The entire flight back to LA, Willa won’t talk to any of us, so I sleep. Best fucking sleep I’ve gotten in weeks.
It’s when we walk through the door of our house where she has to break up an actual fist fight between Roan and Tiller that she says, “We have to talk,” and puts her hand on her stomach.
“It’s not mine,” Tiller says, smirking.
We don’t know who the dad of her baby is and she says she doesn’t have to tell us. Can you believe she’d keep a secret from us?
Maybe don’t answer that.
And no, I didn’t sleep with her. She’s nearly forty. Believe it or not, I have age limits.
Tiller, he doesn’t, so there’s a good chance it could be, though she’d never have sex with any of us. Roan and Tiller have both tried on a handful of occasions with no success.
To our left, I notice a man sleeping on the back patio near the pool, one leg flopped in the water, the other precariously on the edge. I have no idea who he is but like I said before, our house is more like a hotel. Half the time there are people here we’ve never met. They’re usually a friend of a friend who came to a party with their sister’s cousin’s stepbrother. You follow that?
Yeah, me either. But it’s bazaar shit like that, and we never ask and usually kick them out. Eventually. Maybe after a day or two.
Aside from Taco. You remember him, right? Abu Dhabi? Twelve Jägerbombs?
He came back with us. How, I don’t recall, but I don’t remember yesterday, so that’s not to say I didn’t have something to do with Taco following me home. By the way, it’s illegal for him to be here and we only understand two words he says. Pussy, which he tends to get a lot of here, and blunt. Which he smokes a lot of. Given his two hobbies, he and Tiller are best buds.
Anyway, I’m focused on the guy in the pool, wondering if he falls in all the way, if he’ll drown, and Willa’s attempting to have a grown-up conversation with us.
Taking a seat on the couch, Willa fans herself with the blazing heat ripping through the house. Why it’s so fucking hot in the house might have something to do with the fact that there’s a gaping hole in the side of the house facing the pool. And before you ask, no, I don’t know where it came from.
Willa sighs, using a Playboy magazine off the coffee table to fan herself. The pages are strangely wrinkled, and there’s something sticky on the cover she may not want to be touching, but she’s probably hot enough she doesn’t care at this point. Her face is literally the color of a tomato. “This baby is coming whether you guys want it or not, and I need to take care of myself, not you three shits. So I have to take about three months off.”
Did you hear the bomb that just went off? It might as well have with the deafening silence that follows that destructive statement.
The three of us without Willa?
Well that can’t happen. It’d be like letting loose a set of triplets with ADD and a traumatic brain injury.
“Three months?” Roan asks, tugging at his hair like he’s confused, eyes wide. “How long are you planning on being pregnant?”
She takes the Playboy magazine and throws it at his head. The edge of it just misses his right eye. “Shut up. Three months after the baby’s born. I’m due next month.” For some reason, she’s speaking to us like she’s told us all this before. She might have for all we know.
“So who’s going to take care of things?” I ask, joining the conversation. Willa keeps me out of a lot of trouble. I guarantee you if it wasn’t for her, whatever I did or didn’t say to the announcer last night would have gone completely different. “I don’t want a stranger coming in here bossing me around. Unless she’s hot, then she can boss me around all she wants.”
I didn’t grow up with a mother. Willa is like my mother. Sure, Ricky raised me but he’s about as strict as Tiller would be as a father. You wouldn’t believe the shit we got away with as teenagers, and now. Willa has been our only sense of reasoning, so her saying she’s leaving could be pretty bad for me.
You’ve seen my behavior lately. Do you really think it’s wise for her to up and leave me alone? Yeah, me either.
“I’ll find a replacement for you guys,” she tells us, watching all three of our reactions separately, and then focuses on me, the one she knows is going to have a problem with this because I usually have the most shit going on. I spend 90 percent of my time with Willa. The other 10 percent is when she’s sleeping and I get myself into trouble.
You’re wondering why she has to spend so much time with me compared to Roan and Tiller. Sure, she’s the PR rep and personal assistant to all of us, but I’m usually the one with the most going on. While I not only compete with the X-Fighters, Nuclear Cowboyz, and Nitro-Circus, and any other freestyle event I get invited to, I do modeling for an apparel company, endorsement deals, commercials, and product advertising. I’m basically the freestyle face for Red Bull. Which in turn translates into I need someone telling me where to be and when.
Willa takes in my “What the fuck do I do now?” look and gives me a sympathetic glance. “I’ll still be around, Shade. I just need to take some time off. I have to think about my baby now.”
I try to recall anyone who’s ever been able to keep up with my demands to replace her and the only one I can think of is the manager of Wellington Suites, that hotel we stay at in Seattle every time. That chick can get me anything I need at any time.
“What about that chick at the hotel? We need someone like her. Maybe she can take a leave of absence.”
It’s just like me to think she’ll drop everything and be our assistant. I mean, wouldn’t she?
She’s even used to the shit we pull. We’ve destroyed that hotel a time or two and she always takes care of everything. Sure, we pay for the damages but how many managers would let you come back to their hotel after you made a jeweled lifelike twenty-foot wide vagina in their pool?
Certainly none that I’ve stayed at, aside from Wellington Suites.
Willa waves me off with a flick of her wrist. “She won’t do it. She runs a hotel.”
“Talk to her,” I suggest, standing near the windows and staring at the pool. “Maybe she knows someone.”
“Okay. I’ll see, but no promises. Trust me though, I’m not going to leave you with just anybody.”
And then she pulls me aside about the time I’m going to check on the guy at the pool. I’m kind of wondering if he’s alive. Taco has a mean streak. Maybe he killed the guy while we were gone.
With her hand on my elbow, she refuses to let me go and even makes me look at her, and then gets Roan and Tiller involved. “We need to talk about your fighting.” She points to the two of them. “If this is going to work, you all need to get your shit together. This is crazy.” Willa glares at Roan and Tiller. “You two are talking—” She pauses and motions to the hole in the wall that’s more than likely broke the air-conditioner by overworking it. “How the fucking hell did that hole get there?”
“That’s actually a funny story,” Tiller pipes up with, a beer in hand now.
“I don’t give a shit.” She lets go of me. “Fix it.”
Tiller looks at me when she waddles down the hall and heads upstairs, leaving the three of us in the living room, alone. “Pregnancy doesn’t look good on her. She’s a bitch.” And then his eyes lit up. “Dude, can we get like a Playboy bunny or something? I bet they’re good at arranging.”
Roan finds humor in it, laughing. “Yeah, arranging what cock to suck that night.”
“Precisely my point.”
Tiller and Roan seem to have relaxed from the fist fight twenty minutes ago, so I dare to ask, “What’s going on with you guys?”
“I don’t know.” Tiller blows me off, raising his beer to his lips. “Ask him. He’s the one acting like a baby.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.
Roan throws his head back, as though he’s done having to explain this to anyone. “You know why!”
Tiller leans forward, his forearms on his knees and tips his beer at Roan. “Are you serious?” His eyebrows rise. “Are you still pissed off about that? I should get a thank-you for breaking her in for you.”
I’m not exactly sure who they’re talking about since I’ve been a bit distracted, but do you see that look on Roan’s face? Oh man. Just wait. Tiller’s about to get his ass beat. You can see the strain in Roan’s eyes, can’t you? Do you see the way his body is vibrating with concealed hatred?
And then he walks away. Just like that. Most bizarre fucking thing I’ve seen all day. Aside from the maybe dead guy near the pool.
Just as I retrieve my own beer from the fridge and sit back down on the couch, Auden walks in from outside, tosses his keys on the counter, and opens the fridge. See what I mean? Everyone lives here. Auden has his own apartment too but stays with us most of the time.
“What are you talking about?” I ask Tiller. “Who’d you break in?”
Tiller gives Auden a nod when he sits down on the couch next to him, a beer in hand and a bag of chips. Auden isn’t there a minute, and he’s patting his pockets for his wrinkled pack of cigarettes. Pulling one out, he tucks it behind his ear. “Nice run last night,” he says to me, then opens the chips.
I give him a nod of acknowledgment, my thank-you before Tiller rips the chips from Auden’s hands and begins eating them. “Okay, so apparently I may have. . . in like a lapse of judgment, I may have taken O’s virginity.”
Auden and I both snap our heads in Tiller’s direction at his confession.
Ah, yes. I haven’t mentioned her yet. Ophelia Hadley. Carl, our head of security’s only daughter. And she’s only nineteen. But here’s one more fact for you. Over the years, Roan has taken it upon himself to be her protector. That my friends, translates into he wants to fuck her. Plain and simple. He was saving her for him. At least that’s the way I see it.
It’s nothing new to us either. O’s been coming around us since she was ten years old. Roan’s not a fucking dick like Jaime, so he never entertained the idea. Until she turned seventeen and got tits.
And Tiller went and popped the girl’s cherry first, and now it’s created a war.
Auden laughs, thinking it’s funny and then levels him a serious look. “Dude, what are you going to do when Carl finds out.”
Tiller blows it off, cracking open another beer, completely unfazed. “He won’t find out.”
I honestly don’t think Tiller would care if he did.
“Did you really take her virginity?” I ask, and then think to myself, cute girl like O. . . she couldn’t be a virgin, could she?
I’m actually kind of jealous Tiller fucked her. Not gonna lie, I jerked off to the image of her naked a couple times, but I would not have fucked her. I value my balls more than that, and when Carl finds out, Tiller won’t have any. But still, virgin? It’s mind-blowing.
“She was a virgin?” Auden asks. Look at his face. He’s jealous, too, and just as shocked as me.
“Dude. . . right?” Tiller laughs. “Who knew she was a virgin. She’s been hanging around dirty fucks all her life. Who knew it’d be me.” Do you sense the pride in his voice?
Tiller sleeps with virgins. We don’t even know how, but he always manages to sleep with them. We nicknamed him the virgin stealer a long time ago, and the dude could make a cherry pie with his collection by now. He’s also the only guy I know who can bring home a stripper to his Ninja Turtle sheets on his twin bed and still get head every time.
“Do you remember it?”
Tiller’s eyes light up, and he shifts on the couch as if the memory alone is giving him a semi. “Oh, I fucking remember it all right.” And then he adjusts himself, confirming my theory.
You’re thinking, that’s disgusting, right? I’m glad he’s wearing shorts. It could be a lot worse, believe me.
“It’s kinda fucked up,” Auden says, taking the chips back so Tiller won’t stick his hand he just had down his shorts into the bag. “I get it. She’s hot but really, a virgin? You’re not exactly the kind of guy she should have slept with. O’s too cute for you.”
“It’s not like I’m ever gonna fuck her again. I didn’t even think about it. I just thought she was tight and a good time.”
I’m curious now when it happened, but I know Tiller well enough to know even this conversation we’re having is pushing it. He’s secretive as hell. “So how’d you find out she’s a virgin?”
“Was. Past tense. And she told me. Covered her face with her hands, crying, and said, ‘You took my virginity.’ Kind of a dead giveaway.”
“You didn’t rape her, did you?” Auden teases, but the word rape rips through my chest like a knife. I hate that word more than I hate the idea of someone taking their own life because life wasn’t what they thought it should be.
“Dude, no. I’m not an asshole, man.” But he doesn’t go into detail about what they did.
I don’t want to be talking about this again. Maybe it’s from my rapid heartbeat over the word rape, but the temperature in the house gets to me and I stare at the hole in the wall and the maybe dead guy. He still hasn’t moved. “How’d the hole get there?” I ask, finishing the last of my own beer and standing up. I should go check on that guy. It’s hot outside. If he’s not dead, dude probably has heat stroke.
Lounged back on the couch again, another beer in hand, Tiller rolls his head to the side glancing at the hole. “Do you remember when I thought it’d be cool to have a fish tank in the wall?”
“No.”
He chuckles. “Well, maybe it was just me. But anyway, I started it and then got bored. DIY shit is hard work.”
I point to the guy on the patio and reach for the handle on the sliding glass doors leading outside. I could just crawl through the hole in the wall, but that’d be too much effort. “Do you think that guy’s dead.”
Tiller’s no longer interested in talking. His phone is in his hand and he’s probably lining up his next virgin or stripper to occupy his Ninja Turtle sheets with him tonight.
Outside, I check on the guy, who I think might be a neighbor. . . maybe. I’m not really sure. He’s just sleeping off a hangover from what I can tell so I toss a towel on his red back in hopes he won’t die tonight of heat stroke.
The blazing Southern California sun hits my neck, and I think about heading out to the track behind the house, maybe seeing if Auden wants to take the bikes out to let off some steam when my phone rings.
It’s Danny Howard. A representative for Red Bull.
Fuck. It’s my lucky day today.
“Hey, Dan,” I answer, my jaw tightening at the idea of having to explain myself to him.
I’m not a big fan of the political side of being a freestyle racer. The side that’s forced to you know, sit in meetings and discuss how I’ll represent their product, or how I’ll present myself. Or in this case, explain my behavior. I just didn’t give a fuck anymore.
“We’re thrilled you won. We need to talk about how you’re presenting yourself in public and your demeanor.”
He said a bunch of other shit to me, basically warning me that if I didn’t get my shit together, they’d be forced to look at pulling my sponsorship.
Honestly, I don’t think they would. They’d be making a huge mistake if they did. I know that’s cocky of me to think, but it’s just like me to think like that these days. I need knocking up the side of the fucking head.
I don’t remember what I said after the race. So upstairs, alone in my room, I sit down at the computer and pull up the highlights from the event, which to my surprise, didn’t include my interview. That was bad. Winner of the event and it wasn’t on the highlight reel.
YouTube helped me out.
After the event, they handed me a microphone. I’m not sure why anyone thought that would be a good idea. Probably because I had won. I was supposed to talk about the win.
Do you think I did that?
In the interview, I can tell just by looking at my face, I’m high on adrenaline but still dumb enough to say something stupid when the announcer says to me, “Shade, the media has been going on and on about you being on a downward spiral. There’s been a lot of talk that your performance is being affected by the recent difficulties in your personal life. Looks like you’ve moved on with no problem even after the recent suicide of your childhood friend, Rhya Morgan.”
Let’s just pause here. I’ll even pause the video. Let me ask you something. . . how would you respond to that question?
You’d say, fuck you, right? Or is it just me?
Not only did he insult my performance, but he also brought up Rhya.
I push Play again.
Do you see my face? Do you notice the way my knuckles tighten around the helmet in my hand? Do you notice the way it takes every ounce of control I have not to knock him the fuck out for what he just said?
I notice, even now, even a day later, and I don’t see how Willa or Dan would have a problem with what I’m about to say.
“Moved on?” I laugh and throw my helmet on the ground like a spoiled brat. Maybe throwing the helmet could have been done without, but I do it anyway. And then I add, rather smugly, “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
I don’t see a problem with what I did. At all.