by Ginger Scott
My eyes bore into her name as I grip the wheel, my knuckles tightening like a vice as I squeeze. I relax my right hand and slide it along the wheel to the gear shift, feel the rounded top, my hand affectionate in its movements. This is my favorite part of this car. This is where the real power rests. I can punch that fucker through the floor all I want, but if this goes wrong? If I don’t shift just right, time is lost.
This is where I win.
Where I am king.
“You ready, kid?” Douglas’s voice breaks through and I snap to enough to take in what I need.
“Been ready.”
“Drivers . . . start your engines.” The command feels the air and excited shivers run down my spine.
I fire up and join the collective thunder that surrounds me. I flip my visor down and inhale the scent trapped inside with me. This is the moment I’ve been focused on since I was a kid, since that first kart I crashed into a bale of hay trying to corner too fast.
I give forty-nine some gas and let her breathe. She’s not mine forever, so I can’t really name her. But I can love her. I can treat her right, push her to her max. She’ll perform for me because I say so.
We roll with the pace car, and I let the tires feel the slickness of the road. This track is a lot like the one I trained on. Not as polished as it promises, and not as intimidating as everyone says.
We climb as one, my front end inches ahead of seventeen next to me. He isn’t a driver. He’s just another car. No one here has a name. They’re all numbers I need to pass, that I will leave behind. I’ll take those numbers down one at a time.
“Feel that curve,” Douglas says.
My body sinks into the seat and I take a note of the force, the bank exactly as expected. This is where I will hold the pack. My eyes glaze over as the straightaway comes up and our speed grows. We’re hovering at just over one hundred miles per hour, and I feel every engine, every hunk of metal, collectively ebb and flow. It’s as if we are one giant beast, heaving our way forward, begging to break free, desperate to climb.
My skin ignites. I’m feeling it now. The other Dustin slips away, and the man who was born to take what’s his is in charge.
I downshift through the turn, not even listening to Douglas. My body knows what to do here. This is what we practiced dozens of times. This time, I fly through the corner with restrictions, my speed held back by some red Ford. But not for long. My freedom, it’s coming.
I spot the important things—the best place to brake for pit row, the nuances in the roadway where I can distract and pass, the glint of the sun off the walls, the fencing and the fans. The people are merely decoration, just scenery to blur in my periphery. I . . . am alone.
The pace car breaks away and I make my first move, slicing past three cars on the straightaway and slipping in to take the corner tight. I hear the praise in my ears, but I ignore it. Those voices are guides, but I am in this alone. That’s how I win. That’s how I always win.
I explode out of the turn, ditching the attempt to box me in by the pair of cars in front of me, going high to blow by them. I’ll burn the fuel and build my position so I can pit in a good position. If I don’t take what I want now, it might not be here for me later.
My eyes are glued to the road ahead, the pavement a shimmery mirage of liquid. My tires gripping as I force my way back in. This is the turn where I break into the top fifteen. With the next lap, I will take my spot in the top ten. And then . . . I wait. When the time is right, I’ll destroy everyone.
24
It’s been years since my dad has seen Dustin drive. The pride in his eyes, the constant grin and zero-doubt in his expression warms my heart. This is how I always pictured it would be, how it was meant to be.
Only, my heart is full of worry.
That’s not my Dustin down there driving. Something is off.
Yes, he’s aggressive. Fearless as always. But at times he’s over the edge. His tires have veered too close to danger, his lines on the verge of sliding off-course. I had to close my eyes ten laps ago when he made a move to break into the top three. He was . . . reckless.
I don’t want him to die.
With five laps to go, and basically zero fingernails left to gnaw, I’m left to hold my breath several seconds at a time. My body leans with every curve Dustin takes, and my hands squeeze into fists when I think he should brake but doesn’t.
I wish Tommy were here. He’s in the pit, with Douglas. Dustin wanted him there, and he needed them, so I’m glad he has him. But right now, my head and my heart are a tangled mess and I’m worried.
No. I’m scared.
My brother has a way of calming me, though. And even though Bailey came and is glued to my back, nervous right along with me, she isn’t nervous about the same things. She’s on edge because the race is close. It’s exciting. My faith in Dustin behind the wheel has always been rock solid. Normally, it’s the other drivers I worry about. I don’t trust people. He has a target on his back because of his arrogance, because he likes to talk shit before a race, and after. He’s the one to beat, and everyone loves to hate that guy.
I’m not worried about the other drivers now. I’m concerned about Dustin, and what he’s willing to do. He’s already pushed himself beyond danger to get into this position.
Four laps to go.
Four laps, and my mind races forward, predicting his charge, the roll of the car, the crunch of the metal, the wall and the fire. I grip my dad’s hand to bring myself back to reality. None of that is happening. It’s not going to happen.
“You nervous, Han? He’s got this.” My dad’s confidence is intact. He doesn’t know Dustin like I do. He doesn’t see what’s different. He only sees the boy becoming a man and winning—finally winning for the world to see.
“I know,” I lie. I squeeze his hand anyway, but he lets go to look through his binoculars as Dustin makes a move on the straightaway, edging closer and closer to second place, barreling closer to his nemesis—the turn.
I close my eyes and count. In five seconds he’ll be jetting toward us. Four seconds until I see the front of his car. Three seconds, he’s probably passing him. Two, the crowd is cheering.
One.
My eyes pop open to see Dustin not in second, but in first. He blew by both of them. I’m glad I didn’t see how.
“That was unbelievable,” my dad shouts.
My smile stretches wide enough to cover my reality and I lift myself up on my toes, perched at the edge, waiting for him to fly by to get a glimpse of his form. Within a heartbeat, he’s gone.
“All he has to do is hold.”
I swallow the bile threatening to crawl up my throat as I bring my heels down from the high step. We’re at the rail, right at the finish line. This is the best seat in the house. My dad spent thousands.
“It’s worth it,” he said.
My mom is behind us, but other than the few screams early on, she hasn’t made much noise. I think she’s holding her breath, too. She rarely came with us to the races. She probably hasn’t seen anything like this, ever, except back in my dad’s time on the Straights. Even that is a fraction of this world and what Dustin is doing.
Three laps to go.
All he has to do is hold his position.
I imagine Tommy’s voice, and repeat that line over and over again in my head. I stand motionless, no longer needing to will Dustin to the front. His life is about to change. This track is about to change. Camp Verde, our state, the series and the circuit. Nobody saw him coming.
I did.
At least, I saw my Dustin coming. There’s a piece of him behind that wheel right now. I see caution fighting to break in, the guarded, defensive nature as he takes the first turn, the speed on the straightaway. But risk is never far away. Winning isn’t enough. He wants the time—he wants a record. He blows through the second turn and nearly loses it. The crowd gasps and I almost throw up. My dad holds out his hand though, his fingers spread wide as he looks on through the bin
oculars. His hand curls into a fist.
“Yes,” he hisses, yanking in his elbow.
Dustin made it. He went over the edge and back. His lead is considerable. He took a gamble and won, and that lesson is going to make him do things like this a lot more.
One lap to go.
This is Alex.
The track deal, the line between law and lawless, the lack of worry about what is right and what is in the realm of Colt Miller—all of it—is Alex Offerman’s doing.
I don’t know whether he’s influencing Dustin or simply allowing everything ruthless and vicious inside a chance to escape. It keeps bringing me back to the most burning question of all—can I still love this man if he isn’t the man I love? When he’s like this?
If it were just the race, I think I could learn. The race changes a man, just like winning does. There’s always been a bond between Dustin and the drive, and separating the two was never easy. Often, when I kissed him, I knew I was kissing the race too. I was kissing the need to be the best, to prove the world wrong—prove Colt wrong.
But I was never kissing questionable morals.
I never kissed someone I thought might not come back to me whole.
He could die out there driving like this.
“Hannah, this is it!” My dad clutches my arm and I step up on the rail and lean forward, my heartbeat slow and steady. Dustin is going to win. Handily. He’s going to own the record, by several seconds. Gorman is going to hate him and Dustin won’t care. The money is coming. The sponsors are coming. The dream has arrived.
He could die out there driving like this.
My ears fill with the whirl of engines as Dustin blurs by us first, the seventeen car next. The rest pile through, racking up points and dollars and their next big sponsorship. Smoke billows from Dustin’s back tires as he burns out on the track, eventually stopping and lifting his body halfway out of the car. Tommy rushes toward him followed by a throng of reporters and cameras. He’s swallowed up by a crowd in seconds, water tossed from bottles in the air as his body is hoisted from the car and carried on shoulders by people I don’t recognize. My parents are hugging and my mom cries happy tears.
I’m crying too. Faking the smile.
The love of my life just disappeared completely, and it happened right in front of my eyes.
Ernesto’s is Dustin’s favorite restaurant. My parents took him, me, and Tommy there for his fourteenth birthday. It isn’t the most expensive place in Phoenix, but it costs a lot more than the diners and burger joints we’re used to.
It was the first time Dustin had shrimp. That dish is literally all he can seem to talk about as we pile into the restaurant to celebrate. My dad reserved the back room, planning to celebrate Dustin’s finish no matter what place it was. Nobody imagined it would be first. Nobody but Dustin.
He’s kept me close to his side since I met him out on the track. My legs carried me down there as my heart beat for his, searching for my love. Even our kiss felt different. I wrote it off to the attention, to the moment. Strange things make things seem strange.
Dustin pulls a chair out for me and I slide in, smiling as I glance up at him. He’s trying to come back to me. His hand lifts my chin and he bends to kiss me while my brother eggs him on, calling us “gross.” That attempt only makes Dustin guide our kiss deeper. It isn’t tender, and it isn’t for me. He’s showing off. I feel the difference.
Once everyone gets seated and the waiter takes our drink orders, my dad dives right into reliving the race. It’s been hours, and they’ve done this several times already, but no one at the table seems tired of hearing it. Douglas looks more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him. Even Chad, who isn’t anyone’s favorite on the team, seems bought into the hype. Gorman hasn’t called, or if he has, no one has acknowledged it. I know he isn’t happy. That’s the one thing Dustin said to me during the chaos.
I swung my arms around him on the track, kissed him, and he shouted in my ear that “Gorman is done and I was his ruin.”
Conner Maydrip, driver of the seventeen car, kissed his wife’s belly a hundred feet away from us then slid up to cradle her face and mouth “I love you.” That was what my Dustin would do. That’s not what this one did.
“You look gorgeous,” he says, leaning into me from the side. He plants a kiss on my cheek and I smile as I spread my napkin over my lap. I wore the white dress. I’d always planned on it for this moment. He must know, recognize it. I turn to him to bring it up, to ask what he thinks of my dress, but his focus is already to the other end of the table.
I sit back in my chair and listen. It’s just the rush from winning. Later on, when we’re alone, he’ll open up and say all the things he’s supposed to. He’ll tell me about the track deal, about the details and how it happened. I got the talking points from my mom, which were the same ones I got from my dad. The backstory doesn’t seem to be in their knowledge base.
The waiter shows up with a round of shots. There are ten of us at this table, including most of the members of the team. My dad got one for everyone, but I pass on mine. Dustin doesn’t.
“There he is!” my brother celebrates, holding his shot out to toast and clink his tiny glass against Dustin’s.
“To speed, and the goddamn king of it all,” my dad says, a little dramatic but heartfelt and well-meaning.
Dustin lifts his glass and drains it into his mouth, sucking in his lips to get every last taste of it. He glances my way when he slams the shot glass down and does a bit of a double take, no doubt catching the frown lines on my forehead.
“Oh, hey, it’s just one. That’s it, I promise,” he says, leaning in and pressing his tequila-ruined lips to mine.
“I know,” I lie, smiling and nodding as he returns his attention to the rest of the room.
I look to my brother, but he’s loving this side of Dustin. Tommy doesn’t even acknowledge me, rehashing some conversation he heard the crew having next to them. When everyone laughs, I realize I drifted away and wasn’t listening. I laugh for no reason at all. I laugh because everyone else did.
I wish Bailey was here. She made it to the race but left after congratulating Dustin. She’s trying to secure one of three internships with our governor’s office for next semester, and while I spend the night with a bunch of guys covered in grease and smelling of gasoline, she’s wearing a business suit at a dinner for twelve candidates. It sounds like a stressful nightmare, but right now I might trade places with her. I feel horribly out of place.
The rest of the dinner progresses the same. One drink becomes three for Dustin, and my mom racks up a bottle of wine all on her own. She’s getting loud, and a few times she’s mentioned the track deal and celebrating. This will be “her legacy as mayor,” she says. Dustin gets quiet when the talk of that comes up. He quits looking my direction.
The longer the night drags on, the harder it becomes to keep my mouth shut. Questions pile up, and the growing feeling that I was left out of this on purpose presses on my chest so hard I can barely breathe. Dustin refuses one last shot when Douglas offers to buy a final round, and I’m relieved. He’s buzzed, and judging by the way his hand keeps flirting with the edge of my skirt and my upper thigh, I’d say he’s quite amorous too. But he isn’t drunk. His heart is in there, as is his mind. We are going to have a conversation tonight, the very minute we’re alone.
“Hannah, honey. Help me to the bathroom,” my mom blubbers. She reaches toward me across the table, over half-filled drinks and cleaned plates. I get up and excuse myself before she knocks something over.
“Come on, drunk lady,” I tease. She giggles and my dad mouths “thank you” to me from behind her back.
My mom doesn’t do this often. A politician is always on.
I hold her steady as she points out every woman’s hairdo on the way to the bathroom. She claims to love them all, to want to try that for her next cut. I don’t dare mention that she won’t be able to do most of them since she shaved the back of her neck and chopped
off most of her hair to her ears. Somehow this half-bob, half-pixie cut works on her, but I don’t think it would ever suit my face. I get my shape from my dad..
“I’ll wait right here,” I say, letting go of my mom’s arm when she clutches the stall door. She waggles her finger at me.
“All right,” she mumbles. It takes her a few tries to get the lock in right, but when she does, I turn my attention to the mirror to mess with my hair and run my fingers under my eyes where the liner has smudged.
“You know, I’m really glad everything worked out,” my mom rambles.
“Uh huh,” I respond, only half listening.
“It was all my idea, you know.”
I drop my hand and flit my eyes to the reflection of her stall door.
“What was?” I’m a little more interested now. Maybe she’s going to put everything to bed over this Alex deal. Maybe she has some key piece of information that’ll make it all make sense.
“The money.”
I blink a few times. She’s not making sense. I smile and hold in my laugh.
“Oh?” I spin to rest my ass against the counter. I fold my arms across my chest, the chill from the restaurant making me regret wearing this dress.
“I didn’t think your dad would do it, though. And when Dustin left, I was afraid he threatened him or something, you know?”
“Uh huh,” I prod. My chest tightens. This is not in my mom’s head. This happened. This is real.
“I said, ‘Tom, that poor boy left without a penny to his name,’ but your dad told me the story. I thought we’d give him more than ten thousand dollars but your dad said it would be enough. He had talked to his uncle and he was expecting him. He just left sooner than we thought.”