“I can only imagine the hell you raised. I bet you had all the girls crying over broken hearts.” I tease to lighten the mood and because I’m curious.
“Nah, girls were too smart to get mixed up with me. I was the delinquent cutting classes and setting off smoke bombs in the gym during assemblies. The ones who did come my way knew what they were getting themselves into. Talan was smart, he knew he was going to college and couldn’t mess up. I was living my dream racing cars at sixteen, which to me meant I didn’t need school, so I didn’t take it seriously. I still wanted to graduate, because that’s what Dad wanted from me.” Griffin’s hand stills on my back, his fingers threading in my hair.
I look up at him in the dim light and see a rare moment of unguarded vulnerability softening his features. I could fall in love with that face. The thought jolts me out of our moment of pillow talk and his uncharacteristic sharing. I bite my lip and try to remember this is Griffin I’m seeing, not some soft, sweet man. He’s just as likely to say something hurtful that nails me in the chest as he is to make me feel safe and secure. Still, I choose him, in every iteration, even the parts that hurt me. I want all of him.
I blink rapidly at my thoughts. Is that what love feels like? To want someone so desperately, your heart unequivocally opens to them, accepting every bit of them in return? I’m brought out of my introspection when his chest rumbles against my ear.
“My dad died when I was seventeen. Talan was already in college, my mom was off doing her thing, and suddenly, I was alone. Talan reached out to her, hoping to get some support for me until I turned eighteen, but she wasn’t up for ‘the challenge’ she saw in me. She was happy with her new family and not interested in stepping back into the mess she had left behind. I ended up living with Cole the rest of my senior year until I managed to graduate. Dad’s shop was absorbed by his business partner, but he let me work for him for a while, building cars and continuing my racing career. I met Ezra when he started working for the shop, and suddenly, he, Cole, and I were a team. Paul picked us up and now the team is my family. They’re the boat under the wave on my shoulder. We weather the storm together.”
Guilt slams into me as I think of what the next few weeks will mean. How will he react when he finds out I’m leaving the team? Will he still want me? I can’t predict the future. I can only hope for the best and live for tonight.
Tonight, I won’t insist he leave. Tonight, he can hold me as long as he wants to. Tonight, I am his, and he is mine. What happens tomorrow is unclear, but I know I want this to work. I’m falling for him. Surly, hotheaded, slinging insults and all.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The light of morning arrives with a pounding on my door that shoots me up out of bed with my heart in my throat. I look around wildly, noticing Griffin blinking at me sleepily. He’s here, in my bed, and it’s the next day. Oh. My. God. Last night really happened.
“Shelby, we need to talk, open the door,” I hear muffled through the door as another series of knocks sound.
“Oh, fuck.” I drop my head into my hands for a second and scrub my face. I look up when the bed shifts as Griffin gets up and reaches for his pants. “I’ll be right there,” I yell at the door, following Griffin and taking the shorts he holds out for me. I throw a hoodie over my head and look at him with big, pleading eyes.
He pulls his shirt over his head, his lips drawn into a thin line that means no bullshit and all business. “I’m not hiding in the bathroom. You wanted this, too. Own it.” He sits on the edge of the bed and nods at the door, not letting me make excuses.
I peek out the door to find Ryan looking worried. Opening the door wider, I discover Paul is standing with him, and he looks more furious than I’ve ever seen him.
How the hell do they already know about me and Griffin?
“Care to explain this?” Paul asks, handing me his phone.
Wait, what? I take his phone with shaking hands, my stomach a sour twist of anxiety. I focus on the screen, scrolling through a Facebook page. It’s the TW Motorsports page, with an album of photos of me with the team at the Sacramento competition and when I visited the shop last week. What the ever-loving fuck is going on? Below the photo of me with the team from the Sacramento competition, a caption reads “TW Motorsports welcomes Shelby Jensen to the team as second driver and social media liaison. We can’t wait to see how far Shelby and the Black Sheep Mustang go with a solid winning team backing her in the Pro-Ams and beyond.”
The blood drains from my face as realization dawns on me. No. No, no, no. Terrance released the news early. He fucking threw me under the bus with my own team, even though I asked him to wait until the California Championships were over. Guilt etches me like glass as I draw my heavy eyes up to meet Paul’s uncharacteristically angry face.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen now,” I begin lamely. “I was going to finish my contract before I left. They weren’t supposed to announce anything until after this circuit. It’s only been in discussion, this was a preemptive jump on their part.”
“And you didn’t think it was important enough to discuss with us? At least give me a fucking heads-up that you were planning on leaving us. We’re a team, Shelby, a family. If you are so unhappy with us, you could have said something. You know I’d bend over backward to make whatever you wanted happen. But this?” He slides his finger along his screen, spinning through the photos of me with the team. “This is a low blow.”
The door I’m leaning against for support is suddenly gone as Griffin opens it wide. I gape at him stupidly, wondering how much worse my day can get.
“You’re walking away? You finally let me in, even though you planned to leave. Seriously?”
His deep voice has that dark thunder quality that never bodes well and makes me quiver in the worst kind of fear. It’s the very real fear of losing him so soon after finally letting him in. My brain spins futilely like tires without traction, finding no way to smooth this over. I guess I got my answer on how he would take the news.
“I’m not walking away. I’ll be here for another few weeks, at least.” I shake my head and reach for him, but he pulls his arm away like I’m poison.
“Bullshit. You found something you think is better and you don’t care what it means for us now. I knew from the start it was a bad idea to bring a fucking model onto the team. Even that wasn’t good enough for you.” The resentment in his voice is sharp and stinging as he lashes out at me from a place I finally understand. In his mind, I’m just like his mom, leaving him because he’s difficult and I found something better.
Hysteria rises in my throat, tasting of bitterness and bile. How can I explain this situation that looks so bad so they understand?
“They want me to drive. They’re giving me a shot at the ADL by putting me through the Pro-Ams to get my pro license. I could break barriers. I could be the first female driver in the American Drift League. I could be more than just a promo model.” My voice is rising higher as I plead my sad case. My half-baked plans of more are crumbling and my determination to leave S&M suddenly seems very rushed and flimsy. This is all wrong and blowing up in my face.
“Why wouldn’t you ask for that from us if you want it so badly?” Ryan asks, running his hands through his hair. His eyes are full of accusations when they meet mine, and maybe even a tiny bit of guilt for keeping my secret.
My heart drops knowing I’ve put an unwanted burden on him, and now he’s disappointed in me. My head is spinning as I work to come up with a way to make this better. But there’s nothing I can do or say that will change anything. The damage is done. I just hope it’s not irreparable.
“This is serious. You’re in breach of contract, Shelby. We have a non-compete that you signed to stay with us the entire season. Whether or not you wanted them to announce this news now, it’s a violation of what you signed. There was to be no promoting any other team but Smoke and Mirrors, and like it or not, this is you promoting the TW Motorsports team. As stated in your contract, we
have to cut ties.”
I feel frustrated tears prick my eyes. How could this all go so wrong? I turn to Griffin, but shrink back when the force of his anger hits me.
“You’re nothing but a waste of time and a podium to win, like Wyatt said. I’ve had you, now I’m done,” he says so quietly I wonder if I misheard him. But that’s wishful thinking, judging by the glacial expression and menacing way his turbulent emotions seem to ebb back until he’s still and calm. “I don’t want anything to do with someone who walks out on family like it’s nothing.” He pulls the door open further and shoulders through Paul and Ryan.
“What do I do now?” I whisper tearily into the brittle silence as Griffin heads down the hall.
“I’d start by getting yourself a way down to SoCal to pack up your stuff. No job with S&M means no apartment. Be out before Friday.”
Paul doesn’t meet my eyes as the words leave his mouth. He sounds unrelenting, but his voice has lost some of the caustic anger and now just sounds defeated.
I doubt I could reason with him, and what would I say anyway? I can’t just go back on my decision to drive with TW Motorsports because S&M is mad at me for taking another job. If that were the case, I never would have started with them in the first place, and just stuck to Jensen Performance where my dad wanted me.
“What about the last two competitions?” I try, desperate to find something to hold on to, anything that will keep me from floundering in this sea of ineptitude and bad timing.
“Don’t you get it? You. Broke. Contract. There are no last two competitions for you. You’re done with S&M, and we’re done with you.” Paul shoves his hands through his hair, a frustrated breath whistling through his teeth. “Just do me a favor and clean up the apartment before you leave. You can leave the key inside, I’ve got a spare.” His voice is tired as he turns and heads down the hallway in the same direction Griffin took off.
“What about the video shoot today?” I cry to his retreating back as an inkling of hope flickers in my chest.
He pauses mid-step, slowly turning back to me. He shakes his head when he sees the way my eyes have lit up with the possibility. “It’s still going to happen. Just with two cars instead of three. We don’t need to put the Black Sheep in any more of our promo now that it is officially linked to another shop. I’ll make sure you are reimbursed for whatever you already paid Yellow Wheel. Just stay away from the shoot today.” Paul turns and heads down the hall.
I turn to Ryan, reaching for his arm. I need something to hold on to as my world caves in and I’m sucked into the cavern of depression that threatens to swallow me. I’m surprised when he doesn’t immediately shake me off.
“How did this all go so wrong?” Fat tears leak over my lashes and slide down my face. “I should be happy I have this new opportunity. It wasn’t supposed to go down like this.”
Ryan sighs and grudgingly pulls me under his arm and into a hug. The familiar, kind gesture is my undoing, sobs leaching from my throat as I bury my face in his chest.
“Maybe you should have thought about how leaving would make the rest of us feel. The team was in a bad place financially, and it wasn’t easy for Paul to bring on another team member, but he did it because he believed in what you could bring to the team. It was a new dynamic for the rest of us, but we welcomed you with open arms. We all realized what you brought to the team was exactly what we needed, and finally we were a whole unit that was doing good things. Even Griffin came around. It just seems like you took it all for granted with how easily you would leave this family now.”
I sniffle and pull my wet face away from him. “But I was only contracted for this series. No one promised me a job after two months. How was I supposed to know Paul would want me after the California Championships were done?” I play to ignorance and cling to my desperation to find some rightness in my decision. It’s flimsy at best and a huge lie at worst. I feel sick, but it’s all my fault.
“Don’t play dumb, we know you’re better than that. You made yourself invaluable to us. You seemed to want to be a part of the team as much as we wanted you there. How could you think Paul wouldn’t offer you a permanent place with us after this series? Fuck, Shelby, you finally brought some good luck and sponsorships to the team. Now you’re just going to ghost out like fucking Mary Poppins once the job you were hired for is done? And not even wait until the end of the season to do it.” He shakes his head and worries the hoop in his lip.
“I told you, TW Motorsports wasn’t supposed to announce this until after the California Championships, when I had actually signed the contract! I was planning to fulfill my obligations with S&M and then make my move quietly. This is a huge freaking surprise for me, too.”
I wipe my eyes hastily. This isn’t going well, but what did I expect? S&M has had more emotion and expressed more of an opinion than my own father when I told him I was leaving our shop to take the promo job. While Daddy just claimed I wouldn’t have a place other than as eye candy and he wouldn’t support my decision, S&M seems personally affected by it. It hurts a lot more, too.
“Fulfill your obligations? Don’t you get it? We. Are. Family. Not some fucking obligation. You know what, maybe Paul and Griffin have the right idea. You obviously don’t think of us the way we thought of you. But even that is looking like bullshit now. I’m sorry you couldn’t trust the team to get you where you want to be. No, actually, I’m sorry we put so much trust in you.”
Ryan shakes his head as he backs away from me, his face taking on a new shade of disappointment. In me. I let him down, the one person who accepted and believed in me from the beginning. A fiery poker brands my heart as it breaks to pieces with the ramifications of my quickly made decisions. I can’t even find solace in knowing I’m moving on to a better place. Leaving S&M seemed like the right choice when I was merely looking to get away from Griffin and grasping for a way to make my own way in the drifting community that didn’t revolve around a miniskirt. Now that I have been forced to reconcile my hasty decisions with what they mean, I’m not so sure.
How badly do I even want to be a driver? If it means I lose my integrity even more by skipping out on the people who valued my ideas and accepted me for me, then maybe it’s not worth it. And couldn’t I have taken a different route, put myself through the Pro-Ams and worked my way up the ranks until I got my pro license? I slide down the wall, half in my hotel doorway, half slumped on the floor outside it. I’m so stupid. There were a million other ways I could have gone about this situation without putting myself in the center of a shit-storm.
I started on a slippery slope of losing who I am and what I stand for the minute I left my dad’s shop. I didn’t value my own family enough to respect the position they had given me running Jensen Performance. It wasn’t good enough. I flippantly ran off and left them because it seemed like the right thing to do for me at the time. True, I was chasing my dream to make something of myself outside of my family name, and I managed to do that.
I embraced the promo model lifestyle, baring my body and thriving on the attention my looks brought me. I sacrificed my morals and started lusting after anyone who paid the least bit of attention to me. There is a fine line between following your dreams and being selfish. I’m just now realizing that I let selfishness and looking for the easy way to get what I want change my goals. I let instant gratification rule my decisions, rather than let hard work and patience run a much slower yielding course. I could have found a way to make my dreams happen, without the shit hitting the fan. And now I have to clean up that steamy, stinking mess.
I look up blearily when the door across the hall opens. Wyatt looks down at me with something of a mix of sympathy and sadness on his face. His lip is swollen and the side of his face bruised, reminding me of his own troubles. We’re a matched pair, except my bruises are all on the inside.
“If you want to yell at me too, you can. I’m already down. You might as well kick me.” I sniff back my tears and meet his eyes with what I hope is grim a
cceptance on my face. I’m ready to take what anyone dishes out. I deserve it.
“Sweetness, I’m not in a position to judge. Come on, up you get.”
He hooks his hands in my armpits and hauls me to my feet, pushing the door open behind me and ushering me to my bed. He heads into the bathroom and returns a minute later with a few tissues that he uses to mop my face. Oh, how the tables have turned. Less than twelve hours ago I was cleaning up his mess. I’m thankful he feels like returning the favor now.
“I’ve screwed up everything,” I say, my voice thick with more tears that want to pour down my face.
“You sure did, sweet thing. I got the texts from Ezra about what happened. So, TW Motorsports, huh? You really want to go play second fiddle to Mason and that handsy, shady fucker Terrance Wheeler to claw your way up the Pro-Am circuit on a hunt for your pro license?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it before Terrance offered me a spot with them. It seemed like an offer that was hard to beat, and when things with Griffin and I started to get messy, it was the best chance for me to step away and salvage something of this new life I’m building in the drift scene.”
“It kind of sucks that you would leave the team for an offer you hadn’t even considered previously, but I get it,” he says quietly. “You know, at first I hated the idea of you and Griffin together.” He brushes his hand through his short, wavy curls as he works to not meet my eyes.
I look at him sideways, surprised by his fixation on that one piece of information when the rest of my sob story is so much worse. “Why do you say it in the past tense?”
“Because I’ve come to realize that Griff is a better guy than I ever gave him credit for. He might just be good for you, if you two could ever get your shit together long enough to realize it. And stop sabotaging whatever you have every chance you get.”
Drift Heat Page 22