Page 5 of Drive To Survive

Jared poked his head around the door. “Stub out the cigarette, get yourself showered and cleaned up, and meet us downstairs. And then we might, might, tell you.”

I turned around slowly and glowered at him. “You’re a twat, Kane.”

He chuckled. “Your English vernacular is the only reason I keep coming around here. Now move your fat ass.”

I smiled, the first genuine smile I’d mustered in… who the fuck knew how long.

“You’re also a bossy bastard.”

Jared returned my smile with one of his own. “Yup, and yet you still keep me around.”

They left me alone to clean up. After a hot shower, a shave, and a set of clean clothes, the pounding in my head faded. Regardless, I knocked back two Advil, gathered up as many of the empty bottles of booze as I could carry, and wandered downstairs. I set them on the kitchen counter and went in search of my two closest friends. After the way I’d behaved, my only fucking friends.

“Jesus, you look half-human.” Jared jerked his chin at a steaming cup of black coffee on the table. “After several of these, we might make up the remaining fifty percent.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Tate drawled.

Flopping onto the couch, I sighed, readying myself for this bright idea of theirs. “Okay, ladies, hit me up.” I blew across the top of my coffee and sipped.

Jared took his feet off the coffee table and straightened. His dark, spiky hair stuck out at all angles as if he’d been raking his fingers through it.

Maybe he had been.

“I’ve been toying with this idea for a little while, but I think now is the right time to get it off the ground, and you’re the man for the job.” He swigged from a plastic bottle of water. “I want to start a racing school for underprivileged kids. Three-way split. You, me, and Tate. And as we’re still racing, we want you to run it.”

I tried to suppress the wince, but Tate caught the way my face twisted.

“Sorry, man.”

I gestured dismissively. “Facts are facts. You guys race. I don’t.” I stared off into the distance, regret sitting squarely on my chest. “I can’t change that.”

“Not for much longer, for me at least.” Jared smiled, his comment an attempt to take the edge off my pain. I appreciated the gesture, even if I thought he was mad to give up racing so his woman could carry on with her mechanical career. Guess that was what love did for a man. Lucky for me I didn’t intend to fall into that trap.

“So, what do you think? You game?” he continued. “There are a bunch of kids out there who would benefit from a project like this. And who knows, we might discover a future champion.”

I rubbed my lips together and let my eyes glaze over, watching as the wind tore across the swimming pool. “You’re not doing this just for me, right? As a way to drag me out of the gutter I’ve lain in for months.”

“No,” Jared said. “This is purely business. If you’re not interested, I’ll find someone else to run it. Just think, Nico. The Three Amigos together again even though our lives are pulling us in different directions right now.”

I looked over at Tate. “And you’re up for this?”

Tate nodded. “Someday my career will end, too. It’ll be nice to have a ready-made venture to spend time on, and in the field we all adore.”

I scratched my newly shaved chin as I considered the proposal. For the first time in a year and a half, a sliver of excitement grazed my insides. My brain woke up to the chance of a fresh start, a focus that would allow me to be around the thing I loved the most: racing. The smell of grease and burning rubber, the opportunity to get my hands dirty changing out an engine, just like I had as a child with Dad. The ability to give a chance to kids who, without a lucky break, might never experience the thrill of racing around a track, the adrenaline, the speed, the g-forces pressing on your chest until you find it impossible to take a full breath.

Sure, it’d be painful to watch others on a track when I could barely drive an automatic. And a manual? Forget it. Pressing the clutch on every gear change was impossible with my fucked-up bones.

But if I didn’t do something to stop the downward spiral that had become my life, who knew where I’d end up? Jared was right. It wouldn’t be easy to claw my way up from rock bottom, and I was damn near there already.

“So where do we locate this school then?”

Jared grinned. “California. I’ve already found the perfect place, a disused airfield. And the owner is willing to sell.”

California. Sunshine. Distance from the memories that darken my nighttime hours. A chance for new beginnings.

Oh, what the hell.

I met Jared’s gaze, flicked my eyes over to Tate, and then nodded. “I’m in.”

---