Wreck (Fuel Series Book 2)

by Ginger Scott

  I breathe out and try to imagine that’s where we are, someone’s music blaring down the hall, the smell of burnt popcorn wafting from the common area.

  “Me, too,” I sigh out.

  College has been this perfect in-between, and to be honest, it scares me a little knowing I only have one more year left to shelter there with Bailey. I’ll finish my fifth year of college alone because, unlike me, Bailey’s graduating on time. Probably because she likes her degree. I had to drop three of my courses over the last three years because I was failing them so bad. I just can’t get excited about supply-chain theory. At least in the marketing classes I could work in some design.

  “I kissed him.” I know she can tell. Besides Dustin, nobody reads me so well.

  I roll my head slightly to my side to meet her eyes. I figured she’d be staring down at me, and I was right.

  “Was it as good as you remember?” She shrugs.

  I spit out a laugh and slap my hand over my eyes.

  “Well? Was it?” She’s not going to yell at me. She doesn’t have to. I’m torturing myself enough over this decision, and she gets that.

  “Oh, Bailey . . . it’s gotten better.” I touch my fingertips to my lips, tracing the faint feeling I can still conjure from memory. It wasn’t even the right kind of kiss and I felt it in my toes. It was a kiss of the moment, a celebration out of habit. But now that we’ve done that, I can’t stop thinking about the other kinds of kisses.

  The other kinds of everything.

  “He got called up.” The bed moves as my friend jolts at the news.

  “When? Where?”

  “Two weeks. Here. The Series race in Phoenix.” It warms me to see her smile. I know she called Dustin and let him know about his dad. I saw the call record on my phone. She’s a terrible criminal, fingerprints and a trail of evidence everywhere. I’ll let the two of them keep this secret, though. They need to have something, too.

  “I know your dad didn’t kiss Dustin,” she breaks in. My lips contort into a confused smile. Bailey shrugs a shoulder and glances to my window behind her. “I figure Dustin’s got something to do with all of that fishing gear he’s sorting out in your garage. He planning on escaping up to the lake?”

  So that’s where my dad’s been hiding.

  I lift myself to a sitting position and adjust the slats of my shutters to look down at the driveway. His project is spilling out of the garage, tackle boxes with rods and lures lying in piles. He has so many. It’s been a while since I’ve gone out to the lake with him. I used to be his buddy when I was a kid, before I turned sixteen and started going out to the Straights. Before I got in the Supra with Dustin Bridges.

  “I should go talk to him,” I groan. My heart wants to but my stubborn-ass gut is anchoring me in place. Any conversation we have about Dustin is going to be hard. We’ve never really had the tough talk. First, Dad was angry that we were dating, and then he was mad at Dustin for breaking my heart. There was never much in between.

  I pause at my door, turning when I realize Bailey is still sitting on my bed, her feet dangling off the edge. There’s a heaviness to her eyes, the kind of expression she gets when she’s overwhelmed. She looked like this during finals, and when she took that Shakespeare class.

  “I’m sorry, you probably came here to see me. My head is such a mess.” I thrust my hand into my tangled hair for effect and Bailey breathes out a short laugh. She’s still unsettled. I see it in her eyes and my stomach aches with worry for my friend.

  “Nothing really. It’s hard to be home after feeling all that freedom. I’ll come by later, hear more about that kiss?” She rocks her feet to the floor and slaps her hands to her side, forcing energy and life into her body and face. She’s faking it, but I understand the need. We all need to fake it sometimes.

  “Promise?” I hold out my pinky and she hooks hers with mine. We give each other a tiny shake, a move we perfected in fourth grade while making plans behind the teacher’s back.

  “Don’t kiss anyone until I come back,” she says, waggling her fingers over her shoulder at me on her way down the hallway and down our stairs.

  “Oh, fuck. You kissed?” Tommy is rubbing his face and hovering in his doorway, having just woken up from a nap. He seems to have settled into his old routine nicely, his pile of dirty laundry waiting on the floor behind him for our mom to magically swoop in and take care of. She’ll totally enable him, too.

  “Why is everyone so interested in all things me and Dustin?” I hold my hands out to my sides and roll my eyes before leaving my brother behind to deal with his wrinkled-ass shirt and uncomfortable-to-look-at boxer situation.

  “Because when things go wrong between you two it’s bad for all of us!” he shouts as I skip down the stairs.

  “Blah blah, can’t hear you,” I joke back. I laugh at his reaction but my smile falls by the time I reach the first floor. He’s not wrong. Dustin and I have chemistry, and sometimes chemicals explode.

  I push those thoughts to the side and ready myself to face my father. Things have been put off long enough, and I can’t keep holding back my words with him. I won’t dive right in, though. I’ll ease him in. Don’t want him getting all flustered and tangling his fishing line.

  “You really should think about a yard sale, you know?” I shield my eyes from the setting sun and scan the contents that are now spilling into our driveway. “It’s a ridiculous amount of fishing gear.”

  “You sound like your mother,” he grumbles.

  I clutch my chest.

  “Ouch! Wow, low shot,” I tease. Really, though? Fuck, do I sound like Mom?

  “You going to the lake tonight?” It’s a weekday, and my dad has been spending long hours at the office. Land acquisitions have been at an all-time high, and he’s had a lot of tough contracts to work through. There’s a fine balance between developing and over-developing. I can’t believe I’m about to acknowledge this, but I’d kinda hate to see this place lose its small-town charm.

  “This weekend, probably. Why? My old fishing partner interested?” He looks up from the last of the old metal tackle boxes he’s knelt over. I’m sure he thought he was clear and free of the signs, but his eyes are as red as Satan. My dad doesn’t have allergies, and he’s been sick once in the last five years. Those puffy eyes? They’re from crying.

  “Dad,” I level my gaze at him, my head falling to the side. He falls back on his ass and runs the back of his hand over his eyes.

  “Damn it all to hell,” he grumbles.

  I nudge a few boxes out of the way so I can sit next to him on the floor of the garage. He waves his hand at me to avoid the attention, but I’m as stubborn as he is. We both don’t like crying, and when we do, we sure as shit don’t like getting caught.

  “Come on,” I say, pulling his wrist from where it rests on his knee and weaving my hand into his. No matter how grown I am, his hand will always swallow mine.

  “This about Dustin?” I know it is.

  He shrugs. No need to voice his answer.

  “He’s gonna make it, Dad. You shouldn’t be crying. Forget the last four years, too. You’re allowed to be proud of him. He’s going to race in a Series race, Dad. He’s using all of the things you taught him.” I shake my dad’s arm at my side before hugging it.

  My dad blubbers out a mixture of happy laughter and tears.

  “He’s a million times better than I ever was. I was a hack,” he says, rolling his eyes at the memory of his youth. “That kid . . . he had it when he was ten. Hell, seven! He was born . . . for . . . this.”

  My father’s last few words come out with sobs and he lowers his head, pinching the bridge of his nose as if that will somehow stop the flow. It won’t. It never does. I would know; I try the same damn techniques.

  As he lifts his head enough to meet my eyes, all the rawness on display, I see how distraught he is.

  “You think he knows I’m proud of him?” he utters, and I instantly fall apart.

  “Daddy,�
� I cry, throwing my arms around my father only to have him squeeze me right back. It’s been too long since I’ve hugged him like this. Tucked inside the walls of the garage, we shed our armor and give in to emotions that we’ve kept bottled way too long.

  “Oh, Hannah. I failed that boy. I failed him, I failed him.” My dad is rocking in my arms, and hearing his anguish makes me cry more.

  There were times, as recent as this morning, that I hated my father for his casual dismissal of Dustin. He was never giving up on Dustin at all, though. He was giving up on himself. He was masking guilt. He was putting up walls and building a front, the way us Judges do.

  “You didn’t, Daddy. Dustin . . . he’s amazing! He’s going to be something spectacular. He’s going to be one of those guys old farts like you sit around and reminisce about over your boxes of random car parts.”

  My dad spits out laughter over my shoulder.

  “Garage sale, Dad. It’s time,” I tease.

  His arms relax around me, and when the tears finally stop, I nestle in against my father’s chest and listen to the steady beat of his heart. When I was really young, maybe four or five, I used to pray before I went to sleep, and I always asked God to take care of my dad’s heart. I never met my grandpas on either side of our family; their hearts quit too soon. My dad’s, though, it has always been strong, the beat loud and present.

  “Did you know Amanda wasn’t really Dustin’s mom?” I let my words slip out casually, lulled by the comfort of the moment. I’ve been dying to talk to someone about what Dustin showed me, and I thought maybe my dad was the perfect sounding board. As he peels back from me slowly, though, his body suddenly rigid and his eyes wide and fearful, I realize this conversation isn’t going to go the way I thought it would.

  “Dustin knows this?” he croaks.

  I nod slowly, realization hitting me as I do.

  “You already knew.” My mouth instantly goes dry, and if I could breathe, I’m sure I would choke. My father’s face is guilty, frozen as it was the moment I first broached this subject.

  “Hannah.” The guilt drizzled throughout his words since I came into the garage has become the main ingredient in his voice. He looks fallen, unable to gasp for enough air to cry any more but also too stricken by this new reality to elaborate.

  “Dad?” I feel my anger renewing in my belly. I don’t want to be angry at my father anymore, not about Dustin.

  “Dad!” I shout, pushing my hands into his body, hoping it will force him to let me in on his secrets.

  His head falling forward, the first movement in nearly a minute, I catch a glimpse of the wrecked man before me—the heartbroken soul under a mask he’s worn far too long. The tears come hard and fast, and this time, there is nothing I can do to stop them. All I can do is wait. And hope he lets me in so I can understand too. Without his part of this mystery, I’ll never be able to put either of them back together again, and other than Tommy, Dustin and my father are the only men I ever want in my life.

  This cry is different. It’s silent, and it causes my dad to shudder when I can tell he’s reaching back for memories, old thoughts he must have thought he buried for good. Nothing stays dead forever, though. Not even Colt Bridges, scattered in a dry river bed. That man’s legacy is somehow alive and well right now, haunting us. And we aren’t even blood.

  Minutes pass, threatening to turn into an hour, but finally, my dad’s eyes meet mine and they’re clear. They’re ready. He’s ready.

  “You know I wasn’t always a land attorney, right?”

  I nod. This is a weird route for this topic to take.

  “Did you know I worked with Bailey’s dad, Rob?” He knows I don’t. He hates Rob Tingle. It’s half the reason it’s been so hard for me and Bailey to have a friendship. There’s this weird, ages-old grudge between the two men over some case they were involved in. I never knew the details, but something tells me those details are at the heart of this moment—of Dustin’s birth certificate and his real mom.

  “What kind of law?” I brace myself for his response, but he takes the same roundabout path he began with, despite that my gut is certain of where this is all going.

  “We were both trying to get into the land side of things. It’s not easy to break into, and Carl Ridgeway, remember him?”

  I shake my head, stunned with wide eyes, circling my finger in an attempt to motivate him to get to the fucking point! “Uh, yeah. Carl. Get to the point.”

  “Carl had a lock on the land business, but he was retiring. Rob and I knew we’d have to act fast to stake our positions. Rob and I never liked each other much.” Dad’s focus wanders out to the expanse of the driveway. I’d clap in front of his face if he wasn’t still talking.

  “We were handling family law,” he says, and my gut sinks.

  “It was our last case. A simple one. A junkie, prostitute mom—just a teenager. She’d gotten pregnant and took off without the baby right after the birth. When she showed back up six months later, the kid had already been introduced to another female figure, and the father had a job and could pay for the baby’s needs. She wanted custody, but she hardly had a case to stand on.”

  “Something in my gut said not to take it on. Something spoke to me, and I don’t know, Hannah, I tried to listen.” His eyes meet mine, the tears hanging on the edge. His pupils dilate and even though he’s looking right at me, I know my father sees a life from more than twenty years ago.

  “I helped that man keep his son. I took that boy away from a life that might have been a hell of a lot better than the one he ended up with. I did that, because Rob said it was a ‘slam-dunk.’ A ‘no-brainer.’ It was a quick close, and then we were free to move on our separate ways, gobbling up the land business all the way up to the county line. We were rid of each other. And Rob never once flinched with regret.”

  I want to tell him to stop. I shake my head because I’ve heard enough. I’m sick, too sick to cry. So much pain Dustin could have been spared. No matter how much I don’t want to hear the rest, I need to. I need to lend proof to my heart that what happened was real, and that on a large level, my father thinks he’s to blame for Dustin’s abuse. Right now, I want to blame him, too. It’s not fair, because he’s only one of so many variables, and Colt is responsible for his actions. Yet still . . .

  “When you and Tommy brought your new best friend over, I ran upstairs and puked my guts out. I saw it written all over his face, even as a child. The cuts. The bruising. The way he got in fights at school over the littlest things. I fed Dustin to a monster, and since I was the one who did it, I didn’t have a way to undo the damage. Rob certainly wouldn’t support it. As rotten as Colt Bridges was, Rob always saw Dustin’s real mother as the ultimate sinner. I’d have to climb that battle alone, and I still probably wouldn’t win. Dustin would get sent into a system. He’d be lost to you and Tommy. I wouldn’t be able to take care of him.”

  My dad wouldn’t be able to take care of him.

  “You thought of him as a son,” I hum. My dad’s eyes snap to awareness, and he nods emphatically.

  “Always. I still do. And it gives me so much shame. I’m no better than Colt.” His eyes flutter closed, and for a moment I think he might pass out from the wave of guilt and sorrow crashing into him.

  I want to ease it, but I’m not sure how. The only thing I can think to say are all the truths.

  “Dustin is such a good man, Dad. He’s so driven, so talented. He’s independent. I mean, look what he’s figured out on his own. He’s made it so far. He’s destined, too. You know it. I know it. You were behind that, Dad. You were the one who was there. We all were.”

  “Except when I looked at him and all I saw was Colt,” he admits. His eyes melt, heavy tear drops cutting down his unshaven cheeks and landing on his T-shirt.

  My dad was afraid I’d fallen in love with Colt. He was afraid I was going to fall in love with someone who couldn’t help but turn into a monster. I shake my head.

  “No, Dad. He was
never going to be Colt. Never at all,” I say.

  A pathetic laugh slips from his lips and he shrugs, defeated and ready to let me rewrite history for him.

  “I fell for him because of you. Girls love their fathers. I love my Daddy.”

  “And you love Dustin,” he whispers the truth for me.

  I pull my lips in tight, a pained smile stretching them as more tears sting my eyes. I won’t say it out loud. I may never be able to say it again. That’s the damage I have to contend with. Dustin isn’t Colt, but he did hurt me. His absence hurt. So sudden. I won’t correct my father’s words, though. Because as far as he’s concerned, yes. Yes, I do.

  11

  It’s strange how a person can love driving to their very core yet absolutely hate road trips. I blame the Valley traffic. By the time I cleared the city and opened up the Supra, my body relaxed. My knuckles are still sore from clenching the wheel through the city. If race drivers were as idiotic as business people heading home at five o’clock, I would never win a damn race.

  So unpredictable.

  So . . . moronic!

  By the time the Supra’s wheels hit the Judge driveway, my body is near collapse. I’ve packed a lot of emotion into one day, and I’m starting to feel it. My body is begging my head for relief, but my mind is too busy working, negotiating, convincing. I have to get the Vegas guys to buy into this, but that means giving up some control.

  Our transactions over the years, though technically illegal, have always been professional. They book the best races for making actual cash. I’ve gotten it down to one or two visits a year out in the Nevada desert. And when I need to lose, I lose. It’s how I pay for parts; how I bought the truck. Race winnings alone wouldn’t buy shit, and I don’t feel close enough to Uncle Jeff to ask him for money. I see how hard he works, and to be honest, I don’t think he has extra to spare.

  I’m so mired in my own thoughts that I don’t notice the pile of lures and hooks I somehow managed to miss with the Supra tires as I pulled into the driveway. I’m not so lucky with my feet, though, and a hook from some glowing minnow lure punctures my right shoe.