Drew
I don’t like French fries.
I love them.
Golden and crispy on the outside, warm and potatoey on the inside, with just enough salt to make it like a damn party in my mouth.
With ketchup.
A man couldn’t eat fries without a bucket of ketchup. And not some off-brand, bottom-shelf kind of ketchup. There was only one ketchup: Heinz.
About an hour from the hotel where Gamble so generously reserved me a room, we pulled off at some roadside diner that looked like a grease pit. That meant they probably had some kickass fries.
I was starving. I’d skipped dinner because right after I’d gotten the call from Gamble (not his assistant, but the man himself), I’d headed out to the driveway and did a complete tune-up on my car.
No, technically it didn’t need one.
But one didn’t simply not do a tune-up when they were driving for a man who could quite literally make your dreams come true.
“I’m so hungry I could eat my own cooking right about now,” I said, killing the engine and pocketing the keys.
Trent made a face. “No one’s that hungry.”
“I can make shit,” I argued.
“Yeah, shit that makes people sick,” Trent quipped.
He was right. I was the worst cook known to man. Sometimes I burned shit in the microwave… I didn’t even know that was possible until I did it.
“Like you’re any better,” I retorted as he pulled open the glass door to the bullet-shaped silver diner and stepped in.
“I’m better than you.” He flashed me a smile over his shoulder. The dark-green fleece pullover he wore had the collar turned up, and the backward hat worked together to give him a sort of mysterious look. Kind of covered up, like someone with a lot of layers.
I knew all of Trent’s layers.
Or did I?
I didn’t let on I was thinking about anything other than what we were talking about, and I chuckled. “Well, that is true.”
Trent didn’t cook much either, but he was better at it.
His stuff was at least edible.
There had been more than one night of hanging out and playing video games that we were too lazy to go get anything, and he’d managed to put together some pretty good eats in the kitchen.
The diner was just like the cliché kind you’d see on TV or find on a roadside during a random road trip like tonight.
The inside was long, like a big rectangle or a bowling alley. Against the far wall was the line where the cook was preparing orders in plain sight for all the diners to watch. In front of the line stretched a long countertop with round stools that was peppered with napkin dispensers, ketchup bottles, and salt and pepper shakers.
The waitress was behind the counter on one end, standing behind a cash register—not a computer, but a genuine register. It made beeping sounds as she punched in the ticket someone had given her to pay.
She was an older woman with poufy red hair and a white button-down shirt that looked like it belonged on a man. She had a pen tucked behind her ear and gum in her mouth.
Elvis was playing over the speakers, and the entire place smelled like a combination of pancakes, coffee, and burgers.
Because it was late, not many people were in here. Off to my left in the last booth on the row was a group of teenagers with their heads all focused down on the electronic devices in their hands. A man sat at the counter, eating a piece of pie with meringue piled so high I wondered if there was any filling beneath it. There was another booth by the door, holding a young man and woman sharing a milkshake.
They were probably finishing up a date, having come from a movie or something, and this was the only place left they could come to prolong their time together.
Trent went right, walked to the end, and slid into the last booth, his back to the wall so he was facing the room. I slid in across from him and snagged a menu from behind the condiments and napkin dispenser.
The waitress appeared seconds later and took our drink order for two root beers. When she came back with the sodas, I ordered a cheeseburger and fries. Trent ordered a Rueben on rye and fries.
When she was gone, I picked up my straw, ripped the end off, and blew the remaining paper across the table at Trent. With a smirk, he snatched it out of the air, tied a knot in the center, and dropped it on the table.
Next, I dropped the straw on the table, picked up my glass, and took a drink.
“If you aren’t going to use the straw, why do you do that?” He asked me that every single time I blew the paper at him. Which was every single time we went to a place that gave me a straw.
He always asked, and I always answered. The conversation was always the same.
“Because I can.” I shrugged and settled back against the seat.
Trent shifted back as well, draping his arms along the top of the bench seat and kicking out his legs. Our feet bumped together, but I didn’t pull back. He did.
Seconds later, his Nikes appeared as he propped them up on the seat next to me. His legs were long enough he could use my seat as a foot stool and still sit comfortably in his own.
“Make yourself at home,” I invited, glancing down at his giant-ass feet.
“Thanks. I will,” he drawled and leaned his head back. The brim of his hat made it hard, and he pulled it off and tossed it beside him.
My attention was won by his hand running through his hat hair, mussing it.
“You nervous?” he asked.
I blinked and had to replay his question in my mind before I could answer. “Yeah, wouldn’t you be?”
“Shit, I am.”
I felt my lips tilt up at one side. This was why I asked him to come. This was why when Gamble called, the first person I wanted to tell was him.
He understood.
He got how big of a part of me racing was, how badly I wanted this meeting, and how much I had riding on this. And not necessarily in a professional sense.
Even though, yeah, there was a lot at stake there, too. If I didn’t make something happen with this racing stuff, my father was going to say the dreaded I told you so and give me some lecture about why I should have just listened to him and left racing as a hobby.
He’d be right.
It would be a painful fucking day that day.
But that wasn’t what I meant. What I meant was on a personal level. What I wanted to prove to myself.
If I couldn’t make it in driving, what would it mean?
Would it mean the man I thought I was, the one with speed in his DNA, wasn’t real? Would it mean this life I went out on a limb for, basically turned my back on everything I’d been working toward for years, was a life I wasn’t meant to have after all?
If this didn’t work out, it would crush me.
Even when I’d been living the life my father groomed me for, the life everyone told me was mine, deep down I still had hope. I still held on to the idea that the real me was in there somewhere and he would claim the life he really wanted when the time was right.
Hope was a dangerous emotion. It made a man believe in possibilities. It whispered in the back of the mind, even on the darkest of days, even when I was sure the me I thought I was had faded away.
I fed that hope. The day I showed up on Ivy’s doorstep. The day I sat next to Trent in Screamerz. The day I decided to stay in Maryland, and the day I told my father.
My hope was growing. It was getting greedy.
This call from Gamble was almost like the culmination of a life on two separate paths. Two paths that would soon merge into one.
Trent nudged the side of my leg with his foot, bringing me out of thought. “Earth to Drew.”
Without thinking about it, my hand closed over his shoe and held on. I needed a change of subject. Shit was getting too real in my head. “You get a lot of shit for leaving tonight?”
“Nah.”
I squeezed his foot. “Seriously?”
The waitress arrived carrying our plates. Both of us looked up but didn’t immediately straighten out of our relaxed positions in anticipation of the food.
“Here we are,” she said, sliding the plates in front of us. When she straightened, her eyes went sideways. “Can I get you anything else right now?”
“We’re good, thanks,” I replied, following her gaze.
It was where my hand gripped T’s shoe.
She noticed me noticing, and I shrugged. “My momma taught me better than to put my feet on other people’s furniture.” Then I lowered my voice and leaned toward her. “Clearly, his momma forgot that lesson.”
She chuckled and walked off to check the other tables.
Trent glared at me and pulled his feet back under the table. “Really?”
I snagged the ketchup (the good kind) and laughed while piling it on the side of my plate by the mighty tasty-looking fries. When I was done, I handed it to Trent, and he poured some on his plate as well.
Next I flipped the top off my burger, picked up the two slices of tomato, and tossed them onto Trent’s plate.
Did I mention I don’t like tomatoes?
Yes. I know that’s what ketchup is made of.
He picked up one of the slippery-looking red, seedy slices and shoved it in his mouth.
Trent didn’t like ketchup, but he loved tomatoes.
As he chewed, he angled his plate so the fries and the ketchup were within reaching distance. I reached over and plucked a fry off his plate, dunked it in the ketchup, and shoved it in my mouth.
I always ate half his fries.
I had an addiction.
He was my enabler.
Besides, I paid him in tomato slices.
“Gave my support to one of the candidates tonight,” he announced casually.
I knew this wasn’t a casual thing for him, though. He’d been kinda quiet lately. I figured it had to do with frat shit. Football was over, and he wasn’t the type to get all emo about his schoolwork. Trying to talk to Trent sometimes was like talking to a brick wall. He didn’t talk about himself too much. He played a lot close to the vest.
Sometimes I pushed. Most times I didn’t.
“So will it be Tweeter Dumb or Tweeter Dee?” I asked, still eating the fries off his plate. They were just the way I liked them.
He smiled mid-chew. He had food in his teeth. “Jack.”
“Your ass finally get tired of all his kisses?” I cracked. I pointed to his plate. “You’re out of ketchup.”
“You have some on your plate,” he pointed out.
“Tastes better on yours,” I retorted quickly.
I paused.
Why the hell did I say that?
I glanced up. Trent was staring at me, this funny look in his eyes. Something passed between us, something I didn’t recognize.
Whatever it was, Trent chased it away by shaking the portion of Rueben in his hand at it. “You know how I feel about ass kissing.” He scoffed.
He shoved the rest of it into his mouth and picked up the ketchup to casually add more to his plate.
“So how’d you finally make up your mind?” I asked, using the sauce even as he poured.
“Con pissed me off.”
I barked a laugh. “Spoken like a true leader.”
“Fuck you,” Trent muttered. It was a little less sarcastic than usual.
I hit a nerve.
“What’s up?” I said, kicking out my foot and hitting his shoe. Since I’d demolished most of his fries, I turned my attention to my burger.
“He just seems a little too confident. Like he thinks he has the election won already. I don’t like it.”
“So you threw in with the underdog.”
“Yeah, maybe.” He sat back and glanced out the window. “It’s weird, you know? Graduating, trying to figure out what’s next.”
I’d been where he was. When I graduated. When I was doing that fancy internship. Hell, I still asked myself what the hell I was doing. Moving to Maryland changed me. It challenged me.
It made me feel different… yet the same.
There I went again with the deep thoughts. I shoved a bite of burger into my mouth and focused on the topic at hand. “They make it out like it’s easy, right? Like going to college will just lay out your whole life for you. But it doesn’t. College is like being on the starting line of a race, revving your engine to go.”
Trent was watching me. I felt his attention in a way I didn’t normally. Like he was really listening right now, like he needed to hear whatever I was going to say.
Made me wish I had something better than a car analogy.
“Then the flag goes down and you’re off, speeding toward the finish line, but you forgot to load your GPS with the course, so you have no idea which way to go.”
He nodded. “That’s exactly what it’s like.”
“Backing a new president for Omega just means you’ll have more time to figure out what to do next.”
He nodded and made a sound of agreement. “Will be nice not to have a houseful of people watching my every move.”
Something in his voice made me pause. I sat back, abandoning my food, and reached for my glass. “Someone there giving you a hard time?”
“No.” He sighed. “It’s just been a long week. Being the president, hell, being a football player too, is like an entire identity, you know? Everyone expects you to be a certain way.”
I nodded. “It’s a lot of pressure. Especially when you aren’t sure the identity you have is the one you want.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked quickly. His eyes widened a bit. He almost looked like a deer caught in a pair of headlights. Shocked I saw him…
“Means I get it,” I said, casual, as I watched him. “My whole life I lived the identity my father wanted me to have. It was never the life I wanted.”
He relaxed. The trapped look left his eyes, and he picked up his soda to take a drink. “Yeah, it’s like that.” He agreed.
After that, our conversation turned to cars, more specifically, my driving and what tomorrow might be like when I met with Gamble.
Even though the conversation changed, my inner thoughts remained with our previous exchange. Not so much the words, but the way Trent looked and reacted as we talked.
It was almost like he was hiding something.
Or running.
Made me wonder what was really going on inside his head.