I look over the shiny chrome monster of an engine concealed by the rusty hood. Yep, engine check done. I already know I’m going out tonight so I might as well get gone.
I slam the hood, giving Foxy a pat. “In rust and Rix, we trust.” It’s my motto, a play on a common saying that probably needs work, not that it matters since it’s only between me and Foxy. A quick opening of the bay door lets me get the car out, and while I should probably turn her off while I lock up, I don’t. I love listening to the rumble, letting it wash over my skin and pull goosebumps to the surface. The neighbors? Not so much. But it’s barely past seven, so I’m not breaking any laws. Yet.
I pull out of the lot, and as soon as my tires touch city road, technically, I’m illegal. Foxy hasn’t seen the right side of an inspection in this century. We won’t be confessing to the legalities of what’s under the hood, either. Nothing’s hot—I’m always meticulously careful about that—but some of the imports under her hood do things the DMV doesn’t exactly approve of.
I keep it slow and safe through town, knowing exactly where I’m going. The track’s closed, but there’s a spot outside town where people drag race and that’s where I head at a respectful, responsible speed, using my blinkers and everything. I can’t get pulled over if I’m using my fucking signals to change lanes on a nearly empty road.
Once I get to The Mile, I drive it extra slow to check for any hazards. The stretch of road is long, straight, and flat, lit with street lights even though the sun hasn’t fully set yet. I swear whoever designed this road for the Department of Transportation had to be a racer him or herself because it’s damn near a perfect drag strip. It’s all clear, and I line up at the north end.
I complete my own mental checklist—seatbelt clicked into place, black-faced gauges reading correctly, pedals unobstructed for quick presses, road clear as a bell as far as I can see.
Three, two, one . . .
I slam the clutch in and hit the gas at the same time, the engine jumping at the demand and meeting it joyfully. A blink later, I switch to second, and as the engine whines, third. I hold, contemplating fourth . . . fifth. But I know I don’t have road space to hit those speeds and recover before the slight curve far ahead. So I do the responsible thing and slow back down.
It might not seem responsible. Dad certainly doesn’t think so, or at least he doesn’t anymore. But I’m doing what I love in a way that considers all the risk factors and mitigates them as much as possible.
But tonight’s just for fun.
I pull a U-turn at the south end, lining back up and counting myself down again. And I’m off.
I listen to every nuance, feel every thrust of horsepower, knowing Foxy better than I know myself. Power at my fingertips, rumbling under my ass, all controlled by the press of a pedal. It’s everything.
I must make six or seven runs before I realize I’ve pressed my luck.
Shit. Fuck. Damn. Those cherries coming from the south side have got to be for me.
I’ll admit that I have one little moment of thinking ‘fuck it’ and seriously contemplate hitting the gas and getting out of here. I know Foxy can outrun a police cruiser. I’m wild enough to do it, too, but I’m not that stupid.
But still . . .
Shit. I am so busted.
Majorly busted.
Dad’s going to be so fucking pissed at me. I’m not even supposed to be racing anymore, but here I am, racing the sunset, racing my past, even racing myself.
Chapter 14
Brody
Some metal song I don’t even know screams out of my phone. It’s whatever Erica chose as her personalized ring tone while we debated musical genius at Hank’s. Her current favorite is something called Five Finger Death Punch, which is a band, apparently. One I already can’t stand. Mine is Tyler Childers, one she said sounded like a dog dancing on a banjo. Two tastes that couldn’t be more different, which is why she took such delight in picking whatever that racket is that’s coming out of my phone. Every time it sounds out, I damn near jump out of my skin. She thinks it’s hilarious. Fine, I do too. Not that I’ll tell her that because then I’ll have to confess that it only makes me smile because of her.
“Well hello, Lil Bit.” I drawl out the greeting, glad to begin our nightly chat.
“Brody, I have sixty seconds so listen up. I’m in Morristown county jail and I need you to come bail me out and not tell anyone. Please.”
The words are one long jumble, each word tumbling over the one before it.
Jail. Bail. Don’t tell.
All important details, but what guts me is the ‘please’ with a hint of desperation. Erica is not someone who begs . . . ever. But she is now, and that’s more than enough for me to click into handle-shit mode.
“How much?”
I hate to say I’ve done this before, but I’ve done this before. With Dad. A few drunk and disorderly charges that never stuck, but I’d have to go pick him up at the police station after he sobered up. I’d bring money we didn’t have to pay the fine, he’d bitch about me nagging him, and then rinse and repeat when he lost big at the tables again. But that was better than when the alcohol would make him sad and weepy because he’d tell stories about Mom, about how much he missed her, about how nothing was the same without her by his side. Pissed off Dad was better than miserable Dad for sure.
“A couple of hundred for tonight.”
“On my way, Erica. Be safe.”
“Bro—” She’s cut off by an officer in the background telling her time’s up. And the phone goes silent in my hand.
Motherfucker. What the hell happened? What was she doing that got her arrested? I search my brain but come up empty. Erica doesn’t drink too much, which is my first thought, of course. She has a mouth on her, but not enough to go around getting in fights, and her military background probably helps her stay cool and collected if someone else is fucking off. Wrong place, wrong time?
Or maybe . . . wrong person? What if Emily did something and Erica’s taking the fall? I could see that because Erica would do anything for her sister. But if that were the case, why wouldn’t Emily be the one bailing her out?
Erica told me not to tell anyone, and that really can only mean Emily and Reed since I’ve only met her mom the one time.
Confusion whirls though my mind, but my body’s in action. I grab my wallet and keys, step over Brutal’s old dog, Murphy, who’s lying by the front door, and fly down the grassy drive in my truck going a bit too fast. As I wait for the automatic gate to open, my phone buzzes.
Brutal: Where you going so damned fast?
Me: Erica’s.
Brutal: Guess I’ll plan to feed the goats in the morning.
Me:
I want to say thanks, but that’d be suspicious, and he already knows I appreciate it. Plus, it’s not like I can tell him where I’m going or what I’m doing since Erica asked me not to, so letting him think I’m just running out hellbent for pussy is the right thing to do. Better he thinks I’m a manwhore than that Erica’s in trouble.
The drive over the mountain is quick this time of evening with zero traffic, so I get to the police station before I’ve come up with any reasonable answer to what in the hell Erica might’ve done. But I pray to fuck-all that she’s okay and safe. Jail isn’t exactly an easy place to be.
I tell the desk cop, a thick-chested man with a huge gray handlebar mustache, “Erica Cole.”
He lazily looks up from the paperwork on his desk, giving me a once-over. “Nice to meet you, Erica.”
I swallow the growl, knowing that it won’t do Erica any good for me to piss off the people holding her. “I’m here to bail out Erica Cole.”
His eyes drift back to his paperwork, seemingly dismissing me, but after a moment, he sighs. “Three fifty. Cash or charge?”
“Cash,” I say, glad I went ahead and grabbed everything I had at home. Three fifty is a lot more than a couple of hundred, but I can float it and I trust Er
ica to pay me back.
Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do.
“What are the charges?”
He shrugs, not giving me any information, but he sure takes my money damn fast. I sign a bunch of paperwork and then the guy directs me to a bank of waiting room chairs. I can’t sit, but I move to the far side of the room to pace worriedly.
After a few minutes, he calls out. “Son, you’re a big guy, and pacing around like a caged tiger is making me nervous.” He fidgets with his mustache, the perfect picture of calm no matter what he says. “Sit down and wait. We’ll get your girl out lickity split.”
My girl.
She’s not. But I’m the one she called.
Does that mean something? Other than that she didn’t want her family to find out about whatever this is? More questions and still no answers.
A door opens with a creak and Erica walks through. She’s got on those baggy navy coveralls, her steel-toed boots, and her hands are dirty. She’s been working, so how did that go from the garage to jail?
“Let’s go.” Her voice is clipped, her stride purposeful, and her posture military precise. I open the front door of the police station for her and she struts right through without a word.
I glance back, and Mustache Man raises one brow. I don’t have time for him and his judgements when Erica’s little steps are eating up the ground.
She climbs into my truck, not letting me help her as usual, but I close the door with a slam. I do the same with my own door and then look at her.
The sun has set, and it’s dark, but I can see the hard set of her jaw.
“You okay?” I ask. I have so many questions, but that’s the most important one.
It breaks something in her though. “Fuuuuck!” Her shout is full of anger and tinged with regret. When she runs out of air and tapers off, she inhales forcefully and turns her head to look at me. “I’m fine. Fucked, but fine.”
That’s enough for now, so I leave her be and start up the truck. She disappears behind a tough, hard shell, silence wrapped around her protectively as she stares out the window.
At the garage, I park and don’t wait for an invitation but rather follow her toward the door. She’ll tell me to fuck off if she doesn’t want me to come up, I have no doubt about that, and when she stays quiet, allowing me inside before locking up, I know she’s okay with my presence. Once in her apartment, she pulls two beers from the fridge and holds one out to me.
I take it, popping the tab. Before I swallow a sip, Erica has chugged the whole can. “Ahh . . . shit, I needed that after tonight.”
My sip is small in comparison, and I look at her openly, no judgement and no demands.
“Aren’t you gonna ask what I was arrested for?”
“Nope.”
Her eyes go wide as saucers and then narrow suspiciously. “No?”
I take another sip, feeling the minefield all around me and wanting to tread carefully. “Erica, I like you. A lot. And I want to spend time with you. But we’ve already established . . . you’ve got shit, I’ve got shit. If you want to talk about what happened, I’ll sit here all night and let you rage, cry, whine, or whatever you need to do. If you want to pretend it never happened, we can do that too. Your call. I’m not here to make things hard for you.” I mean that honestly, even though I’m curious as fuck about what happened tonight. But it’s not my place unless she wants it to be. That’s the agreement we made.
She thinks on that for a long moment while I await my fate. Finally, a small smile takes her face. “You want something to eat?”
I knew she wouldn’t get rid of me. Well, I hoped she wouldn’t.
“I think you’ve had a rougher night than me. If it’s all right, let me feed you?”
Her smirk grows. “Let me guess . . . pancakes?”
“Fuck yeah, Lil Bit.”
Pancakes and beer are a weird combination, but carbs and alcohol are probably exactly what she needs.
She sits down at the small table, leaving me to have at her kitchen. I can feel her eyes following me to the fridge and back to the counter. I know where the mixing bowls and skillet are, so I make myself at home. Within minutes, I’m setting a plate down in front of her.
After a few bites and with an eye roll, she gives in. “Fine, twist my arm already, Cowboy. I got arrested for excessive speed. Officer Miles probably would’ve let me off with a warning, but he was training a new rookie tonight so he had to go by the books.”
I swallow the last bite I took, giving myself a moment to process, because her confessing to me is a big trust. Even more than the fact that she called me, not Emily, her parents, or Reed. That was a necessity for some reason, but this? Her openly and willingly sharing is something I think Erica Cole doesn’t do easily or often, and I’m gonna wallow like a happy pig in slop that she chose to do it with me.
Even after getting the pancakes to my belly, all I manage to do is repeat what she said. “You got arrested for excessive speed?” Erica nods affirmatively. I remember Emily saying there’s a Cole family trait to have a lead foot. “Not a ticket, but arrested? Shit, woman, how much over were you going?” The question comes out reflexively, even though I’m trying damn hard not to pry.
“More than double.” She sounds casual as hell about it, the shrug in her tone even if her shoulder doesn’t move.
Breadcrumbs, breadcrumbs, all she’s giving me are breadcrumbs. But I want every one of them, following along her trail to see where it leads.
“So what, you hit a hundred and they went hardcore on you?”
She levels me with a withering look, but I don’t know what I said wrong. “Miles said he clocked me at one thirty-four. Though I disagree. Speedometer said one thirty-eight.”
My beer goes down the wrong pipe when I inhale sharply. I cough and sputter, swiping at the small spray that covers my lips. “Holy. Fuck. You were going a hundred and thirty-four miles an hour down an open road?”
She shakes her head and smiles. “No, Cowboy. Listen carefully. One. Thirty. Eight. If you knew what I had to do to that engine to get those four more miles per hour, you wouldn’t be discounting them so easily, but I wasn’t even topped out.”
I try to wrap my brain around that type of speed. I’m no granny out for Sunday drives when I hit the highway, but I’ve never driven that fast. Not even close. I can’t imagine that much power at the touch of a toe.
“Wait, what were you driving? Your truck won’t do that.”
Mischief blossoms in her eyes, her excitement palpable. “My rat rod. Eighty-four Ford Mustang.”
I get the feeling she just mic-dropped me. I have no idea why.
“What’s a rat rod?” I’m still trying to make some semblance of sense here.
Her face looks like I just asked her what that big ball of fire in the sky is. “Like a hot rod under the hood, but the outside isn’t all fancy like the cars we saw at the show. My rod’s navy and rust, loud as hell—should’ve gotten a ticket for that too.” She puts a finger to her lips, telling me to keep quiet about that. “But it’s all about what’s under the hood. She’s totally custom, gutted and rebuilt with my own two hands. She’s got a 426 Hemi that I’ve tweaked. I’d have stayed Ford loyal and put a 385 in there, but I couldn’t find one.”
I blink, and she rambles on. “She’s not the usual ratter, way too new for that. But I like it because it’s what my dad had when he married my mom. It was their honeymoon getaway car, beer cans rattling behind them and everything. Foxy reminds me of those pictures and their smiling faces.”
Even though I barely understand what she’s saying, I’m starting to get a picture here, something bigger and deeper than her fixing up Bessie’s transmission.
“You’re like one of those car guys on TV, aren’t you? Making something from nothing.”
She buffs her dirty nails on her coveralls, not even feigning modesty. “Something like that. Except those shows are staged, edited, and dramatized. I make good cars great and fast cars faster.”
“You’re amazing.” I lean over the table and kiss those lips. She tastes like syrup and secrets, ones she’s sharing with me.
Her blink is slow and suspicious. “You’re not gonna tell me I’m being reckless and stupid? That I have no business doing something so dangerous? That I should leave the racing to the big boys?”
That those questions are on the tip of her tongue tells me she’s heard them all before. This is a test, sure as shit.
I take another bite, letting her stew for a moment. “Reckless and stupid? That’s my idea of a fun Saturday night.” My grin grows and she smacks my shoulder.
“Asshole.” But she’s smiling, and I know that whatever she expected from me, that wasn’t it. “And it’s Tuesday.”
“Yeah, Saturdays are for reckless and stupid. Tuesdays are for crazy and illegal. And watch out for Thursdays . . .” I pause dramatically, and Erica’s smile tells me she’s on board with me. “That’s for secrets and sneaking around.”
“What about Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday?” Laughter is dancing in her eyes.
I break first, my laughter rough and rusty. “Shit, I don’t know. I’m making this stuff up as I go.”
She gets up, coming around the table to kiss me. “You surprise me, Brody Michael Tannen.”
I could say the same thing to her, but while it feels like a compliment to me, I think she’d take it as an insult. As much as she’s shared tonight, and as wild and outrageous as it sounds, I feel like she thinks it’s no big deal. Just another day, another engine, another hundred and thirty-eight mile an hour drive through the city.
So I keep my big, fat mouth shut tight as she grabs our plates and takes them to the sink.
“I’m gonna take a quick shower and wash the jail off me. Can you stay?”
“Yeah, I can stay.” I see her smile, though she turns quickly to hide it from me. It’s cute, and that’s not a word I’d ever use to describe Erica. It feels like another layer of hard-edged fierceness cracked away. I don’t know that she’s soft and sweet underneath all that armor, but I damn sure want to find out.
Rough Edge Page 15