Page 30 of False Start

I shook my head, grimacing at the nickname. But we’d called a truce, and I needed to coexist with Trent for the next five days. “But since you’ve brought it up, we might get some pity points if I told the judges you can’t drive manual worth shit.”

“You’re joking.”

I shrugged. “You said you wanted to win.”

“Yeah, I want to win, so I’d avoid the humiliation of signing up for a race and not being the best.”

“Do all the guys on your football team have such fragile egos, or is that a you thing?” I asked with an exasperated sigh.

“Just me. It’s part of my charm.” He handed over my keys with a wink.

We exited the car, walking over to the check-in car set up at the center. Over the course of the next half-hour, our competitors drove into the empty field. Twenty cars total and while some love-struck fanboy kept Trent captive at our car yapping about football, I scoped out the competition.

Prior to my dad’s death, I didn’t know much about cars. He’d taught me to change the oil in the beat-up Kia gifted to me on my sixteenth birthday, how to change a tire, how to muddle my way through maintenance, but nothing more complex than that. In hindsight, I wasn’t sure he knew much more than those routine tasks. And then, his heart gave out, and I never had a chance to ask.

So, I’d taught myself. Even with Derek covering half the rent and most of the expenses, I didn’t have the disposable income for a mechanic fix up the car. Besides, my job involved fixing instruments, replacing parts, and tearing things down to get them to work again.

A car wasn’t much different. Easier since most people didn’t post videos on how to repair a hematology analyzer.

But the mechanical prowess on display at the rally was next level. I’d made the car limp along despite its age. These people had harnessed all the shitty details about their cars and put them on display. One guy had gone so far as to fuse the front half of a WWII-style Jeep to the back half of an old Jaguar. Getting my Mercury Cougar to the end of the rally without blowing an engine didn’t seem so impressive stacked up against the cars around me.

I tore away from a homemade electric car that seemed to run on too many batteries and twice as many hopes to find the judges at my car. A thread of panic pulsed under my skin as Trent greeted them. By the time I hurried across the field, he had them laughing. Probably talking their ear off about his football prowess. Or how he’d been dragged along on this rally.

“Apparently, the car was junk, and she did all the work herself. She spent over a year getting it running.”

Trent’s voice didn’t hold its usual haughtiness as he bragged about what I’d done with the car. Maybe I was the dick. Maybe Trent wasn’t such a bad guy. Not only had he given me credit, but he was gushing over all my hard work.

“But her real stroke of genius was asking me to tag along on this rally.”

I flinched. There was the Trent I knew.

“My partner broke his leg, and you were the last-minute replacement,” I corrected.

He jolted, shooting me a sly smile. “Kit, this is Ashley and Tom. Tom and Ashley, my partner, Kit. And like I said, inviting me was genius. She didn’t even think she’d win until I came along.”

“So, you’re aiming to win?” Tom lifted an eyebrow, sharing a look with Ashley. “Do you mind sitting down for a pre-race interview and tell us your story?”

Trent's lips expanded into a winning smile, oozing confidence. “We’d love to.”

Ashley extracted a clipboard from under her arm and flipped through. “So, you signed up under team?—”

“I just signed up under Kit. We hadn’t come up with a team name yet.”

It’d been on the list of things to do. One Derek and I had planned to cross off on the ride to the starting line. But, like therest of this rally, things had fallen apart, and I’d forgotten that carefully planned list back home.

“Kit and Trent, then,” Ashley smiled. “And you two are…”

“Acquaintances,” I said as Trent said, “Friends.”

“We definitely need them for an interview,” Ashley said. Her counterpart looked less amused.

“Do I need to call my agent?” Trent asked. His voice was teasing, but she turned red just the same.

“I don’t think so, but you can call and check. It’s optional. We just like to highlight some teams at different points of the race for the channel. It’s monetized though, so…” She bit her bottom lip, eyes gliding up and down his body.

“It’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it,” Trent reassured her. He leaned closer as he gave her a wink. Her bottom lip escaped into her mouth again, only this time, her eyelashes batted.

He made it look so easy. So seamless. So sincere. And it churned my stomach that was only flirting to get ahead.

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