Page 22 of Feint

Freddie chuckled, and my eyes went wide. Holy heck, his voice had dropped over the summer. “You know this car can kick your ass on the straights. Lucky you that you did barely cut in front of me, or you would have been far behind,” he rumbled.

They both turned their attention toward me.

“Finally! You guys are so late! Did you see Hank Jr. on your way in?” I looked around the area. Still no sign of the guy.

Hank Jr. always ran late. He tended to lose track of time at his dad’s ranch.

It took him another twenty minutes to roll into the space. By this time, I had caught up with Tyler, asking him how his family was, and also Freddie, who told us about mechanic school and how it wasn’t exactly what he had hoped for. He wasthinking about dropping out or transferring to a place with more specialized learning.

Hank parked next to me and got out of his truck. “What’s up?” he asked like he didn’t realize how late he was.

I crossed my arms and pretended to be really annoyed. “Hank Woodard Jr.! Do you realize how late it is? FORTY minutes, Hank! We almost left without you.”

I stared him down, giving him my bestyou idiotdeath glare ever. Then, he slowly started to laugh, and then I cracked a bit.

“It’s not funny, Hank! You need a better rooster or whatever you use for an alarm clock on the ranch!”

He started laughing harder, and I couldn’t help it. Within a minute, we were both laughing so much that I had to lean against my car to catch my breath.

“All right, you two, enough fucking around. Let’s drift,” Tyler said as he opened his car door and stood, waiting to slide inside.

I nodded in reply.

“I set up some practice sets in here, and then I figured once we are done warming up, we can hit the streets. Traffic shouldn’t be too busy yet, especially if we go more toward the valley.”

We lined up one after the other to start our practice. Tyler, then me, Freddie, and Hank Jr. bringing up the rear. It was thirty minutes of exhilarating fun as we took turns, back-to-back racing around the warehouse. A few cones might have been hurt in the process, but nothing major.

It was great to feel my car and body drifting again. The way the wheel slid through my hands as I entered a drift, the smell of the tires filling the air, the sounds of us pushing our cars harder and harder, making my mind focus. Sure, I might be a little sore tomorrow from lack of practice, but my muscles had drifting memorized, as if my car were an extension of my body.

After our last pass through the course, I stuck my hand out of my window and waved toward the entrance, taking the lead fromthe guys. I stopped before we pulled onto the street and dialed the group chat, waiting for everyone to answer the call. We did a check to make sure we could all hear each other. I tugged on my helmet to make sure it was secure as well. I had gotten much better at making sure I was wearing it whenever we didanythingout on the streets.

We took off. The goal? Drive every offbeat road we could, the ones with all the twists and turns that were perfect for drifting. We would keep one of us on either end of the streets to keep watch while the other two took turns single and tandem drifting around the curves of the LA hills. When we felt like we had overstayed our welcome, we would move on to the next area—a process we repeated five times before we called it because we were all starving for some lunch.

“Steak tacos!” I yelled over the speakerphone, and I could hear both groans and chuckles in response.

“We always get tacos after drifting. Can’t we get a burger?” Tyler asked.

“I’m down!” Hank Jr.’s voice followed.

A small chuckle from Freddie meant he was down with whatever.

“Tyler, you know steak tacos and green sauce are our good-luck TRADITION! We can’t change it now! That would be bad luck!” I giggled over the phone as he sighed in defeat.

“Fine. But your treat since I don’t get my burger and fries,” Tyler responded.

The four of us drove to the best little taco shack in the city, doing little pulls on the freeway. For a moment, I thought a cop might have seen us, but he didn’t turn and follow us, so we all let out a sigh of relief as we kept driving. And I could smell the tacos as soon as I got out of my car. It filled the area around the little building. Close to the freeway and Dad’s custom shop, the perfect little pit stop for the end of our day, as always. We piledin and made our orders and then walked outside to our little bench table we sat at.

We started brainstorming what the event could be and if we should all bring two cars because I totally dropped the hint that Dad had said it was more than drifting. We were still laughing and chatting when our food was brought out. We devoured it.

“Okay, so wanna go back to the warehouse and do a little more practicing? I don’t have anything else to do today and kinda don’t want us to stop hanging out yet,” I said as I looked around at them.

They exchanged glances and all smiled.

“Yeah, I don’t have to go back to the ranch for a few hours still,” Hank Jr. said as he shoved the last bite of his taco into his mouth.

Freddie nodded in agreement, and Tyler patted my back.

“Just say you missed us!” he said as he rested his hand on my shoulder, and I laughed.

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