With the way his shorts flirted with me earlier, I needed to do something with my hands. This seemed pretty innocent considering the fuck-me vibes swinging in his yum-yum zone.
Plus, there was Eve and I didn’t want to do anything so in her face that it caused her more pain. I’d take my cues from her where that was concerned…and we were getting there.
His head fell back, the skin over his Adam’s apple stretched taut. “Would you rather I break your rule again?”
I wanted to bite him there. Right. Fucking. There. “Not yet.”
“But soon?”
“We’ll see,” I said, skating out of his arms and heading for my duffel.
We packed up in under ten minutes and our cars rolled like a damn caravan right into town and filled the parking lot.
No one died…and we had some fucking celebrating to do.
Milton and Gerald sat at the end of the counter chatting it up with Patti.
“Boys, I hope you’re being good for Patti,” I called out.
“They’re beered up, happy as clams over here, both of them exposing their tender underbellies like good little dogs.”
“Damn, Patti! Way to lay a guy low,” Gerald grumbled.
I ducked over, wrapped an arm around each of their shoulders, and kissed both of them on the cheek. “I’m proud of you boys for getting along. Makes me much freer with my kisses.”
“Well, hell, Maisy Jane, if you’d told me that’s all it would take, I would have started behaving a long time ago,” Milton said, kissing my cheek and patting my back. “Keep being good for Patti over here. I’ve got to join my team. We’ve got some celebrating to do.”
“No climbing my bar, missy,” Patti warned as I backed away.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I said with a wink.
I spotted Rita in the opposite corner with her husband, Len. “Did you have a hand in getting those kids cleared to go out to the farm today?” I called to her.
She winked as Len took her hand and kissed her knuckles. “That might have been me.”
“I owe you, huge. Thank you.”
Rory let out a whistle, snagging Patti’s attention. “A round of Banked Tracks—”
Tilly watched all the commotion with a cautious look on her face. I knew she wouldn’t like our usual, but I also knew she probably felt just awkward and out of place enough, she’d never say so after taking the first sip and would just suffer through it to fit in.
I had her back.
“Pick something else tonight, guys. Tilly doesn’t like root beer. Besides, we could use a special drink for tonight to celebrate.”
“That’s cool. What do you like?” Zara asked as she passed the drink menu to Tilly.
“I’ll be right back. That big ass bottle of water I sucked down on the drive here is knocking.”
I ducked into the bathroom, did my business, washed my hands, caught my face in the mirror, and froze.
Clear, bright eyes stared back at me. A healthy pink hue glowed on my happily flushed cheeks. My chin tilted with confidence, my chest out and shoulders back.
I didn’t recognize myself.
And it’s exactly what I kidded myself into thinking I looked like all along.
This was the look I wanted Rylee to have on her face.
Well, shit. My team would just have to win some money and make sure I got to stick around long enough to help Rylee achieve it.
I headed back to the derby booth and spotted Tilly’s empty seat. “Where’s Tilly?”
Rory shrugged. “She said she had to go. Guess we can order those Banked Tracks after all.”
22
“Jackson left his dad in charge of the cash register so he could be here helping us today. Let’s make it worth it,” Priest said from the edge of the track as we got ready to go for a full day.
Fucking weekend practices were the worst. Long hours, packed lunches reminiscent of days without the less discerning palates we needed to actually find them awesome, and sun shining over fresh snow crystals blanketing the ground from the night before whispering to us to come out and play.
I need a playday so freaking bad.
In true Jackson form, he’d managed to snag a pink tank top for his stint reffing from the infield. He’d even gone so far as to scrawl Beautifully Brutal over the chest in thick Sharpie. And on the back, the number 6-6-6 with a scribble of the grim reaper wielding a scythe, his evil laughter spelled out in a word bubble over his head.
Rory watched him skate by, spotted the back of his tank, and choked on her coffee. “We should see if he’s willing to be one of our officials.”
“You know, it’s not a bad idea,” Sean said as she clicked the buckle to her helmet. “Then, if anything happened to our deal with Sid’s, we’d have a direct line on somewhere else to play…you know, since Jackson would have a vested interest and all. He’d make a great skate mechanic too.”
I pulled on my wrist guard and glanced up at Jackson and Priest, their heads together as they scanned their notes. “I’m kind of digging this plan.”
“Or we could use Sid’s for our very own banked track and use Rockabilly’s for flat track,” Marty said. “I’d be up for it.”
My fingers froze and my heart perked up its tired little head after the wave of adrenaline and pure fucking joy from having the kids here to watch us waned far too fast. Not that I wasn’t still driven. I was. I just wanted my kids. Wes could totally drive them here every few days for mandatory hugs, couldn’t he?
“What do you mean, start our own league?” I said as I tucked a nonstick gauze pad on the inside of my elbows. Anything to help soak up the buckets of sweat coming my way today. If I could get out of this unchafed, it’d be a damn miracle.
“We could. If we really wanted to,” Marty said, her crooked grin telling me she was latching on to the idea.
The money
