Sometimes when you wake up to reality, it’s a sharp slap in the face. Here you’d been going along, living life, and thinking you were handling everything—then BAM! You realize you’d been living in some fog, and all the things you thought you knew you didn’t know at all.
Except even waking up from the fog wasn’t enough to shake it completely. It was still a daily fight, still something I had to remind myself to be careful of.
My insomnia was worse lately. The fog was relentless. The more I fought it during the day, the thicker it became at night.
Gamble nodded as if he expected everything I said. “I’m glad to hear it because there’s something I want you to do.”
“Which is?”
“You’re aware I’m recruiting Arrow Ambrose, Lorhaven’s brother, to drive for me.”
Something in my stomach dipped. My attention sharpened tenfold. Not much had the ability to blow away the relentless fog over my brain, but he did.
It was something I didn’t like to acknowledge. In fact, I never did, except of course internally when just the mention of his name (or the sight of him yards away) made it impossible to ignore.
“Yes,” I hedged, wondering where this was going. “Pretty rare for you to offer someone a spot of their choosing on either your NRR team or your NASCAR team.”
Gamble made a sound. “So imagine my surprise when I can’t get the kid on the phone.”
I felt my eyebrows shoot up. “He’s not answering your calls?”
“He’s yet to return the couple I’ve made.”
Interesting.
“It’s been several months since he first auditioned for me. As you know, he’s been racing in a few minor races, building his name, getting more experience. He’s also driven in a few NRR classifiers.”
“He’s a good driver. He’ll only get better.” I agreed.
“I want you to find him, meet with him face to face. Figure out where his head is and which team he’s going to drive. I need his signature on a contract, the ink dry.” As he spoke, he pulled out two yellow envelopes, both sealed, and laid them across the desk in front of me.
Okay, whoa.
Back that ass up.
Slam the brakes.
Whiplash.
What the fuck was happening here?
A.) Ron Gamble want me to drive to the other side of the state. (And yes, I knew the town in which Arrow lived… because Joey spent a lot of time there. At least that’s the lie I told myself.)
B.) I was being tasked as an errand boy to get a signature on one of two contracts. Contracts any other driver would chew off their own arm to obtain.
C.) Clearly, Arrow was not “any other driver.” (That totally intrigued me)
And…
D.) There were butterflies in my stomach.
Not to mention the obvious. “I have to say,” I observed coolly, not letting on that the inside of my brain was suddenly humming with thought, “the fact that Ron Gamble would chase after anyone to get an answer is surprising.”
“Some people are worth a little more effort.” He stared at me meaningfully, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was me or Arrow he was talking about.
“So why not just have Joey or Lorhaven bring him down here?” I asked.
“This is business. You’re my business manager. You handle my drivers. You train them.”
“If he signs with the NRR, I won’t be.” Yeah, maybe it still pissed me off the NRR was a club I wasn’t allowed to join.
“I want him in NASCAR. I think he’s a good fit. We need new, young, up-and-coming drivers on our team.”
“You want me to convince him.” I surmised. “You know it won’t be easy. Lorhaven disapproves of NASCAR, and after the big shakeup…”
“Which is why you’re going to convince him that being gay in NASCAR will not be an issue like being a girl was for my daughter.” His voice left no room for argument. Gamble was a businessman first, and he knew how to get results.
“And his brother?” I asked again.
“Lorhaven and Joey are out of town right now, handling their own careers.”
That means I’ll be alone with him.
“Lorhaven will of course be notified I’m sending someone to present contracts. I don’t do underhanded business dealings,” he added when I didn’t immediately respond. Maybe he thought I was worried what Lorhaven would do when he found out I was within feet of his bro.
I wasn’t worried about that.
“Of course,” I murmured, still mulling over the fact I would actually be face to face with the blond-haired, tattooed driver.
“I want you to leave today,” Gamble announced.
I snapped out of my own head. “Today?”
Gamble nodded once. “Arrow has an interview with GearShark in two weeks to announce who he’s signed with.”
He pulled out a piece of paper and laid it on top of the contracts. “Here’s his address.”
I stood and picked up the envelopes and address. “And if he doesn’t want to sign anything?”
“He will.”
Gamble was more confident than I was on that. Of course, I’d never actually had a conversation with Arrow Ambrose; I’d only seen him from afar. So it seemed logical Gamble would know him a lot better than I would.
Yet logic had nothing on emotion, and something deep inside me (past the butterflies) whispered that perhaps I knew him better.
Darkness claimed the sky early. Winter was known for short days and long cold spells. It felt late, likely because the sky said it was, though it wasn’t much past five.
Outside, the wind howled, occasionally shaking the metal walls of the hangar. A sharp whistling sound accompanied the rattle of tools against metal as I worked because the hangar door was open a few inches near the pavement.
I liked the airflow, and truth be told, I liked the bite of the cold wind.
Because I had the door open enough for the cold to slip in, I also had a large space heater on. I liked a chill in the air, but I didn’t want to freeze.
It was a quiet machine, and it put out a pretty strong blast of heat—more than the one I originally had, which was a small box that sounded like a broken-down engine and I had to stand within two feet in order to get any of the warmth it provided.
The second Lor saw the thing, he gave me a lecture and smacked me in the back of the head. After he sped off in his Corvette (which he later totaled protecting me), he came back with this fancy heater and demanded I use it instead.
I had a lot once. It taught me a valuable lesson: I didn’t need much.
In fact, I preferred not having a lot attached to my name. That way there would never be any kind of pain if I lost it. It was easier to walk away when you didn’t have a lot to drag behind you.
The Camaro was my prized possession, a car. I’d only recently come to think of as mine. Lorhaven bought it for me, and though I drove it from almost day one, it had been hard to accept the fact that he intended it as a gift.
We had a lot of cars at this airstrip. An entire hangar full of them and a couple others in a few other hangars. I worked on them all.
Cars were my hobby, my salvation. In some ways, they represented my revenge.
Revenge that had yet to be exacted, though. The truth was revenge took a lot of energy, and I was weary. I heard something once that didn’t apply to me, not really, yet I adopted it, and it was a phrase that sometimes echoed in the back of my mind.
The Usage Principal.
When your energy stores are limited, you have to use them wisely. It may not always be on things you want most, but instead on the things you need the most.
Like survival.
For a few years, that’s all I did. Survived.
The wind shuddered the slightly open door, and I refocused on what I was doing beneath the hood of my black vintage Camaro. It was a classic, full of muscle, and needed a lot of babying under the hood.
There was a lightbulb with a plastic cage around it clip
ped to the underside of the propped-open hood, acting as a spotlight on the engine as I worked.
Beside me was a rolling tool chest with greasy fingerprints all over the top and metal parts lying there at the ready.
My phone was docked in a set of speakers, rock music competing with the wind.
My nose was cold, and my fingers, but I kept working, bent over the engine. My jeans were loose, halfway falling down, and over my black T-shirt, I wore an oversized black zip-up hoodie.
I don’t know how long I’d been working, long enough my fingers were covered in grease, but something in the air around me changed. I cocked my head to the side, pausing in the middle of what I was doing to listen.
The sound of wobbling metal, wind, and music pressed in.
I straightened, tossed down the tools, and then lowered the volume of the music so it was almost silent.
The sound of an engine purring replaced the music, and then the not-too-faraway blare of a horn. And not just one or two quick beeps.
Long, deliberate ones.
Suspicion bunched the muscles in the back of my neck, but I hit the button to lift the large hangar door. As it opened, light from inside spilled out across the pavement, and cold wintry air rushed in.
From the doorway, my eyes went right to the bright spot in the darkness.
There was a car at the gate. The driver must have seen me; his headlights flickered once, then twice.
I didn’t recognize the car, but I was curiously drawn to it.
No one ever just “dropped by” here. Except for Lorhaven, Joey, Trent, and Drew. They didn’t count anyway.
Instantly, my stomach cramped. I thought about some of the missed calls on my phone, even went as far as glancing back at the device where it was still docked.
Was it my father?
Lorhaven told me he wanted to talk to me. I was pretty sure a few missed calls were from him.
Would he just show up like this?
Yes. Yes, he would.
He probably thought of this airstrip as his property, even though it was Lor who owned the title.
The lights flickered again. A gust of wind whipped through the long strands of my hair. I tugged the hood over my head and tucked my hands deep into the pockets. There was no hurry in my pace.
Whoever this was could wait. Showing up unannounced like this, in the dark? They were lucky I wasn’t greeting them with a crowbar or a gun.
As I drew closer, I made out the Audi, which was a matte black. I’d seen it before around Gamble Speedway.
It’s not your father.
The realization removed some of the dread from my stomach, but it didn’t necessarily make me feel better.
At the large security fence, I stopped and threaded my fingers through the chain-link and looked out. The headlights were killed, which my eyes were grateful for, and the driver’s door popped open.
The back of my neck prickled with anticipation, my fingers tightening on the freezing-cold metal of the fence.
A man with a backward red hat stood up, stepping around the door. His hips rotated with ease as one foot moved in front of the other.
I stared, like I always did, and a flush of awareness rushed up my spine.
“Arrow? I’m Hopper, Ron—”
“I know who you are.” I cut him off.
He stopped midsentence, both hands falling at his sides. In the darkness, through the security of the fence, our eyes locked.
For a second, I actually wondered when the fence became electrified. Volts of power sizzled beneath my hands and crackled up my forearms.
But it wasn’t the fence.
It was me.
It was him.
It was the product of our eyes meeting for the first time.
It was the feeling that always seemed to charge the air when we were nearby that we never acknowledged.
His chest rose and fell with enough force I could see it from yards away. One hand flexed at his side, but his feet remained planted in the same spot.
I was hyperaware of him, of the fact my breathing had turned slightly shallow.
I stared at him longer than I’d ever allowed myself, for two reasons:
1.) The fence between us was like a security blanket; it allowed me to look without the danger of touch.
And…
2.) There was no one else around to notice the way my eyes begged to linger on just about every detail of this man’s face.
Even in the dark night, I saw him as if I’d done more than just glance his way, as if the sky were fully lit by the bright beams of a full summer sun that shone on him like a spotlight. He was tall and broad, but not bulky. His body had strength that wasn’t portrayed by muscle mass. His lean waist tapered down into narrow hips, but his legs were thick, his thighs strong, as if they had more potency than any other part of his body.
The boots on his feet were so dark they blended in with the road. His jeans fit his body a lot better than mine; they showed a lot more of his form.
But most of all, my eyes lingered on his, as if they were two magnets and the pull was undeniable. His were icy blue, piercing just like the cold air. They cut right through me, holding me hostage even as I squirmed to run away.
Alarm bells rang in the back of my mind.
An uneasy feeling blossomed in my gut, but I didn’t tear my gaze away. Looking from danger was a mistake. Looking away gave it a distinct advantage.
Instead, I took in the dark shadow on his jaw, his mouth, and the way it was relaxed yet I knew he wasn’t. The red hat turned backward slashed over his forehead, seeming to frame the rest of his facial features.
I like the way he looks.
His face, his body, and even the invisible vibes that floated around him attracted me. I wished it didn’t. But wishing something didn’t make it true.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, still gripping the fence with my fingers but straightening to my full height.
“Gamble sent me. You haven’t been returning his phone calls.”
I digested that, didn’t have a reply.
“This where you live?” he asked, those icy eyes sweeping around behind me, across the airstrip.
I nodded once.
“What’s it going to be, Arrow?” he asked, tilting his head to the side as crystal irises returned to my face. “You going to let me in?”
A simple, seemingly innocent question. Charged with so much meaning.
I stared at him longer without saying a word. Waiting didn’t seem to bother him. In fact, he acted as if he expected as much.
You have no idea.
His eyes locked on mine. Try me.
My hands dropped from the fence. I stepped back, then once more. My fingers stung from the cold, so I tucked them in my pockets.
A lot of things blew in with the winter winds at night.
Thoughts, memories, regrets… sometimes snow.
But the wind had never blown in a man before. A man who challenged me and scared me at the same time.
In that moment, I felt I’d been playing a giant game of hide-and-seek. I was hiding, all this time, just waiting for someone to find me.
The way Hopper watched me right now… I felt unspoken words drift through my chest.
Ready or not, here I come.
I began walking backward, my eyes never left the man watching, waiting. Distance intruded. The only reaction he gave was to flex his hands. Still walking backward, my steps curved, veering right toward a small booth. I reached inside and hit a button.
The definitive sound of a lock unlatching and the sight of a red light on the gate changing to green. Slowly, the gate began to roll open as I stood there and stared.
Hopper retreated into the matte-black Audi and pulled through the second there was enough space.
He didn’t stop to offer me a ride the short distance back to my hangar.
I wouldn’t have taken it anyway.
Instead, I stood and watched the gate close.
When
the lock was fully engaged, I started toward the hangar. Toward the man I least expected to see tonight (or ever). Toward a man I wasn’t supposed to like.
I didn’t, not really. I couldn’t like someone I didn’t know.
And I couldn’t dislike him either.
We were like two sharks circling, drawn by the scent of blood.
Whose blood? I wasn’t yet sure.
I watched him for months the way a predator eyes potential game. Sharks never go straight in. They circle, measure.
Almost always, they take an exploratory bite. You know, to see if what they’re stalking is worth the fight.
Arrow was going to be a fight. No. Not a fight. Not a battle.
A war.
Everything about him was so contained, right down to the fence he literally lived behind. It made me wonder… Was the fence to keep him in or keep people out?
What would he be like uncontained? How would freedom look on him?
I’d known deep down this moment was coming, even though I avoided it. Eventually, we’d come face to face. Eventually, I wouldn’t be able to ignore the gravitational pull. I wasn’t sure I was ready—if I’d ever be.
Now I knew he watched me, too.
Sure, I guess I’d known he noticed me. When I would glance his way at races, his eyes would quickly skirt away. Just now was different, though; just now he didn’t hide the fact he saw me.
I felt it. All I could do was stand there and let him study me. Maybe that made me the prey.
His stare was heavy, like it weighed a thousand pounds.
Or saw a thousand lives.
He seemed too young to be so old; however, his age was undeniable. I wasn’t talking about the year on his birth certificate or the number of years that marked his life.
I meant the hundreds of pieces he was broken into.
I had no idea what broke him. I wasn’t sure I was ready to find out.
But I recognized him.
I saw him.
Past the blond hair, baggy clothes, and the wall he’d built up and only peeked around.
Like recognized like.
We were strangers but intimately so, in the most basic way. What was his favorite color, food, and how did he take his coffee? Did he sleep on the left side or the right? What was the scent unique to only him?
#Blur (The GearShark Series Book 4) Page 12