Page 135 of Down & Dirty

SKYLAR

Iwas nine years old the first time I beat a boy in a motocross race. He’d been ten, and his father was probably more upset than he was. I think he’d had a crush on me, and my schooling him on the track had only added to my appeal.

But even at nine I knew boys weren’t worth the trouble.

So, when he’d come up to me after the race to shake my hand, I’d blown him off. It was a punk move, I’ll admit. But I was a kid and I’d had to fight just to get to ride in that race. I wasn’t ready to be friends with the same people who’d tried to ban me from competing in the sport I loved.

But when I turned away from his extended hand, his father lost it. He’d started to yell at me about being an ungrateful little brat and that he’d make sure I never raced that course again. I wasn’t used to being yelled at like that. My parents had been more subtle in their parenting. Which was why I almost burst into tears when my own father defended me. It scared the crap out of me to hear his voice boom.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” he’d asked, his big mitt of a hand landing on my shoulder and putting me behind him.

“Your brat has no sportsmanship.”

“She’s a better competitor than anyone else on this track. She doesn’t owe you or your son any more of her time.”

“He wanted to congratulate her!”

“And she didn’t want to take it. Move on.”

“Fucking unbelievable. Bitch is going to ruin the fucking sport.”

My father moved into the man’s face, not wavering an inch as he said, “Call my nine-year-old a bitch again, and you’ll be watching your son ride from a wheelchair.” A long moment of silence stretched out, my eyes pinned to his back, my hands shaking. “She can blow off your kid as many times as she wants, she’s not here to make friends. She’s here to kick his ass on the track and go home. She doesn’t owe youanything, got it?”

“Come on, Dad,” the boy had said, tugging on his sleeve. His father had gone pale. He retreated without saying another word. And my father had led me back to our truck with a slick grin on his face.

After we’d loaded my bike in the back, he turned to me. “Why didn’t you shake his hand? It seemed like a nice thing to do.”

I’d scoffed. “He’s a weasel punk who tried to ride me into the rail in the second corner. He can eat my dust.”

The laughter that had erupted out of my father was a sound I still heard in my head from time to time. It was maybe my favorite memory of my time racing. And it hadn’t even happened on the bike.

I would have loved to hear that sound come out of him again, but instead all he gave me were long sighs and mumbles under his breath as he flipped through the pages of the prenup agreement.

“I still can’t believe you didn’t have me look at this before you signed it,” he said, glaring at me from my kitchen table, his mouth in a tense line.

“It happened kind of fast.” I didn’t want to admit to him that I’d let my trust of Cory sway me away from one of the lessons he’d worked hard to instill:always read the fine print.

When I’d gotten back home, I’d pulled out the document. But I wasn’t in the right headspace to make sense of it. I was either numb or anxious, nothing else. I vacillated between the two like some sort of cruel festival ride, swinging from one to the other with a velocity that left me in a state of permanent nausea. I hadn’t even thought to tell anyone what had happened, but I wasn’t surprised when Ronnie called my parents and my father had flown down the next day. We hadn’t even talked about me quitting on Ronnie yet. We hadn’t talked much at all.

“And he had a lawyer he trusted draw this up?”

“I think so?”

With all the things Cory and I talked about, the tenure of his legal team wasn’t one of them. Still, without even the mention of his name, my chest ached. No amount of anger or frustration had been able to drown out how much I missed him.

“Why?” I asked, pacing to the other side of the room again.

“Well, there’s no way in hell I’d have let my client agree to terms like these.”

I stalled mid-step. “What do you mean?”

He tossed the papers on the table and leveled me a worried frown. “Have you slept?”

I shrugged. It had only been a couple of nights, but I’d avoided the mirror, so god only knew what I looked like.

“Eaten?”

I shook my head. Even the thought of food was too much. Sickness rose up in my throat and I turned back to the window.

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