Once the girl leaves us alone, Lucy says, "Famous, eh?"
I shrug. "I've been coming here for almost five years, but months and months apart. The fact that I race motocross came up, and they follow my career. It's no big deal."
"I think it's a big deal. In a nice way. Like you have a family here."
"Huh. I never thought of it that way." But she's right. The folks here do treat me like family. And it is kind of nice.
If I was cynical, I'd say they only pretend to be happy to see me and interested in my success because I'm a customer, but it's not like I come here every week or even every month. I don't even get here every time I'm in town. So, if they're just trying to butter me up for my money…well, paying attention to my races when I'm not even around is a lot of effort for not a lot of payoff. Seems a lot more likely that their interest is genuine.
The realization gives me a little glow of pleasure. I always think of family as me and my mom and that's it. Yes, I know I have a sperm donor, but that's all he ever was—a sperm donor. I never met him because he abandoned my mom when she was six months pregnant with me. I don't care what my genes say, because that man, wherever he is, is not my family.
My mom's parents both died when I was little. I have hazy memories of them, and they were great, but dead people don't provide much support in the real world. And then there's my uncle and his wife and their three kids. They live in Washington state. They visited us once when I was ten. We never visited them because my mom could never afford it. They send a Christmas card once a year in which they brag about how smart and talented and successful everyone is. That's not family, either.
But the people who run this restaurant, while they aren't exactly family, they're a hell of a lot closer to it than most of the people I'm related to.
And now I feel even worse that I don't know the waitress's name. I'm going to have to find out before I leave tonight.
Lucy flips open the menu. "I assume you're getting the pad Thai," she says without looking up.
"And the Tom Yum soup. When me and Darnell come, he usually orders two other dishes."
She smiles crookedly and shakes her head. "Only one more dish or you'll have to roll me out of here and I'll fall into a coma when we get back to the hotel. I hope you like spicy food."
"Raised in San Antonio. Bring it." I hope I don't regret it. If she orders anything over a level of eight, I'm in deep trouble.
The waitress returns with our drinks, sets the water and beer in front of me and the Thai tea in front of Lucy. "I know what you want," she says to me, then turns to Lucy. "You decide, hon?"
Lucy nods, and the waitress takes her pad and small pencil out of a hidden pocket in her dress, which looks a little like a kimono but is from Thailand instead of Japan. "What can I get you?"
"The red curry catfish. You do your spices from one to ten?"
"Yep," the waitress confirms.
I try not to hold my breath too noticeably.
"Seven," Lucy finally decides, and I exhale. "But make it a true seven, not a white people seven."
The waitress laughs. "You got it." She tucks the pad and pencil back into her pocket.
"Hey, before you go…" I begin.
She stops mid-turn. "Yeah?"
I stuff down the embarrassment that's creeping into my chest. "Well, I've been coming here for almost five years, and you all know my name, but I don't know any of yours."
"Oh," she says, surprise but also pleasure in her voice. "I'm Kanya.” She points to the kitchen. “My mom, Lawan, does most of the cooking although the rest of us pitch in. My dad’s Panit. You’ve met him a couple of times, too, right?”
I nod. “I think he was running the register the first time me and Darnell came in. He told me he’d never seen two people put away that much food before. Is he here tonight?”
“He’s in the office in the back doing the books. And my sister, Suda, has the night off.” Then the bell that signals someone's entering the restaurant jingles. "Whoops, that's my cue.I'll put your order in as soon as I get these folks seated."
Once Kanya’s gone, Lucy says, "You're a way nicer guy than your press, you know that?"
I didn't ask Kanya’s name to impress Lucy, but I'm glad it did. "God, don't let that get out. I'll scream fake news if you do. It'll ruin me. Nice guys always finish last."
Her eyes soften, and that dreamy smile she was wearing earlier in bed tilts the corners of her mouth. "I'm going to hold you to that. All night."
Nine
Lucy
“Too hot for you, Tex?”
For the past few minutes, I’ve been watching Owen push more and more rice into his red curry sauce in between bites. He hasn’t complained that it’s too spicy for him, but I’m pretty sure that “not-white-people” seven is at the upper limits of his range. I could’ve gone as far as eight or maybe even nine and enjoyed it, but my mother thinks if the salsa doesn’t bring tears to your eyes, it’s not worth eating, so I’ve developed a certain amount of resistance.
He starts to deny the charge, but then he huffs out a laugh and says, “Babe, this right here is Krakatoa east of Java.”
The comparison to a volcano makes me smile, but… “Isn’t Krakatoa west of Java?”
“Is it? Hell if I know. Geography was not my best subject.” He gathers together a sizable portion of rice dampened with a tiny amount of sauce and small piece of the fish. It has not escaped my notice that he is extremely proficient with his chopsticks, while I am just barely on the right side of competence. “But then, nothing else was my best subject, either, unless you count P.E.”
He lifts the chopsticks without losing a single grain of rice—if it were me, I’d have lost half of what I picked up by now—and pops it into his mouth.
“I think P.E. counts. Especially since it’s why I could never get straight A’s in high school.” There are not adequate words to describe how much I hated P.E. I’m glad someone is good at it. “But why Krakatoa east of Java?”
He waves his empty chopsticks. “Oh, that’s the title of an old disaster movie. About the eruption of Krakatoa. Came out in the early seventies, probably.”
“Never heard of it. Is it any good?”
“Not really,” he says with an amused snort. “A lot of cheesy special effects and not much else. But the title stuck with me for some reason.”
“How’d you end up watching it if it wasn’t very good?”
He shrugs, tumbling the chopsticks between his fingers as his eyes go unfocused and distant. “I don’t need a lot of sleep, and I never have. Like, after five or six hours, I’m raring to go. But when I was little, that was really a problem for my mom, because she did need her sleep.
“So, when I was...I dunno…seven or eight, she told me that it was fine for me to go to bed and get up whenever I felt like it, but that I had to entertain myself quietly until she got up unless I was sick or in pain or something. I discovered late night movie and TV show marathons to keep me company, so I’ve seen a lot of movies way worse than Krakatoa: East of Java.” He focuses on me again and grins. “Also, I have some very disturbing episodes of Twilight Zone and Outer Limits permanently stamped on my brain.”
“Oh my God, tell me about it!” I smile at the memories that pop into my mind. “My older brothers used to insist on watching Twilight Zone marathons on New Year’s Day, and some of those were so creepy, especially when I was only six or seven. Do you remember the one with the couple that gets off a train in a deserted town and there are fake squirrels tacked on tree trunks?”
“And at the end, the camera pans out, and they’re in sort of an ant farm to be toys for a little girl?”
“That’s the one!” I agree. “Seriously, my personal nightmare right there.”
“The one that freaked me out was where this woman chases a space alien away from her house, beating it to death with a broom, and then at the end, there’s a shot of a landing craft with a US flag planted beside it.” He shudders. “But that one might
have been Outer Limits.”
“Yeah, I don’t remember that one. I’m pretty sure I’d remember it if I’d seen it.”
Both of us have nearly cleared our plates, and Owen picks up the beer he’s been nursing throughout the meal and takes a pull. “So, how many older brothers do you have?”
I finish chewing and swallow the last bite from my plate. “I don’t just have older brothers. I have three brothers and one sister. I’m the middle child, two older brothers and then a brother and sister younger than me.”
“Wow, big family.” It’s a casual observation, one I’ve heard before when people find out I’m one of five kids, but there’s a wistful quality to Owen’s voice. “What’s it like, having all those siblings?”
My best friend since middle school, Ella Nguyen, is an only child, so I have an idea what Owen’s imagining when he asks the question. The grass is greener and all that. I feel the same way when I imagine what it would be like to be an only.
“Loud and chaotic, mostly. Also, you can never get into the bathroom when you need to, you have to share everything from your parents’ help with homework to the last bit of cereal in the bottom of the box with everyone else, and you get dragged to every one of your brothers’ or sister’s boring activities whether you want to or not. You do not even want to know how many horrible, hours-long violin recitals I’ve had to sit through in my life.” What I don’t tell him is that Paulina, my violin-playing baby sister, just got accepted to Julliard and I’m proud as hell of her. It’s just that I’m still not one hundred percent sure I can forgive her the hours of my life I lost listening to all those kids—including her—murder innocent pieces of music with their squeaky, out-of-tune bow work. “Don’t get me wrong," I add. "I love them, and I wouldn’t trade them for the world, but I wouldn’t have minded if we could have all lived in separate houses. Possibly in separate states.”
Owen leans back in his chair and spins his beer bottle in its ring of condensation, a rueful smile tugging the corners of his mouth. "Well, the homework thing wouldn't have been a problem. I never did homework, anyway. But I would've been bad at the music recital thing. Not because I’d know the playing was bad—"
"Oh, believe me, you'd know," I cut in with a snort of laughter.
"Maybe, but more because I wouldn't have been able to sit still for more than five minutes. Look at me," he says, glancing down at what he's doing with the beer bottle, which he's stopped spinning and is now sliding from one hand to the other like a hockey puck. "I can't even do it now. It was even worse when I was a kid. Which I guess is one reason I always wished I had brothers or sisters. It would have given me someone to expend all that energy with, instead of my mom having to constantly find activities for me to do." He sighs. "But I bet if I had any brothers or sisters, they'd be just like me, which would've meant even more work for my mom."
"You do have a lot of energy. But that's what makes you such a successful rider. When you focus that energy, you're damn near unstoppable. Which is why I don't like the idea that I'm a distraction to you."
He stops messing with the bottle and reaches across the table, placing a cool, damp hand on top of my wrist. "You're not a distraction, Lucy. You're my focus." His blue eyes meet mine, and it's like looking into the center of a storm. Calm, yet intense.
Committed. Unstoppable.
My stomach takes a swan dive, and the air between us grows thick and electric. His fingers are already warming against my skin, and even though my wrist is about as far from an erogenous zone as it's possible to get, the hot tingle of desire blossoms in my core.
Whatever made me think I could be satisfied with a Volvo—or even a Ferrari? Owen's a straight-up rollercoaster, all speed and anticipation, and let's be honest, I love thrill rides. And Owen's the best attraction in the park. I want to ride him again and again.
Kanya clears her throat. "Hey, just bringing the check," she says, her eyes sparkling with knowing amusement.
Shit. I doubt that Kanya is ever going to be in a position to tell anyone that Owen and I are knocking boots, but I'd rather no one knew. It would be safer that way.
Except I'm not sure any more that I care. Maybe I want to ride the rollercoaster more than I want my job.
And isn't that a fucking chilling thought?
Owen sweeps the piece of paper off the table with his free hand, releasing my wrist to pull his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans with the other. I'm about to make a feeble attempt to suggest we split the check, but he sees it coming and shakes his head. "Nah, I got this," he says as he hands Kanya the check and a credit card.
After she heads back to the register at the counter to close out our bill, I say, "This is such a bad idea," but there's no heat in my words. Or, at least, not the kind of heat that should be in them.
He gives me that grin of his, and damn, my hormones sit up and beg. Seriously, I'd rip off my underwear and straddle his lap right now if he asked me to. "Sometimes it's good to be bad."
And I am going to be so, so bad.
Ten
Owen
Lucy drives us back to the hotel. Part of me wants to be the one in the driver's seat, wants to sling her over my shoulder and carry her to my lair. Me caveman, you my woman. But it's just as nice to sit here in the passenger seat and watch her. Hell, maybe even nicer.
She's a careful and methodical driver. Probably because of the sexual tension that's humming between us like a live wire, she's being extra cautious, keeping both hands on the wheel and her eyes on the road. Like getting us safely where we're going is the most important thing in the world.
It's hot as fuck.
Also, the fact that her attention is on what she's doing and not on me lets me enjoy just looking at her. With the sun getting low, the car is filled with a golden light that makes Lucy's gorgeous brown skin glow and emphasizes the beauty of her face. I wish I was a poet so I could describe her with fancy words and compare her to a summer’s day and shit like that, but I'm not. I couldn't even tell you if she has high cheekbones or low ones or whether her face is square or oval or heart-shaped. The only thing I know for sure is that she grounds me, settles me somehow, even when I'm so ramped up with lust that it's all I can do to keep from whipping out my dick and jacking off right here and now.
Before I can sink to that level, though, she makes the turn into the hotel parking lot and parks the car near the entrance that's closest to her room. "You still have the key card?"
I nod and pat my jeans' pocket in answer.
"I think it's better if we go up separately. I'm probably being paranoid, but there are a lot of track people staying here. I think it'd be better if we didn't get on and off the elevator on the same floor at the same time. Just in case."
A little zing of pain catches me by surprise. Yeah, she wants to keep this on the down-low, and I get why. I sure as hell don't want her to lose her job, because if she does, I won't see her again for the rest of the season, which means I won't get the chance to convince her to give us a shot after it's over. But there's a part of me that wonders if the real reason she wants to keep us a secret and limit it to one night is that she thinks I'm good enough to fuck but not good enough to get serious with.
And really, if that were true, I couldn't blame her. I mean, come on, she knew that Krakatoa is west of Java, not east of it. I'm not even all that clear on where Java is. In an ocean somewhere, maybe? Probably? When you get right down to it, I'm not the kind of guy a girl like her is going to pick for a long-term relationship. She's not going to get deep, intellectual conversations about books or foreign films or philosophy from me; the only deep thing I've got to offer is dick. And I'm going to give it to her because it's the one thing I know I'm good at that might have a shot at convincing her to stick around for more. Maybe if I work at it, I can be the man she needs.
And right now, the man she needs is the one who'll let her avoid any possible walk of shame.
"No problem," I tell her. "You go up this way, and I'll wal
k around and go in through the lobby."
After we both climb out of the car, she locks it with the remote and catches my eye over the Civic’s roof. "Come quick."
I know what she means, but I wink and say, "Not on your life, sugar," before turning and sauntering toward the lobby entrance.
Lucy snorts and mutters, "That sounds like a challenge," and the corners of my mouth twitch with laughter.
This girl gets me.
The automatic lobby doors whoosh open, letting out a blast of cold air that hits me in the face. Like every hotel at the height of summer, they're keeping the common areas at a temperature that'd be better for penguins than people. The color scheme might be better for penguins than humans, too, since it's all shades of white and black with occasional splashes of gray. It definitely doesn't make me want to pull up one of the stiff-looking chairs to put up my feet and stay awhile, not that I'd be tempted right now even if the room felt as cozy as a pair of slippers.
I hightail it toward the main elevators, but as I get close, I spot two people sitting at one of the tall, round tables in the bar area where the hotel provides free beer and wine—meaning, of course, that it's swill—to guests. Two people I'd prefer don't notice me.
But it's too late.
"Yo, Lenart," Tyler Biggs calls out. His voice sounds hollow in the too-big, too-empty space, but very cheerful. Since he just won his first race of the season, I guess he's due. "Come over and have a drink with us."
The other occupant of the table, Alex Herrera, who I only passed in the last turn to edge into second place because he got caught behind a lapper and I had the outside line, grins and tilts his head in agreement.
"No, thanks," I try. "Headed up to change and hit the gym." Hopefully, neither one of them will offer to join me…or show up in the hotel fitness room ten minutes from now and wonder where the hell I am.
Biggs nods agreeably, tilting his bottle—Scheffler Light, I notice, which is absolutely swill; don’t look at me like that, I grew up in Shiner country, ’k?—in salute. "Great race today. Another two laps and you'd have had me."
Holeshot: A Motocrossed Romance Page 5