***
Sitting in the late afternoon California sunshine, I let the vibrations from the cars on the track flow through me. The scream of the engine helps push out any other thoughts. I’d give my left nut to be the one who’s behind the wheel right now, but even I know I’m probably still half-drunk from last night.
“He looks good out there.” Beckett Daniels’ deep Southern twang breaks through the peace I was just beginning to find.
“Yup.” I don’t take my eyes off the car.
“How long do you think you can keep doing this?” I’ve been wondering how long it would be before we had this conversation, but Becks probably doesn’t realize that he couldn’t have picked a worse time to come at me with this.
“Not today, Becks.” My voice is flat. I don’t have it in me to fight today. I’m already battling the memories of Brooke’s face last night, and there’s not enough left of me to try to explain what’s going on to Becks. The fear in her eyes has plagued me all day. She's all I see when I close my eyes.
“You can’t keep doing this to yourself.” He tries again.
“No offense, Becks, but you’re my race manager, not my life manager.” I regret the sharp words the second they pass my lips, but he needs to quit already.
“See, that’s where you’re just plain wrong,” he drawls, sounding a little smug. “When the choices you’re making outside the car affect the things you do inside the car, it becomes my business to tell you that you’re out of line.”
“My driving is fine—”
“Your numbers are down, Tuck.” He cuts me off. “You’ve consistently pulled your slowest laps every run for the last three weeks. And shall we talk about how your sponsors will feel if it gets out how much you’ve been cutting loose lately? They love a bit of controversy, we all know that, but falling out of clubs with barely dressed women hanging off you at three-am gets old real fast.”
Fuck. I don’t need this today. The urge to run blazes through me. Everything is falling apart around me, and it feels like I can't do anything to keep it all together.
“Whatever is going on in that head of yours, work it out. You can’t continue down the path you’re on, kid.”
“Beck—”
“Yeah, yeah. Save it, kid. I already know what you’re about to say. There’s nothing wrong; you got it under control. Newsflash, Tuck, this ain’t my first Rodeo. You’re not the first tortured soul I’ve had to deal with. On and off the track.”
The denial is on the tip of my tongue. The need to refute what he’s saying burns inside me. Beckett doesn’t know me; nobody knows me, not really. I learned long ago that letting people in only causes hurt, and that’s why every person in my life is held at arms-length. Nobody gets close enough to get the opportunity to hurt me, not anymore.
I might not have let anyone in, but I trust Beckett Daniels with my life; I have to in this business. So I have to accept that there’s some truth in what he’s saying, even when I’m almost consumed with the need to tell him and everyone else to go fuck themselves.
“This team needs you, kid. But we need the Tucker Neal we signed, not the one that’s sitting here with me now. Get ahold on it or you’re out of the car for at least a week.” Slamming his hand down on my shoulder, Becks gives me a little shake before he stands and walks down the bleachers, leaving me with more shit swirling around my mind than when I sat down here hours ago.
I’ve worked too damn long and too damn hard to fuck this up. I need to get my head out of my ass and back into the car. And to do that, I have to face the cause of my problems. The past. That starts with apologizing to Brooke.
CHAPTER EIGHT
TUCKER
The screen of my phone illuminates the gloomy evening light of my balcony. Ignoring the incoming text, I take a long drink from the bottle in my hand, concentrating on the city lights that sprawl out in front of me.
Fuck.
I wish I was drinking something stronger.
Growing up in the wide-open spaces of the Savannah suburbs, I never thought I’d end up here in a penthouse apartment in downtown LA. The day I left Georgia behind, I had nothing but the clothes on my back, ninety dollars in the bank, and my shitty truck.
California wasn’t on my radar when I ran; I just knew I needed to get as far away as I possibly could. Starting out, I worked any job that would pay me enough to eat which was construction more often than not. That first year, I worked my fingers to the bone doing sixty-hour weeks, then I would race the piece of shit car I saved to buy at nights and weekends. I never stayed in one place long; the loneliness plagued me no matter where I went.
It was pure luck that I won a race out in Phoenix against a kid who worked for a legit race crew. Instead of threatening to kick my ass like most of the idiots that tried to race me, he gave me a business card and told me to meet him the next day at the track.
I skipped work the next day and went to meet him. Turns out, that was the best damned decision I’d made in a long time. Within a week I’d quit the construction job and was working on a race crew. It was grunt
