Nico
NICO
18 Months Later…
“Sweet Jesus. Look at this goddamn mess.”
I rolled over in bed, groaning as some bastard took a hammer to my head. An empty glass thumped to the floor. I grunted against the memories crowding my mind.
A party. Girls. Lots and lots of girls. Booze. A fire pit in the backyard. Naked women swimming in my pool despite the freezing winter temperatures. Sex. A threesome—no, foursome. A band playing, a local up-and-coming rock band with a grungy sound reminiscent of Nirvana in their heyday. I bet this band made it, too. The lead singer had women dripping off him all night.
“!”
Frowning, I opened my eyes a crack and squinted. Met with the twin disapproving glares of Tate and Jared, I closed them again.
“You know where the exit is,” I muttered. “No party poopers allowed.”
A girlish giggle next to me was followed by a screeching of “Oh my God! You’re Tate Flynn! And Jared Kane, too!”
“Thanks, man,” Tate growled, hoisting me upright and planting my feet on the floor.
“Okay, party’s over, ladies,” Jared said, windmilling his arms. “Time to go.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face and cranked my eyes open in time to watch Jared chase a bunch of half-naked women from my bedroom. Once he’d cleared the place, he spun around to face me, his cheeks mottled with fury. “What the fuck is this?”
I grinned and hitched a shoulder. “Fun central, until you two turned up and ruined it.”
Still drunk, I reached for a half-empty bottle of scotch sitting on my nightstand. It’d barely touched my lips before Tate swiped it away.
“You’ve had enough, . And so have we.”
“What do you care?” Near blind from my personal pity party, I almost missed the glimmer of warning in his eyes.
After my accident, I’d been determined to beat the odds, to prove the doctors wrong. I followed every single instruction to the letter, went through hours and hours of painful physiotherapy to repair the shattered bones in my legs and ankles, and rigidly carried out the exercise routine my physicians recommended. Yet in the end, it’d all been for nothing. I couldn’t flex my left foot more than a couple inches, and the right one only slightly more. I was in constant pain, especially if I pushed myself too hard, but the physical agony paled in comparison to the mental torture of knowing I’d never race again.
Goddamn fate, snatching away the only thing—save my parents—that I’d ever loved. Would’ve been kinder if I’d died. Even death was preferable to the empty, nonexistent husk of a man I’d become.
“Oh, we care,” Jared said, anger simmering just below the surface. “Too fucking much. We care a hell of a lot more than you deserve.”
“Go on. Kick a man while he’s down.” I snickered. “You won’t, though, will you, Jared? You won’t because you’re a fucking coward.”
I watched his hand make a fist, and I wanted him to hit me. If he did, I might be able to feel again. There was nothing cowardly about Jared Kane. I just saw a button and pressed it.
“Jesus, .” This from Tate, disappointment lowering his chin to his chest. He shook his head.
I lurched to my feet, shoving at Jared’s chest, goading him. He didn’t shift an inch, his pupils dilating until only a ring of brown remained visible around the outer edge. We stood nose to nose, both breathing noisily and waiting for the other to make a move.
Jared leaned in, his face mere inches from my own. “You want me to hit you, motherfucker? Huh? You want me to give you a broken nose to go along with your broken life? Just say the word, asshole.”
“Guys.” Tate edged closer, ready to step in if fists started flying.
Planting my feet wide, I curled my lip. “Fuck you, Jared. And you, too, Tate.” I hobbled over to my dresser. My ankles were often stiffer in the mornings until a bit of movement loosened them up. I tapped a cigarette from a half-finished pack, another bad habit I’d taken up after the crash. I stuck the tip in my mouth and lit it, blowing a plume of smoke into the air. “What’re you doing here, anyway, Kane? Shouldn’t you be with Paisley.”
Jared’s girlfriend, Paisley, was pregnant with their first child. He should be at home taking care of her, not here being a pain in my arse.
“I asked him to come with me.” Tate scowled. “And he agreed because he’s a good friend. As am I. We’re both more than you deserve, , but if you think we’re going to let you drink, smoke, or fuck yourself to death, you’re sorely mistaken.”
My jaw flexed. I took another drag of the cigarette, then limped out onto the balcony overlooking the swimming pool. The wind bit into my flesh and goosebumps skittered down my bare arms. I’d always thought of London as home, but since my accident, the cold made my ankles so fucking sore. Maybe I should move somewhere warm. California, or Florida. Formula One wasn’t a big sport in America, although it was growing in popularity. But over there, no one would know who I was. I could lick my wounds in peace, and I’d be a twelve hour flight away from these pushy bastards.
I loathed that my once stringently obedient body should now disobey my will with such ease. My dad had instilled in me from a very early age that if you wanted something badly enough, nothing could stand in your way. He made me believe that sheer willpower accompanied by a shit-ton of hard work was enough to accomplish anything I set my mind to. And until this fucking accident, his beliefs had held true.
I’d started karting at the age of four, even helping my dad to build the karts from scratch and then fixing their buckled parts every time I had a mishap.
Which I did. Often.
Racing had been my life for almost twenty-five years.
Hence my rather spectacular fall off the rails in the eighteen months since my accident. I managed to hold it together whenever my parents visited, but other than that I was a fucking mess. Fast approaching thirty, and with no interest in anything outside of racing, I’d drifted into a hamster wheel of a life that consisted of drinking, fucking, more drinking, and more fucking. Women passed through my life in a faceless blur, and I couldn’t recall any of their names even if I had a gun held to my head.
Tate appeared off to my right. He leaned his elbows on the railing, his gaze fixed on the row of trees at the back of my garden.
“Jared and I have a proposition for you,” he said, still staring ahead. “One you’d be mad to turn down. It was Jared’s idea, and I happen to think it has merit. You’re headed for the bottom of the barrel, , and if you don’t grab onto this lifeline, you’re done. We’re done. It’s over.”
Knee-deep in silence, I puffed on my cigarette, blowing smoke rings into the air. Tate didn’t say a word. Not a fucking word.
Clever bastard. He knew me too well.
I held out for about thirty seconds, then sighed. “What idea?”
Jared poked his head around the door. “Stub out the cigarette, get yourself showered and cleaned up, and meet us downstairs. And then we might, might , tell you.”
I turned around slowly and glowered at him. “You’re a twat, Kane.”
He chuckled. “Your English vernacular is the only reason I keep coming around here. Now move your fat ass.”
I smiled, the first genuine smile I’d mustered in… who the fuck knew how long.
“You’re also a bossy bastard.”
Jared returned my smile with one of his own. “Yup, and yet you still keep me around.”
They left me alone to clean up. After a hot shower, a shave, and a set of clean clothes, the pounding in my head faded. Regardless, I knocked back two Advil, gathered up as many of the empty bottles of booze as I could carry, and wandered downstairs. I set them on the kitchen counter and went in search of my two closest friends. After the way I’d behaved, my only fucking friends.
“Jesus, you look half-human.” Jared jerked his chin at a steaming cup of black coffee on the table. “After several of these, we might make up the remaining fifty percent.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Tate drawled.
Flopping onto the couch, I sighed, readying myself for this bright idea of theirs. “Okay, ladies, hit me up.” I blew across the top of my coffee and sipped.
Jared took his feet off the coffee table and straightened. His dark, spiky hair stuck out at all angles as if he’d been raking his fingers through it.
Maybe he had been.
“I’ve been toying with this idea for a little while, but I think now is the right time to get it off the ground, and you’re the man for the job.” He swigged from a plastic bottle of water. “I want to start a racing school for underprivileged kids. Three-way split. You, me, and Tate. And as we’re still racing, we want you to run it.”
I tried to suppress the wince, but Tate caught the way my face twisted.
“Sorry, man.”
I gestured dismissively. “Facts are facts. You guys race. I don’t.” I stared off into the distance, regret sitting squarely on my chest. “I can’t change that.”
“Not for much longer, for me at least.” Jared smiled, his comment an attempt to take the edge off my pain. I appreciated the gesture, even if I thought he was mad to give up racing so his woman could carry on with her mechanical career. Guess that was what love did for a man. Lucky for me I didn’t intend to fall into that trap.
“So, what do you think? You game?” he continued. “There are a bunch of kids out there who would benefit from a project like this. And who knows, we might discover a future champion.”
I rubbed my lips together and let my eyes glaze over, watching as the wind tore across the swimming pool. “You’re not doing this just for me, right? As a way to drag me out of the gutter I’ve lain in for months.”
“No,” Jared said. “This is purely business. If you’re not interested, I’ll find someone else to run it. Just think, . The Three Amigos together again even though our lives are pulling us in different directions right now.”
I looked over at Tate. “And you’re up for this?”
Tate nodded. “Someday my career will end, too. It’ll be nice to have a ready-made venture to spend time on, and in the field we all adore.”
I scratched my newly shaved chin as I considered the proposal. For the first time in a year and a half, a sliver of excitement grazed my insides. My brain woke up to the chance of a fresh start, a focus that would allow me to be around the thing I loved the most: racing. The smell of grease and burning rubber, the opportunity to get my hands dirty changing out an engine, just like I had as a child with Dad. The ability to give a chance to kids who, without a lucky break, might never experience the thrill of racing around a track, the adrenaline, the speed, the g-forces pressing on your chest until you find it impossible to take a full breath.
Sure, it’d be painful to watch others on a track when I could barely drive an automatic. And a manual? Forget it. Pressing the clutch on every gear change was impossible with my fucked-up bones.
But if I didn’t do something to stop the downward spiral that had become my life, who knew where I’d end up? Jared was right. It wouldn’t be easy to claw my way up from rock bottom, and I was damn near there already.
“So where do we locate this school then?”
Jared grinned. “California. I’ve already found the perfect place, a disused airfield. And the owner is willing to sell.”
California. Sunshine. Distance from the memories that darken my nighttime hours. A chance for new beginnings.
Oh, what the hell.
I met Jared’s gaze, flicked my eyes over to Tate, and then nodded. “I’m in.”