Page 40 of Love Collided

“Because there are at least twenty people here who know damn well, you can win this, and if you don’t, my only assumption will be that it’s his fault.”

“Chase, you better?—”

“Youbetter go get your ass in the car and get ready.”

I spun on my heel, heading back to my car because I knew he was right. I needed to focus, and he was quickly becoming a distraction. He was quick to catch up, falling into step next to me.

“You look pretty hot in your racing suit, by the way. I’ve never been so attracted to a girl so heavily clothed.”

He looked me over, taking his time checking me out with a grin.

“You are the worst.”

“Not the worst. For once, I can think of one person who is worse than me. Now go.”

TWELVE

CHASE

I sat back,watching the crew finish preparing everything for Scout’s race. She was in the car now, lined up and ready while they ran around finishing every last second item they could.

It was chaos and excitement like I had never seen before, and I was loving every second of it. Ash let me know there were ten rounds of races, with Scout needing to win at least six of them to place in the top ten.

Ash had done this years ago, and I remember coming to one of her races. I had been too drunk to remember most of it, but I had been there. This time, though, I was enjoying myself instead of searching for any substance to drown out my own thoughts.

Ransom and Kye finally pulled back, coming to stand next to me as Fox and Jax lined Scout's car up. Quinn and Carly were beside the track on Ransom’s car. Everyone was somehow relaxed, but I wondered if it was only for Scout’s sake.

I knew Scout couldn’t see me, but I was dying to see her. I could watch her do this all day. She would walk around with her race suit pulled down, the arms tied at her waist. Or when it was fully zipped up with her helmet on, two long braids the only indication of the girl underneath.

She was a fucking dream come true in a race suit. I hadn’t been lying when I said I’d never been so attracted to someone so fully clothed. A race suit that covered her neck to feet, but I couldn’t look away. She was smiling again, all her worries from earlier apparently lost to the excitement of her race, and I tried not to give myself some of the credit for that.

The light moved through its steps, snapping green, and as if Scout counted down the seconds, she was gone. Her car roared when she took off, the one next to her a half a second to slow. Before I could even take a full breath, it was over, and Scout had won.

Of course she had.

The day moved fast, and what felt like minutes later, the last race had finished. Scout had made it to the number five spot, which meant she had placed high enough to move on and put her one more step closer to professionally racing for Holt.

She idled the car over to us, parking it and getting out to the crew surrounding her with cheers and hugs.

Then she looked back at me with a genuine smile on her face, and this time it didn’t fall when it reached me.

She was fucking beautiful.

I weaved through the dispersing crew, their hands busy with the task of packing things up. When I finally reached her, I wrapped my arms around her while she laughed.

“You did great,” I whispered, my lips against her ear, trying not to be obvious about how much I wanted to touch her. I didn’t know why I was suddenly dying to be near her, why I was fighting the urge to lean in and kiss her. “You placed high enough to move on. And looked so fucking good doing it. I couldn’t look away.”

“Chase,” she said, pushing me back the smallest amount.

“What?”

“I don’t know what you’re doing.”

I didn’t even know how to tell her that I didn’t either. It’s not like I could do anything with her. Messing around was out of the question when she kind of still had a boyfriend, and Fox made it clear it wouldn’t be okay with him since we were friends now. And it’s not like I was going to date her. I wasn’t lying when I said I wouldn’t be a good boyfriend, but now I also didn’t want her dating Jesse. She could do a hell of a lot better than him.

None of that led me to a reason on why I was so close and only wanted to be closer.

For how much of a mess my life was, for how much I couldn’t decide on what I wanted, being close to her seemed like an easy decision.

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