Hot Laps (10 page)

Tell me something here. When you send an email, you expect an email back in return—or
at least I do, right?

This bullshit where they then call you is unacceptable to me. I want to say, “Hey,
asshole, I sent you a fucking email because I didn’t want to hear your annoying voice!
Just reply back to it.”

But I didn’t. I needed this job. I bit my fucking tongue. This office shit was really
hard work.

So they called, I was nice and eventually I was able to get back to the more important
aspects of my day, like figuring out my plans for tonight.

Around four, I was counting down the minutes until four thirty when I could leave
and just about the time I did, I stood up intending to run home, take a few drinks
from the keg in my room and head to the party with Anna. I really needed to relax
after today.

Just as I was intending to leave, there, in my cubicle was the dirty talking engine
builder all smirks and sexy hair.

Gah!

“Where you off to in such a hurry?” he asked, his voice low and smooth. He looked
tired and quite frankly, even sexier as he fought to keep his eyes open.

“You look tired. I thought by all your dirty engine talking you had endurance?”

Casten squinted tipping his head to one side. His hand came up as he ran his thumb
back and forth over his bottom lip before a smirk appeared. “I am by no means ready
for tonight to end.”

I smiled thinking of our dirty talking earlier and his smirk now.

His eyes softened. “And where is it you’re off to?”

I leaned against the side of my desk and pretended to fix my boot. I only did this
to draw his attention toward my legs. They were a “deal-sealing” asset of mine from
all the years of trying to out run cops.

“I’m actually heading home to change and then heading off to a party down town.” And
then I thought about the Saran wrap on my car and the box knife on my desk. I picked
it up and he smiled backing and holding his hands up.

“Easy there. I was just curious.”

“Oh, I wasn’t going to shank you or anything. Those assholes over at JAR Racing wrapped
my car in Saran wrap.”

Naturally, he laughed. “Oh, go easy on them. They do it to everyone. If it makes you
feel better, I pissed in Tommy’s gas tank before he left,” he said this as though
this sort of thing happened all the time. I had no doubt it did.

Casten smiled, again, his eyes rose from the deal-sealing legs and set some paper
work on my desk.

Oh, he came up here to give me the supply orders. Damn.

Secretly, I was a little crushed he didn’t just venture up here for the sake of me
and my winning personality that had so captivated him earlier. Regardless, he was
talking to me though. That right there was a win-win.

“So this party … you going alone?” he asked with a mischievous smirk.

“I’m going with my friend, Anna. I’m not sure where it’s at.”

“Mooresville is a small town. I bet I know that party.”

“Oh yeah?”

He too leaned against the side of my desk appearing just as comfortable as he had
been with me earlier today. “Well, that depends…” he began. “Where is this party at
exactly?”

Rummaging through my bag, I looked down at my phone to the text Anna sent with the
address.

“9 Victory Lane?”

His smile widened. “Well, I suppose I’ve heard of the party, after all … it’s my house.”

Well shit.

Ladies and gentlemen, tonight just got real fucking interesting.

Instantly I tried to think of what I should wear. It’s not every day you go to a party
at Casten Riley’s house.

And just like always, I think he heard my internal thoughts.

Just as he turned to walk back downstairs, he stopped and ran his hand over the back
of his neck. “You shouldn’t change. You look great.”

Skinny jeans and knee high boots it is.

“Are your friends going to be there? Are they annoying?” I asked, trying to appear
imperturbable to his ways.

“Are you?” he asked me back, straight-faced.

“Are my friends going? Anna is.”

“No, I’m asking if you’re annoying.”

“Well, why would you ask that, asshole?” I acted offended, giving him a glare, and
shoving his shoulder back.

Did nothing. He only laughed. “You asked me.” His hand came up rubbing his shoulder.

We started to walk towards the door and I sighed looking out at my car.

“Good luck with that. Hope you make it to the party.”

Yeah, he didn’t help me cut my way into my Saran wrapped piece of shit car. It took
me forty-nine minutes to pull that shit off, and you wanna know where I left it?

The bathroom at JAR Racing. Filled every toilet with that shit. Someone around here
had to clean the bathrooms and it wasn’t me.

Word around the shop was that the bathroom attendant was whoever lost a bet the week
before.

As I was leaving, I thought of Jameson. Probably because of all his sprint cars in
the show room in which I had to walk past to get to the parking lot. “If he invites
you to a party, say no.”

Morally, one would make the decision not to go, right?

Morally I wasn’t all there. So that decision was fairly simple on my part.

Wheelstand – A term used in sprint car racing when the front tires come off the ground.

The last time I threw a party at my parent’s house, it got out of control pretty fast.
It started when Lane tried to jump over a fire jump and then it just spiraled out
of control from there fast. Mostly because we almost burned down there house.

But tonight, I was fairly confident this wasn’t going to happen. We had a controlled
area for the bonfire and I had hoses on hand should anything get out of control.

The world knew about that party where the field caught on fire because the video was
still on YouTube, thanks to Noah.

This time we weren’t allowing fucking cameras.

I had some years on me now and I think I learned what not to do in regards to the
party scene.

“You take that GoPro and shove it up your ass, Cole.” I said to him when I noticed
he had one in his hand. Stupid jerk was always videotaping everything.

“Your parents have security cameras, Casten.” He snapped, irritated. Whenever anyone
said anything about his cameras, he took offense. I get it, I do. It’s his thing.
He’s really good at it. But his thing has got us in more trouble than I care to think
about.

Shit
. Security cameras.

Nathan, my buddy over at Leddy Motorsports down the street from us, was a pro at that
electronic shit. We had that handled. I knew he could disconnect them.

When he got to the house about seven, I asked him who all he invited.

He shrugged. “I only invited a couple girls. Anna and Jessica.”

“I don’t know them.”

“Who’d you invite?” Nathan hugged Rosa when she walked by, she slapped his ass, something
she did to all my friends.

“No one. Oh, well, Zoey might come but she never said yes or no.” Then I remembered
Hayden. “And that new girl from the shop is coming, too.”

Nathan grinned taking a drink from a beer Rosa handed him. “You fishin’ in the pussy
pond at work?”

“Nah.”

I roamed the house after Nathan got there and soon after Noah showed up with all the
food. We loaded up on junk food and Rosa was now in the kitchen cooking some appetizers
for us. Who knew she could actually cook.

She also supplied the beer for us. No doubt my parents wouldn’t be pleased if they
knew Rosa bought us beer but what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. It’s not like
they haven’t bought it for me a time or two either. I remember getting drunk with
my dad when I was only sixteen.

It’s all about responsibility.

Yeah, I lacked that for the most part, but usually I never drink and drive.

“Hey man,” Noah held his keys up in the air. “I’m going to pick up the jelly.”

I smiled thinking of how that was going to work out. We still didn’t have an exact
plan but the goal was to fill the pool with jelly and try to walk across it should
it be thick enough.

It was nearing the time when everyone was about to arrive and when I couldn’t find
Cole I went looking for him.

I wanted to ignore it, but Cole was getting into some harder drugs on occasions and
I wasn’t okay with that…especially in my parent’s house.

When I saw him in the bathroom off the kitchen doing a line of what looked to be cocaine,
I had something to say about it. “That shit is for losers, man.”

It wasn’t the first time I caught him and it probably wouldn’t be the last. I wasn’t
okay with him doing it around me. I wanted no part of that shit. Like most kids, I
experimented with drugs on occasion but I never kept with the heavy shit. Cole was
taking it to the next level and I had a feeling if his mother found out, Cole would
be in deep shit. He was petrified of Aunt Alley – as most of us were.

Cole laughed it off, sniffing and flicking his nose with his thumb but didn’t say
anymore and pushed past me to the kitchen.

“Where’s Charlie?” he asked, looking around for him.

“At the ER.” I stood next to Rosa in the kitchen tasting everything as she made it.
My favorite was the bacon wrapped halibut she always made. Tasted like heaven!

“What happened?” Rosa seemed concerned, looking to me for an answer.

“We put spray adhesive on his tools last night and thought they’d stick when he picked
them up, or at least be hard to put down.” Rosa smiled knowing where this was going.
“But, it didn’t do anything but make his tools look textured so Willie put gorilla
glue on a few to see what would happen.”

“And it got stuck?”

“He seriously could not get it off.” I popped another bacon wrapped halibut bite in
my mouth, chewing slowly. “So now he’s at the hospital.”

“Poor guy.”

“Uh, Rosa, two weeks ago Charlie put Kool-Aid packets in your shoes.” I looked down
at her green feet. “Your feet are still green.”

She thought about that for a minute and then glared straight ahead at nothing in particular.
“That fucker.”

Cole and I sat there eating everything Rosa made before she finally gave up and told
us there would be nothing left for the party if we ate it all. Didn’t matter to us.

My thoughts drifted to Hayden and those jeans she wore today. Then I thought about
the engine terms I was telling her about. I laughed out loud when I thought about
it to which Cole and Rosa looked curiously at me.

“What’s so funny?” Cole asked.

“Nothing.”

I wasn’t sure how tonight would end with Hayden, maybe in my bed, maybe not. I wasn’t
planning on it but if it happened, I wouldn’t stop it. Dad had warned me not to sleep
with anyone at work because it caused problems.

And while I’d avoided Olivia for two years now, Hayden was different. She was a lot
like me and I dug that.

But, I wasn’t into sleeping with girls while we were drunk and I had a good feeling
tonight we’d both be really drunk. Personally, I think it took away from the experience
when you’re drunk and I cared for Hayden. I didn’t want to just treat her like some
kind of toy. She was more than that and I knew it right away.

Then I thought, what if she doesn’t even come tonight.

The thought depressed me a little and I felt like I was in some kind of wheelstand,
controlled by stagger, until I heard the doorbell.

High Line – This refers to a driver taking the high line, usually the fastest in some
cases, and passing cars to do so.

Those next few hours were probably the most nerve racking hours of my life. I drank
six beers, told Adam to go fuck himself for using my toothbrush again and then headed
to the party where I met up with Anna on the street. She was late, as usual, getting
off work and then she had to pick me up because some of that Saran wrap got under
the hood and melted to my engine. Now when I started the car it looked like I was
doing burnouts.