Chapter 10
TEN
The weekend ends with me winning all three races.
A sweep like this used to end with me partying or celebrating with the team. Instead, I’m watching the setting sun alone from the top of my trailer, a six-pack beside me.
How the mighty have fallen, I suppose.
I don’t mind the solitude, though—not when I spent the entire weekend still unable to flip, not when every attempt brings that same nervous energy to my gut, and not when the thought of going back to Indy sometimes feels so far away, like a pipe dream I might never reach.
Each day, things feel a bit more hopeless, and I’m fine drowning in those emotions alone.
I’m sipping my beer and dwelling on my melancholy thoughts when golden tresses catch in the low light of the setting sun beneath me.
“Heartbreaker?” She looks around before I let out a short, loud whistle. Finally, she looks up, and she grins at me.
Not the teasing one, not the entertained-but-mildly-annoyed one.
A real, true, honest-to-god grin. It lights something in me, casting away the shadows of my bad mood. Even when her look turns into confusion, it leaves that lightness in my chest, a lingering reprieve from my dark thoughts.
“What are you doing up there?”
“Just hanging out,” I say with a shrug. She lifts an eyebrow at me.
“Should I call a trusted adult for you?” I let out a loud laugh, sincere and filled with unexpected joy, before I tip my head toward her.
“Come up here and find out.”
“Are you going to push me off?” she asks, but makes her way to the ladder on the side of the trailer.
“No, but I will offer you a beer.” Her blonde head pops over the edge.
“A beer I’ll accept,” she says, clambering up before sitting beside me, about a foot between us. I hand her a beer, and she looks down at it, trying to see if it’s a twist-off.
“I can help you,” I say, and she glares at me.
“I can do it. Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I can’t open a beer.”
“I know that.” I lift an eyebrow but lean back on my hands, entertained as I watch her try to open it. Her nails are perfectly manicured, painted a light pink, though short to fit into the regulation gloves we wear.
After a few moments of struggling, she sighs and tips the bottle to me. “Can you open this for me?”
“Feminism falling short?” I joke, but take the bottle and pop the top easily before handing it back. She bats her eyelashes before taking a long pull.
“I’m so glad your feminism is stronger than mine.” We fall into an easy silence, watching the sun sink as we drink. At some point, some of the spotlights turn on, lighting up the walkway beneath us.
“So, is this what champions do?” she asks, breaking the silence. When I lift my eyebrows in question, she expands. “You won every match this weekend. Shouldn’t you be out celebrating and living your playboy life? Getting some? Going out on a date?” I let out a laugh and shake my head.
“No, no. Not tonight. I don’t really do that anymore.” Her head tilts, that assessing gaze that catches everything, reading my face. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever actually been on a date.”
“You’ve never been on a date?”
I shrug, but shake my head.
“In high school, I was too busy trying to learn everything I could about racing to care much about actual dates. Then I was out on the road with Monster Smash, a new city every week. Same with Indy. I guess I never really had the opportunity or the need to date.” It sounds as arrogant and douchey as it feels, but she doesn’t call me out on it.
“Huh,” she says. “So you never did mall and the movies?” I shake my head. “Have you ever had an Auntie Anne’s pretzel?”
“Baby, I’m from Philly. I don’t do Auntie Anne’s.” It’s one of the pet names that she seems to dislike, but she doesn’t call me out on it. Instead, she just smiles brighter.
“They’re not real pretzels. It’s a whole other kind of treat.
If you go into it expecting a soft pretzel, yeah, you’ll be disappointed.
But if you go into it expecting some kind of pretzel-adjacent, melted-butter-drenched bread situation, you’re in for a treat.
” I smile to myself at the way she talks.
There are two sides to her, it seems: one side is all buttoned up, a badass who is prepared for people to underestimate her.
But I’m finding there’s another side, a softer, sweeter one—the one who giggles and talks about pretzels and chats with little girls at a meet and greet.
If I’m being honest, I don’t know which version I like better.
“That sounds disgusting,” I say with a grin, and she shrugs.
“Like you’d know taste. I’ve seen what you eat from catering. Sad boring salads with grilled chicken.”
“Greens and protein.”
“Have you ever had a Nerds Gummy Cluster?” I blink at her a few times, and she bends her neck back, groaning at the sky before giving me a pitying look. “My god, for a man who has traveled the world and accomplished some great things, you’ve lived a pretty sheltered life, you know?” I grin at her.
“Can you leak that to a tabloid? I could use some good press.” With my words, she lets out a loud laugh that rings through the night air, her head tipped back, her light hair multicolored in the setting sun.
I’ve never been skilled at anything but driving, and I’ve never mourned that fact, but right now, I do.
Deeply.
I wish I were a photographer to capture the shot, wish I were a painter to put it on canvas for eternity, anything where I could immortalize this moment and visit it over and over again.
Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how you see it—the moment is broken a moment later.
“Is that you, Lana?” an all-too-familiar voice calls. We both look down to see Tyler standing with a group that includes Oliver and Jordan.
“Hey, Tyler,” she says, jovial and kind as she waves down at him.
“What are you doing up there?”
“Drinking a beer,” she says, lifting the bottle as if he couldn’t figure it out, as if we hadn’t done this a dozen times as kids. But that was years ago, and now he can barely even look at me without scowling.
Years ago, Tyler, Oliver, and I would come up on someone’s trailer with a pack of beers that one of the older drivers had bought for us and daydream, planning our future.
The races, the awards, the women we’d have.
The accomplishments, the glitz, and the glam of it all.
Things were so much easier back then, without the expectations, the pressure, the suffocating press.
Before all of it got between us, turning my closest friends into people who can’t stand the sight of me.
“We’re all going out. Want to come?” he calls up.
“Yes! Lana, come along!” Melanie, who works for my dad’s company and is overseeing the transportation for Monster Smash, says, her voice pleading. “I’m outnumbered!”
“You can go,” I murmur, lifting the bottle to my lips and taking a deep drink.
Her focus shifts from me to the group on the ground before setting the bottle down.
My heart sinks, and I fucking hate what a loser I’ve become.
I tell myself it’s just because I want to beat Tyler, not because I’m actually disappointed she won’t be here, but I don’t know if I believe it.
But then she reaches out for my hand. Her fingers are warm as they twine with mine, softer than my own. I take it in, and something flares in my chest at the sight of it, at how perfectly it fits in mine.
“Nah, I’m good here. You guys have fun, though, yeah?
“ she says, smiling down at the group. My heart jumps, and I feel like a kid with his first crush. I’ve done what I can to put distance between Lana and me, making an effort not to speak to her unless I have to.
And when I do, I make sure to say something douchey enough to piss her off.
But it’s not working the way it normally does.
Instead, arguing with Lana gives me the same thrill as racing—turning the last corner on the final lap, knowing someone’s on your ass, waiting for you to screw up and give them an opening to pass, but knowing all the same that if you hold out, you’ll win the whole damn thing.
Part of me wonders what winning Lana over would look like.
Something tells me she hasn’t let many people do it.
“You didn’t have to stay here,” I say, looking to her after the group walks off.
“I know.” It’s a simple statement, two words that tell a dozen more. “I wanted to.”
Her words hang between us, heavy and filled with meaning I’m too scared to look into, not needing another disappointment. For a moment, I can’t breathe as her eyes roam my face. Between one breath and another, it’s like she’s cracked through the exterior I hide behind and found… something else.
Someone else.
Someone no one gets, not anymore.
“What happened there?” she asks. “With you and Tyler. You two used to be friends, right?” I sigh and nod before taking a long sip of my beer, weighing what I want to say, and she lets me have that time.
I like it, how she doesn’t push, doesn’t get annoyed when I go quiet, and I think that’s why I feel pulled to open up.
“We started in Monster Smash at the same time. I was eighteen, he was twenty, and we got close quickly, being the rookies. You know how it is, everyone questioning you, everyone doubting you.” She nods, giving me a soft smile and a squeeze of her hand still in mine before I continue.
“We got close. I told him about my plan to go into Indy when I was twenty-two. My dad…” I hesitate, not liking to bring this up, to remind people that I have ties to the industry that could change the way they see me, but I do it anyway.
“My dad owns the transport company for Monster Smash, and he’s part-owner of DeLuca Racing, the team I drive for—” I hesitate, then correct myself, that knife twisting in my gut as I do.
“Drove for. I always wanted to drive for his team, but he wanted me to go to college. Told me if I tried out before I was twenty-two, he’d blacklist me, and I knew he meant it.
He also blacklisted me from every other racing circuit I could find.
He really wanted me to go to college to get a degree, but all I wanted was to race. ”
“Stubborn,” she says, a small smile on her lips that I return.
“A bit. So I found a loophole. He never said I had to go to college, and he didn’t blacklist me from Monster Smash. It was an easy transition since I drove trucks, four-wheelers, and dirt bikes when I wasn’t racing.”
“Anything with an engine, huh?”
I smile fondly. “Exactly. An adrenaline junkie from a young age.”
“I get it. Relatable.” I like that, knowing she understands the addiction to endorphins, to that feeling of being in a fast vehicle, probably too fast, of being in control—but only just barely.
“Tyler and I planned to try out at the same time, leave Monster Smash together. But when the time came, I got in, and he didn’t.” She cringes.
“That had to hurt.” I lift my shoulder and take a sip of my beer, looking ahead at the almost-set sun, trying not to show her how much it still weighs on me.
“He thinks it’s because of who my dad is that I got in, that I’m some nepo baby who was given my spot.
It was a blind tryout, though. No one knew who I was.
I made sure of it.” I try to keep my tone light and not seem too affected by it, even if that assumption has ruled the last five years of my career.
“How do you feel about that?” she asks, and I turn to her, confusion moving through me. “About people thinking you didn’t earn your place?”
“What does it matter? I’m the cocky bad boy. Other people’s opinions don’t matter.”
“I still don’t buy that,” she says, and with her words, my pulse picks up. “I think it’s all bullshit. I think you want people to think you’re some playboy, this bad boy. I think you’re comfortable being an asshole.”
“You’d know about masks, I suppose,” I say, trying to divert attention, not liking the way it’s targeted at me, or the way it’s hitting dead on.
“Would I?” she asks, and relief moves through me, knowing I can shift the focus.
“Yeah. I mean, what was that the other day with your brothers?”
“What was what?”
“You were weird with them.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know. I’m used to this version of you. Sassy, a little bratty, arguing and questioning everything. Not backing down. But there…you were another person.”
“You don’t think you know me enough to know if I’m different,” she says, words suddenly stiff.
“I know you well enough to know you don’t take shit from anyone, and you’ve got a backbone made of steel.
But they showed up, and it was missing. You were suddenly fine with them saying you couldn’t win because you were a girl—that you weren’t a real driver compared to me.
It was bizarre.” I think she’s going to argue with me, to tell me I’m wrong as she looks off into the distance.
But instead, she gets quiet. As she did for me, I give her space, letting my thumb graze the back of her hand as I wait. After a while, she lets out a sigh.
“They just… they’re my brothers. Sometimes when I’m around them, I turn back into the little girl I used to be, trying to impress them and get them to like me.”
“By making yourself smaller?”
“I guess. It’s an old habit I’ve held on to. But you sticking up for me helped. They were a lot cooler at dinner after the race, like they remembered I’m not their kid sister anymore.”
“I’m sure kicking ass on the track helped,” I say, and she lets out a small laugh, too self-deprecating for my liking.
“I wouldn’t say I kicked ass, but I am getting better.”
“You are. As I said, if you keep going, you’re going to win big. I know it.” She turns to me with an easy smile back on her lips, now that we’re past my picking at her weak spots.
“Right now, my only goal is to kick your ass.”
“Mmm, good luck with that,” I say.
“I don’t think I need luck. I’ve got skill,” she says.
It’s a slow, languid tipping of her full, pink lips, the look filled with challenge and easy friendship, and it sets me off balance in a way I can’t quite pinpoint.
Before I can decode it, though, a firework explodes in the distance, and Lana gasps.
Soon, more appear, seemingly from the neighboring baseball stadium, and we watch the show in comfortable silence.
The entire time we’re up there, her hand stays in mine.