Page 64 of Played

“Stop before you make me mad.” She laughed. Fucking Riot. Shaking her head, River kept walking. She had somewhere to be. Did she think she would get anything from the insurance company? Not one bit. What she hoped to achieve from the meeting was Laurel Canyon—or whatever her real name was—going to jail for fraud.

***

Two days had been all it took to make River crazy with boredom. No bikes, no swimming until the stitches came out, no training, no, no, no. She hated that word. Riot had taken over her small office to work from the ranch. He said just in case she needed anything, but River was far from stupid. He stayed there so she wouldn’t do any of the things he said ‘no’ to.

Walking through the house, she realized she could do so with her eyes closed if she wanted. She knew every nook and cranny of the thirty-four hundred square foot house. The place had no appeal, big ol’ boring place. The bare walls lacked luster. After all the years living there, she realized she had never taken the time to make it a real home. It had always been a place where she worked from and slept at. Hell, half the time she didn’t cook or eat there. She couldn’t remember the last time she actually used the stovetop or the oven. Now the outdoor kitchen got a lot of use. Well, the fridge did because that’s where the wine and beer were located.

The unadorned walls in her home had her thinking about the photos hanging at Riot’s office. She had some like those from back in the day. Knowing exactly where they were, she headed to the back bedroom and her treasure trove of memories. Memories she had framed in the closets where she wouldn’t be reminded of the better times.Bitter much?Shrugging off the thought, River found herself standing in front of the closet door. Rubbing her hand against her thigh, she looked for courage to open it. As if monsters lurked behind it, she hesitated. “Okay there are only boxes and dust behind that door so open it. Spiders… there might be spiders.”

Taking a deep breath, she turned the knob, hearing the click of the latch as she opened the door. There stacked from floor to shelf were the boxes that contained her past.

The first few were lightweight, containing unframed pictures, magazine articles from both her and Cypress’s racing days. A few Christmas ornaments wrapped in tissue that she had forgotten all about. It wasn’t like she ever got a tree. That was one of many things she stopped doing. This year she would get a tree and hang those dainty ornaments on it.

As she pulled boxes out, they got heavier. Her curiosity getting the better of her, she found scissors and cut them open. Trophies and a few framed pictures. Photo albums that belonged to her brother. Taking them out, she climbed on the bed and started looking through them. They were labeled by year, so she started with the beginning. Funny things about pictures, they tell more than you would think.

The early years were full of them and their family when they were young. River realized those albums weren’t her brothers, but theirs. He kept them after he moved her to Cali. Dad was long past, and well… mom had moved on to whatever new designer drug along with whatever new man she had attached herself to. It was nice, sitting there looking back on them as kids. Pulling out the next album, she opened it and almost threw it across the room. Laurel was in so many of the pictures. Some she stood far in the background, not anywhere near Cypress or the other guys. There was a familiar face though. As she flipped through the pages, she realized that often in a Laurel was in the background looking almost like a spectator or a fan girl, but there always stood someone next to her. Someone River knew well.

Sliding off her bed, she went to retrieve her laptop. Something was starting to stink.

When Riot broke for lunch, he found her on the sofa with the laptop, deep in thought. “River, would you like some lunch?” Leaning over the sofa as she waved him off grunting, he looked at what she was doing. Trucks. She was looking at trucks. Not any trucks, expensive custom paint jobs all the bells and whistles. “That’s a lot of truck, sweetheart.”

“What?”

“That truck with the costume paint job. It’s expensive.”

“I don’t want this truck.”

“Why are you looking at it?”

“Gathering facts.”

“I’m not even gonna ask.”

“What are you doing?”

“It’s lunchtime. Would you like something to eat?”

“Can we take a drive and grab lunch?”

“Sure, but we are not wasting all day. I have two more online meetings today.”

Shutting down the laptop, she slipped her shoes on and followed him out to the car. She really wanted to tell him what she had been doing, but she just didn’t have enough information yet. What she did have was interesting. She needed a few more facts first. It was hard not jumping to conclusions though. There were many things they needed to talk about, but somehow they had managed to avoid them. River tried not turning on the TV because the sports channels sometimes ran old race videos and the last thing she wanted to do was upset Riot.

Riot broke the silence as they drove into Carmel Valley for lunch. “I have to go back to Santa Maria for meetings with the two new racers we’re looking to sign.”

It was inevitable he would have to go back. It was too damn far to drive every damn day, that was for sure. Old insecurities threatened to bubble up. Swallowing, she tamped them down. “How long will you have to be out there?”

“The rest of the week. I called Dan, he said Mal is begging to come stay at the ranch with you.”

“I’m not a child, Riot.”

“No, you are not. What you are is stubborn. If I’m going to get any work done, I can’t be calling you every five minutes to make sure you’re not on the bikes out in the back field doing God knows what on them.”

“Stuffed shirt.”

“You like the way my shirts fit, don’t lie. It’s unbecoming.”

River laughed at him. If he thought Mal and Dan would stop her from doing what she wanted, he had not been paying attention. “Thanks for calling them. I’m not really in the mood to be alone.”

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