“Shut up.” I stop at the side of my car and dig a hand into my pockets in search of my keys. “If I win, I should be allowed to celebrate. I’ve earned that right.”
He shrugs. “I’m not saying you can’t. I’m just telling you things might be different if you learned to use your inside voice.”
“You sound like my mother.”
I unlock my car, and drag the door open to reveal the dark interior. Monaco steering wheel. Monaco gear shift. Monaco floormats, even. Damn.
“If I wasn’t gonna brag about winning,” I continue, “then what’s the damn point of racing in the first place? I don’t race to pay my rent, I do it because it’s fun. I work hard, I play hard. And I help the damsels when they need it, but no one remembers that about me.”
“Probably shouldn’t have written your name on that chick’s back,” he snickers. “I feel like maybe that was crossing a line.”
“Fuck it was.”
I slide into my front seat and groan at the feel of soft leather beneath my ass. I wrap my hand around the steering wheel, and appreciate the smallest tweaks that Monaco did to make them more comfortable. To make them more controllable. It’s like the fin on a surfboard. So minor, so easily overlooked – until it isn’t.
“Everybody expects a fighter to raise their arms in the air and shout about winning,” I reason. “But if I do it, it’s obnoxious? Get the fuck outta here with that.”
He leans against the side of my hood and shrugs. “I’m only passing on a message, Bry. I mean, hell, you don’t have to get mad at me about it.” His eyes come to mine, no longer laughing. No longer teasing. “I didn’t mean to put a wedge in our friendship or anything. I was only trying to help you understand why some folks consider you a thorn.” He turns away, and brings a hand up to cover his mouth. “Geez, and now you’re mad at me.”
“Wait. What?” I push out of the front seat and come around. “I didn’t… I wasn’t… Tuck? I didn’t say I was mad at you.”
He turns to me with a shit-eating grin and a raised middle finger. “This is why everyone loves me.”
“You asshole!” I lunge forward and slam a fist into his gut, but it’s barely more than a tap, and ends with laughter. “Jesus, Tuck. I thought you were gonna cry.”
“The chicks dig that.” He pushes me back, and instinctively lifts a leg. He’s gonna kick me in the chest if I come at him again. “Seriously, put on that oh no, I’m so sorry face, and you’ll have any girl eating out of the palm of your hand.”
“Any girl?” My eyes stop on a shiny new car rolling onto the dirt track behind his back. I can’t see inside, and yet, I know. I fucking know it’s Jackson Price. “Really, Tuck? Is there a guarantee on that?”
Catching on to where my eyes have gone, he peeks over his shoulder and watches as – I fucking called it – Jackson slides out of the luxury muscle with Monaco parts added all over the damn place. The passenger door opens, then a pair of impossibly long, denim-clad legs come into view.
“Do you think if I cry in front of that chick, I’ll get her on my side?”
He chuckles and comes back around to study me. “She might be an exception to the rule. Keep your eyes to yourself on that one, Kincaid. You don’t have permission, nor are you likely to get any.”
And yet, my eyes remain on the legs. Then bare arms.
It could be any other chick. It could be one of a million; fuck knows, Price brings a new one most weekends. But then she pushes out of the car, and that long, silky hair bounces against her back as she moves.
She finally stands, full extension, and from beneath the brim of my fucking hat, her eyes meet mine. Defiance. Dare. Pure fucking challenge.
“Aw, shit,” Tuck hisses. “Why’d she have to do that?”
Madilyn
Misinformation
“I want you to stay close.” The moment I come around to his side of the car, Jackson takes my hand in a punishing grip and tugs me close enough that I’m tempted to kick him in the balls. “Maddi?” He bends a little lower to get a peek under my hat.
Bryan’s hat.
I’m wearing the second one he tossed, the one no one knows he gave me. So to them, I’m just wearing a hat. And since it’s not the Padres one everyone saw me steal, I don’t have to answer to my friends why I chose to wear it out tonight.
“Maddi?” he snaps. “Are you listening to me?”
“Yeah.” I try to ignore the Camaro parked fifty or so feet away. I try to ignore the two men that stand by it. I try to ignore the one man whose shoulders seemingly grow and fill with adrenaline as he stares at the side of my face. I fix my purse strap between my breasts, pat the main compartment to make sure it’s sitting on my hip like it should be.
But I don’t pat too hard. I don’t want to crush its contents.
“I’ll be in your sight, Jackson. Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t go to Kincaid tonight.” His eyes scan across the dirt space and narrow. “Not even to fuck with him. If you must, then come and get me. I’ll keep you safe.”
On the outside, I smile. I hold his hand, nod, and play the role of a good girl. But on the inside, I wonder why he thinks I need protection.
Bryan has never hurt me, even though I’ve hurt him. He’s never done anything but remind me that he’s going to keep an eye on me. And considering that my deal with his family, a deal I genuinely hope will be successful for us all, is legitimate, he’ll come around.
“I’ll be good.”
I smile for Jackson, and wonder when in the last week that I decided he gives me the creeps? I grew up with him and Jenna. In their home most weekends. At their dinner table. In their pool. I’m fairly certain Jackson and I have been pretend-married a dozen times already, and at one point, we had a teddy bear family that I was certain I had to mother or they would perish.
We were children, and though we were parented by a bunch of socialites more interested in their mimosas and manicures than they were their children, I figured that we – the children – were in it together. I figured we were evolved and smarter than those who came before us. I thought I had brothers in arms in this weird world and the war that has been pitted against anyone not them.
But here I stand, seemingly on the inside of our group, but in my heart and my gut, I don’t feel like I belong. And that feeling of subjugation makes me feel sick in my stomach.
“I have to check in with Manda,” Jackson murmurs. “Do you wanna stay by the car, or come with me?”
“There’s no third option?” I ask with a teasing smile. Keeping it light.
His eyes come to me. His lips quirk up. “Nope. Come on.”
Without releasing my hand, he throws an arm over my shoulder and leads me right past the Camaro. Like I’m a horse being shown off. Like I’m a trophy. And since I have that part to play, I merely walk under his arm and allow myself to be led past a man whose eyes burn me.
“Bry,” I hear first. Then another. “Bryan! No.”
I watch as Bryan races around to the opposite side of his car. Jackson is… distracted. With his admirers, I suppose. Though I have no clue why he has any.