes.
“Wow,” I say blandly. “I’ve really missed this.”
“What are you doing here?” Beatrice says, folding her skinny arms under those new boobs.
“Shouldn’t you be back at that shithole garage washing your face with oil?” Brandi sneers.
“I thought she’d be down on Cermak,” Bella says, fixing me with her cool blue eyes. “Sucking dick for ten bucks a pop, just like her mom.”
The heat and smoke and sound of the party seem to fade away. All I see is Bella’s pretty face, twisted up with disdain. Even when I’m fucking furious at her, I have to admit she is gorgeous: thick, black lashes around big blue eyes. Pink lipstick sneer.
That doesn’t stop me wanting to knock her perfect teeth out with my fist. But her father is some bigwig banker, storing cash for all the fancy fuckers in Chicago. I have no doubt he’d sue me into oblivion if I assaulted his little princess.
“At least she gets ten dollars,” a low voice says. “You usually do it for free, Bella.”
Nero Gallo is leaning up against the kitchen cabinets, hands tucked in his pockets. His dark hair is even longer than it was in high school, and it’s hanging in his face. That doesn’t cover up the bruise under his right eye, or the nasty cut on his lip.
And neither of those injuries can mar the outrageous beauty of his face. In fact, they only serve to highlight it.
Nero is proof of the perversity of the universe. Never has such a dangerous object been disguised in such an appealing wrapper. He’s like a berry so vivid and juicy that it makes your mouth water just looking at it. But one taste will poison you.
He’s liquid sex in a James Dean frame. Everything about him, from his fog-gray eyes to his pouty lips to his arrogant swagger is calculated to make your heart freeze up in your chest, and then jolt back to life if he so much as glances at you.
The girls’ moods shift completely when they catch sight of him.
Far from being annoyed at his jab, Bella giggles and bites her lip like he’s flirting with her.
“I didn’t know you were coming,” she says.
“Why would you?” Nero says, rudely.
I have no interest in talking to Nero, and definitely none at all in continuing my conversation with The Queen Bees. I have to find my brother. Before I can slip away, Nero says, “Is that your Trans Am out there?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Is it a ‘77 LE?”
“Yeah.”
“Same as Burt Reynolds.”
“That’s right,” I say, smiling despite myself. I don’t want to smile at Nero. I would like to stay as far away from him as possible. But he’s talking about the one thing I own that I actually love.
Burt Reynolds drove the same car in Smokey and the Bandit—except his was black with a gold eagle on the hood, and mine is red with racing stripes. Faded and beat to shit, but still pretty rad, in my opinion.
Bella has no idea what we’re talking about. She just hates that Nero and I are talking at all. She needs to pull the attention back to herself, immediately.
“I have a Mercedes G-Wagon,” she says.
“Daddy must have had a good year,” Nero says, curling up that full upper-lip, puffier than ever from its bruise.
“He certainly did,” Bella coos.
“Thank god there’re heroes like him helping all those poor billionaires hide their money,” I say.
Bella whips her head around like a snake, obviously wishing I would leave or die already so she could be alone with Nero.
“Please tell us how you’re saving the world,” she hisses. “Are you doing oil changes for orphans? Or are you the same loser you were in high school? I really hope that’s not the case, because if you’re still a grimy little degenerate, I really don’t know how you’re going to pay for my dress you just ruined.”
I look at her tight white dress, which has three tiny spots of punch on the front of it.
“Why don’t you try washing it?” I tell her.
“You can’t throw an eight-hundred-dollar dress in the washing machine,” Bella tells me. “But you wouldn’t know that, because you don’t wash your clothes. Or anything else, apparently.”
She sniffs at my filthy undershirt, and my hair tied back with a greasy bandanna.
It makes me burn with shame when she looks at me like that. I don’t know why. I don’t value Bella’s opinion. But I also can’t argue with the facts: I’m poor, and I look terrible.
“You’re wasting your time,” Nero says in a bored tone. “She doesn’t have eight hundred dollars.”
“God,” Beatrice giggles, “Levi really needs to start getting security for these parties. Keep the trash out.”
“You sure you’d make the cut?” Nero says, softly.