by Alice Ward
She shook her head. “No. I’m just a little nervous.”
“Spas are supposed to make you feel the exact opposite of that.” When she looked at me doubtfully, I said, “So you’re more nervous about the spa than the race?”
She tilted a hand back and forth in front of her. “Fifty-fifty.”
I laughed, took her hand, and lifted her out of her seat, pulling her flush against me. “You’re insane, you know that?”
“I’ve been told that once or twice.”
I kissed her again, roving my hands up her UnCaged tech shirt, happy to find she had nothing on underneath. This woman got me going in all the right ways, challenging me not just physically but mentally as well. She was like riding a fucking rollercoaster in the dark, having no clue where she’d take me. Women usually wore on me after the second or third fuck. But I couldn’t see myself ever growing tired of this, of being with Emma. I could even see myself growing old with someone like her.
And why the hell was I thinking about a future right now? I’d never, ever thought of a future with other women. Emma just made it so damn easy.
I didn’t know what we were doing, or whether this would last, but the one thing I knew was that I wanted this, again, as soon as possible.
We just had the damn race this afternoon to contend with.
When I changed out of my clothes and kissed her at the door, she smiled and batted her eyelashes coyly. “See you at the race,” she said, hanging on the door. “You’ll know me because I’ll be the one that they’re waving that checkered flag at.”
I laughed, ran my hand along her jaw, tilting her chin up to me, and gave her a very chaste kiss on the lips. “Good luck today. Don’t forget to wear that underwear inside out.”
As I turned and headed to my car, I was grinning like crazy.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Emma
“Drivers, start your engines!”
I pressed the button to start the ignition, and my Fusion roared to life, humming underneath me. Meanwhile, my CageFree beeped up a storm, warning me of my oncoming heart attack.
Okay, I will not throw up, I told myself, silencing the damn thing. It had grown on me, but not really as much as I’d let on to Locke.
Everything was good. I’d gone through all my superstitions, ticking them off one by one. Inside-out undies? Check. Doublemint? Check. I’d sat in the car at 12:34, which seemed extra lucky. I’d covered all my bases.
I was hoping that knowing that would’ve made me feel more confident. But the nausea was still fighting a battle in my throat.
I knew that Locke and the rest of them didn’t expect much from me for the Daytona qualifier. Earlier that day, I’d done my lap, and the top finishers from that would have gone straight into Daytona. But I’d come in much slower than I’d wanted to, in the bottom quarter of all racers. Since this was my first Monster Energy Cup qualifying race, I wasn’t expected to do much more than finish out the race. Anything beyond that would just be icing on the cake.
But deep inside, I wanted more.
After hearing Locke pour his heart out about UnCaged Fitness, and how he’d worked so hard to make it America’s number one fitness brand, I felt a heavy burden on me to do well. I wanted to do him proud. I wanted to live up to the UnCaged name. I felt like he and UnCaged deserved more.
I thought of Locke out there, likely in the UnCaged private suite watching me. I thought about his little fantasy, of him taking me on the hood of my car and had to fight the smile on my face.
I should not be thinking of that now. Focus.
Then I looked to my right and saw Kasey Kahne beside me, in his black number 95 Camaro. Holy crap. What was he doing back here with me? Shouldn’t he have been up front with the superstars? How bizarrely surreal.
And then I looked over to my left and saw Ryan Blaney, in his red and white 12 Ford Fusion.
Holy shit.
Only a year ago, I’d had some pretty hot and heavy fantasies about that man, because hell, he oozed sex. And now I was racing beside him. I felt my face heat, just thinking of them, and wished someone would lobotomize me so I could concentrate better on the race.
But now, mostly, when I thought of those fantasies, I realized that real life, with Locke, was a million times better. Last night had been phenomenally hot. Perfect. No fantasy with Ryan or any other driver could compare.
My heart pounded as I thought of Locke, not quite being drowned out by the roar of powerful machines. Damn Locke. Because he’d psyched me out about it, I could feel this morning’s bacon gurgling around in my stomach. In the simulator, I’d raced on full stomachs and never had a problem. So what if the real thing was a thousand times more intense and millions of people around the country were watching me right now? Big deal.
Do not throw up, I reminded myself again.
I gave the gas a little goose, revving the Fusion a little as I held the brake down. I felt the machine under me shudder with the need to move, to be uncaged. It was as ready as I was. For now, we were one.
I sucked in air as Brody came over my radio. “How you doing?”
My gloves tightened on the steering wheel. I affected calm. “Oh, you know. Just going for a ride.”
A little laughter. “Wooo, girl. Get it.”
I smiled. I knew that voice. “Hey, Daddy,” I said. “You out there?”
His flight in from Phoenix had been delayed, so I hadn’t been able to see him before I suited up. “Yep. You’re looking good. Black’s your color. Take it easy. Lots gonna happen in this here race. Keep your head about you.”
“Don’t I always?”
Brody came on after that, probably thinking, Don’t you never? “Hey. Would you listen to us for once? Be careful. Don’t got to be the lead car for this one.”
Ugh. Brody. Was he going to drive the car for me too? I rolled my eyes. “But you know me. I don’t like looking at people’s asses.”
“Hey. I’m your pit crew chief for a reason.”
“Yeah, don’t make me regret that choice. If you’re going to tell me how to drive you might as well be sitting here in my lap,” I muttered. “This is my race.”
“Pardon me if I don’t want to see your pretty ass splattered all over the asphalt.”
“Hey, enough,” my dad said. “I can’t believe it. You two are seriously bickering during the Daytona qualifier? Think you might want to focus on something else? Like the race?”
“I will,” I insisted. “Just get Brody off my back.”
“Fine,” Brody muttered. “Just don’t get cocky. You’re shit when you get cocky.”
I didn’t think that was possible here, what with Kasey Kahne and Ryan Blaney right beside me, but whatever.
I pulled my gaze off Kasey, since he was staring straight ahead, ready. I figured I should do the same thing. I settled back in my seat, finding a comfortable place, and concentrated on the road ahead.
“Hey, James. You’ve got this,” another voice piped into my ear, low, controlled, and so sexy that it pulled chords in me, right down to my lower abdomen. Locke. My heart skipped. “I’ll see you at the checkered flag.”
I smiled. “See you then.”
I patted the steering wheel. She was ready. I was ready. We were as ready as we were going to get. Let’s get this wagon train a-movin’.
The pace car started, and all forty cars began to roll out. I was in the middle-back of the pack, not ideal, but decent for a rookie. Flanked by powerful machines, I rounded the first curve, following the pack. Then, when we reached the end of the first lap, the pace car trailed away, the engines roared around me, so loud that it felt like thunder rumbling through my body.
And we were off.
This is nothing, I told myself as we raced, and I felt powerful in that notion. A walk in the park.
I forced myself not to think about Kasey and Ryan, right beside me, and all the other names I’d probably want to get autographs from later. I surged ahead, those nerves melting away as it was just m
e and the asphalt under the tires.
I passed a car, and then another, swerving in an S fashion that probably wasn’t too smart, considering we were on a straightaway and my speedometer said I was pushing one-ninety. “Watch it, watch it…” Brody shouted in my ear.
“This ain’t your race, bro,” I mumbled under my breath. “And I’m no pussy.”
Still, with him spitting in my ear, it made me second-guess myself. Ryan went ahead, and I attempted to follow but got blocked out. I lost ground, another car surging its way around me from the inside.
Shit.
Kasey was blocking me in. Deliberately. I made the decision right then that I would not be asking for his autograph. I might even knee him in the groin if I had the chance.
And screw Brody. I wasn’t one to hang in anyone’s draft, safe or not.
I’d had a red car, some rookie, in my rearview mirror since the race began, and the scenery was beginning to bore me. That rookie was playing it safe, but I wasn’t one to do that. I needed to shake things up.
I scrambled to find another in. Leaning forward, I found an opening and made my move, skirting around Kasey’s car. He slid up around me, but I blocked him out, my left-rear bumper grazing his right-front bumper. Little love tap, just enough to tell him I meant business.
Victory! I laughed out loud. Brody came over the waves. “That was reckless.”
“I didn’t wreck anything,” I said, still excited as my dad broke in and warned me of a caution flag.
“Caution flag’s out,” Daddy said. “Watch your inside. Come on in for a pit.”
But I was just getting my momentum, feeling comfortable in this race. Maybe I could ride with the big boys, after all. “I’m good, Daddy. My tires are good. I feel good. I’ll just ride it out.”
“Emma…” It was a warning tone. My father only got like that when he meant business, and I knew better not to cross him when he used that voice.
And I supposed he was right. I’d gone just about half the race, thirty laps around the two and a half mile track, and I knew I’d need to pit at least once during this race. Maybe twice. I was still in the middle of the pack, but there was time to make my move. Someone had lost his wheel and spun out, which was the cause of the flag. I pulled off onto pit road just as the caution car was sliding out onto the track.
I took advantage of the break and slurped huge gulps of lemon water from the water bladder attached to me. During a race, a driver could lose up to ten pounds of fluid. I was about there. My body was drenched with sweat as I felt my crew lift the side of the car, then drop, lift the other side, then drop. One of the crew tapped the back of my car, giving me the go-ahead.
I gave them a thumbs-up. They’d made excellent time.
I eased out onto the track as the caution car was still looping. When I hit the restart zone, Brody shouted in my ear, “Green, green, green. Get on out. You’re clear!”
I stomped on the accelerator, riding ahead of all forty cars. This wasn’t the time to give up position. I needed to gain, and fast, over those who hadn’t gone in for a pit.
I pushed ahead, and the cars behind me dropped back in my mirror. And there was fucking Kahne again. He’d gone in for a pit too, and now he was bump-drafting me, pushing my car ahead so that he could switch ahead and find a way around me.
I was having none of that. I switched to the inside, hugging the curve tight, riding the grass for half of it. Kasey followed me, trying to skirt around me, but with some fancy maneuvering, I didn’t give him the privilege. I cut hard to the other end of the track just as he was trying to sail around me, leaving him no choice but to cut back and eat my dust.
“I think Kasey’s gonna have some words with you later,” Brody said. He was trying to play it cool, but I could hear the amusement in his voice. “No nice ones, either.”
“I think he needs to accept that the best place for him is behind me,” I said calmly, surging ahead and letting him fade in my mirror.
I felt the adrenaline pumping through my veins as I easily passed three more cars. “Holy shit,” Brody said, and I wondered what the fuck I was doing wrong now. Or maybe there was an accident on the field. Damn Brody.
“What, bro? Don’t leave me hanging like this,” I said as I passed another car. I wouldn’t take my eyes off the road, but I couldn’t sense that anything was wrong. The green flag was still out.
“No. You’re doing good. Do you realize you’re in sixteenth place?”
I blinked.
Holy shit.
I was.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Locke
I was not going to throw up.
That’s what I kept telling myself as I watched the green flag go up and saw Emma surge ahead.
I hadn’t felt this nervous since I was a teenager, navigating the hallways and trying to avoid the bullies. My palms were sweating. My face was overheating, despite the air conditioning being pumped into the room. Meanwhile, the thirty VIPs in our private suite surrounding me went on, sitting in their seats behind the glass, sipping champagne and dining on filet mignon and lobster. They casually glanced at the race, chatting and laughing as if the whole world didn’t revolve around what was going on below us.
Me? I nearly had my nose pressed against the glass and couldn’t take my eyes off her car, not even for a second.
God forbid she was in a wreck. I’d be in pieces.
“She’s killing it,” Ron Brady said to me, breaking through the shell I’d built around myself. I turned to him. He was the lucky reporter who’d won a ticket to hang with the other VIPs in the suite with us.
I nodded and took a swig of my Coors Light. “Er. I know.” My voice broke like a teenager’s.
I looked at him. He seemed surprised, like I might as well have been the CEO of UnHinged.
Calm, I reminded myself. To show I wasn’t worried, I grabbed a handful of nuts. Not exactly health food, but after the bacon, I’d gotten braver. I started popping them into my mouth. “Of course. Our girl’s going places,” I said with blasé confidence.
“You have a comment for the press?” he asked.
I nodded. “Like I said. Our girl’s going places,” I repeated since I couldn’t bring myself to come up with eloquence right now. “We’re thrilled to be working with Emma James this season. Great things are ahead for her.”
And I managed to tear my eyes away from the oval for an impressive thirty seconds, until Ron was out of the picture, heading toward the buffet.
Then, I went right back to the action.
And couldn’t believe what I was seeing. She’d gone around Kahne. A minute ago, he’d been in front of her, and now, he was choking on her exhaust. How the hell did she manage that? I couldn’t relax. Couldn’t make the mistake of looking away like that again. This wasn’t a five hundred, but they still had a long way to go, and anything could happen. Everything hinged on split seconds in this sport. One blink and the whole world could fall to shit.
She passed another car. Every time she did, I clenched my fist, pumping it.
Wow, she was fucking phenomenal. Half of me was bursting with pride. Half of me was bursting with nerves. I’d climbed Everest and done ultramarathons, but this was, by far, the most intense experience of my life. And I wasn’t even in the damn car.
“You okay, Pudge?”
I didn’t turn. I had a few nuts in my palm, warm from my holding them for the past five minutes. I fed them into my mouth and crunched on them as I watched the race like an obsessive fan. “Yep.”
“She’s doing great,” Laura said breezily, sitting on one of the stools beside me that lined up right in front of the glass. “You think—”
“Shit, yellow flag,” I broke in. “She’s going to be—”
“She’s fine. She’s on the other side of the oval. That’s… who is that? Busch, I think. The leader.”
I nodded. “Okay. Okay. We’re good.” I took a deep breath to calm myself. “Damn. Why’d we get into this again? This is stressf
ul.”
I fixed on my headset to see where her mind was. Her father was trying to get her in for a pit stop. She was arguing that she didn’t want to, but then she gave in. She was a daddy’s girl, obviously. I watched her sail safely into pit road.
Meanwhile, Laura stood beside me, nudging me. I’d forgotten she was there. “Hello?”
I pulled off the headset. “What?”
She eyed me with concern. “How are you doing?”
I shrugged, watching the caution car loop around, the cars easily circling behind it as the wreckage from Busch’s car was cleared. “Fine.”
“And here I thought you had no interest in NASCAR,” she said, leaning against the table, still eyeing me suspiciously.
“I have concern for our investments, like any businessman would.”
She crossed her arms over her business suit. “Admit it,” she whispered, leaning in. “This has gone beyond that.”
“No, it hasn’t.”
“You told me you weren’t fucking her before,” she said, her eyes flashing in the glass, where the green flag had just come out. “Are you now?”
I pressed my lips together.
From her expression, she took that as a yes. She frowned. “Don’t think it isn’t obvious how you feel about her.”
I nodded. I supposed it was obvious. I was good at pushing myself out of the realm of where I could feel things because once I started feeling, I had a fucking terrible poker face. And no question, I felt for Emma. In a big way, a way I never had. “Okay.”
“Is it serious?”
I didn’t speak for a long time. I watched Emma, fearless, swerve around another car. People in the VIP box were starting to take notice. They were cheering her on now. I nodded. “Yeah.”
She blinked, surprised. I didn’t think she ever expected me to acknowledge it. “Yeah?”
The room broke out in applause, and someone behind me whooped. “Your girl just smoked Ryan Blaney,” one of the VIPs called to me. “Like he was standing still.”
My eyes went to the oval. Sure enough, she’d gotten around him, and was now gaining ground on the next car.
“As serious as it can be,” I admitted. I took a swig of my beer. “I think I’m falling in love with her.”