The grinding noise was louder than last time, and there was a loud clank that followed when all four tires landed on the ground.
The mower chugged. I stomped on the gas. It lurched forward, but the chugging continued. I couldn’t regain my speed. The man passed me first, then the woman. I chugged behind them to the finish line, where I made a solid finish in third place.
I drove the mower next to Eldon and parked it, shutting the engine off.
“I think something dropped out.”
Eldon nodded, a serious look on his face. “I should have bought new bolts. There’s a time and a place for thriftiness, and lawn mower racing isn’t it.”
I climbed off the mower that had nearly killed me. Unbuckling my pink fashion piece, I tossed it onto the seat of the mower.
I bent over, moving my back side to side, trying to stretch out the kink in my lower vertebrae. Now I knew exactly why Eldon had ended up in that back brace. At least when Eldon climbed on his mower, he knew what he was getting into. Unlike me, who had been caught completely by surprise, thanks to someone I knew...
I straightened up, looked around, and narrowed my eyes when they landed on Riley.
Her eyes widened when she spotted me coming for her. She turned and dodged through the crowd. She paused briefly to try to hide behind Wren, but when she realized that didn’t work, she hurried for the safety of her trailer.
“Excuse me,” I said as I bumped through the crowd of hot dog eaters and children waving sparklers. It wasn’t even close to the 4th yet.
I spun to the left to avoid plowing into Elise. Evading her made me step backwards—right on top of Gunrunner Gabe’s shoes.
I stared into his cold, black eyes. We were the same height, but he still sent a shiver down my spine. He outweighed me by at least fifty pounds, and it wasn’t soft extra weight. The guy was built.
I smiled as big as I could, mumbled an apology under my breath, and took off after Riley.
With all the loud noises, no one paid attention to the shriek Riley let out when she spotted me sprinting after her.
She ran down the street, straight for her trailer. She leapt up her steps, but when she realized she wouldn’t have time to open the door, she jumped down and ran around the back of the trailer.
I reversed my steps and hurried around to beat her to the other side. I had to leap over a potted shrub that looked suspiciously as though it had been shaped like a cat.
Riley rounded the corner in front of me, looking backwards over her shoulder as she frantically searched for me.
She ran right into my arms.
Riley shrieked, and I locked my arms together behind her back. “Where do you think you’re going?”
She kicked at my shins ineffectually. “Nate! Let me go!”
“No, I don’t think I will.” I grinned and carried her closer to the trailer, pinning her against the siding.
“You set me up!” I accused.
She stopped struggling and looked up at me. Her face contorted as she tried to stop laughing. “If only you could have seen your face. It was priceless!”
Loud peals of laughter echoed off the metal siding.
I held her as she shook in my arms. It felt good. Growing up around Riley, being close to her, being a sort of friend to her, I’d never held her.
But in the span of a couple days, I’d held her more than I’d ever imagined. And it felt right—having her close, smelling her soft perfume, letting her flyaway hairs tickle my nose as she laughed about the brilliance of her prank. This was new territory. I only hoped I’d be able to convince her to explore it with me.
“Your eyes were this big!” She gasped as she held up her hands, trying to show me how much of a surprise it had been to me.
“Trust me, I know–I was there. Now the question is, why would you lie to me like that? Now I know why you grabbed my face. You thought you could distract me from seeing the fast mowers.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“It worked. What did you think was going to happen when a beautiful woman stopped in front of me and placed her hands on my arms and then my face?”
“You think I’m beautiful?”
“The most gorgeous girl I’ve ever known.”
She laughed, but it came out as a gasp as she studied my face. She must have realized that I meant the compliment—that there was no punchline coming.
She cleared her throat. “That—that’s—“
I watched as the wheels spun in her mind. The confusion was apparent in her eyes.
I decided to cut her some slack. “You know, I’m really excited about the most gorgeous girl I know rubbing my shoulders and back. Thanks to the mower race you tricked me into doing, I have a nice kink in my back. You’re going to help me with it.”
I grabbed her hand and walked around to the front of the trailer. There was a small wicker chair that looked as though it would crack if someone sat on it.
I sat down and tugged her to stand behind me. “You can give me a back rub since you tricked me. It’s only fair. I should have known what you were up to.”
“Yes, you should have,” she said as she rested her hands on my shoulders. “Is this how I’m supposed to repay you?”
“Yes.” I snapped my fingers in the air. “Hurry up, I feel a call to my chiropractor might be needed if you don’t.”
“You’re such a pain in the—“
I pulled my phone from my pocket. It had somehow survived the race. “You can just pay for—“
I didn’t get to finish my sentence because those slender little fingers dug into my shoulder blades, kneading them like they would a lump of dough.
“Ahhh!” I gasped. “Ouch, ouch,
