Chapter 13 Lewis #2
“Food, drink, respect… You guys are the sweetest. When does the stripper get here?”
Lane snorts. “Don’t push it, man. We just want you to get to the good stuff, ASAP.”
Makes sense. I drop my bag and collapse onto the sofa with a heavy sigh.
Adam nudges me with his knee. “So?”
I settle into the pillows and take a swig of beer, half tempted to hold back. I don’t have to spill everything, after all, but… Who am I kidding? It’s too insane to keep to myself.
As we munch through our pizza, I tell them all about Brooklyn, and I totally get my friends’ incredulous faces—the past twenty-four hours have been so crazy I hardly believe it all myself.
“So, you think she was serious when she made Sycamore Heights a no-go?” Lane asks.
I shrug. “I’m no specialist. I was kinda shaken by the whole thing, you know? But yeah, I guess you could say I feel pretty confident about it all. You should’ve seen how they all bent over for Amy. It was scary as fuck—and kind of hot.”
“You realize if we hadn’t forced you to go over and speak to her in the first place, you might never have got your car back?” Lane says.
“Hey, give me some credit, man. When I got into that Pontiac, I put my life on the line.”
“Yeah, except Firebird was driving.”
“Sure, but just her showing up at RJ’s garage would’ve helped, anyway.”
Lane tilts his head. “You sure about that?”
“I guess it doesn’t really matter,” I say breezily. “What matters is that my Dodge is back home, safe and sound.”
“Okay, so call me a shit-stirrer, but we need to talk.” Don jumps to his feet. “What’s the situation with Amy? We onboarding her?”
I frown. “Dude… What part of ‘the girl hangs with gangsters and hookers’ didn’t you get?”
“The drag race thing is a big deal, I get that.” He nods. “But she left New York, right? She told you she decided to leave that shit behind her, and that she wanted to be a Campus Driver.”
“Oh, well, I guess if she says so…”
“You saying you don’t trust her?”
Donovan’s question throws me, and my chest tightens, like I just said something huge.
“You really don’t get it, do you? She put her neck on the line for you, even though you fired her ass.”
“I know she did.”
“That’s a huge deal, especially when you consider what an asshole you can be. I’m guessing you put her through hell,” adds Adam.
“That was some team fucking spirit she showed back there.” Don nods, like he’s her lawyer or something. “She had your back like a true Campus Driver trooper. Except we’re your best friends, while she didn’t owe you shit.”
“Don’s right. That’s the Campus Drivers spirit, right there.”
Lane thinks for a moment. “And having someone who knows people could be a good thing.”
“Trust me—the people I met in Brooklyn aren’t the kind you’d want to know.”
“That’s why we should at least take Firebird for a spin.”
Been there, done that. Amy’s parted thighs suddenly flash before my eyes. I swallow hard.
“Don’t you feel the tiniest bit grateful?”
“Of course I do, Don! Don’t get me wrong, I’m insanely happy I got the Dodge back. I’d give her free trips for life.”
“So, why are you so hung up about this?”
“Why are you guys so hung up about it?”
He shrugs. “I’ve just got a good feeling about her. Don’t ask me why. She’s giving me a vibe.”
“A ‘here comes trouble’ kinda vibe?”
“Talk to her about it again,” Adam suggests. “Figure out what she’s thinking; check how serious she is about getting herself cleaned up. There’s one semester to go before we decide—at least give her a go. Put her on a trial.”
Lane nods. “Second that. Get to know her a little, set some boundaries and see what happens. If it doesn’t work out, at least you gave it a shot.”
“Yeah, I might lose my kneecaps in the process, but no big deal, am I right?”
I sigh. The truth is, I’m not as anti-Amy as I was before; having her join the team doesn’t freak me out as much as it used to.
She showed me she definitely isn’t a chronic staller.
She loves cars as much as we do, too—she straight up went to New York, no questions asked.
And she didn’t ask for anything in return, either.
But something’s still bugging me—what I haven’t told my friends is that I broke the “Don’t screw your colleagues” rule.
It’s all good between me and Firebird, but they can never know we slept together.
Don clears his throat. “You guys spent two nights in a motel, right? Just checking you didn’t…”
Fuck. I must have been giving a sex face.
He makes a circle with his fingers and thrusts his index back and forth while screeching like a dying cat, like I need showing how it works, and just as he reaches peak howl, Carrie steps into the room, pausing mid-bite while sinking her teeth into an apple.
When Don realizes we’re all gazing over his shoulder, he clears his throat and spins around to his girlfriend.
“Hey, babe…”
“Stay classy, Wolinski.” She takes another bite. “You just lost the trophy, by the way.”
“What? Why!”
She narrows her eyes, and though Don tries to mirror her, he sucks at this.
“She scares me,” I whisper to Lane and Adam.
“Don’t think we’re letting you off the hook, Lewis.”
I sigh. “Christmas vacation is coming up—why don’t I decide once we’re back?”
“I’m spending Christmas with Lois’s family in Fort Myers and we’re bringing Jeff back with us,” Lane reminds me. “Remember what we said? We’re doing New Year’s Eve together, and we’re inviting our recruits so we can all bond and shit.”
“News to me—but you seem really into it.” I frown. “Is this one of Lois’s ideas?”
“Carter got it from Becca.”
“Because those two always have the best ideas…”
“I think getting them all together would actually work out great,” Adam counters. “If they make it to the end of onboarding, they’ll be colleagues—they need to start hanging out.”
“Yeah, and they all lived happily ever after.” I pull a face at him. “Amelia coming?”
“Yup.”
“That because you’re in love, or because Donovan made you?”
“What do you think, you douche?”
I laugh. “You’re triggering my anxiety.”
I’m expecting him to bat back some quip—argue with me or explain himself or something—but he just shoots me this smirk, and I don’t like it one bit.
I’ve got a bad feeling about all this…
“Are you guys finally going to—”
He cuts me off, one eye on his phone. “My mom wants to know when we’re going to her place. I want to spend a few days there—any preference?”
This year, I’m spending Christmas with Adam and his mom, since my parents are busy working on a luxury cabin in Maine all through December.
I don’t mind—I’m used to their insane work schedules, and I know we’ll catch up at some point.
Plus, Nancy is like a second mother to me.
She lives next door to my parents back in West Virginia; I used to spend a hell of a lot of time over there as a kid.
“I’ve got a game on the twenty-second, and then we’ve got our party on the thirty-first,” I think aloud. “So that would give us a week. That work for you?”
“Let’s do it.”
“That’ll give me a couple of days to spend at my tree house.”
Adam nods. “And between now and the twenty-second, I can go see Amelia in Washington.”
“And I can get back into my groove and focus on Firebird. And pick up a gift for Nancy,” I add.
“She’s gonna be an amazing Campus Driver, I can feel it.”
“Who, your mom?”
“Fuck!” he snorts. “Can you imagine? Yeah, drunk-driving would be a very unique selling point.”
We burst out laughing. There’s literally nothing funny about his mom’s drinking problem—not even a little bit.
But after years of dealing with hot-mess Nancy and her endless rehab spirals, we’ve learned to put things into perspective.
Things are still rocky sometimes, but overall, Nancy is holding up okay—and she’s managing to stick to the boundaries Adam and I have set for her, too.
“I was talking about Amy.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, I got that part. Don’t forget you’ve only met her once, though.”
“She made a good impression on me.”
“We’ll see,” I temper. “I’m planning on talking to her before I sign her up for any more training.”
“Hey, you’re the boss.”
Adam’s right—Amy Hitman’s definitely giving Campus Driver vibes. She’s got a bunch of things going for her (ass included), but I really need some kind of reassurance that she plans on playing by the rules from now on. I need her squeaky clean.