44. Chapter 44
It had been a long-ass day, even by Beau’s standards.
He’d sent the crew home after Colt’s Heat for rest, and they’d come back an hour ago to get the car ready for the main event.
Colt had napped in Beau’s truck and come out stiff as a board, and it had taken a lot of work to get him loose again.
The ribs had needed re-wrapping, but the hauler had been so goddamn hot they’d done it on a stool by the car instead while the guys formed a human wall around them to prevent unwanted photos.
“How’s the tape, Jackrabbit?” Beau murmured as he did a quick scan of the people at the back of the riser.
He wasn’t surprised to see the woman in the June bug-green vest standing at the far corner, leaning her forearms across the rails.
She had a headset on and was staring intently at a tablet with a privacy screen on it, a scanner clipped to her belt loop.
Listening in? He’d bet money she was listening to them in particular.
“Got an audience on the line. Keep it clean, boy.”
“That mean no cussing? No talking about how my entire ass is numb from being in this seat so many times today? No—”
“Colt.” Beau rubbed the bridge of his nose. He could just picture that shit-eating grin. “Tell me about the ribs before they start the pace laps.”
Colt sighed. “They’re alright. Hurts like a bitch. Kinda tight. Nothing I can’t handle, though. Might die tomorrow, but today I can get through.”
“Alright, that’s good.” Another coach elbowed Beau as he tried to get a better position, but Beau was bigger.
He didn’t move. “Did some research on car 65 in P1. He’s a tank.
Veteran driver from Vegas, not afraid to drive dirty and toe the line.
And you know your biggest fan behind you, Kendrick.
The ban didn’t extend to the regional races.
He’s gonna have it out for you again, and the stakes are bigger. Watch him.”
“Yes, sir. Keep your eye on the homophobic dickwad. Got it. Gar’s in P4 today. I don’t see Henry anywhere.”
“Wrecked in his Heat while you were sleeping.” The flag went up to start the pace laps, and Beau watched for it to go down. “Rookie took him out. He’s fine, but his car’s done for the day.”
The flag dropped, and the cars started their pace laps.
“Woof. The car feels like it’s on rails, Coach. Track’s changed. Like it’s gripping back.”
A breeze flipped Beau’s hair across his forehead, and he hummed. “Cool air after sunset this time of year. Car’s gonna wanna push you into the wall, but don’t fight it with your arms. You’ll wear yourself out before lap 10.”
“Oh, cool, so head straight to the wall, then? I knew you were trying to off me.”
Beau glanced at the woman in the vest and saw her smirk.
Definitely listening in on them. He looked back at the track.
“Brake deep, let the rear rotate, and let the track’s grip do the work on the exit.
By lap twenty, half these guys are gonna have cooked their front tires trying to force the turn. Play the long game.”
“The long game, huh?” Colt gave a low laugh. Flirty little shit could not help himself. “I’m good at that.”
“Flag’s about to go,” Beau said as all the others on the stand noticed too and pushed forward. “Shiny side up, Colt.”
Colt snorted. “No shiny side on this beast.”
The green flag dropped, and the cars shot into the race.
By lap twenty-two, Colt had moved up two spots. But he’d been in P4 for several laps, and Beau could tell he was getting frustrated by the way P3 kept parking in front of him and not letting him pass.
“Kid’s stuck,” a woman muttered, and he turned to see the suit had sidled up next to him and shoved another coach out of the way. “Right speed, but no room.”
Beau didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Colt was about to answer for him. He watched Colt move to the wall—a massive, daring gap of air—and then the car twitched.
“Watch the entry,” Beau whispered as he gripped the railing until his fingers ached.
Colt kept the car straight, deep into what everyone else would consider the danger zone where he should have been braking.
Then—snap. The mustard-yellow nose plummeted toward the apron.
It looked like a mistake. Like a wreck in progress.
Beau had one long, agonizing moment where he smelled smoke and blood and charred skin.
Just a flash. Then he gritted his teeth and reminded himself of the fifty clean runs he’d watched Colt do yesterday.
It wasn’t recklessness.
It wasn’t a gamble.
It was skill.
“—gonna lose the rear,” the suit was saying when the sounds of the race filtered back in.
He didn’t. Of course he didn’t. Colt rotated on a dime, his rear tires hunting for grip but never breaking loose. He squared the corner so perfectly that by the time the veteran in front of him realized what was happening, Colt was already three car-lengths ahead on the straightaway.
Beau slapped his open palm against the railing. “Yes! Good boy, Colt. Perfect.”
The suit blew out a long whistle and looked down at her stopwatch.
She’d rolled the sleeves of her shirt up, her forearms leanly muscled and covered in tattoos.
“That wasn’t a stock car move. That was an open-wheel line.
He just out-braked a twenty-year vet using a car that weighs thirty-four hundred pounds. ”
She looked at Beau with sharp, blue eyes. “You’re teaching him how to drive a Formula car in a tin box, aren’t you?”
Beau worked his jaw, his heart still thundering against his ribs from the sheer terror of watching Colt almost clip the inside curb. "I'm teaching him how to win," Beau grumbled. "The car is just the tool."
By lap forty-two, the suit had stored her tablet and was leaning so far over the railing that Beau was worried he’d need to pull her back.
The air was crisp and sharp, and the Camaro was a yellow blur under the lights.
He’d made it to P2 and had been stalking the veteran from Vegas in the #65.
They were coming up fast on a group of lapped traffic, and Beau’s eyes narrowed as he spotted the camo Fox Body with a target on its hood.
“Kendrick’s a lap down,” Beau warned, his voice tight. “He’s driving like he’s got a point to prove. Weaving. Stay high and give him room.”
Colt’s breathing was ragged and pained, but his line was tight, his car steady. “He’s blocking the fucking line. Trying to hold us up so the 65 can’t lap him. What an asshole.”
It was true, too. “I know. But be smart. Don’t let him—”
Beau’s sentence was cut off as the scream of tires against asphalt split through the sounds of the crowd.
Kendrick had tried to pinch the #65 into the wall on Turn 4.
It was a dumbass move born of pure, bruised ego.
Couldn’t bear to be lapped. The veteran tapped Kendrick’s bumper, and the camo car snapped.
It didn’t just spin; it over-corrected, slammed into the outside wall, and bounced back into the middle of the track. Right into Colt’s path.
“WRECK.” Beau smashed the talk button just as every other coach and spotter did the same. “COLT—”
___
“—WRECKING!”
Colt watched Kendrick’s car spin into the wall and bounce back like a fucking tennis ball, and his heart stuttered. The impact was like a bomb of fiberglass and oil. The #65 slammed into Kendrick’s side, and the two of them became a mangled, smoking barricade that Colt was headed right for.
Beau’s voice in his ear was an anchor, stern with iron command. “THEY’RE DOWN! GO LOW, COLT! APRON! APRON!”
He couldn’t see the nose of his own goddamn car, nothing but a wall of white smoke and aerosolized oil he was hurtling toward at 90 mph. But he could hear Beau, and there was nothing he trusted more in this world than Beauregard Moore.
Every instinct he had told him to stomp the brake.
He didn’t listen. G-forces hit his ribs like a sledgehammer as he yanked the wheel left, and thank fuck for the KT tape that was holding him together.
The pain was louder than the sounds of rending metal, slamming into his whole torso as he pushed his already-fucked muscles to the limit.
The car lightened as he hit the apron—the flat, forbidden part of the track. But he still couldn’t see shit, and—
CRACK.
Metal shot out of the wreckage and smacked into Colt’s passenger window. The plexiglass spiderwebbed, and Colt’s car tried to swerve from the pressure of the impact. He kept it straight with a will he hadn’t known he had, his foot buried in the floorboards.
He shot out of the smoke into clean air and an open track, nothing but a graveyard of twisted metal and yellow flags in his rearview.
“Clear.” Beau’s voice was wrecked, all gravel and that steely calm he got when he was about to lose his shit. “P1, Jackrabbit. Christ. Bring it home, boy.”
—
Beau fit his hand over his mouth and dragged it down, his legs like jelly, adrenaline shooting sharp and violent through his veins.
“Coach.” Colt’s breaths were tight and wet, and if the race weren’t about to end, Beau would have pulled him. Fuck.
“Yeah, boy, what is it?”
“I feel like I’m gonna hurl.”
A desperate, rasping laugh bubbled up out of Beau’s chest, and he rested his forehead against his hands while Colt and all the safe drivers came to a stop on the track. “Don’t you dare. You puke in your helmet, you’re cleaning it yourself. Unless you want a second puddle to clean.”
Colt laughed, pained. “Can’t handle a little upchuck?”
“Naw, boy.” Beau shook his head, eyes focused on the hood of that yellow car. “Toast puked on my rug a few weeks ago, and I threw the whole damn thing out.”
“Weak.” Colt sucked in air and groaned. “Red flags suck. It hurts, Be—Coach. How much longer?”
Beau glanced at the clean-up effort. “Ten minutes, maybe. Take your hands off the wheel and shake ‘em out. Breathe. You’re doin’ so good. Hold out a little longer for me, alright?”
“Only ‘cause you asked nicely.”
“Brat.”
“Sadist.”
Colt was breathing better by the time the pace car was out, but he had to be feeling the pain.
He kept his car as steady as he could while it tried to crab-walk from the impact on the side during the wreck.
The suit had given him space while he talked Colt through the cool-down, but she was back by the end of the first pace lap.
“He didn’t lift.” She leaned her forearms against the railing, headphones down around her neck. Not listening to them since the crash, Beau thought. “Most drivers would have lifted.”
“Not mine,” Beau mumbled as he watched the track. “Colt, you lost three to the wreck. The 54 is out, too. Was right behind you when it happened, and didn’t make it through. But you watch the 22. She’s been close the whole race. P5 or P6 for most of it.”
“Yeah, I saw her.” A strained laugh. “Knew she’d be good. I’m glad she’s still on the track with me.”
Sure enough, when the green flag dropped and they restarted for the last four laps, #22 made an immediate move.
She pulled up alongside Colt in Turn 1, forcing Colt to defend his position with a series of bitten-off curses.
Beau ached for him, already planning how he’d try to fix it later, rules be damned.
If he had to bring in a goddamn professional to his own house, he would. Colt was hurting something awful.
“Good, Colt.” The bar was cold under Beau’s hand as he rubbed the peeling paint off the metal. “Just like that. You keep going just like that.”
Beau hardly breathed through the next two laps, his heart in his throat, his toes digging into his boots.
Colt was struggling as he defended his place from #22, who was hunting him hard.
The car was off the line just enough to tell Beau Colt couldn’t fight through the pain without compensating anymore.
“Shit,” another coach said, three people down the line. “That TikTok kid is damn good.”
Several others joined the conversation, but Beau didn’t have time to listen.
“White flag, Jackrabbit.” Beau peeled his fingers off the bar just to clench them back on. “Just one more.”
“Thank fuck,” Colt hissed, voice wrecked and shaky. “Can I have a drink? Please, God. Give me a drink when I’m done.”
Beau lowered his voice. “Boy, you win this race, and you can have anything you want.”
“Anything?” Colt rasped, the word strained by the G-forces of the backstretch, barely a whisper. “Don’t make promises you aren’t gonna keep.”
“I don’t,” Beau rumbled. His eye caught a blur of purple. “She’s coming at you on the inside. Watch her on the next turn.”
The #22 dived low in Turn 2, her nose pulling even with Colt’s door.
“Diamond, Colt—give me one more pivot!”
“Fuck,” Colt snarled. “Fucking shit fuck, fuck—”
The turn-in was terrifyingly late, and for just a heartbeat it looked like #22 had him cleared. Then Colt snapped the car with a wordless, ragged yell and shot out in front of her by a full car length. She'd been beat and she knew it.
“Good! Yes. Just two more turns.” Beau tracked Colt’s car through one turn, two—“Checkers!”
He put both hands on his head as Colt crossed the finish line, relief flooding through his body like ice. “Fuck! That's my boy. That's my fucking boy!”
“I can't—Where do I go? I'm—”
“Follow the flags to the pits.” Beau shoved past the crowd of spotters and jogged toward the stairs. “Crew's there, and I'm on my way. You did good, boy. So good. Bring it home.”
The suit was standing on the top step, and she stepped aside at the last possible second as Beau barreled through. She was smiling, but Beau didn't have a second to think about it. His boots slammed against the steps as he took them two at a time.
Colt, Colt, get to Colt right now, he needs you, go—
He made it to the pits just as Camila took Colt’s helmet. Colt smiled at her and then turned to heave, barely missing Xavier's boots.