False Start: A Roller Derby Romance (Beautifully Brutal Book 1)

by Casey Hagen

  How the hell was I supposed to say no to her? To this woman who loved those kids.

  A woman who couldn’t bear to throw away a frayed green shoelace because it was the last connection she had to her mother.

  She raised her chin even more, defiance flaming in her blue eyes. “Show me someone strong enough to.”

  She fucked with my head.

  She fucked with my heart.

  She fucked with everything I believed about myself.

  Everything I needed to believe about myself.

  She turned the new normal I’d found upside down and threatened everyone and everything I worked so hard to protect.

  I turned the knob to the door and backed her into the dark landing at the foot of the stairs to the second floor. I pictured her apartment up there, a tiny space I’d helped Patti clean up almost twenty years ago now.

  This girl, the one who clung to nostalgia so fiercely she kept a broken lace in an old skate would have turned it into her own utopia. She’d cherish the quirks of register heat and rough plank floors gouged with the scars from the past.

  And she’d leave every last inch of the space every bit as touched as it had been before she made it hers.

  “No witnesses. See? I called it, you’re scared,” she panted out the words, her voice taunting me.

  I backed her up to the wall never letting go of her jaw. “Shut up.”

  “Make me.”

  I crushed my mouth to hers, the kiss every bit as raw and punishing as it was seductive. I plundered the warm places behind her plump lips. My hands spread over each side of her head, my fingertips spearing into her hair, holding her under me, giving her no escape.

  I took and took, stealing her breath for my own, exploiting her willing mouth.

  I needed her to steal it back. To be selfish. To push me away. Anything.

  As long as she didn’t give.

  Don’t give one damn part of yourself to me.

  She reached for me then, a low groan rumbling in her throat. My jacket slid from her shoulders as her palms crawled up my chest, burning a trail along the way as though she had her hands on my bare skin.

  Her fingers plunged into my hair, breaking the hold I had on her, her nails scraping my scalp, pulling me in until I didn’t know if I was the one wielding the power anymore.

  “You want a confession, Mayhem?” I said as I tore my mouth from hers and dragged my lips along the curve of her jaw, to the soft spot just behind her ear.

  “Yeah, I’m scared,” I admitted, biting the soft flesh of her neck, making her hiss.

  “Of this.” I licked her skin, memorizing her taste, making her gasp.

  “Of you.” I dragged my teeth over the rise of her collarbone, the sound of her jagged breath echoing in my head.

  “Of me.” Dragging her sweater lower, I pressed a series of hot kisses over the curve of her shoulder, her fingernails carving into my skin as she sank her fingertips deeper into my muscles.

  “Of what this thing between us will unleash,” I said as I returned to her wet mouth. Her eyes fluttered closed and I swallowed the moan that slipped from her lips.

  I seduced us both with hot, deep glides of my tongue along hers. Pinning her to the wall with every grind of my hips against her belly, my cock desperately tried to soothe an impossible ache. My hands traced over the skin underneath her sweater, my thumbs finding the curved undersides of her breasts.

  I glided my thumbs back and forth, afraid to go further, mustering a shred of willpower so I didn’t haul her up the stairs and plunder inside her the way my body demanded.

  The soft sound of her sigh whispered through me as the fight shifted and changed.

  As I handed her the power to my surrender, praying she wouldn’t use it against me.

  “I need you,” she confessed in a broken whisper against my mouth. “Please. These kids won’t have anywhere to go. I won’t have anywhere left to go.”

  She tore her mouth away and dropped her forehead to my chest, her words muffled, but no less desolate. “Don’t you get it? Crossroads saved me when my mom died. It still saves me in a town where I have no roots. No family. Nothing of my own. And nowhere in this world to go.”

  Her words twisted into my heart and echoed there. There was no way out. No right choice.

  “Dammit,” I said quietly as I wrapped my arms around her to keep her warm.

  To keep me warm.

  To hold on as our lives collided and everything spiraled out of control.

  Pressing my lips to the top of her head, my heart slammed against my ribs—not with the lust building between us that finally bubbled over, but with dread.

  Cold, hard, sharp barbs hooking into tender flesh dread.

  “Does that mean yes?” she asked, her arms tightening around me and her fingers curling into the back of my sweater.

  “Yeah.” I sighed and nodded against the top of her head. “Yeah.”

  She let out a shuttering breath, relaxing in my arms.

  Time to let go.

  But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Instead, my hand defied the logic in my head and curled under her hair, cradling her in my palm while I kissed her temple and breathed in her sweet scent.

  She turned her face into me, her lips right there, hovering just a breath away from mine. “One more thing.”

  “What?” I whispered as I traced her bottom lip with my thumb.

  She sighed over my skin and I forgot to breathe. “If you’re not the enemy and we’re not friends…what is this?”

  I laughed, the sound completely devoid of any humor as a lump of fear lodged in my chest right by the part of my heart she’d manage to grip in her tight little fist without knowing it. I brushed her lips with mine, lingering there, not knowing when I’d have her in my arms again.

  If I’d have her in my arms again.

  I found her lust-filled eyes and held her unfocused stare. “Post-apocalyptic Galloway Bay in the making. Without a doubt.”

  13

  Two days passed since that night at Banked Track.

  Since the kiss I could still taste even now.

  Since I caved.

  I caved so fucking hard.

  While Mayhem convinced her team to put their trust in me, I’d been gathering every last bit of information I’d need, starting with thick stacks of session plans both for flat track and banked track derby I hadn’t laid eyes on in ten years.

  I hardly used them at the time. I didn’t need to. I’d been so immersed in the sport, the components of the game moved like fluid pieces in my head, shifting and changing with new circumstances.

  Between playing banked track on my own and coaching flat track, I could easily shift from one to the other.

  But a decade had passed since then. Rules changed. Requirements changed. As I stared out at the sea of notes scattered across my grandmother’s dining room table, I wondered if I’d be able to pull this off.

  If they’d be able to pull this off.

  This was the one and only time I got to linger in doubt. The minute the team showed up, I was all coach mode. I knew just how I’d get when I got into the infield again, the echo of skates reverberating from under the bank, the grunts, and shouts.

  I’d become the bastard they hated to need.

  They’d resist. They’d challenge me.

  I would break down their defiance until they complied.

  Then I’d build them back up.

  That was the only choice with the little time we had.

  They’d be going against some of the best. Skaters that practically lived on a banked track. They knew every bump, every angle, the shift in their center of gravity no longer even a blip on the radar for them.

  And they’d look at Beautifully Brutal and laugh.

  Flat track derby trying to make a mark on banked track? My team would be the interlopers. The team swooping in thinking they could invade banked track territory and take the prize.

  Their competitors would be downright merciless.
<
br />   But they would also dismiss them.

  I was counting on it.

  Their mistake would be the key to a shot at victory.

  They’d never expect a flat track team to skate into a banked track exhibition and have a chance.

  They wouldn’t have information on Beautifully Brutal going in. As an amateur league, there’d be little to find. Not yet being members of the WRDF would work in our favor.

  Their competitors would have no history to go on. No video footage. No way of knowing my team’s bad habits, weaknesses, or strengths.

  And those were the shadows my team had to operate in.

  I had attitudes to curb.

  I had personal weaknesses to hammer out.

  And a love triangle.

  A first for me.

  Only I would end up dealing with a love triangle as one of the three.

  I shouldn’t have kissed her. I knew I shouldn’t have kissed her even as I continued attacking her mouth like a damn starving man, every slide of our tongues tasting, taking, plunging deeper while tucked away in that hallway chasing away the shivers racking her body until we both burned.

  No doubt Eve would see the change. The minute we all shared the same space, she’d home right in on the tension now a raging bonfire.

  Mayhem might have thought whatever she had with Eve was over, but for Eve…not so much. She had a tight grip.

  Time would tell if she was going to march that possessiveness onto the track, forcing me to face it head-on, or if she'd find the maturity to set it aside.

  We had a month to get ready and Christmas coming in a little more than a week. Big plans? Too bad. Canceled. They could open a few presents and eat Christmas dinner. Other than that, if they weren’t at work, their asses needed to be on the track, starting with scrimmages to get them adapted to the bank.

  They’d have to learn everything all over again. All of their footwork, slides, stops, jumps, control, crossovers, and dozens of other skills—everything had to be practiced hundreds, maybe thousands of times until their bodies forgot the flat track and only reacted to the bank.

  I reached out to a few people I knew from my early days and got the details of the exhibition. The rule set they’d follow, the condensed bouts used for elimination rounds on day one, and the format for the final rounds on day two.

  Two days.

  That was it.

  We had one month to train for an exhibition so aggressive it was capable of breaking down even the most seasoned banked track player.

  Mayhem texted me—because apparently we did that now—to let me know that the team was on board and they’d be ready to start tomorrow.

  That gave me today to make sure the track was ready. I’d inspected it before closing it, just like my grandfather taught me, but that had been a decade ago.

  Ten years in an old dairy barn with the fluctuation in temperature and humidity meant I had work to do.

  I brushed away the cobwebs along the switch and flicked on the lights hanging in rows along the support beams crisscrossing the ceiling. Almost as cold inside as it was outside, the track lay there barren and silent, covered with a couple dozen silver tarps.

  It’d take the whole day to get it ready, but at least I’d flop into bed exhausted to the core tonight.

  Maybe then I’d stop playing our kiss through my head.

  I’d settle for my cock to stop twitching. Fucking Jackson cursing me with that poppin’ bone shit.

  I walked the perimeter of the barn, starting each of the four jet force kerosene heaters and making note of their fuel levels. I’d need them for at least six hours a day, a pace I expected the team to protest.

  Too bad. They needed my help, not the other way around.

  They’d get it my way or no way.

  I’d also need an additional hour of fuel before practice to get the temperature to a tolerable level, especially while competing against the cold blasting through the open windows in each corner for ventilation.

  I stopped in the front office, if you could call it an office, and left what I salvaged from old scrimmages. The room wasn’t much, but with tables along two walls and a lone chair, I’d make it work. I didn’t plan to park my ass in there for long anyway.

  If my team was going to be uncomfortable, so was I.

  I’d be in the infield…and on the track.

  Dragging along my grandfather’s cart from where he left it tucked in the corner, the familiar squeak of protest from the back left wheel had a smile tugging at my mouth. Piled high with nuts, bolts, tools, and a checklist, I got to work.

  You’ve got to check everything, son, all the panels from the bastards, to the turns, and straightaways, and when you’ve done that, you get right down to the nuts and bolts. Nothing but the best for your grandmother. You hear?

  I’d swear, even though he’d been in the ground for almost seventeen years, he’d stood here with me through every single moment.

  In person and in spirit.

  Through the good and bad.

  One at a time I peeled off the tarps, dust billowing into the air before settling back down again on the concrete floor. After I folded them, I stacked them on shelves along the back wall.

  Hours upon hours of memories with my family echoed in this place. The first time I ever put on skates and got on a banked track had been right here with my grandmother. Small but strong and unbelievably fast, she continued to skate well into her seventies. She spent time every day out on this track for at least an hour, claiming the exercise kept her young.

  From the onset, she’d started me out racing her. After a few months I finally got fast enough to blast past her out of the first turn.

  Then our mother died.

  When she did, I took my sorrow out on the Masonite track. No more races. Instead, she stood on the infield, her keen eye never leaving me. Like she sensed the bitterness in me bubbling to a dangerous flash point.

  They’re orphans now.

  I overheard the words, hushed and muffled so I never figured out who’d said them.

  We weren’t orphans. We had a father.

  Somewhere.

  With every lap, I skated harder and faster. I shouted out every last bit of anger and misery filling me. I punished this very track for what I’d lost.

  For what I’d never get back.

  This track had the power to lift me up so fucking high I’d swear I could touch the angels—and the power to cut me so deep my life leeched out with every bit of sweat and streak of furious tears pouring down my cheeks.

  My emotions had always gone to war in these four walls.

  What emotions would I face off with this time?

  With the tarps off, I started at the first of two bastards, directly across from one another, the center pieces of the turns on each end of the track. I studied every center bolt, every brush of my fingers over the cold metal bringing a fresh memory of my grandfather’s smile and the awe in his voice when he talked about my grandmother.

  She knocked me right on my keister from day one, son. Day one. I never even knew what hit me; I just knew I wanted it to hit me again.

  Yeah. That sounded about right.

  Mayhem.

  She’d done the same to me. And here I was, working on a track for her. Just like my grandfather.

  Only we wouldn’t have the happy ending. She wanted to be in the WRDF and any long-term attention on her team because of me would risk their chances.

  She had a goal and all I brought to the table was endless scrutiny.

  And I wouldn’t throw Lana under the bus to save myself. She’d paid plenty already.

  My silence was the final nail in my own coffin.

  Happy endings were for everyone else.

  So bitter and angry, the lessons I learned in this barn—care and respect from my grandfather, fire and hunger from my grandmother—withered under the suffocating blanket of grief for my mother until it turned to poison.

  I let the battle fuck with my head until tunn
el vision took over, tempting me into giving my father another chance.

  I told my grandmother what I wanted. What I thought was right. My words turning sour in my gut like my soul’s warning. She gave me the choice, the adult choice as the older brother, the older twin. The one who'd always looked out for his siblings. She squared her proud shoulders and gave me a firm nod. “If you think it’s the right thing to do, then maybe it is the right thing to do,” she’d said.

  Six months later, my twin dead, my father in jail, my sister screaming every night in her sleep and barely eating, we ended up back at the farm.

  I never even went into the house when we arrived. I marched straight to this barn and strapped on my skates.

  My grandmother didn’t say a word, just followed me and waited for me to skate it out.

  We had a shared demon to fight now.

  Regret.

  I saw it every time I looked into her eyes, and in the mirror each morning.

  Eventually she put up obstacles: orange cones, buckets, stools, whatever she could find. Pushing me until the tears dried and all that was left was sweat.

  Drowning in my own torment, I didn’t recognize what she was doing, I just kept trying to outrun ghosts.

  And when I didn’t believe in myself anymore, she believed enough for both of us and cracked open the door to a family legacy which until then had only belonged to women.

  She trusted me to honor the generations before me.

  And she taught me banked track derby.

  Every day we worked.

  Covered in bruises from head to toe from laying my every emotion on the track, and still she pushed harder, faster, stronger.

  Over and over she’d challenge me, bet me I couldn’t get through. Hungry for absolution and hell-bent on proving her wrong, I’d swerve, jump, spin, and navigate my way through until I slayed every single challenge stationary objects could bring.

  Leave it to my grandmother to up the ante.

  Obstacles flew in from the left, from the right, foam padding in a variety of shapes and weights. Forcing me to learn how to be good on my toes, literally, and mastering speed recovery after getting through the pack or past a pileup.