by Ginger Scott
Alex spends a few more seconds glaring out onto the road before turning his focus back to me. I’m not sure whether he’s the one I’m racing tonight, or one of his guys. Doesn’t matter. I see the car they brought.
“So what are you thinking? Five hundred? Thousand?” He doesn’t mince words; straight to the money. That’s good because I need to make a serious profit here tonight. I need seed money to get a basic truck if I plan on moving into truck racing for the circuit.
I swallow and hope he doesn’t see it. I’m glad Tommy isn’t here for this. He’d kill me for what I’m about to say.
“I was thinking more like two.” I cock my head to the side and squint, acting nonchalant about an amount of money that makes me both tingle and want to pass out in my own vomit.
“Ha, two hunny? That’s hardly worth the drive here.”
He’s wrong. I correct him.
“K. I mean two large.” I open my eyes a little more to meet his serious glare. He’s sizing up my pupils, making sure I’m serious and that I plan to back up the bet we’re about to shake on.
“Two grand. You got that?” His brow arches.
“I got that.” I thumb the key fob over my shoulder and flash the lights on my dusty blue Supra.
I can tell by the smirk that crawls up his lip and into his cheek that he’s sold. He’d love to race my car as his own. My ride is the envy of a lot of guys out here. His hand stretches out for me to take again a second later, and Tommy walks up as we’re shaking.
“Oh fuck, what did you do?” My friend already has a beer in his hand and he spits out his recent sip.
“You remember Alex,” I say, completely ignoring Tommy’s question.
“Yeah. Hey, man.” Tommy nods. He’s not a big fan of the Vegas crew.
“So, am I racing you or . . .” I lean to my right to take in the guys hanging out around the front of the Tahoe. Alex turns to look over his group of friends and I catch him gnawing at his lip. I’ve upped the stakes, and he’s not sure any of these guys are good enough.
“Yeah, you know what? I think I’d like to try out this stretch you’ve been bragging about. But what if we make it interesting?” His grin is etched into his lips again as he turns back to face me. It feels like a sack of rocks just sank my gut.
Tommy grabs the sleeve of my shirt and urges me a few steps to the side. I hold up a finger, my face burning with heat that my friend is making me look weak.
“Dude, what the fuck are you doing?” Tommy’s beer breath floats across my face, and the hairs on my neck stand. I roll my shoulders and shirk his hand off my shirt.
“I’m paying for my future the only way I can. If you wanna go home, go home.” I hold his cold stare for several seconds before his focus flits just beyond me to the crew waiting for me to fail out here tonight. He breathes out a short laugh when his focus comes back to me.
“What, and let you burn out without me here to fix shit?” He takes another swig of his beer, which he knows annoys me, but I give in to the cocky sneer he lets linger afterward. While Tommy might not like the risks I take, he sure as shit likes to win.
I step back to Alex and shake his hand with a firm grip.
“I’m in.” I tilt my head back enough to hold my jaw set and dim my eyes while I anticipate whatever “interesting” addition he’s planning on throwing into our bet.
“We both have passengers. You pick mine, I pick yours,” he says, and I sniff a laugh. I don’t give a shit who’s in my passenger seat. I drive how I drive.
“Yeah, okay.” I glance over his shoulder looking for the right fit, and when I don’t see his brother, I turn to the crowd around us, looking for the most annoying passenger I can find. My mouth snaps shut and curves into a wide grin the second my eyes land on Lawrence.
“Hey, Lawrence! Come here!” The six-foot-five, three-hundred pound lineman and only talent on our high school football team drops his empty beer can on the ground just after crushing it against his hip.
“Aw, hell,” Alex laughs out, moving his feet nervously. He knows I’ve got him trapped with this one. Not only does Lawrence add some seriously dense muscle weight to his car, but the dude is wide as a Cadillac all on his own. Won’t be easy to shift with his left arm encroaching on Alex’s space.
“What’s up?” Lawrence and I tap fists. I point my thumb to my side and Lawrence scans Alex with suspicion.
“Up for riding shotgun tonight with this guy?” I know he is. Lawrence loves speed and danger. I honestly think he’d prefer to chase down quarterbacks without pads and a helmet if the league would let him.
“Oh, hell yeah. In that thing? Sweet!” Lawrence makes his way over to the car, dwarfing it from a dozen feet away.
I cross my arms over my chest and return my gaze to Alex, knowing I’ve got him. I can practically feel the cash in my pocket. All it takes is the delicate brush of a few fingers on the back of my neck to snap me right out of my imaginary victory lap.
“Hey, you forgot these. I know it’s a thing for you,” Hannah says, her breath finding the exposed skin along my neck. I turn to face her and feel the color drain from my face. Alex is already chuckling as Hannah hands me the worn leather gloves. I like to wear them when I drive, not because I need them but they’re just lucky. She bought them for me the first time I drove stock.
“Looks like I found your passenger. Oh, and my cousin Teddy is planning on parking our ride somewhere, oh say about a mile ahead. Just to make it interesting.” Alex pats my shoulder but I don’t bother to turn to face him.
“Nah, this isn’t happening.” Tommy steps in. I grab my friend’s wrist and jerk him back from starting a war we don’t need.
“It’s fine,” I say, meeting my friend’s fiery glare.
“It’s my sister,” he seethes back.
And he’s right. Hannah is family. She’s my weakness. And she showed up right in time for Alex to exploit it.
“I don’t understand,” Hannah interjects, her eyes working between me and her brother.
“No, you don’t.” Tommy’s hostility makes Hannah flinch so I step into the tight space between them. Her hand instinctively falls on my shoulder, and I’m aware how this looks, not only to Tommy, but to everyone around me.
“She’ll be fine. If it comes down to it, I’ll lose,” I say, not certain I really can do that. It’s what Tommy needs to hear, though.
He holds my gaze for several seconds, his back teeth gnashing as his jaw works. His mind is playing out all of the scenarios—especially the gory ones where I don’t see the black SUV in the dark in time and swerve the wrong way. His nostrils flare with a few sharp breaths and he steps in close enough to whisper at my ear.
“If you lose, you’ll lose.” He steps back and flattens his palm against the center of my chest with a thud that knocks some of the air from my lungs.
“So I won’t lose. It won’t even be close.” I steel myself. Any other scenario and there wouldn’t be a single ounce of doubt in that statement. But Hannah is the one percent.
“I’ll fucking kill you,” Tommy grits out. His voice is loud enough that I’m sure Hannah heard him. Her fingers curl against my shoulder and her nails dig into my skin.
Tommy staggers back a few steps and spits to the side, his beer still dangling from his left hand. He takes one more swig then tosses the bottle into the open brush. He’s making a show of it to spite me. I don’t drink. Don’t smoke shit, either. Figure you can grow up one of two ways when you come from a house like mine—just like the parents who made you, or as opposite from them as humanly possible.
“What’s going on?” Hannah asks. I drop my head and pinch the bridge of my nose.
“Nothing. You’re getting your ride, is all,” I say. I only glance at her before walking away with nothing but the feel of her hand skimming down my arm as I leave.
I squeeze my eyes shut and head straight for the car, glad to see Tommy already under the hood when I reopen them. He’s thorough, but he’ll be more systema
tic now that his sister is going to top one-sixty with me.
Shit.
I figured Hannah wouldn’t drop the subject. It only takes her seconds to step between Tommy and me. I’m clutching the gloves she gave me, coating them in my sweat. I never sweat.
“What do you mean I’m going for a ride?” she asks.
“You’re racing?” Hannah’s friend Bailey’s voice is full of giddy jealousy. She’s clueless about this world.
“No, she’s not racing. And if I had my way . . .” Tommy stops his words but stands and meets my gaze. He wipes his hands on his work towel then tucks it in his back pocket before grabbing the keys from me and moving on to the work we just finished last night.
“Dustin, what’s going on?” Hannah’s hand brushes my arm again, and I jerk in response as if she burned me with a match. My heart instantly races. This is so not the state I need to be in!
“It’s fine. I promise you’ll be safe. It’s a bet I made with a guy I know, and he likes to race with passengers. It’s . . . a mental game for him. He’s trying to get in my head.” I’m right; that’s totally what it is. And I bet it works against most racers. If it weren’t for Hannah, it would be meaningless against me. Hell, I’d drive the same with Lawrence eating a steak in the seat next to me as I would racing solo. Nothing can distract me when I’m in my zone.
But Hannah is different.
Without warning, a hand fires across my right cheek, knocking my head off its axis in a whiplash. I cup the sting and stare at Hannah’s Doc Martin-wearing feet on the ground before me.
“What the fu—” I flit my eyes up as she cocks her arm to take another swing at me, and I step back.
“Do you need more?”
I blink twice because how the hell do I answer that? What does she even mean?
“Are you pissed?” she asks.
“Kinda. Yeah.” I work my jaw under my hand. I’m one-hundred percent positive there’s an imprint of her palm on the side of my face.
“Good. Think about that then and drive fucking fast.” She shoves her tiny backpack into Bailey’s chest and rounds my car, flinging open the passenger door to get in. My mouth hangs open, mostly because I’m making sure it still works, but also because damn, I can’t believe she did that.
Rumbling vibrates in my belly and I turn to catch the first duo about to go at it behind us. Two of the older guys from town with hot rods they only bring out here to show off line up as a crowd gathers around. It’s a respect thing, one of those things people in this town do as this rite of passage moves from one generation to the next. Tommy drops my hood and moves to stand next to me. He chuckles at my side.
“You saw that slap, huh?” I say.
“Sure did.” He rubs his palms together, loving that his sister smacked me.
“Make you feel better?” I give him a sideways glance as two classic Fords fire up a few hundred feet away and peel down the dark strip of roadway.
“Only for a second,” Tommy says with a hardened stare. His eyes are like glass, cold and piercing.
“Well, don’t worry. It worked,” I say, rubbing my face one final time before slipping my hands into my lucky gloves. My thumb pokes out on the right one and Tommy laughs at it as he hands me my keys.
“When are you going to spend some of your gambling winnings on a new pair of gloves?” he jokes.
I shake my head.
“Nope, these stay. Superstitious bastard that I am. And it isn’t gambling.”
“No?”
“That would mean there’s a chance I lose. And there’s no way in hell.” I don’t bother meeting his gaze again. I don’t want him to chip away at my swagger.
I get in the car and do my best to forget about the citrus-scented girl sitting next to me. I focus on my mirrors, my flexing forearm as I reach for the gear shift, the trip of the knob under my hand. I flex my fingers and feel the stretch of the glove, the way it crackles where it’s most worn as I squeeze then stretch.
“You do this every race?”
I stare at the numbers imprinted on the metal knob and imagine myself shifting from second to third to fourth, then . . .
“Sorry,” she whispers.
My eyes close. This is impossible.
“It’s fine. Please try to not talk. I’m in my head.” I’m in my head more than I should be.
“Zipped. Got it,” she says.
I’m a sucker because I know she’ll do it if I look, so I give in to a quick glance as she runs her pinched fingers along the line of her lips and fakes a lock before tossing the invisible key out the passenger window.
“Great, now we’re going to have to go find that in the dark,” I joke. She smirks but waggles a finger, reminding me that she’s no longer talking.
My eyes roam back to my dash, but I caught enough of her bare knee to scorch the back of my mind with the temptation to look even more. I use it as a reward, only looking to my far right after I’ve gone through my mental checklist and adjusted my mirrors one last time. I swear Hannah has owned those shorts for years, but for whatever reason, the way her body fits in them now is entirely different. The fringe from the cut-off denim tickles against her upper thigh, rips exposing the pockets and a flash of her pink skin even higher up her leg—higher than any guy should ever see. She’s tall enough that her knees poke up in my bucket seats, which means there’s more of her bare leg to see, and my eyes make the trip up and over the hill of her knee then down her calf. She’s wearing a pair of Tommy’s old socks, the blue and yellow stripes bunched up where the length sticks out above the tops of her combat boots. She has a belly ring, and I indulge in looking for it while her focus is on the crowd outside our window. She’s wearing this thin white shirt that falls off one shoulder, but it’s cut short enough that when she lifts her arm, her midriff is exposed. All it takes is one small stretch and the silver stud she put in six months ago makes a quick appearance.
I look back at my wheel just before I sense her turning my way. My hands grip the wheel and run along the curves, feeling every ridge. The turn is going to be tough, especially if I hit the two-mile mark at the same time Alex does. I already decided that if it’s too tight I’ll give him the extra yards and take my turn after the mile marker, just to be safe. I know I can catch him.
The next set of cars is ready to sprint down the road, but nobody’s looking at them. Eyes have started to wander over to me. The sun has dipped below the line of mountains to the west, and the faint purple in the sky is quickly fading. The stars out here are spectacular. I’m tempted to say that to Hannah, but she knows. She grew up out here too, and she’s on this road every night I am. It’s just that we never sit next to each other.
My attention turns to Tommy as he pats the hood and moves toward my window. I lower it and lean close as he kneels to talk.
“Okay, he’s got the rules. The second mile marker and back. I don’t like this whole Tahoe thing, but I trust you can handle it.”
“Not even a worry,” I lie.
“All right. Well, we’re up next. And I put a hundred on us, so if you lose that’s two things you owe me.” He points at me, and I know he’s being both funny and serious.
“Start counting your winnings now,” I say, rolling up my window.
Hannah’s knees are locked tight, and tiny bumps cover her skin, lit up by the LED glow of my interior lights. She’s nervous, and I wish I could say something to calm her. But I’m in character now; I have a job to do, and easing her discomfort can’t be part of the description. Besides, she’s a big girl. She can handle this.
I pull my seat belt out from my chest and let it fall snug against my skin as Hannah does the same. We’ve both seen enough go wrong when people don’t wear them. I give the Supra gas and it sings under my feet. God, that sound is sweet.
Spectators peel away as I crawl from the side of the road to the pavement. The lights from the last two racers glow in the distance. They’ll be back in seconds. Nobody cares. Money flashes around me. I catc
h rolls of it exchanging hands in my periphery. I knew Vegas would bring in the money. I only hope the cops keep their unspoken promise and stay away tonight. We have a no-harm-no-foul agreement that’s never been uttered out loud but is understood, mostly because the chief’s son has been racing out here for years.
The cars in the race before ours hit their brakes several hundred feet away, and the one on the right smokes and fishtails from his inexperience. It takes a few minutes for the driver and his friends to get it to the side of the road and crack open the hood. While we wait, I glance over to my competitor, amused as he’s smooshed against his door in an effort to give his right side the room it needs to work. I lean forward a little more and wave to Lawrence, who gives me a thumbs up as he rocks back and forth to whatever music he’s pumping through his earbuds.
“What are you doing after this, sweetheart?” Alex shouts. His voice permeates my entire body. My eyes narrow on him after I see Hannah squeeze her legs together tight.
My hand reaches to the right, gripping the shaft with enough force that I may yank off the metal ball.
“Letting Dustin take me shopping with all his winnings,” she hollers back without pause.
Alex rolls his eyes and shakes with laughter I know is an act. He doesn’t like being disrespected like that. The one thing I know for certain from the short time we spent together in Vegas is that Alex has zero problems getting women to fall at his feet. That cologne of his must stop working past the state line.
She rolls up her window before Alex can think of a good comeback, and her eyes lock on the road ahead. She’s stoic, like me. Learned behavior from miles and miles of watching me do the same thing.
Atta girl.
Ava Cruz strides between our cars, her long nails dragging along the chrome and glass as she passes through and continues several feet until she’s far enough in front of us that she’s clear to see. Looking at her, you would never know she’s a mom of five and in her forties. Earl’s her father, and Ava’s been known to drag on this road a time or two. I’ve heard stories from Tommy’s dad about the hell she raised back in high school. She’s royalty on the Straights, and if it’s a race that matters, she still comes out to start it.