Taming Zach (Team Loco Book 1)

by Amy Sparling

  “Hey, Mr. Grayson,” I say. “How have you been?”

  “Call me Josh,” he says, patting me on the back. “You’re all grown up now, so no need for this Mister stuff. I heard you were back in town. It’s good to see you.”

  “Yeah, just for the summer,” I say.

  “I bet your momma’s happy to see you.”

  I nod. “Oh yeah. She’s very excited. I should have come back a long time ago.”

  I feel shitty as I say it—acting like my coming back home for the summer was done out of kindness and not out of failure. Mr. Grayson doesn’t seem to notice.

  “I’m glad to see you too. We got a couple of boys who have real potential, and maybe all they need is to see you kicking some ass on their home track. You know what I mean? You’re the only kid who ever made it out of this town and went pro, and I bet you’ll inspire some kids.”

  “That’d be cool,” I say, feeling a little awkward for getting so much praise. I’m a failure—I’m not really in a position to inspire anyone.

  “Well good luck son,” he says, giving me a weathered smile. “I gotta get back on the tractor before the boss man bitches.”

  I’m still not at the registration building when I get stopped again. Tommy rolls up in a golf cart, which is a staple at all motocross parks. The sixty acre park is just too far to walk around for most people, so they bring a golf cart or four wheeler to get around.

  “Heading to register?” Tommy asks.

  I nod and jog to the other side of the cart. He pats the seat next to him. “Hop on in.”

  “Damn you’re fit as hell,” Tommy says, admiring my bare chest as he drives the golf cart. “Teach me your ways, man.”

  I snort. “Hit the gym every day. Eat the right food. Take the right supplements.” I lean over and smack him in the gut. “No more beer.”

  “Aww, hell no,” he says with a laugh. “I ain’t giving up my beer. I’ll just stay fat. Seriously though, it’s cool that you’re back in town.”

  “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” I admit. It’s only been one day though, but at least I’m back on the track where I belong. Tommy pulls up to the registration building, parking his cart next to two others.

  Just when I think this summer will be easy, I notice a girl walking alongside the building. Her long brown hair hangs in a low ponytail that almost reaches the short ass denim shorts she’s wearing. Her shirt has Hopewell’s logo on it and I’m guessing she works here or something.

  She carries a long roll of those plastic multi-colored triangle flags that make a border around the track. She stops at the corner of the building and bends over, revealing that gorgeous ass as she unrolls some of the banners and ties them to a wooden stake in the ground.

  “Dude,” Tommy says, startling me out of hot girl hypnosis. He punches me on the arm—hard. “Keep your eyes off the chicks. You’re staying focused this summer, remember?”

  I nod, but my throat is dry. My riding pants tighten at the image of her bending over like that. She’s more than just an ass though, she’s gorgeous. She stands up and brushes some stray hairs from her face, then walks toward another stake in the ground.

  I look back at Tommy before she bends over again. Seeing his goofy face kills my boner in no time.

  I exhale. “You’re right. No girls.”

  But damn, that one was smoking hot.

  It’s going to take a lot to keep her off my mind.

  Chapter 4

  Not only do I literally live on the park grounds at Hopewell, but I also consider it my home. Which is why it’s so hard for me to follow some of the stupid rules. Grant, the owner of the track, got tired of replacing the plastic flag banners every few years, so he decided that we should put them up and take them down after every race. It’s a ridiculous waste of time, and because I’m the youngest and quickest employee they’ve got, the task always falls on me.

  I once looked up the cost of these banners online and it was only a hundred dollars for enough yards to cover the entire track. Once I have the money, I’m going to buy Grant so many rolls of plastic flag banners that he’ll never need to worry about them again, and we can keep them up all year. So what if they get a little weathered after a few months? No one comes here for the multi-colored flags. They come here for the racing.

  “Bree? Honey, come here!”

  I turn around and see Mrs. Sam, Grant’s wife, standing inside the doorway of the registration building. Her eyes are closed and yet she’s still holding a hand up to shield them from the sun. “Bree?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say, dropping the flags and running toward her. “I’m here.”

  “Oh thank God,” she says, reaching her hands out until one of them lands on my shoulder. She cracks her eyes open just the slightest bit. “I’ve got a migraine that just came on all of a sudden. It’s killing me. Can you take over registration while I go home and lay down?”

  “Sure thing,” I say, glancing back at my abandoned banners. That’s just one more reason why we should leave the damn things up all the time. “Do you want me to take you home?”

  “No, no, I’ll manage,” she says. “I just need my extra dark sunglasses from my car.

  She wanders off slowly and I head inside the building. It’s a small square building that’s maybe the size of a normal house’s living room. Not mine, because our mobile home is pretty tiny.

  The air conditioning runs at full speed in here, making it a little too cold even when it’s hot outside. One half of the room is Mrs. Sam’s office, which is just a desk and shelves in the corner of the room. On the other corner is the coffee maker and fridge that’s always filled with sodas and vitamin water.

  The other half of the building is the registration desk. It has a wall of windows that are counter-height like it’s one big drive through window or something. Only instead of driving through, people walk up to it and register for their races on the other side of the window. It’s also where racers can pick up their trophies when the races are over.

  The window faces the race track, so when you’re working up here, you can see a little bit of the races. But the best view is upstairs, where the entire wall is glass. Mrs. Sam’s brother is the track announcer and he sits up there every race, watching the finish line and calling out the winners over the track’s PA system. He’s a pretty funny guy and usually makes jokes all night, but barely anyone pays attention to the speakers overhead.

  I climb up on the barstool in front of the registration window, and the fake leather of the seat is freezing cold. It sends chills down my legs. When I was a kid, all the registration was done on paper forms held onto clipboards. But the times have changed, and now it’s all done online. Most riders sign themselves up on the website before they get here, but for the people who don’t, we hand them an iPad through the window and they sign up themselves. It’s pretty easy stuff, and Mrs. Sam always pays me an extra fifty bucks for working registration when she can’t.

  My friend Meg rushes up to the window. Her normally light brown hair has been dyed hot pink for the summer and she wears it in a messy bun on top of her head. She’s wearing a pink tank top that totally clashes with her hair, but that’s probably how she intended when she got dressed this morning.

  “Bree!” she whisper-yells as she plants both palms on the countertop that separates us. “Oh my God,” she says again, glancing behind her real quick. “Did you see who’s here?”

  I lift an eyebrow. “Who?”

  She leans in closer and whispers, “Zach Pena!”

  “Oh … yeah, I heard.”

  I also spent all night watching YouTube videos of his Team Loco races, trying to figure out why he’s back here for the summer. But she doesn’t need to know that, even if she is my best friend.

  “Don’t look,” she says, keeping her voice low. “But he’s right over there.”

  Of course I look. I don’t mean to, but I look, and I see him standing not too far away talking with Little Tom and a few other
guys. My heart does this flip in my chest and I don’t even know why. There are tons of hot guys at the track every weekend.

  Motocross is literally like a breeding ground for sexy, muscular guys.

  So why does my chest constrict when it sees Zach Pena?

  I know for a fact that he’s no good. He’s a gigantic player who can be found all over Instagram posing with girls who are much more beautiful than me. And probably much more willing to sleep with him because they’re experienced and gorgeous and not some awkward small town girl.

  I take a deep breath and try to ignore the butterflies turning in my stomach. “Did you register online?” I ask Meg.

  “Just my dad and Logan. But Chase wasn’t sure he’d want to race or not, and he decided last minute that he does so—” she slides twenty five dollars cash across the counter to me. “Register that idiot for me, please?”

  I laugh. Chase is Meg’s little brother, but only by birth order because there’s not much little about him. He’s ten months younger than she is and about two feet taller. He’s made it his life’s mission to annoy her every chance he gets, and I’m telling you, the boy should win an award for how well he’s doing it.

  I pull him up on the computer and register him for the race, then put the cash in the cash drawer under the counter.

  When I look back up at Meg, her eyes are wide and she’s frozen solid as if she’d just seen a ghost. “Oh my God!” she whispers again.

  Standing right behind her, close enough to touch, is Zach Pena.

  She wiggles her eyebrows at me and then waves goodbye. As she turns to walk away, I am suddenly hit with a horrific memory of my childhood. Meg and I were about ten years old and I’d told her about my crush on Zach. We took a notebook from my mom’s drawer of business documents and we stayed up all night planning my future wedding to him.

  I’d totally forgotten about that entire thing until just now, when Meg gave me that flirty look.

  Something tells me she didn’t forget it at all.

  Little Tom and the guys are still talking a ways away. I kind of wish they would have accompanied Zach to the registration window because then it wouldn’t be like staring into the sun to look at him.

  And he’s shirtless. Holy shit.

  Those muscles weren’t just airbrushed on for the Team Loco promotional photos online. His blue and gray riding pants hang low on his hips, revealing just a little too much of his ridiculously sexy body.

  This kind of hotness should be illegal, because it’s making it very hard for me to function.

  Still, I put on a polite smile like I do for all the customers. At least, I think that’s what my face looks like right now. I’ve kind of lost all feeling in it.

  “Good afternoon,” Zach says. His voice is like the smell of coffee when you wake up in the morning. Absolutely perfect. He taps his fingers on the counter in front of him and shakes the dark hair from his eyes. That single head movement makes my entire body blaze on fire. I was freezing cold a few minutes ago, and now I am hot lava. He smiles. “I need to register for the cash class.”

  I hand over the iPad, my body on autopilot. I take in a ragged breath and tell myself to get it together, dammit. I am a woman and I am strong and amazing and I refuse to be the type of pathetic girl who turns to goo when she’s talking to a hot guy.

  I refuse.

  I straighten my back and press my lips together into a flat smile.

  “Fill this out,” I say. I get a burst of pride when my voice sounds normal and not like a stupid fangirl. “The cash class is thirty dollars. We take cash or credit cards.

  “Cool,” he says. He opens his wallet and hands me a credit card.

  My hand shakes as I swipe it through the card reader, but luckily he’s not watching me when I put it back on the counter for him.

  He’s quiet for a few minutes while he types his information into the iPad. My heart slows down a bit and I allow myself the pleasure of checking out just how gorgeous he his.

  His whole chest is like a freaking statue of muscle. I want to reach out and touch it. His dark hair is a little long on top, but it works really well on him. It’s shaggy but also somehow neat and tidy. My eyes roam over his hands, his sexy fingers and the veins in his forearms as he works the iPad, but holy hell—I have to look away. The man has perfect hands to go with his perfect chest and perfect face.

  Everything about him is perfection, and that gets dangerous. I almost don’t blame him for being a womanizer. It’s not really his fault that he’s so hot that women just fling themselves on him.

  That thought brings me back to reality. Zach Pena is not someone I’m allowed to crush on. He’s a man whore, in every sense of the word.

  He looks up and grins. “They’ve got you doing flags and registration?”

  I have no idea how he knows that but I nod.

  He hands me the iPad. “You want me to have a word with old man Grant? He’s so damn cheap and he should just hire more people.”

  I shake my head. “Mrs. Sam got sick so I had to take over for her.”

  “Ah,” he says.

  Don’t look at his lips, don’t look at his lips.

  He picks up his credit card and slides it back in his wallet. “What’s your name?”

  “Bree.”

  “Bree,” he says as his blue eyes meet mine. They are the color of the ocean, and just like the ocean, they’re swimming with secrets I wish I could know.

  He holds my gaze long enough to make me short of breath. “I’m Zach,” he finally says.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Dammit. Why the hell did I say that? Now he knows I’m one of his many admirers.

  A small smile tugs at his lips and I shrug, trying to knock that smug look right off his face. “I mean, I thought you might be. People have been talking about your sudden arrival.”

  He runs a hand through his hair and all I can see are the way his muscles flex in his bicep. “I wish they wouldn’t make such a big deal about it. Can’t a guy come back to his home track for the summer?”

  I shrug again because his hand is still resting on the back of his head, his bicep is still flexed, and apparently I am nothing but a cavewoman whose only instinct is to get me a piece of his gorgeous man.

  He lowers his hand. “So what are you doing after this?”

  “Going to bed.” I feel like an idiot right after I say it, but it’s the truth. “These summer races last until after midnight,” I add, as if that somehow makes me less of a dork.

  He nods, his lips pressing together in a flat smile. I see his eyes roam down my face and then he takes a step back, as if he’s suddenly decided something.

  Of course he did. I am just some pathetic loser. It shouldn’t have taken him that long to figure it out.

  “See you around, Bree.”

  And then he’s gone.

  And every muscle in my body is on fire.

  And my face feels the hottest of all.

  Chapter 5

  Damn, that was a cold rejection. I don’t think I’ve ever been rejected at all, much less that quickly. Bree would rather go to bed after the races than hang out with me?

  Still, I think I’m grateful that the gorgeous brunette turned me down. As soon as I’d asked what she was doing tonight, I immediately felt that tug of shame in my gut. I’m not supposed to be asking out hot girls. Especially not on my first day back at the races. Maybe Fate is looking out for me because she turned me down and now I can get back to focusing on my goals this summer.

  Easier said than done. I can’t get Bree’s smile out of my mind as I walk back to my truck and get some practice laps in. Within a couple hours, a ton of people arrive, and by the way everyone’s coming up to talk to me, I almost wonder if they only came to the races because they heard I’m back.

  I shake a ton of hands and catch up with all the people I used to know back when I lived here before I went pro. Some of my old riding buddies are even married with kids now, which is weird as hell. I gues
s in a small town, there’s nothing else to do but settle down once you turn twenty years old. Part of me wonders what that would be like – living the small town life with a woman you love.

  I can’t even fathom love right now. My whole life has been hookups and one night stands. It’s fun, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I wonder what it would be like to wake up to the same girl every morning, knowing you’ll never have to be single again.

  Bree’s face flashes in my mind again and I quickly think of something else. Anything else. I stare at the small bikes that are racing on the track and try to focus on that. The cash class is the last race of the evening, so I’ve got a lot of time to kill.

  I’m not going to lie—it does feel good to have all this attention. I walk over to the bleachers to hang out and watch the races and people just swarm all around me.

  When I’m with Team Loco, we hang out as a team and we always have people around us, adoring fans as Clay calls them, but they’re excited about everyone. Right now it’s just me. I’m the center of attention, and the biggest thing to happen to this small town in a long time.

  I sit next to Tommy and some guys I grew up with while we watch the races and shoot the shit for a while. I get my fair share of flirty looks from girls as they walk by, and a few ask me to autograph something for them. But the attention doesn’t get me as hyped up as it usually does. I can’t stop thinking about her.

  None of these other girls compare. And some of them are hot, don’t get me wrong. Just not that type of hot that Bree is. She’s soft and sweet and when she smiles there’s a lot of hidden emotions behind her eyes that I’m dying to find out. I don’t just want to hook up with this girl, I want her to tell me all those secrets. I like that she works at the track and isn’t just some track hoe who hangs out to flirt with guys. She must really enjoy the sport.

  I glance toward the registration building wondering if she’s still inside. Tommy taps my shoulder and says something and I nod along even though I’m not hearing a word he says.