by Emilia Finn
“Hold up.” I come skidding out of the bathroom with a mouth full of white foam, and my toothbrush still buzzing in my hand. “He doesn’t take no for an answer? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Jackson lifts his hands. Shrugs. “She said yes to making out. He slid his hand under her skirt. She said no, he laughed her off.”
“That fucking prick!” I spit half of my toothpaste onto the floor in front of me. “This changes things.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” Jen cries out. “I told you he was a douche. He’s a grade-A asshole with zero respect for women. The media likes to play this family like they’re the perfect example of everything that is good in this world, but they’re assholes. They’re spoiled, they expect everyone to kiss their asses, and when they call,” she points at her phone, “they damn well expect you to answer. Or else.”
“You should make her dress two sizes too small,” I declare.
Someday, when I look back on my life, that might be considered my first mistake.
“Who’s making her cake?” I look around the room, like my friends will have the answer. “We’ll find out, and we can fuck that up too.”
“The double-dog-dare has been initiated.” Hannah sits back with a satisfied grin, folds her arms, and grins when she pops her chest and Jackson’s eyes snap to her boobs. “It’s about time they discovered what disappointment tastes like.”
“I’m gonna…” I frown. “I’m gonna…” Then I swallow my toothpaste and groan. “That didn’t taste as nice as wine.”
Laughing, Jackson crosses the room to my abandoned glass of wine, brings it to me, and presses it to my lips with a grin. “Better?”
I study his eyes while I sip and wash away the taste of mint. Pulling back, I lick my lips to mop up leftover toothpaste and wine. “Uh huh.”
I turn away and finish up in the bathroom, and all the while, alcohol buzzes in my system so it feels like I’m walking on clouds. My brain is fuzzy, and my fingers… well, they’re kinda tingly.
“I’m going to sleep. Wake me up next week.” I trip my way to the far side of the massive bed that we often fall into on nights like these.
But tonight, we’re drunk. Like, messy drunk, so when I drop down and close my eyes, I barely wake again when I feel myself being lifted…
When I’m placed under the blankets…
When a warm body slides in next to me…
And then when that warm body presses against mine, and a heavy arm is slung over my stomach.
“Goodnight, Madilyn.” Warm lips press to my bare shoulder, and though my brows draw close on a frown, I’m too sleepy to do anything about it. “Sleep tight.”
Bryan
There Are Three Sides to Every Story
Plumes of dust and dirt hang in the air, ever present, unrelenting, and assuring me that if someone took my lungs right now and sliced them open, they’d find a thick layer of the reddish-brown substance that is my life when I’m here.
Piper’s Lane.
A dirt track a few miles outside of the town where I was born and raised, a rounded, mile-long race track that was created long before I came into this world. Hell, hotheads have been using this place since before my grandparents were born.
The cops know about Piper’s Lane, but they tend to leave it alone and stay away, since – speeding cars and hotdogging aside – it’s almost considered a sport at this point. Despite the high speeds, the loud cars, the fistfights that are broken up every single weekend, and the illegal betting that liberates folks of their paychecks and pink slips, I don’t remember the last time anyone crashed.
I don’t remember the last injury acquired from behind a steering wheel.
Though there have been plenty when a guy loses a race he wasn’t ready to lose, and instead of handing over whatever he bet – cash, slips, or his girl – he decides he’d rather fight.
But, hell, my name is Bryan Kincaid, and I’m partial to fighting too.
Piper’s Lane is like a one-stop-shop for all things that make me hard. Fast cars, hot women, and flying fists.
“Bry!” Tucker, my quasi track mechanic, stands under the hood of my 1967 Chevrolet Camaro, but pokes his head to the side so I see his eyes. “Give it a go. I think I fixed it.”
I sit in the front seat with one foot inside the car, the other on the dirt track outside, while music plays through my stereo, getting drowned out every minute or so by racing cars. At Tuck’s command, I turn the keys in the ignition, wait for the engine to fire up, and when the sound of air being guzzled becomes ear-splitting, I sit back and grin.
“Nailed it.” I slam a palm to my steering wheel and laugh as he lowers the hood.
I switch my engine off and push out of the car. “You fuckin’ nailed it, man.” I reach into my back pocket and take out a couple fifties, then I press my hand to his, transfer the cash to an oil-smudged palm, and clap his back in thanks. “Air intake?”
He steps back and pockets the money so fast that no one could ever prove it was there a moment ago. “There was too much dirt and shit in there. Cleaned it out, opened it up, gave it room to breathe. You need to get this in for a proper clean soon. Your oil is filthy, your plugs are filthy, the whole fuckin’ engine needs a good clean. That’s why it’s misfiring.”
“It’s this place, man.” I cast an eye over the two cars that roll up to the line now. Their engines roar, the cars rock on the chassis as their drivers rev, and the girl that stands between them, she flirts, touches herself, and sends them quietly insane just moments before they’re set to fly more than a hundred miles per hour in under ten seconds. “This place is terrible for our cars.”
Tucker steps back to lean against my hood as the flag girl lifts a slip of fabric into the air. She wears itty bitty little Daisy Dukes, a white tank tied in a knot between her breasts, and long hair tied up in a high ponytail. Tuck doesn’t speak, because once the girl lifts her arms, we know we’ll be cut off in three… two…
She drops her arm, and the two cars take off with an ear-splitting roar.
As soon as they hit the bend and brand-new clouds of dust lift in the air, Tucker turns to me with a goofy grin. This place is adrenaline on tap for him, just like it is for me.
“It’s Piper’s Lane, Bry. It’s literally all dirt. There’s no point bitchin’ about the dust in your engine. We come here every weekend, we do it on purpose, and we’ll continue to come back until we’re old or dead.”
“Dibs on being old.”
I lean against the hood and cross my arms as the cars come sliding around the last bend. The green Mustang inches ahead of the Mazda, but only by a nose, and when they cross the finish line, I bring a hand up to cover my laughing mouth when the Mazda skids out of control and fishtails toward the watching crowd.
He’s not gonna hurt them, he won’t hurt himself either, but watching the crowd scatter like bugs in a newly lit room always makes me smile.
“Dude just lost his zip-about.”
“That’s a twenty-five-thousand-dollar car,” Tuck groans. “That’s gonna sting.”
“Not my car, not my problem.” I push off mine and swing my keys between my fingers as I make my way back to the front seat. “Thanks for the fix. I’ll bring it in this week for a good clean out.”
“You should ask your sister to bring it in.” He smirks when I bring my eyes back to his. “She’s so fuckin’ pretty.”
I stop by the door and point. “Eyes to yourself, fuckstick. My sister ain’t for sale.”
“I’d pay.” He skips out of the way when I surge forward to wipe away his smile. “Come on, Bry! Sharing is caring and all that.”
“My sister is a mommy now.” I swing away and head back to the driver’s side door. I know he’s joking. I know he’s poking purely to get a reaction. “And even if she wasn’t already practically married, I still wouldn’t give her to you. She’s better than that. A grease monkey is below her pay grade.”
“You wound me.” He presses
a hand to his heart, laughs as I drop into my seat and switch the engine on until its roar draws eyes. “We could be brothers, Bry! You know I’m a sucker for long legs.”
“You’ll be the sucker with no legs if you don’t shut your mouth.” I slam my door, rev my smoothly running engine, and flash my middle finger when he stands at the hood and smiles. “Move or die,” I warn him. “You’ve gotta race in a bit; you wanna risk it?”
Laughing, he steps aside with raised hands, only to stop at his bike and throw a leg over. He wears jeans just like me, a shirt, but where I wear a baseball cap pulled on backward, he brings a red helmet over his dark hair and fastens the clasps.
I swing my hat around while I wait for him, fix it low over my eyes to keep the glare of the spotlights out of my peripherals, and when he pushes his bike in line with my open window, I bump his knuckles when he offers them, and shake my head when he shoots off, dirt and gravel spitting from his back wheel.
“Hothead.”
I slide my Camaro into first gear, turn up my stereo, and roll toward the lineup of cars as I wait my turn. I’m not racing for pink slips, like so many others do. I’d rather lay down cash, because finding the right car, making sure it runs right, knowing how it feels under my hands, and testing its power until I push the limits of what’s possible… that’s not something easily bought.
When you find the right car, you don’t risk it.
Tucker winds his way around the outside of the track, like a victory lap, despite the fact he’s yet to race, then comes up the side of the line of cars, ambles past me, and flips me off when he pulls into a space in front of me. He’s cutting line, but then a second bike, his competitor, joins him and declares it so.
I’ll be racing in six or so cars’ time… after the bikes.
I cut my engine when I’m in place, pocket my keys, and climb out again to check in. These race nights are held in a similar way to how my family run their Stacked Deck fighting tournament. We check in, we weigh in – or, in car terms, we place our bets – we wait our turn, and once we race, the winner moves on to the next round, and the loser… loses. His car, his girl, his cash, his shirt. Whatever he was cocky enough to lay down, he walks away without.
Each fighter – each racer – advances to the next round, and we keep going until we have an overall winner, and at the end of the night, the victor takes all.
I’m the proud owner of dozens and dozens of cars, but I don’t want them. I don’t drive them. I keep my Camaro, offer back the cars to the losers in exchange for cash, and if they don’t have it, I sell it to whoever wants it, and smile when men fight over who wants it more.
Buying another man’s car at a reduced price is almost… insulting. Kinda like taking his girl, I suppose.
“Hey there, Bry.”
At five feet and a smidge more tall, Manda is sort of considered our administrator. She takes bets, handles disputes, hands keys to victors, and talks the losers down when they’re readying to lose their shit. She keeps our race weekends alive and running on good time, so we all go home again at a reasonable hour – and by reasonable, I mean before the sun comes up the next day.
“Manda.” I step forward when she ushers those ahead of me to the side. I have to fold my six and a half feet stature to place a kiss on her cheek, but it’s what we do.
I ooze charm, allegedly. I play my part, and I remain in her good graces when I know I could get myself booted from the circuit if she decides she doesn’t want me.
I could drive in circles anywhere, anytime. I could race dudes down Main Street to get a charge. I don’t need Piper’s Lane for the payday, so none of this is a necessity for my bank or groceries, like it is for many others.
Most of the folks who come out here work regular jobs that don’t quite cover the bills, then they come down on the weekends and pray they can win and set their families up a little more comfortably.
My grandfather, the first Bryan Kincaid, was one of those people. A win was the difference between feeding his family or not. The car he drove, he won from someone else. His victories, many. He was good behind the wheel of a fast car, and sent that ability down through his blood into mine.
But though I don’t need Manda or Piper’s Lane for the income, I do need it for the adrenaline, for the fun, for the hit I’m addicted to.
So I play the game.
“You look good. Got a haircut?”
Manda scoffs and ticks me off her list of racers. “You think that a compliment on my hair will do you favors?” Then she grins. “You’d be absolutely right. I was in the salon only this morning.”
“The pink looks good.” I reach forward and finger the long strands that hang over her shoulder. “Looks like cotton candy.”
“The bottle was literally labeled ‘cotton candy’,” she snickers. “I’ve got you starting against Kallan.”
“He’s a little bitch.”
She laughs. “If you say so. Roll up when he does. Don’t be late, or you lose by default.”
“I’m never late.”
I release her hair and cast a glance around the crowd. Hundreds of bodies mill around, hundreds of racers and their cheer squads who consist of women in less clothes than I see at the lake in the summer.
Not that I’m complaining.
“Is Jackson here?” I glance back in time to catch Manda’s little shrug.
“He might be. But seeing as you’re not racing him, you don’t have to worry about him.”
“You know we’ll be racing before the end of the night.”
“Cocky.” She laughs. “You assume you’ll beat Kallan. You assume you’ll beat everyone right up to the finals.”
“It’s a safe assumption.”
I glance to my left when a new, loud car pulls through the crowd. I don’t see him, but I know the sound of an engine as well as I know voices. I don’t need to see to know.
I turn back to Manda and grin. “He’s here.”
She rolls her eyes. “You need to stop antagonizing him, Bry. You’re gonna push too hard someday. He’ll snap, and then we’re all gonna be in trouble.”
“He’s a bitch, and you know I love poking at those.” I turn away from her and make my way through the crowd.
“Leave it alone, Bry!” Her voice follows me as I move. “Bryan! It’s tacky to keep poaching a man’s girl.”
“If he was a man, he’d be able to hold onto them.”
I pass Tucker, though it’s not because I walk by his bike or my car. He knows what I’m doing, so he rushes in to follow me into the crowd as they surround the brand-new, straight off the manufacturer’s floor, shiny, black Dodge Challenger.
I have a friend that drives a vintage Dodge. American muscle at its sexiest. But the newer kind, while sexy… the fact that Jackson lost his ride last night and needed to scramble for another today… that alone, and the fact he drove it here, instantly lowers its market value.
The crowd fangirls over the sparkling paintwork. They stroke the hood, ooh and ahh when he pops it open to show off the engine. They hope that being close means he’ll call them his friend, but I hold no such wishes.
I don’t want to be his friend. In fact, the more I piss him off, the happier I am.
I push through the crowd, fold my arms, and smirk when he slides out of the front seat with his aviator sunglasses shielding his douchebag eyes, despite the fact it’s nine at night.
Jackson Price has been a pain in my ass since the day I met him… in kindergarten.
He thinks he’s bad. And he thinks that because my family’s name means something, that I invite a prick into my life. He’s considered it his job to annoy me from the moment we met; as the years have passed, he’s done everything in his power to piss me off.
It’s all fun and games to fill a locker with dirt, to drop bottles of paint on my new shoes in home-economics, to knock me on my ass in the cafeteria and send my lunch to the floor for the third time in a single week. Switching out our assignments, putting my name on his s
cience fair shit and taking the credit for something I spent hours and hours working on…
Then, as we got older, shoving a screwdriver into the tires of my bike, cutting the chain so I had to walk it home, then poaching the girl I could have sworn I would one day marry – in my thirteen-year-old brain, I thought I had it all worked out.
Every step I took in school, Jackson Price was standing right there to fuck it up for me.
But, hey, fair’s fair, right?
Knock my lunch to the floor? I had a dozen cousins in my school who would share their food. Trash my bike? No problem, I had family to walk home with. Steal my high school crush? If she could be stolen, then it was never going to work out anyway.
But the day Jackson fucking Price swore he was a changed man, took my sister out to dinner, then sent her home crying… that was the day our war officially began.
I can take a lot of shit, and I’ll accept a metric ton of “good-natured ribbing,” which is what the administrators of my school called his bullshit, but the day you fuck with a man’s family, you’ve gone too far.
My mom used to be all, “Be nice, honey. He wants your attention because he wants to be your friend.” But that night Brooke came home with her shoes in her hands and tears in her eyes, even my mom turned.
“Fuck him up, Bry. Do it before you’re eighteen. Juvie is easier than prison.”
That was years ago, and though I get a chance to fuck him up on a weekly basis, though my sister is in a happy relationship now with a good man, and maaaybe I went an eye for an eye – he fucked with my sister, so I went for his and delivered cold revenge that hurt a hundred times worse – my grudge refuses to burn away. Not when Jackson turns up every weekend and pokes, pokes, pokes some more.
I approach his car now and check out the shiny new engine with a fast glance, then I continue forward until I stop, and our eyes meet.
“Bry.” Tucker grabs my arm when Jackson takes a step forward. He tries to pull me back, to at the very least delay the inevitable. “Cool it.”
“Kincaid,” Jackson sneers. “You’re back, even after the beatdown you took last night?”