Drew
Four cars were lined up at the starting line when I turned onto the otherwise empty street.
I felt rather than saw heads and eyes turn in the direction of my headlights.
“There’s a lot of people,” Joey said.
I grinned. “Welcome to the dark side.”
There was a spot just big enough at the end of the row of cars for the Fastback to pull up. I stopped, making sure my front end was in line with everyone else’s.
Some of the people standing around cheered. Some of them didn’t.
It was all good. Haters made things interesting.
The car beside me was the black Camaro I’d raced at the Speedway. I couldn’t see if it was Arrow or Lorhaven behind the wheel, though.
I slid my window down and looked through the passenger side. Several seconds later, the window on the car slid down.
“Oh my God, it’s Justin Bieber!” Joey gasped.
The kid scowled, and I howled with laughter.
“Arrow,” I said around my laughter. “Good luck!”
He rolled up his window without a word.
I glanced at Joey. She gave me a sidelong look. “I take it he isn’t a fan?”
I chuckled again. “Trent and I said the same thing.”
“Trent and you, huh?”
“What is it with women?” I growled. “If you got something to say, just say it already. Quit beating around the bush with talk only other women would understand.”
“Prickly,” Joey sang.
I sat there and tried to decide if it would be wrong to give a girl the finger.
There was a knock on the window. I rolled it back down, and someone I’d seen around before but never met lowered his face so he could look inside the car.
“Got a passenger tonight,” he said.
“I can handle the extra weight,” I said, knowing that’s where he was going. The weight in the car would only make it harder to win.
That’s okay. I liked a challenge.
He shrugged. “She’s a lot lighter than your usual passenger.”
Joey made a sound, and I ignored her.
“You running this show?” I asked.
He nodded. “Four grand.” He held out his hand.
Joey pulled a black leather bag with fringe on it out of the back and plopped it on her lap. The next thing I knew, she was handing me four grand in cash.
I raised both my eyebrows. “Just pocket change?”
She shrugged. “I am my father’s daughter.”
I turned back and handed the money over. In exchange, I was given a GPS preloaded with the route of the race. All we had to do was hit start.
I stuck it to the dash and glanced up. Lorhaven was standing near the hood of my car, staring in with a darkness to his features.
“You weren’t invited,” he demanded.
I hitched my arm on the door of the car and leaned out. “Aww, what’s the matter, Lorhaven? You afraid you might lose now?”
“It was only one time,” he ground out.
“One’s enough.” Winning one race against him was all it took to get in his head.
“Go home,” he spat, his face darkening.
“Someone isn’t very liked around here,” Joey observed from her seat.
“No one likes a threat,” I said mildly.
“My money’s just as green as everyone else’s,” I called out to Lorhaven and glanced at the guy collecting. He nodded.
Lorhaven frowned and stepped forward. “Where’d you even get the money? Who’s in the car with you?”
“We here to race or gossip?”
“You invite him?” Lorhaven stopped right beside the other guy.
He nodded. “You told me to put it together and load the pot. Five drivers makes it twenty grand.”
“That’s gonna buy me a lot of car parts,” I mused.
Lorhaven’s shadowy eyes snapped to my face. “You might own the speedway, but I own the streets.”
“Aww, are you mad your little puppy hasn’t been able to smoke me at the raceway?” I stuck out my lip in a pout.
His fists clenched at his sides.
“Are we racing or what?” Joey called.
Lorhaven forgot about me, and his eyes widened.
Joey might have a boy name, but that’s the only way anyone could mistake her for a man. Even her voice was all female.
The next thing I knew, the guy running the race was gone, and Lorhaven’s ugly mug filled my open window.
“Well, well,” he said. “Who’s this?”
Joey waved her fingers at him but said nothing.
I grunted. “I brought a date.”
Lorhaven was quiet a minute. “Do I know you?”
Oh shit. I never thought anyone would recognize her here. I hadn’t a clue who she was ‘til she told me and I looked her up.
“No,” she replied, terse, and turned to stare out the window.
“We doing this or what?” I intoned. “People are impatient.” I motioned to the crowd standing around on the side of the road.
He straightened out of the window and glared at me. “You’re on, Forrester.” Then to the man he put in charge, he demanded, “Let’s go!”
The crowd cheered and engines revved.
A girl in skintight jeans, lace-up boots, and a crop top stepped in front of the line with a large black-and-white checkered flag in her hand.
I gripped the steering wheel and pulled in a breath, letting my lungs expand as I welcomed the adrenaline into my limbs. My fingers were already tapping the leather on the wheel with anticipation. I was ready to do this.
I craved it.
I was going to fly so fast tonight, when I finally hit the brakes, I wouldn’t even remember my own name.
All my attention narrowed down into the road. My heart beat to the same cadence as the engine, and the smell of exhaust filled the air.
Someone wasn’t even going to finish the race judging by that smell.
Good, one place closer to claiming my cash.
The girl in the street raised her arms, and the crowd around us cheered. Her hands cut downward, and the flag fluttered with the motion.
All five cars squealed off the line and burst forward.
There wasn’t enough room on the road for all five of us to drive side by side, so we had to slide into places. Lorhaven was first. He was driving a Corvette tonight.
A green Mitsubishi bullied its way behind him, and I hung back, taking up third place. The Camaro was behind me, and behind him was the remaining car.
I didn’t concentrate on them. The way I saw it, they’d already lost.
The car behind Lorhaven was aggressive, way too aggressive this early. And he was getting more so with every passing second. Each time he’d try to get around to first place, Lorhaven would block him.
I cruised along, getting a feel for the streets we were on, which were all back roads close to the business district, so they were all empty at this time on a Friday night.
My headlights bounced off the road, and I kept focus on the yellow lines so I knew how steady to hold the car.
“There’s a wide curve up ahead,” Joey said, reading the route off the GPS. “About a quarter of a mile.”
I smiled and hit the gas, putting the pressure on my already irritated buddy in front of me. Now he was sandwiched between us and didn’t have many options.
The curve came up, and the driver in front of me went wide, trying to go around Lorhaven, who took the middle of the road to try and keep people from passing.
That left a narrow section on the inside of the curve completely open.
I slammed the brake and threw the Fastback into a tight drift, right around the curve. It wasn’t a very wide curve, so even as I slid, I had to prepare to straighten out the wheel and hit the gas.
Just when I slid parallel to the other two cars, I jacked the wheel again and slammed on the gas to shoot forward. My tires squealed, and the scent of burning rubber filled the air around us, but I kept going.
Seconds later, I took the lead.
“Yeah!” Joey yelled, and I glanced at her with a grin. She was holding on to the side handle and laughing. “They’ve got to be pissed!” she yelled.
“What’s next?” I asked, gesturing toward the road as I took a slight curve to the left.
“Straight and narrow through here. Then it opens up… looks like onto a bridge, and then narrows again. Finish line is just beyond that.”
I had a tank of NOS under the seat, but I wasn’t ready to use that yet. I was in the lead.
Headlights blinded me from behind, and I glanced up. Lorhaven was on my ass, and when I say on my ass, I mean he was threatening the paint job on my bumper.
I shifted and pushed the car even harder. We were flying now, so fast that if a cop got ahold of me, I’d do jail time.
But I didn’t care. This was fucking amazing.
I didn’t have to think about anything in that moment. It was just me and the car. The road was my guide, but the destination was nowhere.
I knew a moment of euphoria, a single blissful moment.
Lorhaven swung out around me, trying to squeeze me over so he could get by. I refused to budge, and he was getting frustrated.
I had a second of worry where I thought he might try to clip my back end to get me out of the way. I slid over a fraction to make him think he was gaining some leeway.
An oncoming car came racing toward us. The road was so narrow it would force Lorhaven to fall back, to make room.
I pushed forward again and recovered the couple inches I put between our cars, forcing him to fall back as we barreled toward the headlights.
The car started beeping its horn frantically and swerved away from us as I blew right by.
Lorhaven dropped behind me, and I took advantage to spur ahead. The bridge came into view. It was two lanes, and I knew he’d be beside me within seconds.
I needed to think beyond the bridge. I needed to be the one to take the lead once the road narrowed again.
Behind us, another set of headlights bounced around, and I glanced long enough to know it was Arrow in the Camaro.
My tires rolled onto the bridge, and I pushed hard, looking ahead. Lorhaven started to swing up to the side, but I cut over at the last second, narrowly avoiding smacking into his front end. The sound of his brakes squealing wasn’t lost on me as I took the side of the road he wanted.
It pissed him off, and I heard the rumbling of his car as he sped forward and came up on my passenger side.
“What are you doing?” Joey asked.
“Hang on,” I said and downshifted. The car responded immediately, and Lorhaven nudged ahead of me just slightly.
The road narrowed, and soon there wouldn’t be room for both of us to take the curving asphalt at the same time.
So I let him have it.
I went off the road. My tires ripped into the ground, tearing up the dirt and barren grass as I went. The undercarriage was hit with pebbles and debris as I shifted again and hit the gas. The back end fishtailed and spurred forward as I cut through the grass in a straight line as Lorhaven drove around the curve on the road.
“You’re ahead,” Joey yelled. “It’s close.”
I didn’t glance over to see what he was doing. Instead, I kept my eyes focused on the glowing path ahead of me provided by the headlights.
“He’s right there,” Joey yelled again, and I slid my finger down beside the seat and felt for the button to release the NOS.
If I hit this button and didn’t keep control of this car as we transitioned from the grass to the road, it could be very, very bad.
Fuck it.
I hit the button and gripped the wheel with both hands.
The Mustang rocketed forward. Everything outside the windshield became nothing but a blur. The road was right in front of us now, and I held my breath as the Mustang slid into the street, sliding sideways just a little. I let it go a tad, not trying to fight it too hard, and then strong-armed it back into a straight line.
Once I was sure all four tires had a grip, I punched the gas once again and shot over the crudely drawn white line across the narrow street.
The people and cars lined up at the finish line all started jumping and moving around, but I continued forward, letting the car wind down and my heartbeat to return to normal.
“Oh my God!” Joey said, pushing at her hair. “That was so much better than track racing!”
“My off-roading didn’t freak you out?” I asked, slowing the car even further and pulling off to the side so I could make a U-turn and go claim my cash.
“No, but I thought for sure you were gonna wrap us around a tree.”
“Ye of little faith,” I muttered.
Lorhaven was already near the line and pacing at the front end of his car when I pulled up.
“Stay here,” I told Joey and got out.
People started cheering and yelling. A few of the other drivers offered me their hand, and I could have sworn I saw some awe in Arrow’s eyes, but I’d never call him out. He’d get in trouble with his boss.
“What the fuck was that!” Lorhaven roared, stalking up to me.
The others surrounding me parted ways.
“That was me winning,” I drawled.
“This was a road race,” he said. “Not a fucking dirt track.”
“Oh, was that in the rule book?” I asked, glancing around. Lorhaven flushed. “Oh. Right. There isn’t one. You said get from point A to point B first. I did. If I had to take an alternative route, it’s because that big-ass Corvette of yours wouldn’t share the road.”
“Aww shit,” a few people called from the crowd.
The man holding the pot was close by, and I signaled to him. “Yo, man, I’m here to collect.”
“Like hell,” Lorhaven growled. “You cheated.”
“Why’s that?” I asked, deadly. “Because I didn’t cheat using your particular rules?”
Everyone went silent.
You weren’t supposed to challenge Lorhaven on his own turf in his own race. But that’s why I was invited, wasn’t it? Maybe some people were tired of him getting away with all his bullshit.
I reached for the fat stack of cash, but Lorhaven lunged forward and shoved me back. My body tensed and something in me snapped.
Apparently, the race didn’t help blow away some of the tension inside me; it only made it worse.
“Careful,” Lorhaven intoned. “Your bodyguard isn’t here to protect you tonight.”
The mention of Trent did it.
I surged forward in a running leap, fist extended, and plowed it into his face. We both went down, and I went to hit him again, but he rolled and pinned me beneath him. He leaned back, drawing back his fist to hammer it down, and I twisted, rolling beneath him, causing him to lose his balance. I shoved him back and jumped up at the same time he did.
“Stop!” a familiar voice yelled, and Joey rushed between us, her hair flying everywhere.
“Get back in the car,” I growled, rolling my neck.
Lorhaven’s chest heaved as he dabbed at his lip.
“Hey, that’s Joey G.,” someone called out. “She’s a pro racer. That’s Gamble’s daughter!”
Lorhaven forgot all about his lip and stared at Joey. “You brought a goddam pro to an indie race!” he roared.
Time to go.
I turned and plucked the money out of the organizer’s hands and started for the Mustang. “C’mon!” I yelled to Joey.
Halfway to the car, Lorhaven called out, “Cheater. She the one who taught you how to do all those fancy moves?”
I stopped and turned back.
I was not a cheater.
“That driving tonight was all mine. But if it makes your loss easier to take, then sure. You got beat by not only me, but a girl. One who happens to be a pro.”
Lorhaven’s nostrils flared.
I slammed into the Mustang and revved the engine.
“What the hell was that!” Joey demanded the second I tore down the street.
“Lorhaven’s kind of bitter about the pros,” I replied.
“A little?” she pressed.
“Okay, maybe a lot. And since I just beat him for the second time, his street cred is even more shot to hell. Add that to you being here to witness, and well…”
“He’s following us!” she yelled just as the back of the Fastback was rammed from behind.
“Son of a bitch!” I roared and laid on the gas.
Behind him was the black Camaro, no doubt driven by Arrow.
“What’s he want?” she asked, turning back around.
“His money back? My face under his fist?” I guessed.
The back was knocked into again.
“Fuck!” I roared. “He better not mess up my car!”
“Get the GPS, darlin’. I need some directions. We need to lose these assholes.”
She didn’t cry or fret or freak out. She calmly picked up the GPS and started hitting buttons. Seconds later, she was directing me like she’d been a right-seater all her life.
I managed to keep ahead of them so he couldn’t do any more damage to my car, but we weren’t losing them. The longer it went on, the more pissed off I knew Lorhaven was getting.
Not only did I win, fair and square, and bring a pro to the race, but now I was making it impossible for him to catch me.
I wasn’t the kind of guy to run from a fight, but I knew when it was a losing battle. I wasn’t about to let him catch up, because my car would suffer. And yeah, maybe my face.
But worse yet, I had Joey with me. Ron Gamble’s daughter. Getting into a street fight would probably not get me on his good side.
“There’s a tunnel up ahead,” she said. “Shut all the lights off and pull to the shoulder. He’s so pissed and going so fast, they’ll bypass us before they realize.”
“Good call,” I said.
The second my car was swallowed by the pitch-black tunnel (Hey, we were on the back roads of some small Maryland town. There weren’t street lamps in here.), I shut off the lights and hit the brakes. I prayed the entire time I was pulling to the side that I didn’t overextend and hit the damn wall.
Not even seconds after I came to a complete stop, the road was illuminated and two cars barreled past. I held my breath, waiting for the headlights to reflect off the side, but we stayed just out of reach.
“I like your brain,” I told Joey when they were gone and I was able to start up the car again. Just for good measure, I left the lights off until we were out of the tunnel. Even then, I only turned on the fog lights. I needed something to see by, but these were dimmer and wouldn’t be as noticeable from far away, say if they started looking in their rearview.
About a mile up the road, Joey said, “Turn here.”
I did and pulled onto a new stretch of road. I flipped the headlights back on and sped up. About a quarter of a mile down, she pointed to what looked like a bar on the side of the road. “Here. Pull around back.”
Soon as the car was off, I grinned. “Good idea. I could sure use a drink right about now.”
She rolled her eyes, and I saw the white of her teeth flash in the dark. “I was thinking we could hang out a while. That way there’s less chance of running into them.”
“That, too.” I agreed.
“Is that guy dangerous?” she asked, worry in her tone.
“Lorhaven?” I mused, then thought about her question. “Honestly, I would say no. He has a lot of money and is used to being the one on top. He’s had a stick up his ass since I showed up on the scene because I drive better and he doesn’t like it.”
“He tried to run you off the road,”
“I never said he wasn’t an asshole, just that I don’t think he’s dangerous. He definitely isn’t someone to trust.”
She nodded once.
“Drinks are on me.” I smiled and reached for the pile of money beside me. “Here, half of this belongs to you.”
She made a sound of refusal. “No way. You freaking earned that tonight! My only reward is getting a front row seat.”
I chuckled and counted out the four grand she used to pay my way into the race. “Well, at least take this back.”
She took it and threw it into her bag.
In the parking lot, she hesitated at the front door, and I gave her a curious glance. “What?”
Her teeth sank into her lower lip, and she looked sheepish. “It’s only fair I tell you this.”
“What?”
“This was the only bar for miles. Since it was closest, I figured it would be a good place to stop.”
“Joey,” I grumbled, wishing she’d get to the point.
“It’s a gay bar,” she blurted out.
I blinked. Something in my stomach dipped. I didn’t know what to say, so I went the easy route. “Well, at least I won’t get into a fight trying to keep the men off you tonight.”
Joey beamed. “I like your brain.” She repeated my earlier words.
Inside, we found a table by the door. I figured it was a good spot because it was on the edge of the crowd and gave me a view out the front window so I’d see if any familiar cars happened by.
We sat down and ordered some beers (yep, she drank beer), and as we waited, I started looking around curiously. I’d never been in a gay bar before. I always thought these places would have more… flare.
But really, it was just like every other bar I’d been to before.
When the waiter came back with our drinks, he gave me the once-over, and I shifted uncomfortably. “All kinds of new faces in here tonight,” he mused. “And all of them a pleasure to look at.”
When he moved away, Joey laughed. I gave her an un-amused look. Then I got to thinking about what the waiter had said. There were other new faces in here?
I scanned the crowd and faces, looking for something, as an odd feeling prickled the back of my neck.
And then I saw him.
I’d know him even if I were blind.
It was like a kick right in the nads. My hand gripped the longneck of the beer and squeezed until it hurt.
What in God’s name was he doing here?
In a gay bar? Flirting. With. A. Man.
A floodgate of emotion burst open inside me, and I felt like I was sinking, drowning…
Joey snapped her fingers in front of my face, and I blinked.
I didn’t look at her, though. I looked back at Trent.
My best friend.
Who was sitting in a gay bar, looking like he was on a date.