by Carmen Faye
"It looks like I'm already in the shit with her. When I woke up this morning, she was gone. All I can guess is that she saw your little pictures on my phone and took off in a rage. I just hope she didn't do anything stupid. I mean, what would it have looked like from her point of view, Aubrey? You two are still friends, aren't you?"
"We haven't been talking as much as we used to…not since the other day after we came to see you at the clubhouse."
"What happened?"
"I'm not talking about it with you." She sounded distant, in a disturbing way. It was like Aubrey had just clicked over to a different state of mind in an instant. "Do you want me to talk to her?"
"What? Yes, that would be nice. I really do care about your friend," Speed said. He didn't want to layer that part on too thick, and risk making Aubrey feel bad about not having him for herself. "I mean, I don't want to lose her already. We're not even an official thing yet."
"I'll tell her you had nothing to do with it. Goodbye, Speed."
"Okay, thanks," he said, but she'd already hung up the phone. What a weird chick, he thought.
He spent the next hour trying to call Darcy, having exhausted the short list of other people who might be able to tell him where she was.
“For fucksake!” Speed raged and threw his phone at the wall. He'd had enough at that point, and wasn't sure Aubrey was actually going to help. The phone made a plastic crunching sound that was not a good sign. That must have been the twentieth time he’d tried to contact Darcy that day, and she still wouldn’t answer! He just knew that she was getting the calls through and seeing them. She long ago made a habit of being easy to get a hold of, in case a sponsor had wanted to call.
So that could only mean she was sitting there and ignoring his calls, not even bothering to reject them so he knew she was, in fact, there, and safe. She might have had a car crash for all he knew. But that would have been reported to the police, and maybe ended up on the news. Surely someone would have told him about it by now, if anything bad had happened. He stopped letting his imagination get carried away and looked over at the floor, where his phone had bounced off the wall and landed.
“Piece of crap,” he said, wondering how they had the nerve to charge so much money for something that was designed to fall apart the first time it took a hit. They didn't make things like they used to. That was the problem with the world these days, and he didn't give a shit if it made him seem like an old man to think that. "The world is in for a bad time if everything's as weak as you," he said to the fractured phone as he scooped it up off the floor.
Thinking about the pictures of Aubrey that were still on there made him madder. Yeah, he'd looked at them, but he didn't realize they were even there when he woke up and checked his phone. He'd seen the sent messages from her, wondered why the fuck there were naked pictures of her along with them, and then instantly put two and two together. That equation led to Darcy being out there somewhere, probably wishing she'd never even met Speed.
He didn't mind taking the heat for something he had actually done, if he was stupid enough to get himself caught. Speed had even let himself get blamed for things he'd had nothing to do with. Those times, he was doing it to help a friend or protect something. But he would not stand by and be blamed for something he did not do, when he wanted so desperately for the world to know he was innocent. He tightened his grip around the already busted up phone, and it started to contract within his powerful fingers. It crumbled and twisted, making a satisfying noise as well.
He knew the pictures were still out there on Aubrey’s phone, maybe on that fucking cloud. He didn’t know how it was all connected. Speed was one of those rare people who actually used a phone for making and receiving calls, and contacted people. He wasn't into computers and the web, had far too many things to take care of to waste time sitting on his ass and staring a screen all day.
Yeah, the pictures might be out there permanently, but at least he felt like he’d destroyed it. It didn't make sense to want them gone, since they weren't incriminating in their own right. And, no, he didn’t mean any harm to Aubrey herself. It was clear to anyone who knew her, the chick was messed up in the head. That certainly wasn’t her own fault, but this whole thing was really putting a spanner in the works.
To make things worse, now he wouldn’t know if Darcy tried to call him. “Fuck!” he yelled and kicked a chair. It spun around and crashed into the wall. He’d have to repair the mark it made, he knew that. He wasn’t out to permanently damage Darcy’s apartment. But he was damn pissed off, and needed to do something to calm himself. The first thing he could think of was getting a fresh piece of pussy. Some twenty-one-year-old with tits bigger than his head, yeah, that’d be perfect. A nice round butt, too, pick up something he could sink completely himself into and forget about all this relationship-type crap.
He rode down to a bar that was usually packed with people, day and night. But he just couldn’t bring himself to pull over and go in. Even just to grab a drink, if the temptation was there. He didn’t think he’d be able to pick up another woman anyway. No, there was no way he could get Darcy’s sexy hooks out of him that easily. He cursed again and headed to The Wild Card’s clubhouse.
He figured doing some work on his bike there would take his mind off things. He loved that machine so much; taking care of it gave him a special kind of calm. He liked to imagine that’s what it was like for people who had close family to care for, or a special mission they needed to carry out.
The moment he pulled up, one of his boys, Larry the Bastard they called him, came running out the door to the fenced off parking area. “Speed, we got news earlier today, been trying to call you, your chick…” He was out of breath just from running across the property.
“Shit, you gotta stop smoking two packs a day, Larry.”
“I’m down to one, boss.” He breathed in deeply for a bit while Speed got off his bike.
“Come on, is this important or what?”
“Yeah, sorry, just,” he breathed a bit more and seemed to recover himself. Something was up, and that was making the guy’s breathing even worse than usual. “Okay…It’s Darcy. We got in a rumor that another club’s making plans to fuck up her race this weekend.”
“What? Fuck them! Okay, Larry, take a minute to get yourself together — and stop smoking so much, seriously. You’re no good if you can barely run fifty feet.” Speed went into his office, giving his secretary the order to get him a new mobile phone.
This was not good. Without any information about who or what was going down, all they could really do was be on look out. That was, unless they could dig up some more information about the thing. He didn’t like to go crawling back to a woman, no matter how pissed off she was with him, or what he’d done. Shit, even if he’d fucked Aubrey in the ass right in front of Darcy and her mother, Speed would not have come groveling like a little bitch.
This was different, though; Darcy’s actual life might have been in danger. If there was one thing Speed was dedicated to doing, it was ensuring the safety of his woman. Since it looked like Darcy was definitely his girlfriend now, he had a duty to make sure no one messed with her. It was a matter of his own pride as much as anything. No one fucked with Speed’s pride, and no one touched his woman.
“Here’s that phone you wanted, sexy,” said Francine. “You look awful tense, boss. Hey, you want me to suck you off under your desk while you’re working? I’ll keep out of your way.”
“As tempting as that is, how pissed off I am, no thanks.”
“Oh, you dating that cyclist now? How cute,” she said with a forced smile, almost mocking him.
Speed didn’t give a shit what anyone thought. If he wanted to get himself a girlfriend, that’s what he was going to do. “Get back to work,” he said, ignoring the remark. He powered the phone on and entered Darcy’s number. He always memorized important information – didn’t rely on electronics or writing shit down. You couldn’t write most things down in the business
he was in anyway. And he wasn't in the habit of carrying a paper and pen around with him either.
"You have about ten seconds to tell me what the hell you want," said Darcy.
“Finally!” he said when she actually answered. “This is important, Darcy.”
“You bet it is! I’d love to know how you’re going to explain that—“
“Shut up, would you?”
“What? Okay, bye then.”
“Please, wait!” He felt like a little boy apologizing to teacher for being bad, tried to put all the sincere regret he could into his voice. It was a humbling experience for a guy like Speed, especially when he knew he wasn't in the wrong here.
"You think good manners will get you out of this?"
“I did not have anything to do with what Aubrey sent!
"Yeah, that's what she told me, as well. I don't exactly believe her, but I'm willing to hear you out, thanks to her."
"Good. But we have to talk about something else first — this might be life or death.”
“What’s wrong? No, no, what’s happened now?”
“Where are you?” Speed said with a level tone, trying to calm her with his own confidence.
“I’m training in the usual spot. Come meet me.”
Chapter Seventeen
Darcy had gone out to the same canyon where Speed had roughed up Steve for pushing her. It had been a fateful day, and she would have preferred not to come back to that exact location. But it was the best place to train. There was a perfect amount of inclination, not a lot of cars went down that part during the day, and she knew that training in that high altitude would give her an edge over her competition. At least, it would help prevent her from being at a disadvantage to other people who were training up in mountains and the like.
Something about training made her feel energetic, pumped, like everything’s going to be okay. That’s probably why she decided to finally cut Speed some slack and answer his call. That, and he’d suddenly stopped trying to call her for a while, and was getting worried he had given up.
Still, seeing what she'd seen on Speed's phone was, like it wasn't even a big deal to him and he had not even bothered to hide his communications from her. That was too much for her to handle. He could have had the decency to hide his phone, or use a secondary one for his little affairs. Like that would have made it any better. She'd gotten out of there and sped off until she hit the highway. Out there she was able to act like she did during a race. She'd taken her car to some dangerous speeds, and was probably lucky there weren't any cops out there at that hour. Getting a ticket would not have looked good to her fans, who expected their athlete heroes to be clean, sober, and morally pious.
What a load of shit…Darcy couldn't see the point in staying on the straight and narrow, not if it just meant getting hurt by people who did whatever they wanted. She took a drink of cool water from her bottle and toweled off the sweat she'd accumulated on her first run. She was taught to train without anyone to support her. Keeping pace when you were all alone was not easy and she needed to moral support, too. It was such a cheesy representation of how she felt that it could have been in a bad romance movie.
"This is bullshit," she told herself, starting to take her bike back to her car. She wasn't in the mood for training, and there was no one to make her keep going that day. Yeah, she'd be back on the road the next day. Right now, it was time to do some serious binge eating and maybe have some vodka and lemon drinks. It was time to admit defeat for the day. Not even training was going to fix things and make everything seem right.
She had just loaded the bike up into her car. It barely fit, but Steve was the one who had a van. "What the hell do you want?" she said, assuming that something had to be wrong, or Aubrey wouldn't have called her at all. "You're the last person I want to talk to right now. Maybe one day in the future I'll be ready, but not now."
"Wait, Darcy!" Aubrey proceeded to tell her what had happened. She felt horrible, like she had just lost control and done that terrible thing. "I swear I wasn't myself when I did it. I know things have been rough between us, but I don't want you to blame Speed for this. He's a wonderful guy." That sounded odd, and something wasn't quite right.
"I don't know what to believe," Darcy said.
"So you think we've been having an affair or something?" snapped Aubrey. "If I wanted him, I wouldn't need to sneak around behind your back. They were just some harmless pictures. Get over yourself."
"What? Are you okay?" Darcy asked.
"See you around," Aubrey said and then she hung up.
That was bizarre, but Darcy wasn't in the mood to try to figure out what was going on with her friend, if they were even friends anymore. A screw was loose in Aubrey's head. That had been obvious for a long time. It just didn't seem to have much of an effect up until recently. That girl needed to get some help before she wound up alienating everyone she knew.
To make things more complicated, Speed called next. Darcy answered this time and they spoke about what was going on.
After she was through talking to him, Darcy waiting for Speed to come and meet her as they'd planned. She leaned against the car and tried to calm herself by taking in the ambience of the surrounding nature. The mountains were a peaceful place, enveloping her with serenity. They could go from being exciting, when she was racing through them on the road, to still and at ease. It would be nice to have a place out in the mountains, even a vacation house. Just getting away from the rush and chatter of the city would be good. Having someone to spend the time out there would be nice. She wondered if her new relationship was already over. That would be up to her, most likely.
That all depended whether Speed was telling the truth. Darcy would never stay with a man who cheated on her, not for even one day after she found out. She could understand why some women felt the need to try to patch things up, but she just couldn't do that to herself.
Finally, there was the sound of a roaring motorbike, the big hog that Speed rode. It meant she didn't need to keep going around in circles with her thoughts. Resolving this might be difficult, but at least it would be over with one way or another.
She saw him ride up and get off his bike quickly. There was a sense of emergency to the way he moved. Something bad must have been up, but that didn't mean he was getting out of this so easily. Maybe he'd been making it all up and just trying to distract her from what had happened.
Darcy stayed leaning up against the car, not wanting to seem eager to see Speed. Hell, she should have been furious. She took in a deep breath and told herself to get angry, to not let him get away with this kind of shit. But what if he was telling the truth? Ruining what they had over a misunderstanding would have been heartbreaking in its own right. And the truth was, she wanted to wrap her arms around him and let herself feel safe in his arms, but fought the urge. Let him grovel, she told herself.
“Darcy, look…” he said as he approached and realized that she was still pissed off. “Aubrey’s a disturbed young lady. I know you know that. But there are some things you never did find out. I guess we should go someplace and talk about it.”
"You can tell me what you have to say right here. I'm not going anywhere with you, Speed."
That made his face droop instantly. The guy was clearly upset. "Tell me she isn't fucked in the head, Darcy. I know you're friends, or you were before I got in between you. But can you honestly say she wouldn't do something like this?"
"No…and to be honest, I don't think you're the type of ask for naked pictures. You're the type to up and fuck her instead. So, have you been doing that? Have you two been seeing each other all along?"
"Of course not! I'm sorry if you think that, and I'm sorry you're so upset. I'm not the one at fault here, but I don't care. I'm sorry anyway, because I'm genuinely worried about losing you. I'm scared to lose you, Darcy. Please don't throw this away because Aubrey's gone a little crazy."
Wow, he was actually being apologetic. It looked like Darcy had gotten under his
skin more than he’d been letting on this whole time. Nothing like the fear of losing a woman to make a man show his softer side. Standing up straight now, surprised by what she'd just heard come out of Speed's mouth, Darcy wasn't sure what to say.
"Do you really mean that?"
"I may be a criminal, but I'm not a liar. Tell me you think otherwise."
"I can't…Okay, Speed, I believe you. But I don't want to find out you've been playing me."
Speed ran up to her and took her in his arms. He kissed her but only briefly. There was something else in his eyes that showed he was still worried. "I'm a very happy man, but I need to talk to you about something else — now."
Speed told her all about the loan sharks and Aubrey’s brother, and how that had led to her throwing the race to Darcy. “That makes a lot of sense,” said Darcy. “I figured this was about money. I just didn’t realize Aubrey and her brother were the ones who needed help. If she would have just told me, I don’t know, maybe I could have helped her.”