We raced as a team, won as a team, and you bet your ass we were going to celebrate like a team.
*
Frankie
“Susan texted me.”
Brooks rolled to his side, and I watched the sheet slide down his waist to expose his dick. After we had celebrated with the crew in victory lane, Brooks and I had come back to the trailer to have our own victory party.
“Mom okay?”
I nodded and turned my phone to him. Christy had the time of her life this weekend. Watching Brooks win with King Racing on his car was the cherry on top of the sundae. Susan had stayed close to her all weekend, and from what she reported back to Brooks, she showed no signs of her memory slipping. When we had gotten back to the trailer, Susan had left a note that they were off to grab a hot dog before all of the food stands shut down, but from the looks of it, they happened to find something else.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Frankie. We’re going to have to find a new nurse for Mom.” Brooks covered his eyes and shoved the phone away.
“Why?” I laughed. “I think she helps keep your mom young.” I turned the phone back to me and looked at the picture again. “How many fifty-nine year olds do you know who take a picture with four shirtless twenty-something-year-olds?” Christy was in all her glory in a hot guy sandwich.
“Don’t ever show me anything like that when I’m naked and in bed. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get it up again.”
I tossed my phone on the floor and dove into bed with Brooks. “Is that so?” I laughed. “Perhaps I need to help you think of something else. You know, make everything disappear.” I used his cheesy words against him and felt his body shake beneath me.
“I pour my heart and soul out to you, and what do you do? Throw it back in my face.”
“Oh come on. You know I love it, even if it’s cheesy.”
He rested his hands on my hips. “It did get you in my bed, so you can give me shit for it all you want because you’re the one who fell for it.”
“I fell for it, huh?”
“Hook, line, and sinker.”
I rolled my eyes and leaned down to press a kiss to his lips. “I think you were the one to fall for me first, Mr. Holeshot.”
“Mr. Holeshot, huh?”
I nodded. “Yep, you’re always the first off the line and the first over the finish line. You might as well have the official title.”
“And what should your official title be?” He wondered.
“I’m good with Best Car Chief ever.”
“No, no,” he muttered. “We can do better than that.”
I wasn’t sure how we could do better than that.
“How about the woman I love?”
My jaw dropped, and my breath caught in my throat. “Take it back,” I whispered.
He shook his head and had a huge smile on his face. “Nope, I can’t. I said it, and I mean it.”
No one other than my family had ever said they loved me. They had to love me.
Brooks, on the other hand, didn’t have to.
“See,” I whispered. “You really are Mr. Holeshot. You had to be the first one to say you love me.”
“First one to the finish line always wins, doll.”
And that was the damn truth. “What about being second?”
He tilted his head to the side and smiled. “Well, there really is only one time when being second is acceptable.”
“And when is that?”
“I think you know exactly when that is.”
I bit my lip, planted my hands on the bed, and leaned down ‘til my lips hovered above his. “I’m really not okay with not being first.”
“Then you need to be quicker off the line, doll.”
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. “I love you, Brooks.” I held my breath and waited for him to either laugh in my face or wake up from the dream I was surely in.
“I love you, too, Miss Best Car Chief.”
My eyes popped open, and I busted out laughing. “You think maybe you could add in the world on the end of that?”
He shook his head and pressed a kiss to my lips. “You keep giving me a winning car, and everyone in the world will know just how amazing you are, Frankie. We make a pretty good team.”
I fell onto the bed next to Brooks, and he wrapped his arms around me.
Brooks may have said he loved me first, but we were both winners in the end.
*
Chapter Thirty-Two
Jay
I was slightly drunk, and my brain tried to file through all of the girls I had been with, but I came up blank. She looked familiar, but that was it.
“Do you remember me?”
I paused for a second to make sure I wasn’t about to slur and laid on my usual charm. “I never forget a pretty face, darlin’.” I didn’t, it was just remembering the name that went along with the pretty face I struggled with. Especially when I was nine beers into a twelve pack.
She rolled her eyes and shook her head as if she wasn’t impressed with me. “We hung out a couple of months ago.”
As if that was going to jog my memory. “Oh yeah? We had a great time.” I wished like hell I could remember her name. I very rarely had run-ins with the chicks I hung out with after everything was said and done.
She had the look of someone I would be attracted to, though Frankie and Remy would say that meant she was breathing.
“I know you don’t remember me, but I had to come and talk to you.”
Warning bells went off in my head. I didn’t do repeats. If this chick and I had only hooked up once, that meant we were done. “Oh yeah.”
She took a step closer and tilted her head back to look at me. “I know you’re drunk as hell and probably won’t remember this in the morning, but I can’t leave here without saying something. My name is Delaney, and I’m ninety-nine percent sure you’re the father of my baby.”
My world rolled onto its axis, and I only got one word out before the floor rushed up to me and I blacked out. “Delaney?”
The End
Redlight
Chapter One
Delaney
“Is he dead?”
I crouched down next to Jay and took his pulse. “He appears to have just passed out. Do you have a glass of water or some smelling salts?”
The girl who I assumed was Frankie wrinkled her nose. “I can get the water for you, but last I checked, we aren’t in the eighteen hundreds where smelling salts were a must-need thing.”
“Water will do.”
Frankie didn’t move. “What did you say to him?”
I pressed my knees to the floor and sat back on my butt. “Just that I’m pregnant, and he’s the father.”
Her jaw slowly dropped and a low, “No,” came from her mouth.
“Yes. I’m certain of it.” Was it really that hard to believe I was pregnant? I had taken three tests at home and had already been to see an OBGYN.
I was pregnant, and Jay was the father.
“Are you sure you didn’t kill him? I’m pretty sure that would kill him.”