“Really?” The strange blonde asked, fluttering her eyes as she spoke.

“Yeah,” Caleb answered. “He’s the best driver I’ve ever seen. He never lost a race.” He leaned over and slapped the back of his hand against my leather jacket. “Ain’t that right, bro?”

“That was a long time ago,” I said. “I don’t really race anymore.”

Caleb had dragged me to a trendy bar on the other side of the town. He was always telling me that I needed to get out, meet a chick, and quit spending all my time alone. I knew he was right, but I really didn’t have the urge. I had the occasional hookup here and there, but after what happened with Samantha and Layla, I never wanted to get close to anyone. I assumed that whoever would just disappear one day and leave me feeling like shit the way they had. Living the single life and focusing on my business seemed a whole lot easier.

“Yeah, but when you did, you were unbeatable.” Caleb leaned in to my ear and whispered quietly, “Don’t ruin things tonight, okay? Lighten up.”

I rolled my eyes and then cleared my throat. “Now I mod cars mostly.”

“Mod?” another girl, a brunette sitting on his other side, asked.

“Modifications. Mason owns The Mod Shop a couple miles from OC High. I’m sure you’ve seen it.”

“Is that the place that always has crazy looking cars sitting out front?” she asked.

Caleb nodded.

I may have stopped street racing, but I never lost my passion for cars. After Layla left me, I used my race winnings to give Benny an offer to buy his shop for much more than what it was worth, and after some careful consideration and encouragement from his girlfriend, he accepted the offer. By then, Benny had enough money to buy a house and settle into an early retirement. A few people said that he still went to the Bluff to race sometimes, but I hadn’t been back since.

Buying the shop turned out to be a good investment as the racing community exploded in the OC over the past four years. What started as several hundreds of racers turned into thousands, and all the action wasn’t concentrated at just the Bluff either. On my way to the grocery store, I’d often see kids weaving through traffic in cars that looked like death on wheels—what was probably their daily driver and probably fitted with parts from my shop. Needless to say, business was good.

“Wow, so I’m sure you guys have some wild cars.”

I smiled. “Caleb here is driving a pretty impressive Nissan GT-R.”

“A GT-R?” the brunette asked.

Caleb pulled out his phone and opened it to a picture of his ride, and their jaws dropped.

“Holy shit! That’s your car?”

“Yeah,” Caleb said with a cocky grin on his face.

The RSX still ran after the accident at the Bluff, and after getting it repaired, Caleb still went on to race, despite my pleas for him to come work at the shop with me. He followed in my footsteps, so-to-speak, and won race after race, playing for pinks and upgrading his car again and again. His Nissan GT-R wasn’t exactly my style—I preferred the classics—but with the amount of wins he was racking up, it was becoming just as legendary as The Beast.

We spent a couple more hours chatting with the girls in the bar, and after we all had a few drinks in our system, the girls were practically begging us to take them home. Caleb could see me trying to sidestep the situation, but he had taken a liking to the brunette, and I didn’t want to let my brother down.

Caleb stood from the bar and wrapped an arm around the brunette’s shoulder. “You okay to drive, Mason?”

“Yeah totally,” I replied. “My drinks were watered down anyway.”

The blonde looked totally drunk and was latching on to me from the side with her head practically buried under my arm.

“Take care of my girl,” the brunette said. She looked up at Caleb, and her eyes sparkled. “I’ll call you in the morning, Kim.”

Caleb winked.

I just rolled my eyes at him. He was his own man now, the same age as me when I stopped racing, but he had become something of a manwhore. He got a lot of attention for his car, his racing abilities, and his looks, and he used them to his full advantage. Every time I saw him, which was usually when he dropped by the shop to add another modification to his car, he had a new broad on his arm.

What could I tell him to do other than be sure to use protection?

“Okay, babe,” the girl latching onto me managed to squeak out.

Caleb headed out the door, and I peeled the girl off of me. “Are you ready to go?” I asked.

“Yeah, let’s head out.” Kim fluttered her lashes, stretched her arms out, and suddenly she seemed a whole lot more alert. She picked her purse up off the bar, and stumbled a little bit when she stood up, but caught herself and regained balance like a true drinking champ.

“You’re not too drunk are you? I don’t make it a habit to bring drunk girls home.”

“I’m not really drunk. Just a little tipsy.” She smiled and straightened her shoulders. I was pretty sure she was drunk, but she did a good job of faking like she wasn’t.

I nodded and started heading for the door of the bar with the girl holding onto my arm.

When we made it to the parking lot, the girl scanned the area from side to side. “Where’s your car?”

“Over here.” I lifted my tiny, square electronic key and clicked the ‘unlock’ button, causing the lights on my SUV to flash.

“This is your car?” she asked, a hint of disappointment in her words.

“Yeah, this is mine. It’s a BMW X3. It’s got a lot of safety features.”

“Safety features? That doesn’t sound like something someone who is into racing cars would look for.”

I chuckled. “Remember I said that I used to race cars? Now I just work on them, and I drive a regular old car like anyone else.”

The girl’s lips twisted. “Well, okay…”

I pulled open the passenger side for her to get in and I rounded to the driver’s side. “Buckle up,” I said as I fastened my safety belt.

10 minutes later we were walking into my house.

“Make yourself at home,” I said and walked to the kitchen area, pulling a bottle of Jack Daniels out of the cabinet. I made us both glasses of whiskey and coke as I watched her waddle around my place, taking in the different rooms and furnishings. That was always the weirdest thing for me when it came to bringing girls home. It felt strange that I had a stranger in my personal space. Even when I knew that they were probably harmless, they were getting a look at my world, when I knew almost nothing about theirs.

“Your house is nice,” she said as he pulled her peeping head out of the bedroom. She walked to other side of the room and pointed towards the opposite door. “What’s in here? Is it your garage?”

“Yeah.”

“Why do you park your BMW in the driveway? Seems a bit silly when you have a garage to protect it.”

“The garage is full.”

“Oh,” she said. “There’s another car in there? Can I see?”

I shook my head and grunted a little as I stepped towards her and handed her the Jack and coke. “I’d rather not. It’s nothing special. Let’s just relax in here.”

“You don’t have a dead body do you?” She tilted her head down and looked up at me like she was looking over invisible spectacles.

I ignored the question and chuckled a bit. “Here. Come sit down.”

I plopped down on the couch, flipped on the TV, and the girl came and nuzzled up beside me.

“So why did you stop racing?” Kim asked.

“Well, street racing is illegal, you know? And it’s dangerous.” I sighed. “The last time I raced, someone died.”

“You hit someone?”

“No, no.” I waved my hand and took a sip of my drink. “He actually hit me, but he ended up running himself off the side of the cliff. It made me wake up a little bit, and caused me a lot of personal problems at the time.”

“Like what?”

I sucked in a deep gulp of air. “Can we talk about something else?” I didn’t want to think about Layla or tell her about how she left me after the crash. I had spent the last 4 years wondering why she disappeared right after that night at the Bluff, and I always assumed that it had to do with the crash. Maybe the whole thing scared her away from me and made her think I was a dangerous person doing dangerous things? Or maybe I just wanted to believe that? It hurt more to think that maybe she never felt the same way for me that I felt for her, or that she was just too young and the thing we had was all fun and games. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“What do you do?” I flipped the channel to National Geographic and there was a documentary about wild animals in Africa. The narrator of the program had a monotone but calming voice, and it served as a nice background to the situation.

“Wow.” The girl sat up straight, and her eyes widened. “I can’t believe I’m sitting in your home and I haven’t even told you what I do.” She lifted her cup to her lips and finished the whole thing in one gulp.

“We talked about a lot of stuff at the bar. I guess somehow we missed that little tidbit.”

“I’m a paralegal.”

I raised my eyebrows and shook my head. “That’s nice. Do you like it?”

The girl shrugged. “It’s okay.” She touched the back of her hand to her forehead and then leaned forward again, snuggling her head against my arm. “I’m getting tired. Do you want to go to bed?”

I looked down at the girl. She was kind of attractive. Her skin was nice and milky, and hair was long and soft. I imagined that a lot of guys would be into her. But there was something about her personality that just didn’t do it for me. Despite her looks, she didn’t get me in the mood. It wasn’t like the fireworks that I felt with…

Good god. Will I ever stop thinking about that girl?

“Let’s finish up this and then we’ll go to bed.”

“Okay,” she replied with a yawn. Little did she know, I had caught a glimpse of the on-screen TV guide that said the program was going to be going on for another 2 hours.

15 minutes later, she was out cold, drooling against my arm in her alcohol-induced slumber. I weaseled my way out of her grasp and grabbed a pillow and blanket from the closet. She must have been a heavy sleeper, because all she did was purr and lick her lips when I lifted her head and put the pillow under it, pulling the blanket over her body.

I slipped into my bedroom and shut the door, leaving it just slightly cracked open, just in case she woke up before me in the morning. I washed my face and hopped in bed, feeling like the night had been a success. I winged for Caleb and brought the girl home, making my brother happy. But I also managed to get out of having meaningless sex with her.

It just wasn’t something that I desired anymore.

Maybe I needed it to mean something. Maybe I wanted to feel the same kind of sparks fly like I had 4 years ago.

I didn’t know. Maybe I was just meant to be alone.