Chapter 27



BECKS

The engine revs down the backstretch, the computer in front of me reporting all of the gauges in the car that I usually study and scrutinize religiously.

But not today.

Today the constantly fluctuating numbers don’t register at all. I see them, I record them, but where they usually reflect specific issues with the car, today they don’t trigger to life anything in my brain.

“We good?” Colton’s disembodied voice comes through my headset, and I realize I didn’t even check what I was supposed to, so I can’t answer him. I don’t have a clue.

I’d love to say, Yeah, we’re good, but this is my best friend’s life in a car that will fly close to if not over two hundred miles per hour. I can’t bullshit him, even though the thought crosses my mind.

“Sorry, Wood,” I tell him, calling him the nickname someone on the race team gave him years ago. “Got distracted with something. Wasn’t able to track the numbers.” I ignore the glances from the crew when they hear my explanation over their headsets. They saw me sitting at the computer. No distraction occurred whatsoever. “Give me a sec, and I can pull them up, make sure they’re within range.”

“Feels like they are,” Colton says, his voice strained from the force as he enters turn three. “Ass end’s not sliding anymore on the top side. Feels like the guys fixed it with that last adjustment.”

“Good,” I tell him as I scramble to study the numbers and make sure his assessment is in fact correct.

Fuck if Haddie’s not gotten to me—goddamn voodooed me—but hell if I can tell Colton that. Explain to him I’m so distracted by a woman who keeps pushing me away that I can’t focus on my fucking job. Yeah. Cuz that’s professionalism at its finest.

“Good? That’s all you’ve got for me?” The car accelerates out of turn one, his voice vibrating with the pressure against his body. “Why don’t you work on pulling your head out of your ass and doing your fucking job, huh?”

I bite the knee-jerk reaction on my tongue to tell him to go to hell. I deserve the shit he just gave me after blowing our meeting yesterday with Penzoil because I was too distracted.

“Numbers are within range.” I tell him as my eyes glance over the last gauge readings. “We’re all set.”

There’s silence on the radio, and I know he knows I’m off my game right now. He won’t ask why because hell, we’re guys and don’t get all touchy-feely, and shit, but I never fuck up with sponsors. And I fucked up with Penzoil without a doubt.

The silence hangs there, the sound of the engine all I hear on the open mic as I wait to see if he’s going to push my buttons here or if he’ll rake me over the coals in private.

It’s one or the other. Colton’s not the type of guy to let something like this go. Not because I fucked up, but because as much as he’ll never admit it, he cares. The stubborn bastard.

“Good. I’m taking her for another twenty. Balls out,” he finally says. And I know it’s his way of saying, You paying attention now?

The car’s dialed, and for him to run full throttle is something he knows I hate. Runs the risk of fucking up its perfect state. He’s goading me into reaction, and fuck him, I’ve got enough shit to deal with, I don’t need him on my back too.

“Have fun,” I tell him, noticing Smitty down the line whip his head over to look at me when my typical arguing with Colton over unnecessary risks doesn’t come.

Fuck. It must be pretty obvious, I don’t have my shit together.

Colton’s only response is a deep rev of the engine, which to me says, Fuck you. I start packing my shit up as my mind absently notes the turns one through four as he hits them from the pitch of the engine alone.

I debate sticking around for him to get out of the car and dealing with the ration of shit I know he’s gonna give me but figure it’s not worth it. I’m pissed and moody and going to blows with my best friend isn’t something I want to tempt.

Although, fuck, is it tempting.

Maybe I just want to get a reaction out of someone since it seems like I can’t get shit out of Haddie.

Zip. Zero. Zilch.

Anger, accusations, indifference … anything would be better than the silence.

It’s been five days since I went to her house and found her in the backyard. I can still see the look in her eyes, feel the desperate hunger in her touch. But riding next to that is the rejection on her tongue and the sting in her words.

And then she got me so goddamn flustered that I told her I loved her. Fucking loved her. Something I hadn’t even fully admitted to myself because thinking you feel it is one thing, but saying it aloud—putting it out into the universe—you can’t take that shit back. And then what did she do in return?

Nothing.

Not a goddamn thing.

Not a single Becks wait or Don’t go. Not a Wow this is too fast or Are you fucking crazy? She gave me nothing but guarded eyes and complete withdrawal.

I shove the hurt back down. Push away the unanswered phone calls and unread texts, the numerous times I’ve driven past her house to see if she’s home, and the time I spent pounding on her door last night because her car was in the driveway. My pleas for her to open up, to talk to me, tell me she’s okay, that she hates me, really chooses Dante. Something. Anything. This suspended state of limbo fucking sucks.

The woman’s reduced me to a needy son of a bitch, and I hate it.

My thoughts are racing faster than Colton around the track right now, and I just need to quiet my head for a bit. I shove up out of my seat, ignoring the looks I get from the rest of the guys in the view box, and grab my keys. I glance down at my cell and pretend I’m reading a text as I make my way to the door. “Tell Wood something came up, and I have to bail. I’ll call him later.”

I don’t wait for a response because I need to pull a Haddie.

Lose myself for a bit so that I feel a whole lot less. Fuck.

Listening to what my damn heart is saying is new for me. And it’s a goddamn muscle, so why am I hoping that it can give me some answers?

Muscles may not be able to make sense of something, but hell if they can’t ache with pain when they’re used and abused.

And she sure as fuck did just that.

So why do I still want her?

Fucking love.

* * *

The music is bluesy, the lighting on the dark side, and the beer ice-cold as it slides down my throat. The best part about being in my favorite pub besides being left the fuck alone is that all I have to do is raise my chin to Vivian, and she brings me another round without a single word.

It may be her first week on the job and we’ve just met, but Viv’s my new best friend for that alone.

The texts have finally stopped after two hours of constant pestering. But not a single one is from the person I want.

I’m enjoying feeling sorry for myself, wallowing in a damn ocean of barley and hops with a few odd shots thrown in here and there. My lips are numb, my head is quiet—spinning but still quiet—and I still don’t have a fucking clue how she could choose him over me.

“More her type, my ass,” I mutter to myself, thinking of the last thing she said to me. Sweet fuck. I can blame my drunk mind on why I don’t understand, but the haze isn’t strong enough to forget that I’m drinking because I can’t make sense of it sober, either.

I raise my chin to Vivian again. Might as well add to the clutter of glasses lined up on my table.

I lean back in the booth I’ve commandeered at the back of Sully’s Pub and cross my legs, which are stretched out on the bench. I run through the possible scenarios in my head, trying to figure how we went from sleepless nights and that look in her eyes when I left her after the trip to Ojai to here.

I mean, fuck, it was hard not to go to the last Scandalous event a few nights back. Took everything I had to not go sit in a dark corner of the club and watch her, make sure she’s okay. Just see her—because damn, I miss her—but then that would be stalkerish.

I refrained by drinking a six-pack and watching the game.

I thank Vivian when the bottle slides onto the table in front of me and consider calling Rylee. It’s a stupid fucking move on my part, but what other choices do I have at this point? It’s gotta be the alcohol pussifying my thoughts.

But damn, the alcohol just might have a point.

Then I realize that as much as I want to know what the hell Haddie is thinking, I also want to ask Rylee if she’s gotten the test results back yet. I know it’s nothing, but there’s that tiny bit of worry that’s still unsettling. And since Haddie won’t communicate with me in any way, shape, or form, I decide to ask Rylee.

My God, that’s pathetic.

Wait. I can’t ask Rylee about test results because she doesn’t even know about Haddie’s damn biopsy in the first place. There goes that plan.

I close my eyes, welcoming the off-kilter spin of my world right now because if life’s not going to make sense, you might as well do it drunk, right?

“Gonna drink yourself into a good mood or what?”

I snap my head forward at the sound of Colton’s voice and immediately look over to where Vivian stands. She scrunches up her face and mouths the words I’m sorry as she points the blame at Miller, the bartender who knows Colton and me as frequent customers.

Fuck. When did he get on shift? I thought I had lucked out with a new waitress and old Earl, who couldn’t care less what I was doing over here by myself.