Page 3 of Hot Summer's Prey

Uh oh, their sad brain’s kicking in again. Can’t have that.

“Hey you,” I say. “Maybe I should start a yoga studio here. Stretching after all that driving feels orgasmic. You wanna join?”

Their eyes widen as they look up. “You want my body to be perceived on the side of a road in truckertopia?”

I snort, falling to my knees for cat-cow as I table my body. “Zeph, that sounds like a crime scene.”

“It would be,” they muse. “Besides, if I’m not being paid to be perceived, no one gets a show.”

“Mmm, such a business-business person you are,” I hum, flipping my back between arched and concave. I sigh as the blood flows through me, releasing all the pent up stress of the road vibrations.

The way they talk, it makes Zephyr sound like a sex worker, but they just play games for other people’s amusement. It’s not my thing, but I love that for them.

It used to throw me off, how they’d essentially go into power save mode when we would all hang out, until I figured out that unlike for me, performance is a drain on their psyche.

We may have started as frenemies, however, because I didn’t get how playing video games on the internet deserves a fanbase or monetary compensation—at first. But my guilty pleasure is watching dermatologists pop pimples, so, really, who am I to judge?

Zephyr’s eyes fall to the ground as they get lost in thought. When my Lola died, it was honestly awful. It’s part of why I’m in Zephyr’s car—as someone with the experience of losing a grandmother, and also—

“I’m thinking, for trucker yoga, we could put the studio in one of those semis. Then we can take the show on the road!”

I know how to keep things light. The worst part of grieving for me was everyone being sad and empathetic. So I’m here to keep Zeph peppy. Or at least as peppy as a chronically depressed nonbinary cynic can get.

“You don’t even want to open a studio, dork,” Zephyr laughs. “You said it was too much responsibility and you’re too much of a free spirit.”

“Ugh, I know. Owning a business is too close to making my mom actually proud of me. Pass!”

“How quickly your dreams fall to pieces,” Zeph laughs.

An extremely loud wolf whistle sends me to my feet. I whip around, ready to catcall back because, in my experience, guys with that kind of audacity are never prepared to be catcalled back. I’m sure some of it has to do with my size too—they don’t expect someone like me to have any confidence at all. It terrifies them.

I love it.

“Ey, sweetheart, you’re lookin’ good. Can I take you home, smack that sweet ass of yours?” I call out.

If she was a stranger, I’d have been even more aggressive, but our resident mom friend, Taara, beams back at me. An assortment of snacks bundled up in her arms wages war with her grip. Two energy drinks and a can of tea threaten to slip through her arms.

“Hell yeah, a hot bitch like you? Let’s go,” Taara says. “But only if someone is willing to help me take a load off.”

Zephyr jumps forward to help, already most of the way there. Our resident perpetually helpful NB catches the cans just before they plummet to the ground.

“So proud of you asking for help for once,” Zephyr snarks.

“Hypocrite,” Taara lashes back with a wink.

Zephyr blushes, walking the drinks to the car as they turn away.

“I wanna say deep cut,” I laugh, “but that’s so surface level for either of you.”

“The murders I would commit for your audacity,” Taara muses.

“I’ll keep that in mind for later, but I do try to share how perfect I am with the world. It’s the least I can do.”

“Truly beneficent,” Zephyr nods sagely. “So humble.”

I flick my head, tossing my hair in acknowledgement. A long time ago I would joke about being a bad bitch, but then by faking it, I actually made it happen. I really am one now. All it takes is the audacity—cishet white boys shouldn’t hoard it all to themselves.

Zephyr looks out across the top of the car, scanning the road. “How did we get this far ahead of them?”

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