Heart So Hollow (Dire Wolves Book 1), page 63
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The route is a half-loop that begins at Leland’s driveway and ends at the ramshackle motorcycle shop. Technically, it crosses into Grayson County at the bridge over Hellbranch Creek and then back again as the road circles around Wyandot. I’ve never raced the southern route, only the north, and just once.
Bowen grins over at me from the left lane, revving his Lancer as he pushes his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. As soon as we peel away from Leland’s house and explode out of the pines lining the road, it starts veering east and the sun is low enough that it’s not blinding anymore.
Not surprisingly, my Civic is faster than Bowen’s Lancer—if only slightly. I’m also a fucking amazing driver. It’s enough that I can pull away after drifting around the curve at Becker Road, just missing Bowen as he nearly fishtails into me. We slingshot down the straightaway and gun our engines, heading for Hellbranch Creek.
It only takes a split-second, but I catch a glint of blue off to the right side of my windshield, further up the road.
“Fuck!” I roar into the dashboard as my eyes dart back and forth across the road.
Catching the reflective street sign for Arvin Road, I slam on my brakes just in time to skid around the corner and still stay on the pavement. Bowen doesn’t follow, shooting past me and flying toward the bridge. I glance in my mirrors in enough time to see the lights flash to life and a Canaan Police Explorer dart out from behind a catalpa tree and take off after Bowen’s car.
Then the realization hits.
“Mother—” I bring my fist down so hard on the wheel, I’m shocked it doesn’t snap the steering column, “fucker!”
They’ll chase Bowen to the bridge at Hellbranch, but they won’t pursue him further. And he knows it. And with that bit of knowledge, he’s already won and we’re not even at the halfway point.
I have to circle around even further west to make it back to the route and continue on to Grisham Road. By the time I get there and roll into the parking lot at Grumpy’s, it’s just as crowded as it was at Leland’s and Bowen’s car is parked next to the blown-out garage door. I come squealing to a halt, throw open my door, and storm across the asphalt without bothering to shut it.
Ignoring everyone around me, my eyes are trained on Bowen as I march across the lot. When Mason jogs over to my side, he quickly realizes what’s about to happen and grabs my shoulder, but I shove him away before he can stop me. As soon as Bowen turns around, and I see that shit-eating grin of his, I want to smash his fucking teeth into his throat.
I seize him by the front of his shirt and slam him up against his car, triggering an eruption of shouts around us.
“You think I don’t know what that was, motherfucker?” I snarl in his face.
Amidst the chaos, I can hear Evie somewhere over my shoulder yelling my name. Then Hildy’s shrill screams drown out Evie as she bellows in my ear like a fucking banshee.
“How was I to know?” Bowen drawls, that stupid fucking grin still on his face, “You never know where those assholes are hanging out.”
I pull him forward and slam his back against the passenger side door again, “But you know where they hang out…”
Everyone goes quiet.
“Oh, shit,” Mason murmurs.
“You know they won’t stop you,” I growl, just inches from his nose.
“Be a mistake if they did,” Bowen looks me up and down, studying my face for a few seconds, “just like it’d be a mistake if you don’t calm the fuck down,” he winks.
He fucking winks.
Suddenly a shout cuts through the air from the back of the crowd, “Cops!”
As the red and blue lights get closer in the distance, the parking lot bursts to life and everyone scatters. Mason shouts in my ear, pleading with me to forget Bowen before we all get hauled off to jail. I finally release Bowen and let him and a few others drag me off toward our cars.
I spin around, looking for Evie. She’s gone. I need to find her.
Three Jackson County Sherriff SUVs whip into the lot on the other side of the building, lights flashing. Mason’s right, the Canaan police might not care about Bowen, but the county doesn’t give a shit who any of us are. My head on a swivel, I scan the tree line where people are darting around and jumping in and out of cars before tearing out of the lot.
Then I see her.
She’s standing at Jay’s car and Hildy’s grasping her arm through the passenger window. Evie looks over her shoulder and then turns to say something to Hildy. Hildy is protesting, tugging at Evie, but Evie pulls her arm away. Jay yells something at both of them before Evie backs away and waves her arm at them. My eyes round as Jay guns the engine and peels out of the lot, leaving Evie behind in a spray of gravel.
A second later, I finally realize what the hell she’s doing.
As soon as Evie turns around, Bowen’s car skids to a stop in front of her. When she turns to run around the side to the passenger door, she sees me. Her eyes dart across the lot at the flashing lights and then back at me. I clench my jaw, knowing that, even now, she’s paralyzed with indecision. She’s too loyal for her own good, and she doesn’t want to break her promise.
“Just go!” I wave my arm and start backing away.
Evie spins around and as soon as she dives through the passenger door, Bowen speeds out onto the road and disappears. I turn and jump into my car, Mason cursing me the whole way for wasting time.
She should’ve just gotten into Jay’s car.
But all of us got out of there in one piece, and not in handcuffs, which is all that matters. A minute later and Bowen’s face would be broken and I’d be in custody, taken off to jail to be booked by Pappy Garrison.
About two hours later, I’m back in Dire Ridge at Mason’s house and I finally hear from Evie again.
EVIE (8:02PM): Don’t be mad…now you don’t have to drive me to Hildy’s house!
ME (8:03PM): nice save. R u there now?
EVIE (8:03PM): Yes
ME (8:04PM): text me if you need a ride tomorrow
EVIE (8:04PM): OK, love youuuuuuuuuuu!
ME (8:04PM): love you too
I drop my phone in my lap, and then pause before reaching down and deciding to shoot one last text off to her. Mason sits down next to me and tosses a beer into my lap as I snicker to myself.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” I shake my head, dropping my phone again and trading it for the beer.
ME (8:06PM): don’t feel bad. I bet your jeans were too wet for you to make it back to my car fast enough
EVIE (8:07PM): If you tell anyone about that, I’ll red card you like you did Bo.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Evie
High School
I thought Bo would ice me out for what Colson did to him during the soccer game. Because that’s what Bo does—death by association. Not that it would matter that much, because Bo and I aren’t close. He’s Hildy’s twin brother and we’re around each other a lot, but it’s different.
It’s not like me and Colson.
Col and I are the same age—born only one day apart—and from the first day we met in 5th grade, when my dad introduced me to his new girlfriend and her kids, I just clicked with him. Sometimes we even pretended to be twins because we both have red hair and blue eyes. His hair is much darker, but it was enough to trick Hildy when we ended up on the same softball team in middle school and she freaked out when she thought we both had twin brothers.
All my friends know him because he comes to my softball games and he brings his friends down from Dire Ridge to go to parties and we dress up together for Halloween as things like the twins from The Shining, creepy doll versions of Raggedy Ann and Andy, and, of course—red-headed step-children. I never had to go to homecoming or prom alone because if I didn’t have a date, Col always went with me.
Bo doesn’t do things like that. He might come tow Hildy and I out of the creek when we’d get her quad stuck in the mud, but a minute later he’d be tossing firecrackers at our feet and hiding in Hildy’s closet to jump out and scare the hell out of us after we went to bed.
He holds grudges for much less. And even though Col knocked the shit out of him and made him look like an idiot in front of everyone, Bo didn’t ice me out. Oddly enough, that’s when he seems to suddenly notice I exist. And it starts with my hair.
At lunch, in calculus, in the hallway, in the parking lot after school—I’ll feel a tug on the back of my head and, every single time when I turn around, it’s Bo. Now he suddenly wants to talk to me. And I like talking to him, because he’s actually pretty interesting.
He does this every day, until the last day before winter break when he does something different. My elbow is propped up on the lunch table with my chin in my hand, and I’m staring across the cafeteria, spacing out. Bo sits next to me, talking to Jay, and when I look down, I realize that he’s combing his fingers through the tips of my hair. He does it absently as he talks, twisting the ends around his fingers, just below the edge of the table, like he needs to keep his hands busy. And when it’s time to go back to class, he stops, gets up, and never says a word. After a couple weeks, I finally ask him about it, to which he only responds with another question.
“Do you want me to stop?”
I brush it off. Bo likes to fuck with people. I’ve known that about him since the first day we met. But by the time softball starts in March, it dawns on me that something has fundamentally changed.
Bo always keeps a couple of black hair bands around his wrist for his hair that he wears in a long fade. But one day, in calculus, I’m pulling my hair back and my band snaps. It happens all the time because my hair is so thick. Not five seconds later, I feel a tap on my arm and, when I turn around, Bo is holding a beige hair band between his index and middle fingers. At first, I think it’s pretty convenient, because I only wear beige hair bands.
But when I look at Bo’s wrist, all of the hair bands are beige instead of black.
Is Bo my friend now? That doesn’t seem right. Because now he’s doing subtle things that go beyond what my actual friends do. It’s a slow burn, like a candle that takes forever to melt down, and then one day you realize it’s spilled wax everywhere and you’ll never be able to wash it out of anything it touches. Suddenly, everything is different. One day, I wake up and realize that Bo is different.
He’s my friend now—I guess—and we do things like walk out to the senior parking lot together after calculus.
He leans against the fender of my white Civic and takes a long drag on his cigarette, “Want to be my shotgun on Saturday?”
My eyes go wide with surprise, “Like, ride with you?”
“Yeah?”
I’ve never been anyone’s shotgun before. Because riding with someone while they drive fast is not the same as riding with someone while they’re racing. I throw my yellow leather tote bag across the console into the passenger seat and spin around, “Hell fucking yeah!” It’s not even a question.
Bo grins at me with amusement, “You can ride with me all the time if it gets you that excited.”
“I’ve never ridden with anyone before,” I admit with a shrug.
Bo pushes away from my car with a roll of his eyes, “I’ve got a lot of work to do on you, Maguire,” he winks as he steps past me, sending a wave of butterflies through my stomach.
“Hey,” I call after him, “who are you racing?”
“Be there and find out,” he calls back over his shoulder.
It doesn’t take me long to find out who he’s racing. I know as soon as I text Col and ask if he’ll also be at Leland’s. And then I conveniently leave out the part where I’m riding with Bo. That is, until Saturday, when I get out of Col’s car at Leland’s.
Fucking Colson…
And then after the race, he proceeds to almost knock the shit out of Bo—again.
“That was really dirty,” I say to Bo as we circle back to Canaan at the overpass at the creek, “Col could’ve gotten arrested.”
“I wouldn’t want to tarnish golden boy’s reputation,” Bo mutters, “he’ll get over it. But, hey,” he shifts and shoots over the bridge, sending a rush deep through my stomach, “look in the console. I brought you something.”
I furrow my brow, “Me?”
“Yeah, you,” he laughs.
I pop open the center console and, sitting right on top of a pile of charge cords, lighters, and a few packs of Marlboro Lights are two tickets. When I pluck them out to read them, my heart almost stops. They’re two general admission tickets to an Evanescence concert at the beginning of July.
I could absolutely die. Or maybe I’ll just start crying instead because I need to be alive if I’m going to have a chance at being that close to a stage with Amy Lee.
“Bo!” I shriek, jerking my head up, “You have tickets to Evanescence? I love Evanescence!”
“No shit, E,” he shoots me a sideways glance, “I know you love them, why do you think I got them?”
My mouth falls open and I press the tickets to my chest, “You want me to go with you?”
“Of course,” Bo smiles, “who else would I go with?”
I don’t know…someone else. Anyone else. Bo and I don’t do things together—not really. He might do things with Hildy and I, especially now that she’s dating Jay, but it’s never just me and him.
Until now.
Bo guns the engine, flying past the same police SUV parked under a catalpa that probably chased him across the county line less than an hour before. Col probably will get over what happened tonight. But I still don’t text him until I get to Hildy’s house and we’re safely in her living room playing Call of Duty on the sofa.
Col didn’t get arrested, he didn’t smash Bo’s face in, and he doesn’t sound angry. And that’s all I really care about. But he did kiss me. And I really liked it. And that’s probably really wrong because he was only trying to stop me from riding with Bo.
Col’s joking about it, though, and for some reason that gives me license to forget about it for the time being. Which is fortunate because right now, all I want to think about is Bo, Evanescence, and how each time Bo gets up, he sits back down closer to me until our legs are touching and our shoulders bump every time we laugh.
Sitting at the other end of the sectional, neither Hildy nor Jay see Bo reach up and run his fingertips up the small of my back whenever I lean forward, concentrating on sniping the enemy, or that Bo follows me when I go get another Diet Coke from the dark kitchen. As soon as I shut the refrigerator and turn around, I run straight into his chest.
He’s blocking my path, looking down at me with a face obscured by shadow. As soon as I look up, he leans down and presses his lips to mine. He finally pulls away and I just stand there in shock as he turns and walks back to the living room. When I sit back down, I notice I don’t even have my Diet Coke. Then I realize that Bo’s holding it, the can balanced on his ankle crossed over his knee. He doesn’t even like Diet Coke.
I settle back into the cushions, eyeing the oversized teal throw pillow tucked against his side. Hildy and Jay are at the other end of the sofa, locked in a heated battle. Keeping my eyes on them, I slowly lift my hand and reach over Bo’s lap. His thigh tenses as I run my hand over his stomach and tease the hem of his t-shirt until I find the edge. Moving my head slightly, I steal a glance. He’s already looking at me, his eyes darting back and forth between my face and my hand.
Gently, I slide one finger under the waistband of his sweatpants, and then another. Moving only my wrist, I push the rest of my hand between his legs and settle it on his cock. I press my mouth together, trying in vain to stifle a smile as a wave of heat washes through my stomach. He’s so incredibly hard already. Contracting my fingers, I slowly stroke him back and forth while he stares straight ahead at the TV.
The longer I touch him, the more intense the ache gets between my thighs until, suddenly, Hildy lets out a shriek and leaps from the sofa. I flinch, snatching my hand from Bo’s pants and turning my attention back to the TV. Bo lets his ankle fall from his knee and pushes his wrist against his groin a couple of times before tossing the throw pillow aside.
He moves to stand, rotating his body and bringing his face so close it almost brushes against mine, “Fucking tease,” he mutters under his breath.
There’s a quick, sharp pain and I wince as he flicks his middle finger out from his thumb, popping me in the side of my breast. Before I can even take a breath, he disappears down the hall.
At the end of the night, Jay leaves, peeling down the gravel drive in his Frankenstein’s monster of a racecar that needs new floorboards more than racing seats. Then, like always, I follow Hildy up to her bedroom. But, this time, I pause in the doorway and gaze down the hall. Bo is strolling to his room, two doors down on the other side of the bathroom. When he gets there, he looks over his shoulder and catches my eye.
Then he gives a nod and motions inside before finally stepping over the threshold and closing the door.
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I play that moment over and over in my head as I lay next to Hildy, wide awake, under her blue and yellow paisley comforter. Finally, I sit up and look down at her. Her breaths are slow and heavy. She’s curled up under the covers so that only her head from the chin up is showing and every few seconds, she gives a tiny snore. Gently, I lift the covers and slink down to the edge of the bed.
I don’t know why I’m being so quiet. Hildy sleeps like a damn rock. Of all the times I’ve gotten out of bed at her house to go to the bathroom, not once has she ever woken up. But this time, I figure she’ll know through some subconscious, best friend telepathy that I’m doing something scandalous and she’ll immediately wake up and catch me. But she doesn’t. Good thing, too, because I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anyway.
Silently, I creep out of the room, shut the door behind me, and meander down the hall, watching for lights or movement. Twisting Bo’s doorknob, I slip into his room and quickly shut the door behind me, careful to close the latch silently. His shades are still open, letting in the warm glow from the flood light on the garage. Bo is sprawled out on his stomach, shirtless, hugging his pillow, a disheveled white sheet and light grey comforter laying crooked over his hips.
