Undeterred, Lana set her own course, she always had, even when she was a dumb kid. How the hell they didn’t realize after raising her that she’d never let them get away with controlling her in the long term, I’d never know. There was no way someone as tenacious and determined as Lana would ever be happy living with her parents. She knew her mind, even if she was impulsive as hell.
It was the same fiercely independent spark in her that made her such a force on the track.
For a while anyway.
The same kind of spark I saw in Mayhem when she didn’t have to go head to head with Tilly in a jam, under the influence of whatever demons held her in their grip.
What the fuck am I doing?
Not here parked in Lana’s driveway. I always come here when I’m in town. But getting involved with Mayhem? Totally new territory for me.
Or trying to get involved.
Okay, that didn’t sound right. There was no getting or trying to get involved. Two months and I’d be out of here.
Caring maybe?
Nope, that was worse. Way worse.
Shit.
Flexing my hands on the wheel, I snapped the back of my head against the headrest and closed my eyes.
Big mistake.
She was there. In the darkness behind my closed eyelids. In the constant replay of the other morning at The Shipwreck.
Fucking with my head.
Fucking with my promises.
This was what? The hundredth, two hundredth replay by now?
Vivid, as though she stood before me again, the wisps of red hair slipped from her bandana and fluttered over her cheeks. The glimpses of pain etched in her eyes I caught when she thought no one was paying attention. The steely determination in their cool blue depths as she shot daggers at me.
For the first time in years, I didn’t feel like I was going through the motions. Wake up, shower, put on my uniform, punch the clock, go home, eat a flavorless dinner, watch a game, fall into bed, rinse and repeat.
I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that dabbling in the land of the living lit a craving in me for my family, my home.
And for some reason, for the mouthy derby girl who wore her mysteriously-wounded heart on her sleeve.
That stubborn lift of her chin, the almost permanent narrowing of her suspicious eyes, and that pierced eyebrow raised in defiance of every word out of my mouth pushed at something deep in me I wanted to ignite and let burn out of control. With only a handful of minutes, a whole bunch of attitude, and the intimate confessions in the form of orgasm plans she let slip from her lips while she leaned on my arm, she’d tapped into a part of me that had been dormant for a lot longer than ten years.
She made me feel out of control in a way I hadn’t felt since I was a teenager. An angry kid who’d reeled in the haze of ruin when he lost his mom. Who under the influence of the absolute devastation left behind, made the worst mistake of his life fracturing his already wounded family to the point of crippling heartbreak.
It was only the beginning of catastrophic mistakes I would make, could make, when I let people in. Mayhem thought the gossip around Galloway Bay about me was bad?
If only she knew the truth.
Twin brothers. One alive. One dead.
One very much to blame, who didn’t deserve forgiveness. One who fooled himself into thinking he could move on only to have karma crash around him until he retreated into his misery again.
If I let her get too close, if I let her tap into the long-buried part of me, it wouldn’t eek out in a trickle. Oh no. I’d been holding that shit back for so long, it rivaled the force of any turbulent, storm-ravaged sea crashing relentlessly against a rocky coast.
Cracking open that well of pain, anger, and resentment would flood everything and everyone in its path.
Resurrecting the past wouldn’t change it. It would only bring agony, but fuck if I could separate the two and make sense of any of it. Even when I knew every encounter with her, with derby, with my mistakes would eventually destroy everyone left in the world I cared about, here I was, itching to challenge her.
I wanted her in my face, full of attitude and insults. Every time I came at her, I wanted her to come back harder. I wanted to push every button she had until I figured out her reactions, her every impulse, and then, only then, I’d bend her to my will. I wanted to teach her how to hammer every one of her weaknesses, pummeling them over and over until all that remained was steely strength.
I wanted to coach.
Needed to coach.
And I couldn’t.
Perhaps the most dangerous of all, I wanted to answer her question the other morning, and any that came after. That’s how I knew I was in real trouble. So much so I put off coming into town for two days just so I wouldn’t run into her or anything derby.
Old me stirred deep inside and for the first time in ten years, I wondered if I’d be able to hold him back. To keep him from falling into this sport, this town, this legacy once again.
If that wasn’t bad enough, I’d have to be dead inside to miss the way her body reacted to mine.
News flash, I’m not dead inside.
If anything, I’m a lot less dead inside than I was hoping I would be.
Or need to be, to make it through another fifty-eight days in Galloway Bay.
Thwap. Thwap. Thwap. “Yo!”
I jerked and glanced toward the familiar voice outside my window.
“Stalking doesn’t suit you, Coach. It’s pretty gross, actually. Can’t they
