****
After the calamity of their last race, Mona wasn’t sure if anyone would want to show up for another one, but when she arrived at the track with Ryan on the back of CopyCat, she smiled when she saw all of the club members assembled. They were laughing and talking together as they set everything up. She could not have been more proud to see them there. She also felt more than a little touched. Maybe no one saw her as a screw-up after all.
“Hey!” Arthur said when he saw them, waving them over. “There you two lovebirds are. Weasel was just wondering whether or not you were going to race, Mona.”
She smiled and blushed a little bit, both at ‘lovebirds’ and at the question of racing. Although she had been learning how to ride The Duke, she still was not good enough to want to ride a far distance, let alone be very fast about it. “I’d better not,” she said honestly. “I’ll be your fearless leader behind the scenes while Ryan is your fearless leader on the track.”
Ryan placed his arm around her, smiling fondly. “Every team needs a mastermind, after all.”
As promised, Weasel was there behind the table with the merchandise and the wagers. He was sitting there in his wheelchair looking rather like a king. Mona was sure that he’d be able to be a part of things like that, instead of sitting at home or merely watching from the sidelines.
After affixing his number to his helmet, Ryan turned to Mona and gave her a kiss. “See you at the finish line?” he asked her.
She grinned back at him. “I’m already there.”
He put his helmet on and got atop CopyCat, riding it to the starting line in the track. Mona got a seat close to Weasel, to help him out at the table and keep him company. They had some awesome shirts, totes and mugs for sale that were designed by the wives of some of the Riders. As the racers got on their marks, she wondered if someday she was going to be a wife of one of the Riders. Number nine on the back of the shiny, black bike specifically.
A shot was fired and the motorcycles took off down the lanes. The roaring engines were now all that could be heard over the cheers as the line of twenty bikes went around and around the track. This was the first race of the day and they had scheduled four more. Mona hoped that they would all go smoothly and they wouldn’t be sending any more riders home on stretchers.
She got up onto her chair when she realized that Ryan was in the lead. He hadn’t been riding in so long that this would be a major comeback. He just needed to last three more laps…
Two more laps…
One more lap…
And he sailed over the finish line as if it was nothing!
Mona screamed and jumped up and down, nearly forgetting that she was standing up on a chair until she almost toppled over in her excitement. Then she hopped down and cheered loudly with Weasel.
“Don’t fall down,” he teased, holding her hand and shaking it giddily. “We don’t need you in a wheelchair now.”
She laughed and wished that she could rush out to Ryan, but she didn’t want to interfere with the races or leave Weasel alone at their table. There’d be plenty of time for celebrating later.
Together, Weasel and Mona watched the next few races, cheering on their team and politely applauding if another team’s member won. These races were all for fun, so there wasn’t really any competitiveness about it. That was something that Lance could never stomach.
“We – well, I guess I – should tell you something that we didn’t want to bring up before,” she told Weasel. “Lance Olsen is the one who messed with your bike. He must’ve tinkered with it while we were setting things up…”
Weasel did not look surprised, just tired of the whole affair. “How do you know?” he asked.
“We don’t one hundred percent know,” she admitted. “But he stole The Duke from my house and we caught him red-handed. There’s no one else who would have stooped to such childishness, or anyone else who had such a vendetta against our club. But it’s okay. He won’t bother us again, because he was arrested after stealing The Duke.”
Weasel smiled a little then. “I guess we can finally put all of that behind us then…”
She smiled back at him, but then she remembered how battered his bike was in that race. He was healing, but his bike still needed a lot of repairs. She was going to have to speak to the rest of the club about that. Maybe they could surprise him by repairing his bike, too.
Weasel and Mona sat side by side and watched excitedly as the bikers careened past them in another race. In the interim before the final race of the day, a line of people came over to place their money on Ryan. Mona felt so proud and happy for him. She couldn’t have picked a better leader for her dad’s club. Not only was he kind and diplomatic when it came to their meetings, he was also an inspiring rider on his own.
They watched the race, supporting all of their teammates while Mona silently hoped that Ryan would win this race, too. Today certainly seemed to be his day!
The roar of the engines as the bikes whizzed past was enough to make her rethink her opinion about racing herself in one of these… As long as everyone was following the rules, they didn’t seem quite so dangerous. Mona thought that, going forward, she would not rule out anything.
She stood up in her chair again as Ryan made his final laps. He came in second this time, which was still very exciting. She was so excited for him. Second place still earned their team a lot of money for their charity of choice.
Now that the races were over, she ran out to where Ryan was standing, shaking hands with his fellow riders and congratulating them. Mona tapped him on the shoulder and he turned to her, grinning.
She threw her arms around him and gave him a big kiss. “That was amazing!” she told him. “You really did us proud. Especially me.”
He chuckled into her ear. “I did it for you.”
Several of the other members of their club came over to congratulate him with pats on the back. They all got on their bikes and Mona hopped on the back of Ryan’s, ready to ride off to a victory celebration at Hog’s Grogs.
However, she made sure that they all helped Weasel pack up their table and that he got safely into his car before they took off.
“You’ll meet us at the bar, right?” she asked him.
“Are you kidding?” he asked, wheeling around to look at her, smiling. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”