Page 10 of Make My Heart Race

“What a fucking cunt,” Jesse snarled, and I couldn’t agree more. “The woman can drive, though.” He cleared his throat. “So, when did you realize you wanted to fuck her into a different universe?”

I gave a mirthless laugh. Clearly, I wasn’t as subtle as I thought. I could only hope that Tally didn’t pick up on it. “When she told McSweeny that not only could she beat him in any race, she could steal his wife and give Mrs. McSweeny the first real orgasm she’d had in forty years.”

Jesse’s jaw unhinged. Yeah, it was hard to imagine those words coming out of the mouth of such a sweet thing, but she’d proved then and there that she could take anything those old boys could dish out. Not only that, she’d serve it back to them so hot, it burned.

Leaning back, Jesse continued to chuckle softly. “She sure is pretty too.” My eyes slid toward my best friend.

We’d met back in high school, when he’d transferred to Texas. His mom had ended up having a breakdown not long after his dad’s death, so Jesse had been shipped down to an uncle. One weekend, he’d found me ass-up in a piece-of-crap old Mustang that was being held together by some cable ties, cloth tape and rust.

Jesse had been flailing. He’d needed an anchor, and I’d needed a purpose in a town so small, it was like looking down the barrel of death as soon as you were old enough to vote. We’d talked to each other in a language we both understood, despite his East Coast accent, and we were friends from that very moment on.

I’d introduced him to NASCAR. He’d done up an old Indian while I’d worked on my Mustang. He’d gone off to travel down the West Coast on his bike, while I’d apprenticed with a racing team, and the rest was history. It was pure luck we’d both ended up in San Fran.

It felt almost like fate that Tally had ended up here too. “Do you think the guy with her was actually her boyfriend?”

Jesse snorted. “Fuck no. Did you see his face when you dropped that she was pregnant? His shock was funny as fuck.” He turned toward me, his eyes assessing. “Do you want something from her? Not to bust your bubble, but she’s having a baby. Some other guy’s baby. She’s hot, but that’s a lot of baggage to take on for a nice body and some common interests.”

He didn’t understand. He’d spent his life in the fast lane, jumping from one place to another, one bed to another. He didn’t understand what it was like when you met someone your soul connected to. He probably also didn’t know the heartache you felt when her soul connected to someone else’s first, and you had to watch them from the sidelines like some weird-ass creeper.

I really hadn’t thought I’d ever see her again. After telling Ryker to suck my dick when he told me he’d ditched her at Willtot’s request, I’d kind of sequestered her to that part of my life. She was somewhere mourning a guy she loved, and I went and licked my wounds over a girl I’d never had.

Now I had a second chance. But she came with a baby. “I don’t know, Jesse. I don’t care if she has kids. I love kids.” I was the oldest of eight. Like I said, there wasn’t much going on in my hometown, except mining and making babies. “I don’t want to compete with a ghost, though, you know?”

He nodded. “Yeah, man. I get it. On a different note, what the fuck were Vanessa Sumich and Antony Barbieri doing at an illegal street race?”

That was a really good fucking question. I doubted they’d been there to see me, and that Dodge Demon had definitely been watching the race. They’d been there for a reason—maybe to scope out drivers. I hoped so, because I knew the driver they needed, and she’d been right there in front of their faces.

“I don’t know for sure, but man, that would have made front-page news if the cops had rolled up. Can you imagine some of the city’s finest citizens out in the middle of the night with the rest of us hooligans?”

We drank and talked shit for a bit. I’d forgotten how nice it was just to be with Jesse. Being with him, just hanging, was like sleeping in my childhood bed—so comfortable, you wondered how you slept anywhere else.

Finally, I yawned and stretched. It was time to hit the sack, and I downed the rest of my beer. “What are you going to do with the forty thousand? Invest in another property to flip?”

Jesse stood and cracked his spine, leaning left and right. “Nothing. I gave it to the girl,” he said, like it was nothing.

I blinked at him slowly. “You gave Tally forty thousand dollars?” Holy shit. That was a lot of money, and sure, Jesse didn’t hurt for cash, but that was a chunk of change.

He just shrugged. “She needs it more than I do. Besides, she drove the best out there; I sneaked her from the back. It’s only fair.”

Sometimes, I thought I knew Jesse, but then he’d go and do shit like this. It made me realize there were so many layers to this man I’d thought of as a brother for most of my life. He had a heart as big as fucking Texas under that gruff, tattooed, bad boy exterior. He looked like the kind of guy mothers warned their daughters about, and god knows, many mamas back home certainly had. They didn’t know him, though. He was aloof and quiet, but he’d give you his last dollar if you needed it.

I slapped him on the back. “That was a nice thing to do, Jesse. I know she’ll appreciate the buffer.”

Selfishly, it also meant I didn’t have to find another way to see Tally, because if I knew her at all, she wouldn’t accept forty thousand without a word. She was never one to take hand-outs; despite what the NASCAR pundits had said, she’d earned her place on the track at Daytona.

No, she wouldn’t just accept that amount of money. She’d be back, and I already couldn’t wait.

FIVE

TALLY

The following day, I stared at all the money in that envelope on the nightstand, trying to work out what to do with it. It felt like charity, and that didn’t sit well with me. I wasn’t anyone’s charity case—a fact I knew was going to cause problems once I finally dragged myself from bed and stood in front of Willy and Colin, while they asked all sorts of questions I had no answers to.

It was a point of pride for me. I’d worked hard for everything I had. In that envelope was a shitload of money that I hadn’t earned. I’d lost. Jesse had won, fair and square.

But I was a single mother-to-be, and I wasn’t sure I had room for pride anymore.

Sighing, I stood, Willy’s shirt falling to my knees. I grabbed the envelope and stuffed it in my helmet. I’d figure it out later, once I was back at my apartment. Right now, it was time to face the outrage of my friends, now that they knew I’d been keeping secrets. More than one, but this one especially.

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