Page 1 of Home Stretch

ONE

Malia

Well,this was a terrible mistake.

I knew it would be, but that doesn’t do much to comfort me now.

I’m currently trapped in the backseat of my date’s car as he laughs with his two pretentious friends and races down the backstreets toward the Stud Farm.

“And then I was like let’s bet, and the dude tried to make it for fifty bucks,” Thatcher says before cackling. His friends join in, and I roll my eyes.

Thatcher, Sterling, and Francis are all rich pricks born and raised in Los Angeles. They went to the best private schools and vacationed at only the swankiest hotels in Europe, Asia, and the Hamptons. They’ve never had to worry about money or well… anything.

And I grew up the exact same way. Cold, hard cash; cold, hard parents, and all the opulence in the world to fill the void we all carry around in our souls. I hated every minute of it, which is why I chose to go to college in the tiny town of Sequoia, California.

Maybe the last few months here have spoiled me, and that’s why I’m extra-sensitive to how abrasive and horrible these assholes “from the city” are being. I hope and pray I was never like them, even at my worst. From what I’ve experienced so far, I’m confident that none of them have ever thought about the condition of their souls.

“Ha! Did you tell him to come back when he had big boy money?” Sterling, my unfortunate date for the night, asks.

“No, I took that chump’s money,” Thatcher says. Francis and Sterling both laugh and start high-fiving each other.

I roll my eyes as the guys go back to bragging about something else, wondering why I’m even here. Sterling seems as interested in me as I am in him, which is to say, not at all.

Sighing, I stare out the window, wishing for the millionth time I didn’t agree to this stupid date just to appease my parents. I’ve replayed the conversation a dozen times in my head over the last few days, and I’ve come up with a few zingers I should have thrown their way.

It’s antiquated for them to set me up with their friends’ kids just to secure some sort of wealthy family connection. My mother and father don’t see it that way, and I doubt anything I tell them would convince them otherwise. I wish I had made up a lie, an excuse, anything to get out of going out with Sterling tonight.

My parents have been introducing me to their friends’ kids for as long as I can remember. They’ve been trying to set me up with someone respectable, someone with the right social status, since I was born. That’s all that they care about. It doesn’t matter what I want.

That’s part of why we’ve never been very close. They don’t care about me, not really. They only care about how I can make them look. Mom was always on me about my weight, how I’m pretty but too curvy to catch the right kind of man. She started doing my hair and makeup when I was ten, telling me how beauty is pain. How messed up is that?

When she called to inform me that Sterling had agreed to take me out, she seemed pleasant and polite, but it was like she was talking to a stranger.

I guess part of me was hoping Sterling wouldn’t actually come. I mean, why would he drive an hour to the middle of nowhere to meet some random girl?

Apparently, Sterling has a lot of time on his hands. Or maybe he just mindlessly does whatever his parents ask. I wouldn’t be surprised if he couldn’t get a date in Los Angeles either, even with all his money and connections.

The dude is seriously insufferable.

I wonder if my parents knew he was going to be bringing his friends on our date or that he’s taking me to the racetrack near campus.

“This is where the racetrack is?” Francis scoffs from his seat next to me.

“Yeah, why the hell are we in this small town? No girl is worth coming to a place like this,” Thatcher says with a laugh. Am I invisible? They’re talking shit about me and my home, and I’m right here!

“Only if she has magic pussy,” Sterling says, looking at me over his shoulder from the front seat. He winks, and my stomach turns. I try giving him my best glare, but I’m trying not to throw up in my mouth.

“I guess you’ll find out tonight,” Francis crows.

I want to knee every single one of them in the balls.

We follow the line of cars until we can park at the end of a row. My date and his friends are busy talking about how much more expensive and better their car is compared to everyone else’s.

“My dick is so small, I have to make up for it with a shiny car,” Sterling says as we climb out of the car. Thatcher and Francis both nod in agreement.

Okay, that didn’t really happen, but it’s all I’m hearing when any of them talk from now on.

I take a few steps away from them and try to put space between us as more people walk toward the fence bordering the racetrack.

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