by Chelle Bliss
I glare across the table at Brooks and resist the urge to sigh again. My dad’s already given me more than one strange look. I’m trying to maintain my usual chipper attitude, but I’m failing miserably. My stomach’s in knots, both from the lingering tequila and the cold shoulder Brooks is giving me, but I plaster a fake smile on my face anyway.
As Dad rolls into the numbers from last season, I tune him out. I prepared the report and know the details better than anyone in the room. I can’t stop staring at Brooks, and I’m pretty sure everyone in the room has noticed besides my father and maybe Brooks because he still hasn’t bothered to make eye contact.
I’m practically seething by the time my father walks behind me, creating a shadow across the table. I place my hand over the notepad I’d been scribbling on, covering Brooks’s name in the center of my doodle. I still, praying to God he didn’t see anything I had on the pad before I tried to conceal it like I was a kid in high school being caught by the teacher.
“Let’s break for lunch and dig back in this afternoon. Sound good with everyone?”
I quickly grab the pad of paper and tuck it against my chest before climbing to my feet. “Lunch sounds great. I’ll be in my office if anyone needs me.”
Dad clears his throat and places his hand on my shoulder before I have a chance to walk away. “I thought we could all go together.”
Those were not the words I wanted to hear. By all, I assume he means the four of us. We can’t possibly leave Brooks, the new golden boy, out of the equation. Sitting across from him the last few hours has been horrendous, but at least I could play it off like I was deep in work mode. But lunch… That would be an entirely different situation, and I hate the very idea of sitting across from him while our feet touch under the table.
Roscoe grumbles, clearly disliking the idea as much as I do.
“I don’t want to put anyone out,” Brooks adds from across the table and finally looks in my direction without so much as a smile of acknowledgment. “I’m more than happy to…”
“Oh no.” Dad puts his hand up and stops Brooks from continuing. “We’re a team, and we’re going to start acting like one.” My dad’s heart is in the right place, but he has no idea what he’s saying or what happened last night. Thank God.
“Sure, Daddy.” I plaster on a wide and very fake smile.
“Fine,” Roscoe growls and climbs to his feet. “We can be a team, but it doesn’t mean I have to be best friends with the man.”
I glance toward Brooks, who’s rubbing the back of his neck with a forced, uncomfortable smile, and I almost feel bad for him. Yesterday, I would’ve felt awful, but that was before Brooks Carter laid his hands on me and stole my breath with a single kiss. The fact that we slept together wasn’t my issue, but his inability to acknowledge my presence besides a quick look doesn’t sit well with me.
I’m so sick of Roscoe and Brooks’s bullshit. I’m ready to pop. The headache climbing up my neck and gripping my temples like a vise isn’t making it easy for me to keep my cool. I place a hand on my hip, still clutching the notepad, and spout off. “Stop acting like a baby, Roscoe. You’re still the champ, and maybe you should act like it. Brooks beat you a few laps. It’s not the end of the world.” Roscoe gawks at me, blinking a few times like he’s in shock. I’ve always been on Roscoe’s side, even when I knew his ass was wrong, because he was my brother, and that’s the type of shit siblings do. “If you’re so worried you’re going to lose to him, maybe you should just concede the entire season now,” I add, rubbing salt into his wounded ego.
Roscoe slams his hands down on the table. “You’re such a little bitch sometimes, Faith.” He flares his nostrils and bunches his shoulders up near his head, but I haven’t seen that type of fire in his eyes in a long time. “I’m not conceding this season, and that boy”—he points at Brooks, who’s still sitting at the table, stunned—“is not going to beat me.”
My father slides his arm around Roscoe’s shoulder and gives him that manly, father-son squeeze. “I’m starving, kids. I think you’re all just hangry and need to fill your bellies with some good food.”
The room is silent, and my eyes drift to Roscoe, who’s staring at me in confusion. We both turn our gaze to my dad because the man has never uttered the word hangry in his life. He’s not one to be up on the “young kid lingo,” as he says.
“Have you been watching YouTube again, Dad?” Roscoe asks, finally breaking the weird silence and relaxing under my father’s touch.
“I saw something on the internet and thought it was funny. It fits you, my boy. When you get hungry, you’re sure an angry little beast.”
I chuckle at my father’s characterization of my brother. It’s spot-on. Roscoe has always been a baby when he’s hungry. His entire teen years were unbearable, and if I didn’t know any better I would’ve thought he was pregnant because of his nonstop grazing in the kitchen. He wasn’t happy unless he was cruising around the track or stuffing his face until he could barely walk.
“I want barbeque for lunch,” Roscoe announces as he turns his gaze toward Brooks. “If I have to sit with Brooks, I at least want to eat something good.”
I wince, tensing at his shitty statement. Everything out of his mouth today is god-awful, and by the way my dad’s eyes narrowed, Roscoe is about to get his ass chewed out.
“Faith, take Brooks down to the Tasty Pig, and I’ll ride with Roscoe. He and I need to have a little chat alone.”
Roscoe looks to me for rescue, but I give him no reprieve. He deserves everything that’s coming to him. Sure, he doesn’t like Brooks. Neither do I at the moment, but that doesn’t give him the right to be an all-out asshole to him in front of my father. Even if my father hated someone, he always smiled and did his best to remain a good Southern gentleman, which was something Roscoe never mastered, no matter how hard my father tried to teach him. Roscoe is in for it. A little chat with Daddy is never a good thing. Roscoe knows he stepped over the line, and he’s about to get straightened out.
I walk ahead of Brooks, ignoring him as he follows me to the truck. I stash my notebook in my purse, climb inside his truck, and slam the door, feeling a little bit of satisfaction after taking it out on his vehicle. “You need directions?” I ask as he slides in next to me.
“I saw the Tasty Pig on the way in this morning. I think I can find it again.”
We sit in silence as he pulls onto the main road. I fidget with my purse, riffling through the contents to find my lip gloss. I glance at him under my eyelashes and stare at his hand resting near his knee. He’s leaning back, calm, with one hand on the wheel, relaxed into the driver’s seat of his pickup like nothing ever happened between us. I should keep my mouth shut and let it slide. I knew I was making a mistake by sleeping with a guy I barely knew, but I couldn’t control myself.
“We have to talk,” I say, unable to sit in silence any longer. On top of everything, neither of us stopped pawing at each other long enough to use protection. I’m on the pill, so there’s no worry about having a mini Brooks making a surprise entrance in nine months, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t pass me some nasty STD he picked up from some racing groupie.
“I’m all ears.”
I growl and curl my fingers into a tight fist, holding down my anger long enough to ask the most important question that’s been burning on my mind. “When was the last time you were tested?”
“I’m clean, Faith. Don’t worry about that.”
Don’t worry about that? That’s not an answer. That’s a cop out. At his quick dismissal, my anger rises from irritated to ready-to-burst in under three seconds.
“You did not answer my question, Brooks.”
“I had a physical and full work-up last week. Everything came back clean. Relax a little. How about you? When was the last time you were tested?”
I jerk my head backward at the absurdity of the question. “Are you serious?”
“Don’t act shocked. Why would you ask me that if I can’t ask yo
u? The question’s fair, princess.”
I cross my arms over my chest and try not to feel defensive. It is fair for him to ask, but that doesn’t make it easier to swallow. “You’ve slept with way more people than me, Carter.”
I’ve slept with exactly two people my entire life, and one of them is sitting next to me pretending the entire thing never happened. Marcus, my college boyfriend, was the other, and I made sure to get an STD test after I caught him fooling around. I thought I was safe with him since we were committed to one another, but man, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
“To be honest, I haven’t slept with anyone but you,” he admits, glancing in my direction.
Now he’s totally yanking my chain, and I’m not happy about where the conversation is going. I draw my eyebrows down and narrow my gaze on his baby blues. “You were not a virgin.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “Of course not, but I haven’t slept with anyone in a long time.” He pauses and shifts in his seat. “Let me restate that. I really have never actually slept in a bed with anyone. Sex and sleeping are two different things. And for the record, I haven’t had sex with another chick, besides you, in a long time. I’m totally clean. There’s nothing to worry about.”
I sit there, staring at him in disbelief, as I try to process what he’s just said. He’s fucked other women. Nothing shocking there. But it’s the next part of his statement that has me hung up. He never slept with any of them. How is that even possible? I mean, everyone gets tired after sex. Don’t they? Marcus always passed out immediately afterward like my vagina put some magical voodoo spell on him, and he couldn’t keep his eyes open. But Brooks… He probably sneaked out of their beds just like he did mine.
I cross my arms over my chest, put a shitty smirk on my face, and decide it’s time to just come right out and say it. “Sneaked out on them too, huh?”
“Easy, princess.” He shakes his head and sighs. “For the record, I didn’t sneak out.”
“What do you call it, then? You were not there in the morning. No note. No text…nothing.”
I’m pretty sure that’s the very definition of sneaking out. He didn’t even bother to wake me before he left. It shouldn’t have mattered because we were nothing to each other. Not really. But somehow when he acted like I barely existed in the office, it hurt like a punch to my gut.
“I left before the sun came out because you know as well as I do word travels in a town like Buxton. Would you rather I stayed and your dad find out about it?” He glances in my direction, and I turn my face, hiding my heated cheeks at my complete stupidity over the entire situation.
“No. I don’t want my daddy to know, but that doesn’t explain why you ignored me all morning.” I’m hurt and spent all morning letting my feelings get the better of me.
“Faith.” There’s softness to his voice. “I couldn’t look at you.”
My shoulders slump forward, and I swallow the bitter pill of reality that his words just delivered. “I get it.” I lift my hands from my lap. “We’re nothing to each other. I got the message loud and clear, Brooks.”
This was exactly why my mamma told me to never sleep with a boy unless we were committed to each other. She explained a long time ago that was the difference between men and women. Sex draws our feelings to the surface, leaving an imprint on our hearts as well as our bodies. It’s something we can’t just toss to the side. Brooks is the first person I let past second base without being in some sort of meaningful relationship, and her words sure as hell are ringing true.
He rolls to a slow stop at the stoplight near the Tasty Pig. “Hey.”
I don’t answer him. I can feel his eyes on me, but I don’t dare look. My vision blurs as tears line the bottom of my eyes. I’m not crying for some imaginary lost love. I’m embarrassed and upset because I was stupid enough to think he’d be different. I knew what I wanted last night to be, but somehow, when I woke up this morning, I thought it meant more to both of us.
“Faith,” he says as the truck rolls forward through the green light and he turns into the parking lot.
I keep my eyes trained on the storefronts lining Main Street and blink back the tears. “Yeah?”
He pulls into the first open spot and cuts the engine. “Look at me.”
I take a deep breath and replace the sadness with my best pissed-off glare before I face him. “What?” I bite out.
He shifts, leaning his back against the door to face me head on. “I couldn’t go back to how things were. I couldn’t talk to you like nothing happened.”
“So you ignore me instead?” I let out a disgusted grunt. “Save it for one of the floozies who will buy your lines.”
“Last night wasn’t a quick casual fuck. When you walked in this morning, I couldn’t pretend. I figured it was better to keep my head down and mouth shut before I got myself in a heap of trouble.”
I blink and gawk, my mouth hanging open, as Brooks swipes a hand down his face and smacks his head back against the rear window of his truck.
“I could still smell you on my skin when I got home, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the way you tasted and felt in my arms. I told myself it meant nothing, and I damn well had myself convinced until you came barreling through the garage with that killer skirt, just enough cleavage showing to drive me wild, and swaying your hips as if you were trying to torture the fuck out of me. Do you know how hard it was to not pull your ass into the parts room and have my way with you? I mean, can you imagine that shit show if someone would’ve caught us?”
“Oh,” I say and swipe my fingers across my neck, feeling my pulse racing underneath. “I didn’t…”
“You just assumed I’m an asshole.”
“Well…” I’m speechless. I rarely have trouble finding words, but around Brooks, I seem to be at a loss more often than not. He keeps throwing curve balls, totally knocking me off-kilter with admissions that I’m not expecting.
“I didn’t lie when I said I liked you, Faith. I like you way more than I should.” He slides his hand across the seat, covering the top of my hand with his soft warmth. “I’ve worked so damn hard to get where I am now, and the entire thing could blow up in my face. In less than twenty-four hours, I’ve managed to do enough damage to ruin my entire career. I’m not used to feeling something for anyone.”
“We sure made everything complicated in a hurry. Didn’t we?”
“A mess,” he replies with a small laugh as he squeezes my hand, “but a totally hot one.”
My brother knocks on the window, and I jump, totally missing them pulling in next to us. “We better go,” I say, reaching for the handle but leaving my other hand still under his. I don’t want to break the connection or lose the moment we’re having after such a horrible morning. I let my insecurities show, but Brooks doesn’t seem to be holding it against me.
As I start to pull away, he tightens his grip on my hand. “You want to do it again sometime?”
My head snaps to the side, and my eyes widen for a moment before warmth fills me inside. “Yeah. I’d like that.”
What the hell am I doing? I don’t have time to take my answer back or pick apart my dumb response because Roscoe’s standing at the hood of the truck, pointing at his stomach and hollering. Maybe having sex with Brooks while sober will be just what I need to get him completely out of my system. The tequila could’ve impaired my memory to the point that last night seemed like the best sex of my life, right? With any luck, the second time would definitely not be as spectacular or mind-blowing, and we’d both walk away sated with the most awkward start to a new friendship. Maybe.
There is something about Brooks Carter that has my brain scrambled. The shit’s already hit the proverbial fan. The damage is done. Whether we do it once or twenty times won’t matter in the eyes of my dad or Roscoe if they find out. We have already committed the sin, and I might as well get everything I can out of the man before the groupies get their hooks into him.
Chapter Five
&nbs
p; Brooks
Mr. Ridley has not stopped talking since we sat down at the Tasty Pig, and I’m soaking up every story he’s telling about the good old days. The man is overly enthusiastic about everything, and it’s infectious. In his day, he was the biggest name in racing, holding multiple championships and winning more races than anyone in history. Being across from him, listening to him talk about his life, is still surreal. I realize I haven’t stopped staring at him, with my mouth probably gaping open like a starstruck kid the entire time.
I remember watching him on television and wishing I was the young boy standing at his side during the after-race celebration. That was Roscoe, the lucky prick. He was always there, sitting on his dad’s shoulders, being paraded in front of cheering fans. I was so jealous of that damn kid, and part of me still is. Instead, I had a deadbeat mother and no father in sight. I wanted someone to scoop me into his arms and twirl me in a circle, showering me with so many kisses my cheeks would be wet. But that never happened.
Roscoe and Faith are the lucky ones. They were showered with love and affection, wanted for nothing, and never had to worry where they’d sleep each night. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the simple, easy life they had and took completely for granted.
Whatever Mr. Ridley said to Roscoe on the way here didn’t seem to damper his hatred of me. He hasn’t stopped glaring at me with his arms folded and his upper lip curled in disgust. I brush it off. Roscoe is just a spoiled asshole. Someday he and I will have it out, but that day won’t be today.
Faith is sitting next to me. She is leaning forward with her elbow on the table and resting her chin in her palm. Her other hand is under the table on my leg.
I keep both of my hands fully in sight on the table and try to act as casual as possible as I hang on Mr. Ridley’s every word.