“My hands won’t stop shaking.” I don’t respond because I’m holding my breath as he picks up the pace and enters into turn one. “Becks is gonna be pissed because my head’s fucked up.”
I glance over at Becks again and see the smile flash on his face, and I know he’s listening in, making sure his best friend is okay. “It’s okay … watching you out there? Mine is fucked up too … but you’re ready, you can do this.”
“Aren’t we a fucking pair?” He snorts into the radio and I can sense a little of his anxiety and fear dissipating with each passing second. I see the guys around me relax some as they notice the smile widen on Beckett’s face.
“We are indeed,” I laugh before releasing an exhale in relief. God, I love you, I want to say, but refrain. The rumble increases down the backstretch and I can’t fight the grin on my face at the sound of success. “Hey, Ace, can I bring the guys back on?”
“Yeah,” he says followed quickly by, “Ry … I …”
My heart swells at the emotion in his voice. I can hear the apology, feel the absolute sincerity behind it. “I know, Colton. Me too.”
I fight the tears of happiness that well up, and when I look up at Beckett he has a soft smile on his face. He shakes his head ever so subtly and mouths the word lifeline to me.
FEAR IS A BRUTAL BITCH to face.
It squeezes your lungs so you can’t breathe, locks your jaw to bear the brunt of your stress, and cinches your heart so your blood rushes through your body.
The guys are at my back pretending to be busy. Ignoring the fact that I’m standing in front of my car, staring at the cause of my biggest fucking fear right now and my greatest goddamn salvation. I need it more than ever between the bullshit Tawny hit me with and not having the one person I want most but don’t want to taint any further around.
Rylee.
She said she’d be here when I got in the car for the first time. I need her here, need to know she’s here to come back to at the end of the run. The salve to my stained soul. But how in the fuck could I call her and ask her when I’ve pushed her so far away?
So here I stand, surrounded by my crew but battling the shit in my head all alone. And of course my mind veers to the vultures at the gates that shoved cameras in my face and spewed Tawny’s bullshit lies about Rylee when I left the house earlier. Then it slides back to Rylee and how much I want her here right now.
Fuck this, Donavan. Quit being such a pussy and get in the goddamn car. You’ve faced shit ten times worse than this. You’ve got this. Man the fuck up and get in the car.
I take a deep breath and squeeze my eyes shut momentarily as I lift my helmet and push it down on my head. My silent acknowledgement to the guys that I’m ready to tackle this.
It takes me a minute to buckle my helmet; my hands tremble like a motherfucker. Becks steps forward to help and I glare at him to back the fuck off. If I can’t fasten this then I don’t deserve to get behind the wheel.
I slide my hand up the nose toward the cockpit. I knock softly out of habit to ease my superstitious mind.
Spiderman. Batman. Superman. Ironman.
Four knocks, one for each of the superheroes that the little boy in me still thinks will help protect him. They pulled me through the last crash, I know they’re good for it.
I take a deep breath and try not to think as I lift one leg and then the other so I can drop into the driver’s seat. I sit there, try to make myself numb so I can’t feel the fear coursing through me and trickling down the line of my spine in rivulets of sweat.
Becks steps up and locks the steering wheel in place and thank fuck for that because now I have somewhere I can put my hands and grip so that they stop shaking. I feel his hand pat the top of my helmet like he usually does, but before he clicks my HANS device he pulls my helmet up so I’m forced to look at him.
I see the fear flicker in his eyes but I also see resolve. “All you, Wood. Take your time. Ease into her.” He nods at me. “Just like riding a bike.”
A bike my ass. But I nod at him because I have a feeling I could argue the point just to cause a distraction from actually having to do this. I focus on the wheel in front of me as he studies me, gauging whether I really am okay being here.
“I’m good,” I lie. And he stands there for a minute more before the guys bring the crank out and we fire the engine.
The reverberation through my body and sound in my ears of the engine’s rumble is like coming home and making me question myself all at once. Kind of like Rylee.
I hold onto that thought—to the idea of her being here when she’s not—as I rev the motor a few times. It sounds the same and yet so very different from the memory still hit and miss in my mind from the wreck.
The crew gets over the wall and it’s just Becks and me. He leans over and pulls on my harness, the same way he has for the past fourteen years. It’s comforting in a sense because he doesn’t act like anything is different, knows that this is what I need. Routine. The sense that everything is the same when it’s a clusterfuck in my head.
He raps the hood twice as is his habit and walks away. I don’t follow him because if I do, I know I’ll see the falter in his step. And his hesitancy will reaffirm my fear that I’m not ready.
I give it some gas, let the car rumble all around me to clear my head, and psych myself to do this. And I sit here long enough that I know I look like a pussy who shouldn’t be in the car so I put the car in gear and begin to ease out onto pit row. My heart is in my throat and my body vibrates from more than just the car. Nerves and anxiety collide with the need to be here, to do this, to be able to outrun my demons and find the freedom-laced solace I’ve always been able to find on the track.
I exit pit row and squeeze the wheel, frustrated that my fucking grandmother can drive faster than I am.
“That’s it, Wood. Nice and easy,” Becks says, and it takes everything I have to shut him out, to listen to the car like I always do and try and hear what she’s telling me. But I can’t drown out the bullshit in my head so I close my eyes momentarily and tell myself to just push the gas and go.
And I do. I push it, flick the paddle as I change gears, and enter the high line into turn two because I’m not going fast enough to have to worry about drifting into the wall.
But the more I accelerate, the less I hear. She’s not talking to me. The noises aren’t the same. “Goddammit, Becks! This car is shit! I thought you checked everything. It’s—”
“Nothing’s wrong with the car, Colton.”
“Bullshit! It’s shuddering like a bitch and is gonna come apart once I open her up,” I grate out, pissed at that placating tone in his voice. I’m the one in the fucking car—the one that can possibly slam headfirst into the wall—not him.
“It’s a new car. I checked every inch of it.”
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Beckett! Goddammit!” I pound my fist against the steering wheel, completely backing off the gas.
I know he says something about taking it nice and easy but I don’t really hear it because the flashback hits me so hard I suffocate in the open air.
The car stops but dizziness spirals through me.
My body slams to a stop but my head hasn’t.
A breath shocks into me as I realize what just happened. That I survived that tumbling pirouette into the catch fence. That I escaped the shredded fucking mass of metal on the track at my back.
Pain radiates around me like a motherfucking freight train. My head splinters into a million damn pieces, hands grabbing and groping and pushing and prodding. That familiar pang twists in my gut because I don’t want anyone’s hands on me, can’t handle the feeling. I don’t want to be reminded of the little boy I used to be and the fear that used to course through me when I was touched by others. By him.
Medical jargon flies at a rapid pace and it’s so technical I can’t catch the gist. Just tell me if I’m going to be fucking all right. Just tell me if I’m dead or alive, because I s
wear to God my life really did just flash before my eyes and what I thought was going to be … what I thought I wanted out of life … just got twisted and turned more than the aluminum of my car.
How could I have been so wrong? How could I have thought change would be the catalyst when it ended up being my fucking epiphany? Shows me to try and change the road fate’s already set for me.
I writhe to get away from the hands that touch, twisting and turning to find her. To go back and tell her that I was so wrong. Everything I put her through. Each rejection and rebuff was my fault. Was a huge mistake.
How do I make it right again?
Pain grapples again and mixes with the fear that ripples under the surface. My head feels like it is going to explode. Lazy clouds of haze float in and out and eat the memories away. Take them with them as they leave and fade. Darkness overcomes the edges until I can’t take it anymore. Voices shout and hands assess my injuries, but I fade.
My thoughts.
My past.
My life.
Bit by bit.
Piece by piece.
Until I am cloaked in the cover of darkness.
“Colton?” It’s her voice that shocks me from my memory like a drowning man finally breaking the surface for air. I gasp in a breath just as hungrily.
I shake my head and look around. I’m all alone on the backstretch of the track, sweat soaking through my fire suit. Did I really hear Ry or was that part of my flashback?
“Rylee?” I call her name. I don’t care that there are guys on the mics that probably think I’m losing it because she’s not here … because they’re right. I am losing it.
“Talk to me. Tell me what’s going through your head. No one’s on the radio but you and me.”
She’s here. It’s her. I don’t even know what to do because I feel like I’m hit with a wave of emotions. Relief, fear, anxiety, need.
“Ry … I can’t … I don’t think I can …” I’m such a fucking head case that I can’t string my thoughts together to finish a thought.
“You can do this,” she tells me like she actually believes it, because I sure as fuck don’t. “This is California, Colton, not Florida. There’s no traffic. No rookie drivers to make stupid mistakes. No smoke you can’t see through. No wreck to drive into. It’s just you and me, Colton. You and me, nothing but sheets.”
Those words. I know they don’t belong right here in this moment but fuck if they don’t draw a sliver of a laugh from my mouth but that’s all I can manage because they also make me think of everything I’ve put her through. How nothing but sheets between us has led to her having to deal with the fallout of Tawny and all of that bullshit.
And yet somehow she’s here. She came for me. Does she have any fucking clue what that means to me especially when I’m the last one on earth that deserves her right now?
I pushed and now she’s pulling.
“I just …” Can’t do this anymore. Push you away and hurt you. Push the gas and drive the car. Not have you near me.
I know my head’s fucked up but I’m in overload mode again and then she speaks and lets light into my darkness.
“You can do this, Colton. We can do this together, okay? I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
I don’t deserve you. Your faith in me. Your belief in me.
“Are your hands on the wheel?” The confidence in her voice staggers me when I feel anything but.
“Mmm-hmm … but my right hand—”
“Is perfectly okay. I’ve seen you use it,” she says and the thought flickers through my head of just how she saw it the last time we had sex.
“Is your foot on the pedal?” she asks.
“Ry?” I want to stay in these thoughts of her, don’t want the fear to ride the wave back into my psyche.
“Pedal. Yes or no?”
“Yes …” But I’m not sure I can do this.
“Okay, clear your head. It’s just you and the track, Ace. You can do this. You need this. It’s your freedom, remember?”
She knows the words to pull me back from the edge. I take a deep breath and hold on to the confidence that she has to try and override the fear crippling my thoughts with images and sensations of tumbling into the wall. The wall that looks exactly like the one to the right of me.
Surrounding me.
C’mon, Donavan. Engage the motor. Prevent it from dying. The engine revs and a part of me sighs at the progress.
“You know this like the back of your hand … push down on the gas. Flick the paddle and press down.”
I make myself focus on her voice, hold on to the thought that she came back to help fix the broken in me. And the car starts to move down the backstretch and into turn three.
“Okay … see? You’ve got this. You don’t have to go fast. It’s a new car, it’s going to feel different. Becks will be pissed if you burn up the engine anyway so take it slow.”
I push a little harder, accelerator unsteady, but I’m starting to move around the track. I pass the point similar to where I went into the wall in St. Petersburg and I force my mind to tune out the unease and focus on listening to the car talk to me.
“You okay?” I can’t answer her because I may be trying to engage mentally but my body is still owned by the fear. “Talk to me, Colton. I’m right here.”
“My hands won’t stop shaking,” I tell her as I look at the gauges and realize I’m going faster. And with speed I need to concentrate on the feeling of the track beneath me, the pull of the wheel one way or another, the camber when I hit the corners. Routine items I can diagnose without thinking. Because I don’t want to think. Then doubts come, fear creeps.
I shake the thought and sigh, knowing how much shit I’m going to get from Becks since I’m not focusing like I should on the task at hand. “Becks is gonna be pissed because my head’s fucked-up.”
She doesn’t respond and I start to crawl back in my own mind for a moment when she clears her throat. She has my attention now. Is she crying?
“It’s okay … watching you out there? Mine is fucked-up too … but you’re ready. You can do this.” Something about her willingness to be vulnerable to me when I know she’s standing around all the guys hits places inside I’m glad I can’t analyze right now.
“Aren’t we a fucking pair?” I laugh, finding it rather humorous how screwed up we both are.
“We are indeed,” she says, and the little laugh she emits tells me so much. I press the accelerator down some. I’ve never needed approval from anyone, but right now I need it from her. Need her to see that I’m trying, both on and off the track.
“Hey, Ace, can I bring the guys back on?”
“Yeah,” I reply quickly. I hit turn four again and feel a little more confident, a lot more sure that I can do this. And I know how a large part of that is because she’s here. Shit, even after I was an asshole to her, have put her through hell with the paparazzi chasing her, she’s still here. “Ry … I …” My voice fades but my mind completes them.
I’m sorry.
I race you.
Thank you.
“I know, Colton. Me too.” Her voice breaks when she says it, and I feel like I can breathe again, like my world was just somehow set right when it’s been inside out the time without her.
THE CAR ENTERS THE PITS and rolls to a stop. Beckett’s at its side in an instant while I fidget behind the wall, wanting to see Colton face to face to make sure he’s okay. He removes the steering wheel and hands it to Becks before unbuckling his helmet. Becks helps him unfasten it from the HANS device, and when he pulls it from his head, removing the balaclava with it, the crew erupts into a roar of cheers.
Chills dance at the celebratory sounds as Becks helps him out of the car. I step over the wall with the rest of the crew, unable to stay at a distance any longer because now Colton stands there hot, sweaty, and oh my God sexy. Pride tinged with desire spears through me at the sight of him.
Attending to the car is forgotten as his crew pa
ts him on the shoulders and welcomes him back. Beckett just looks at him with a shit-eating grin on his handsome face. “I’m proud of you, dude, but fuck, your lap times sucked.”
Colton laughs again, slinging an arm around his friend. “I can always count on you to knock me down a few pegs.” He goes to say something else and then stops when he sees me.
I have a déjà vu moment, Colton standing amidst the whirling chaos of his crew, eyes locked on mine, sexy-as-sin grin wide on his lips. Time stops again as the world falls away and we stare at each other.
I know there are so many things we need to talk about—need to figure out from the last time we spoke—but at the same time I need this connection with him. Need the carnal physicality between the two of us that hits me like a shock wave as it crosses the distance between us and crashes into me before we can figure the rest out.
And I know he feels it too because within a beat Colton strides toward me with purpose. Within an instant of reaching me, my legs are wrapped around his waist and our mouths are on one another’s with a frenzied need. My hands grip his shoulders. One of his grabs my backside while the other grips my neck, holding my mouth to his, so he can take everything I am offering, and then some.
“God, I fucking missed you,” he growls into my mouth between kisses. And without preamble we are on the move. His powerful legs stride beneath me, and strong arms hold me secure while his lips bruise mine in unbidden possession.
Noise filters back. Hoots and hollers of the crew ring through the empty stadium as Colton makes no apologies for walking away without a second thought. Someone shouts “Get a room!” and I am so overwhelmed, so desperate to sate the desire unfurling within and shocking through my system that I answer before Colton can.
“Who needs a room?” I say before my lips crash back against his, hands fisting in his hair, hips grinding into his as his erection rubs against me with every step.
Laughter rings out followed by catcalls, but they’re only background noise to the freight train of desire bearing down on us. “Hurry,” I tell him in between desperate kisses.