Blaze Read Free

tries to claim shotgun as Mark tosses my chair and his giant mesh bag of balls in Superturd’s butt.
    “You’re dreamin’, horndog,” I tell Dylan.
    He slinks to the back as Mark climbs into the passenger seat and gives me a comfortable grin. My superhero buttons rattle as I start digging through my bag for my keys. After I find them, I continue rooting around, looking for some non-existent scrap of something that will empower me to seduce Mark and make him my boyfriend over the course of this ride. There is nothing helpful in my messenger bag.
    I have no idea what to even talk about with such a fine specimen of male fineness. He’s sitting so close I could reach over and touch him. It might be kind of hard to explain, and a little weird, maybe, but still… possible.
    At first I’m relieved when he turns in his seat to discuss the game with the boys. Thankfully, there’s no pressure to pull off an actual conversation. But as Superturd speeds past farm after farm and his coach-chat turns into a lengthy discussion of the team’s “next strategy,” I start to feel a bit ignored. It dawns on me that if the entire ride passes without a single interaction between the two of us, it will solidify my nonexistence in Mark’s universe. If I don’t do something drastic soon…
    “COWS!” I call out as we pass a field of cattle. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven!”
    “Wha—?” Mark swings around to face me. “Did you just count those cows?”
    I grin and call out, “That’s twenty-one, plus seven, which gives me twenty-eight. I’m win-ning .”
    “No fair,” whines Dylan, “You have front seat advantage!”
    “You lost shotgun rights for ogling my sister’s boobs.” Josh defends me and humiliates me all at once.
    I glance over at Mark and blush. “So,” he smiles and gives the bill of his hat a quick lift. “Cows?”
    My heart starts badda-thumping again.
    “It’s a stupid thing we do on these long drives. Whoever sees a herd first gets to collect them and add them to their total score.”
    Ajay chimes in from the third-row seat, “But we’ve expanded it to include all farm animals. Cows, horses, goats, even chickens.” He pauses to slurp one of the orange wedges he scored from Mrs. Schmidt. “Blaze is winning, but Dylan has ten and Josh has thirteen.”
    “Ajay, that’s disgusting!” Andrew yells. “You just spit orange pulp on my arm.”
    “Yeah, Ajay, don’t spit,” Dylan says lewdly. “Andrew prefers you swallow.”
    “Easy, Dylan,” Josh pipes in. “Try to keep your pervy fantasies to yourself.” Which gets the other boys laughing and teasing Dylan.
    Mark gasps, and I’m about to tell him how Dylan’s sexual fantasies are just an ongoing joke with us, but Mark is busy pointing. He calls out, “Ooooh! Sheep! I call sheep!” There’s a huge flock of them in the field we’re passing, and I grimace as Mark starts counting. “One, two, three, four…”
    I ease pressure on the gas as he counts faster. “Ten, eleven, twelve…” I urge Superturd to drive faster, “sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…” I glance down and see the needle creeping toward 90 miles per hour as Mark creeps closer and closer to my score, “twentyonetwentytwotwentythree…” The minivan starts shimmying with the effort until, finally, I reach the treeline and Mark has to stop counting his sheep.
    “Whew, that’s twenty-eight,” he says smugly. “How many do you have again?”
    “Twenty-eight,” I growl. I never lose a game of Cows. Ever.
    “All right, coach!” Josh calls out. “My sister never loses.”
    “I can see why,” he laughs. “How fast were you driving?”
    “What?” I say innocently. “That’s called driver’s advantage.” I look around desperately for some cows, any cows, even just a single cow to get me back on top. Nothing but massive cornfields whizz by on either side. I shouldn’t really mind losing to someone as hot as Mark. I just can’t bear to have my ass