by Amy Sparling
Mom hugs Keanna and me goodbye and then we’re finally on the road. There’s nothing better than driving in my truck with my girl by my side.
I reach over and grab her thigh, but she doesn’t acknowledge me because she’s on her phone. I slide my hand up and squeeze right above her knee where it tickles.
That works.
“Ahh!” she squeals, swatting at my hand.
“Whatcha doing?” I ask.
She scrolls down the screen on her phone. “Just reading all your fan messages on Facebook,” she says with a laugh. “San Antonio loves you.”
“Well—” I say, starting to make some funny joke, but she interrupts me.
“You didn’t let me finish,” she says, sticking out her tongue. It’s so sexy, I’d reach over there and bite it if I wasn’t driving. She looks back at her phone. “They love you in San Antonio, but they might love Clay more.”
I scoff. “That tatted up stone wall? Why would they like him? He hates everyone.”
She shrugs. “That’s probably why. You’re too nice to everyone and you have this kind boy next door vibe. Clay is edgy and kind of a dick, and girls like that.”
I give her a look.
“Some girls,” she says. “Not me. I like the sweet guy next door.”
“Good thing I am literally next door,” I say, winking.
I like my teammate Clay, and he’s going to this race as a backup for Team Loco. Where I have a life and a girlfriend and I help my family run the Track part time, Clay only focuses on dirt bikes. It’s kind of creepy how focused he is. But it didn’t help him win the summer race, and I know he’s been aching to prove himself ever since.
“Maybe the girls need to like him more,” I say as we drive down an empty I-10 toward the bagel shop. “He needs something to distract him from dirt bikes, just a little. Enough to make him loosen up a bit.”
“Why, so you can keep beating him?” she says with a smirk.
“No…” I grin. “Okay, maybe.”
Our hotel is a Hilton that’s only a few blocks away from the Alamo, and after the races are over tomorrow, I’m going to make sure we stop by and see it. Clay hasn’t checked in yet, and Marcus won’t get here until his plane lands around four, so I don’t feel guilty spending the first few hours of my racing weekend with my girlfriend.
We head outside to the pool and swim around a bit, and then wander into the hotel’s restaurant and order some lunch.
“Can we eat this upstairs?” Keanna says after we place our order. She chews on her thumbnail.
“Sure. Are you okay?”
She shrugs. “Those girls are looking at you and pointing at you and I’m pretty sure they’re trying to get the courage to come talk to you.”
I don’t look back to where the girls sit so as not to give them ammunition. I know it makes her uncomfortable to have other girls talk to me in public.
“I think all the arenacross people are staying in this hotel, so it makes since that I’d get recognized here.”
Her lips slide into a thin smile. “It’s fine. It’s just…ugh.”
“I get it, babe.” I flag the waiter down. “Is there any way we can get our food delivered to our room instead?”
“Of course,” he says, beaming at me with a toothy grin.
“No, that’s okay,” Keanna says. “It’s fine. We don’t have to run away just because you’re popular.”
“I don’t mind,” I tell her. Our waiter watches me questioningly, waiting for confirmation on what he should do. “We’ll take it to go.”
“Are you sure?” Keanna says. Now she looks worried and guilty, and all those other emotions that make her chew on her thumbnail.
I give her a heartwarming smile. “I’m positive. Let’s go.”
I make sure to take her hand as soon as we leave, in case any of those girls are watching. I know it should be common knowledge by now that Jett Adams Has A Girlfriend, but some people still don’t know, or they choose not to care.
It is kind of cool getting all this attention from girls and guys and everyone now that I’m mildly famous in the motocross world, but I’d never want Keanna to feel threatened.
Our dinner is pretty amazing, but I don’t eat too much or else I’ll puke out on the track tonight. After eating and watching some TV, I get a text from Marcus to meet him down at the arena next door. Practice starts in half an hour and then the heat race will start promptly at seven.
“Could I maybe stay here while you practice?” Keanna says. She peers up at me from the hotel bed with puppy dog eyes. “It’s just that I have to be there all alone when you’re riding and it gets boring. I’d rather just go there right before the official race starts.”
I laugh because I can tell it took a lot of guts for her to ask that. “Of course,” I say, leaning down and kissing her. “Let me get your pass.”
I’m already digging in my suitcase for my lucky underwear, so I reach for the VIP pass Marcus sent me for Keanna and me. Mine says I’m a racer and hers says she part of the pit crew. It’s a slight lie, but that’s the only way to get anyone access to the pit area of the stadium, otherwise she’d have to stay up in the stands with everyone else.
“Here’s your pass,” I say, handing her the laminated card strung on a lanyard. “Do you know where my lucky underwear are?”
She frowns. “Did you remember to get them out of the dryer?”
“Dammit.” I cover my face with my hands and look up at the ceiling. “No. Shit.”
“Baby, you’ll be fine,” she assures me. “Underwear doesn’t make you win races.”
I breathe in deeply and let it out slowly. I won every single race this summer while wearing them. I know it’s a silly superstition, but it’s important to me.
I stand in front of where she sits on the mattress, and put my hands on either side of her legs. “I love you.”
“I love you,” she says back just before I kiss her.
“See you at the races?”
She nods. “See you at the races.”
Chapter 3
Keanna
Our hotel room is really nice. The bed is plush and pillow soft, the sheets made of some high threat count. They even smell like fancy laundry detergent. I stayed in a few hotels with Jett this summer, and they all made me feel the same way, like I was wrapped in luxury. These aren’t even five star hotels or anything, they’re just nice and clean.
The bathroom has marble countertops and there’s a large flat screen TV on the wall, which I turn on to a movie channel. All of this luxury is fun, but it reminds me of my old life, where I had a mom who would make us sleep in the car when we couldn’t afford rent. Cheap motel rooms for the night were a luxury and they were already inhabited by the roaches and mice who lived there full time. I used to long for a shower, not even caring how filthy the motel was, just because I hadn’t showered in days.
I’m glad I didn’t know about these nice hotels back then. I don’t think I could have handled it.
I order a strawberry banana smoothie from room service and lay back in bed and enjoy the peaceful serenity of our room with a balcony that overlooks the city of San Antonio, which isn’t like Houston at all. It’s sprawling, with shorter buildings, and not much of a big downtown area. The land is hilly and sloping, unlike the flatness of Houston. It’s pretty here, in its own way. It’s not as busy and filled with people or traffic.
When it’s almost time for the heat races to start, I push myself up out of the super plush mattress. It’s a chore leaving a bed that comfortable, but I’m excited to watch Jett race.
I stand up, and step right on top of my suitcase which I’d left next to the bed. I jump, afraid to put much weight on it because my laptop is in there.
That’s when I squeeze the Styrofoam smoothie cup too hard, and the last few inches of strawberry banana spill out all over the place.
Ugh.
I rush into the bathroom and clean off, but my shorts are pretty much ruined for the day. I k
ick them off, toss them over the edge of the bathtub and then get a new pair. Luckily, it all went down my legs and missed my shirt, so I leave that on.
I grab my phone and my room key and head down to the lobby. Outside, the stadium looms in the distance. It looks so small compared to the large arenas we’ve been to in other states. I don’t even know if they could host a football game in this one.
I walk toward it, slipping into line with the rest of the spectators. I know I have a pit pass to visit Jett after he races, but for the actual race, I want to sit in the stands so I get a good view. My name is on the will-call list, so they let me in and I make my way down to the section of seats in front of the finish line, which is always the best place to watch a dirt bike race.
The place is buzzing with excited spectators. Children wearing T-shirts of their favorite racer, and parents doing the same. Some little kids play in the aisle next to me with toy dirt bikes. They make the motor sound and have the bikes jump in the air and then tumble downward. I don’t know why they like making the bikes crash so much. In real life, that’s the worst thing to happen in a race.
The smell of exhaust fills the air as the first heat race lines up at the gate. I scan the number plates of all the bikes, but Jett isn’t in this one, so I’m only half paying attention.
I see what Jett meant about the arenacross tracks being different—they’re tiny! There’s a ton of jumps and turns but it’s all jam packed together, and even the track itself is only wide enough for maybe four bikes at a time. At home, our motocross track is huge and it fills several acres. There’s hills and long jumps and little jumps and big sweeping turns, with three long straight ways. You can enjoy yourself on a track like ours at home, but here it’s all business.
A woman wearing lots of perfume slides across the aisle and sits two seats down from me. She’s also wearing a lot of hairspray in her poufy hair, and she reminds me of Dolly Parton. She’s as Texas as it gets and it makes me smile.
“Darlin, you here alone?” she asks me after a few minutes of watching the races. She has one heavily painted one eyebrow lifted in concern.
I nod. “Kind of.”
She lifts the other eyebrow.
“My boyfriend is racing,” I explain, nodding toward the track. “So I’m here with him, but I’m sitting alone.”
She takes her Diet Coke bottle from the cup holder in her chair and moves over to sit next to me. “Not anymore, you’re not,” she says with a grin. “My son is out there, number fifteen.”
She points to the starting line and I find him on a Honda. He’s wearing a lime green helmet that clashes with his otherwise read and black riding gear.
“Nice helmet,” I say.
She nods. “I make him wear it so I can see him out there,” she says with a grin. “It’s so hard to tell one kid from another when they’re going so fast!”
I don’t tell her that it’s pretty easy for me to spot Jett because he’s always up at the front. I just nod. “That’s a pretty good idea.”
“Moms know best,” she says. “My name is Marisol, by the way.”
“I’m Keanna,” I say.
She cocks her head. “Keanna? I’ve only heard that name once. You’re not that famous boy’s girlfriend, are you?” Her eyes go wide. “What’s his name…he’s the son of Jace Adams.”
“Jett,” I say.
“No way!” she says. “Are you her?”
“That’s me…” It feels so awkward being asked this question by a grown woman. Usually, on the very rare times that I’ve been recognized, it’s been a teenage girl asking me.
She squeezes my arm and beams at me. “That is so amazing! My son is going to be so mad that I got to meet you and he didn’t.”
I feel my cheeks go warm. “Why would he care to meet me?”
She laughs, and glances out at the track to keep an eye on her son. He’s back in the middle of the racers, probably tenth place or so. “Well, honey, he’d say it’s because he’s a big fan of Jett, but I think he has a crush on you.” She winks at me and then gazes back out at the track. “We saw you and Jace’s wife once at that track out in Lawson, Texas and he went all googly eyed and wanted to go say hi to you. Never got the guts though.” She looks over at me, grinning through her long fake eyelashes. “Of course, I told him he ain’t got a chance in hell when you’re dating Jett.” She winks at me. “Girl, I had the biggest crush on his daddy when I was young. That’s about the only reason I went with my dad and brother to all their motocross races. I was hoping to see Jace.”
I laugh. “Yeah, I’ve heard stories like that.”
Jett’s dad is definitely cute in an older guy way, and I know Bayleigh had to put up with girls throwing themselves at him all the time. Now I’m in the same position with Jett, but I never thought a guy would like me. It’s kind of flattering.
We finish watching the race, and Marisol’s son takes ninth place which is just good enough to guarantee him a spot in the real races tomorrow. She tells me about how he’s a private racer and has been hoping to get some sponsorships but they haven’t happened yet. They live in Dallas, right in the heart of the city, so he didn’t get to grow up riding every day like some of the other guys did.
After two more heat races, it’s finally time for Jett to qualify. I watch him ride out to the starting line. Marcus and Clay walk up behind him, and talk with him before the races. Now I kind of wished I would have used my VIP pass to go down there and tell him good luck before the race. But there’s not enough time to go down to the pits and then come back up here to get a good view, and I love watching him ride.
“You can tell your boy knows what he’s doing,” Marisol says as Jett lines up at the starting gate and pulls his goggles over his helmet. “He’s got that confident posture. He’s a pro already. My boy needs to learn more of that.”
“Jett had a good teacher,” I say with a smile. It may seem silly, but it’s a total turn on when I see Jett on the track, especially compared to other guys. He’s a pro. He’s good at what he does, and it shows. He never bumbles along the track or looks foolish. He is sleek and skilled and fast as hell. My chest fills with pride as I watch him.
The racers rev their engines and wait for the gate to drop. As it falls, Jett takes off, pulling the lead just like I knew he would.
Marisol squees in delight as we watch him go, pulling a bigger lead every second. Today’s race will be easy because he’s riding with people who are trying to qualify. Tomorrow, when he’s riding with all of the best racers, it’ll be more of a challenge. Today though, he almost seems bored. Before long, Jett’s got such a huge lead that he’s coming up on the racers who are in last place. He passes a few of them, meaning he’s over a whole lap ahead of those guys, and I lose sight of the guy in second place as he gets caught up racing around the guys in last place.
Jett is easy to spot though, not because he has a crazy colored helmet or anything, but because of his style on the track. The way he carries himself, the way he throws his whole body along with the bike over the jumps and then ducks down low to sweep through a sharp turn. I’d recognize his racing style anywhere.
He comes up on a section of whoops, which are tiny jumps that are so close together you can’t exactly jump them. It’s like gliding your bike over a bunch of speed bumps in a parking lot, only they’re about three feet tall.
Everything seems to go in slow motion as I watch one of the straggling racers in front of Jett wobble on the whoops. His handlebars yank sideways and then his whole bike flops and he’s thrown to the ground. Normally I wouldn’t think twice, only he does this right in front of my boyfriend.
Jett’s bike is going too fast to slow down or get out of the way. His front tire crashes into the side of the guy’s bike and Jett flies forward, tumbling over the wreckage. I jump straight out of my seat as his body seems to float in the air for a second and then he crashes face first into the next jump, his leg bent around behind him.
“Shit!” I stand here, fi
sts clenched at my side, waiting for him to jump up and run back to his bike. He’s got a big enough lead that he still has plenty of time to get back on the track and keep his first place lead. But he doesn’t get up right away.
One of the guys on the track rushes over and waves a yellow flag, which signals to the other racers that they need to slow down because they’re approaching a crash scene.
The first guy who fell in front of Jett gets up and dusts himself off, then goes to pull his bike away from Jett’s.
I stare at Jett’s helmeted head, watching as he wobbles and tries to climb to his feet, but he’s not moving very fast. He must have been dazed. Marcus runs across the track, rushing to his aid, and another track guy picks up Jett’s bike and rolls it over to him. Now all Jett has to do is get up and get back on it and start racing again. He’s taking so long, and each second that passes is going to be harder for him to secure first place.
But first place doesn’t matter right now, I tell myself. He needs to place in the top ten to move on to tomorrow’s race. This will be fine.
The track guy tries to give Jett his bike back, but Marcus shakes his head. What? What the hell does that mean?
He’s kneeling down beside Jett, who is moving, but barely. I see the paramedics on a golf cart speed down the side of the arena, heading toward Jett.
“Oh shit,” Marisol says beside me. “He might be hurt.”
I turn to her, eyes wide, because she just said exactly what I’ve been afraid to admit to myself.
I run down the stadium aisle and toward the VIP area, barely missing crashing into popcorn venders in my haste. I get to the blue doors that say EMPLOYEE’S ONLY and there’s two big muscled guys wearing polo shirts with the stadium’s logo on it. They block my way. “You need a VIP pass to get in here,” one of them says.
“I’ve got one!” I say, shoving my hand in my back pocket. But all I feel is my cell phone. Panic courses through me as I check my other pocket, and then all of them again. Where the hell is it?
Of course. The shorts I left in the bathroom of the hotel. They had the pass in it. I curse under my breath and look up at the guys, trying to seem innocent. “Is there any way you can let me in? Please? My boyfriend is racing and he just got hurt.”