by Emilia Finn
“I just…” I swallow. “I’m careful. And I’m good at it.”
“Grandpa Bry was good at it too, baby. Hell, Grandpa Charlie was good too. They both raced. They were both idiots that liked the smell of burning rubber.” She reaches up and wipes a hand over my cheek. “They’re gone, baby. They’re both gone, and losing you is not an option.”
“Grandpa Charlie didn’t die from racing, Mom. You’re smudging the truth.”
“He’s still gone,” she says. “Grandpa Bry is gone. Steph is gone. Aunt Tina and Aunt Iz almost died in a car. Cars and this family do not mix, so why would you tempt the world like that? Why would you do that?”
“What do you think I’m doing on the weekends, Mom? I have a racing car, it comes home dusty every Saturday and Sunday. It’s basically a neon sign saying that I like to hang out at Piper’s Lane.”
“Uncle Jack has a fast car too,” she counters. “Doesn’t mean he’s out racing it. I trusted you to do the right thing, Bryan. I trusted that you were smarter than that.”
“You done?” My dad steps up behind Mom. He stands so close that his chest touches her back… and I’m dead meat. “Baby? You done?”
She stares into my eyes, steels her spine, then nods.
“Right.” Dad removes her. He literally picks her up, moves her, then he gives me only a second to prepare before he slams me to the floor and reminds me what happens when I pop off at the mouth and disrespect his wife.
Madilyn
The Second Stage of Regret
“Did you do it?”
The second I step into Jenna’s basement bedroom, I’m bombarded with her smiling face. Her excited arm-flapping. And sitting on a comfortable chair in the corner, Jackson reclines back and extends a booted foot.
His face is bruised, swollen. His lip is split. His eye darker now than it was when I left a couple hours ago. He picked a fight with Bryan Kincaid last night. He didn’t want to hand his car over when he lost a race, so he decided to settle it with fists…
He lost that one too.
“Maddi!” Jenna snatches the files from my hands and flips them open. “Did you get them to sign?”
I feel sick. I feel weak.
Tripping out of my heels, I stumble to her bed and sit, and the moment I’m down, I drop my head into my hands and fight against my tears. “Yes. I got them to sign.”
Jackson sits in his chair and merely grins. “Good.”
Bryan
Next Step
Inside Angelo Alesi’s auto shop on the top block of Main Street, I sit on a stool and pat the ears of Twain-the-dog’s stupid brother, Deck, while my friends work.
Mac leans into a soccer-mom SUV, elbow-deep in grease, while Tucker works on a shiny, red street bike. Tucker Morris, as I know him, is also known as Chuck… as in Chuck Norris. Because it rhymes, and everyone that calls him Chuck thinks they’re funny.
He sits on a short stool, his knees are almost as high as his ears, but he’s the eternally happy dude, always smiling, always finding the joke in everything.
As he works, I can’t shake my scowl. “I’ve read the contracts a billion times,” I press. “I asked Soph to explain them to me like I’m four. I asked Jules and Scotch to read them and explain. I asked Jess.” I throw my hands up. “I’ve asked every smart person I know, and no one can find the catch.”
“You didn’t ask me to read,” Tuck smirks. “I’m a little offended.”
“You’re a mechanic,” I drawl. “I don’t need your legal advice.”
“You don’t need anyone’s legal advice,” Mac cuts in. “Kit was in that meeting. Sophia was in that meeting. And me, Ben, Lucy, and Smalls were there. That’s a rounded meeting, Bry. The contracts are legit.”
“There’s gotta be a catch, Mac! There has to be a catch, because I swear to you, her coming to our gym the day after I met her, the day after I belted her boyfriend, and took his car… that ain’t coincidence. They’re looking to mess things up, and I’m gonna figure it out.”
“Maybe she’s simply looking to get close,” Tuck suggests. “Contracts are contracts, business is business. Maybe that shit is legit. And while she’s close, maybe she’ll spit in your lunch or something.”
“Or…” Mac adds with a grin when he peeks over his shoulder. “Maybe Bry is feeling a little put-out because Maddi is the first chick in the world that ain’t tripping over herself to slide into his bed.”
My eyes narrow to slits. “First of all, punk, Maddi? That sounds awfully cozy.”
He chuckles and turns back to work. “She told us to call her Maddi at our meet. Second, she just about shit her pants when Evie told her to get changed and square up. So maybe she had plans to fuck us up, but I swear, she nearly died of fear when Evie told her to spar. So whatever those plans were, they were squashed.”
“No.” I sit low and play with Deck’s dangling ears. “That sounds far too simple. Way too easy. She’s got her claws out, and behind her, Jackson is pulling the strings.”
“She seemed pretty sharp to me,” Mac inserts. “She doesn’t seem like anyone’s puppet. She’s smart enough to do better than that.”
“I mostly agree…” I consider her. I think of the outfit she wore to the tracks – no one’s puppet there – and then the outfit she wore to a business meeting with my family. “She’s smart, she has cajones, and she has the temper to match.”
“Heard she dropped you,” Mac laughs. “Kick to the nads?” He shakes his head. “Low blow.”
“And yet,” Tuck chuckles. “Insanely fucking entertaining. Did you see it on YouTube?”
I turn to my friend and glare. “YouTube? Are you fuckin’ serious?”
He shrugs. “I swear it wasn’t me that filmed it. And I also suggest that, if you look it up, you ignore the fact the account owner’s name mentions fast cars. We’re not the same person.”
“You’re an asshole,” I grunt, then declare, “She has ulterior motives. She must. And I’m gonna make it my business to find out what they are.”
“Aww,” Tuck laughs. “Look at him using family honor as an excuse to chase her down. I had to search for her, guys. It’s for the family. I also had to check her out…and her boobies too. It’s for the good of the family.” He stops working, and turns on his stool to grin. “You’re a regular Robin Hood, Bry. The perfect martyr.”
“So selfless,” Mac agrees. “It must be tough being you.”
“You’re both assholes.” I push off the stool and force Deck to stand rather than lounge on my lap. “I’m going to the gym.”
“Come over to Ben’s tonight,” Mac invites as I walk across the garage. “We’re planning for the tournament, but we’re also discussing his stag party. We’re gonna do it up right.”
I roll my eyes and keep walking. “You guys are too trusting with that tournament. You’ve signed a deal with the devil, but now you’re acting like it’s business as usual.”
“It is business as usual!” Mac shouts. “We have a contract. We have an endorsement deal. It’s not a big fucking deal, Bry, and that one-and-a half-mil sure will look good in your bank account when you win your division.”
I stop by my car with my hand on the door handle. “For me to win, I have to beat Ben. Not exactly how I want to make money.”
“Bet your ass I’m fighting this year,” he counters. “And for me to get that payday, I have to lay Iowa out.” He presses a hand to his heart. “He might have to die, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
“Nice.” I open the car door, but before I slide in, I stare at the back of the car he’s working on. “You gonna explain to Lyss why you hit her daddy? Why you hurt him?”
“Yeah, I’ll tell her I did it for money!” He laughs. “Then when I buy her something pretty – with money – she’ll understand.”
“I have no clue how we’re friends.”
“Aww,” Tuck chuckles. “Mac and you have been buddies forever. But now Iowa’s here, and you’ve got a new best friend.”
“Iowa’s a decent dude. And he controls my access to Lyss.” Finally, I pause and let out an explosive breath. “I love that little girl like she’s mine. Fuck knows why the universe put that on me, but now it feels like I’m in a divorce and I have to keep sharing her.” I shake my head. “He and Brooke ever break up, I’m probably gonna have to take his side.”
Tuck throws his head back on a loud laugh. “How the tides have changed. Pretty sure I had to listen to you bitch all of last year about how you hated this new dude in town.”
“Yeah, because he was looking at my sister all the damn time.”
“He’s not looking anymore?” Mac asks. “He’s done? That was quick.”
“He’s not done. I’m just more accepting of it.” I tap the roof of my car in lieu of goodbye. “I’ll bring the Camaro in later this week. It needs a good clean out before Friday.”
“Wait.” Mac pops his head around the hood of the SUV. “You’re gonna race this weekend?”
I stare, like I’m waiting for the punchline. “Uh… yuh?”
“Even after Bobby beat you stupid, and your mom told you not to?”
I nod. “I’m a good driver, Mac. I’m smart, I’m skilled.”
“It’s dangerous!”
“Lots of other families would say the same about fighting,” I counter. “Lots of families would forbid their kids from fighting, because it’s dangerous.” I shake my head. “My family learned with Bean not to try to force us into a certain lane. She wants to dance. Smalls wants to fight. I wanna drive.”
I slide into my car and slam the door. Rolling the window down, I catch his eyes. “I expect you not to announce that shit at the dinner table, though. Hurt my mom, and you and I will have beef.”
Mac lifts his hands in surrender. “I’m not about hurting Kit.” He flattens his lips. “Unlike you.”
I flip him off without another word, switch my engine on, and back away from the garage that has been here since before I was born. Since before my dad was born, too.
It’s funny how times change, the world evolves, but we all circle back anyway. The first Bryan Kincaid raced the same tracks I do. And when he was working, he was in that garage. He was fixing cars alongside his racing buddy – Mac’s grandpa – and he was doing it all as a way to scrape enough money together to pay the rent.
I’ve circled back around. History is rhyming on itself.
But now I get to rewrite history. I get to live the life the first Bryan deserved. And I’m confident that, if he was still around, he’d be okay with my choices to visit Piper’s Lane on the weekends.
Pulling away from the garage, I turn toward Main and amble along the quiet street. It’s the middle of the day at the start of the work week. Everyone is busy; moms wander the sidewalk with strollers, they head into the bakery, or into the ice cream parlor that Lyss will probably own shares in before she’s grown.
She eats there seven days a week – one with her father, the other six with me, or my mom, my dad, my cousins. She has the entire Kincaid family wrapped around her finger, and thankfully, Iowa trusts us to do right by her.
I pass the street that, if I turn right on, I could follow it and head out to see my grandma. I don’t turn, but I make a plan to head that way soon. Instead, when I pass the local supermarket and catch sight of the Monaco Auto sign plastered along the wall – another endorsement deal, I suppose – I take a sharp turn and head back the way I came.
With a new mission, I pick up speed, and draw Mac’s and Tuck’s eyes when I roar past the garage again. In the complete opposite direction of the gym.
I turn my music up, sit back and let my legs open, and relax. Ten minutes after passing Jonah’s Store, I pull into the massive parking lot that houses all of Monaco’s staff’s cars.
Well, not all of them, since Monaco has two or three other manufacturing plants situated across the country. Yes, I Googled them. But this is the head office. The headquarters, and where the owners, the creators, began more than a hundred years ago.
I pull into a parking slot and yank my keys from the ignition, then, sliding out and slamming the door, I look down at my body and wonder if jeans are “corporate office appropriate”. I follow the signs that lead me toward the front office, and when I step into the cooled space, I smile for the young girl behind the tall reception desk.
“Hello. How can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Madilyn’s office, please.”
“Oh sure, is she expecting you?”
“Mmhmm. Monaco and my family are now in a partnership in regards to sponsorship. I had a few follow-up questions for her, but I’d prefer to speak face-to-face rather than via email.” I grin and pray the rumors are true: Bryan Kincaid can smile his way into any woman’s heart. “She knows who I am.”
“Okay.”
Instead of picking up the phone and announcing my visit, this woman merely stands from her desk and comes around to where I am. When I turn, she walks through the door and stops in the warmth outside.
She points to another building about a hundred yards from us. “She’s in that one. Go up the stairs, through the third door on the right, and you’ll find the marketing department. She has an assistant at the door, so tell her you’re here to see Maddi, and she’ll send you straight through.”
“Wonderful.” I look directly into this woman’s light green eyes and smile. “Thanks for your help. I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome.” She wrings her hands, and lets her eyes periodically drop to my chest. “Uh… be sure to come by here on your way out. You’re now considered a visitor on premises, and safety code means you need to make us aware when you leave again. Uh…” She clears her throat. “Headcounts, in case there’s an emergency.”
“Sure. I’ll swing on by on my way out.” I wink – because I’m a douche – then I set off across the gravel road and step around a cute garden filled with… fuck knows. Purple flowers. There’s a little white in there. And some pink. My mother wouldn’t be able to help me name them, but my grandma might.
Another reason to head by her place soon.
I cross the soggy, lush, green grass, and step onto a concrete pathway. Then I head up a wooden set of stairs, and count doors as I pass. One. Two. I stop at the third, broaden my shoulders, paste on my smile, and prepare to charm my way past another gatekeeper.
The less notice Madilyn has of my visit, the better.
Madilyn
Aw, Shit
“I need you to put in an order for more banners. Maybe twelve feet by four feet. Get our Monaco brand splashed all over that tournament, then talk to Anthony and get him working on a twenty-second sample for Evie to include in their announcement blast. We’re paying a fortune for this ad space, so we’re going to soak it up as much as we can.”
“Okay.” My assistant types up her email to Anthony even while she speaks. “I’ll grab a slot in his schedule. How many banners?”
“Uh…” I close one eye to think. Like that’ll help. “Maybe two, since they’re so big. Spectators will riot if we take up too much space and they can’t see the fights. Put more emphasis on the trailer, since that’ll go out to millions of new eyes. After you do that, can you come to my office, and—”
The front door opens, giving me a second to prepare my friendly PR smile – that’s why they pay me the big bucks – but then my spine snaps straight. My eyes widen. And damn me for noticing how my assistant sits taller and gasps when six-and-a-half feet of muscle and sex walks through her door.
He was smiling… but then our eyes meet, and those lips flatten. “Madilyn.”
“Bryan? What the f– I mean…” I clear my throat. “Uh… Welcome to Monaco’s. Can we help you?”
My assistant’s gaze snaps between me and our visitor. Back and forth, like she can’t consolidate the two. “Umm…”
“I’ve got this.” I stand taller and lift my chin, presenting it for him to smack. I know he’s tempted, and I refuse to cower. “Do you hav
e a meeting with someone from Monaco, Bryan?”
“Yeah.” He smiles cruelly. That’s the only way I could describe his expression. “With you.” He looks at his watch. “Eleven a.m. Just on time.”
He begins walking toward the hall, like he knows my office is back there. “Shall we start?”
To save face, to not look completely inept in front of my staff, I merely nod and move past him to lead the way.
I pass an open office space where I have twelve other staff members working at their computers. Most have design software open. Others have social media platforms humming with company promo. I don’t slow for them, I don’t introduce our guest. I simply ignore their curious gazes, and keep going.
Stopping at the end of the hall, I curse the wall-to-wall windows that lead straight out to the stair landing. If I’d been sitting at my desk, I would have seen Bryan a full minute before he stepped inside. Instead, I’ve been caught off guard. Thrown into a tailspin on the inside, though I show complete control on the out.
I stop at my doorway and stare at him with pure… passivity, when I know he’d rather something else. Anything else.
Bryan Kincaid would be used to either anger or love. Rage, or women falling over themselves for him to notice them. I give him nothing but a lifted brow and a waving hand to usher him into my office.
I close the door in hope that my staff won’t hear a single thing we say, then I turn back and watch as he shoves his broad hands into his pockets and wanders toward the glass doors.
I move behind my desk, my power move, and watch as he slowly comes back and flops into my visitor chair. He opens his legs wide. Lets his hands dangle. Then he grins.