Page 71 of Eight Seconds to Fly

I felt like I should be taking notes.

Frankie cleared his throat. “What about kids?”

My head whipped toward him so fast I felt like I got whiplash. Kids? Who said anything about kids?

Vanessa giggled at my expression. “I struggled to have children, so we have one beautiful daughter who is away at college right now. But when we talked about it, we decided that any children we had would be our children, raised as if we were all biological pieces of the child. I think we’ve done that admirably.”

I looked at Antony. “Do you have any advice?”

He just grinned. “Yeah. Get a bigger bed.”

As the booze flowed and the laughter got louder, the subject turned to the article in the Chronicle. Nathan scowled. “Fucking trash rag. We should buy it and then fire everyone.”

Dylan’s mouth dropped open. “You could do that?”

Nathan slapped him on the back. “Like I was dropping this week's grocery money. The tech business, especially in our field, is booming and we have everything we need. What else are we going to do with the money other than sponsor bull riders and buy unscrupulous newspapers for revenge?”

I shook my head. I couldn’t comprehend being that rich. “It’s not the newspaper’s fault anyway. It's Stan Wilfred Seniors fault. And his rapey psychopath son.”

Antony frowned in my direction and Vanessa leaned forward. “What do you mean?”

It might have been the drinks, or the warm feeling that the group gave me. They felt like family, which was insane because they were strangers and they were loaded. Still, as my sponsor, they probably needed to know anyway. The whole story poured out, although I left Davi out again, just in case.

At the end of the story, Vanessa’s cheeks were flushed. She looked at Antony. “Fix it.”

His jaw was tense but he nodded. “Consider it done.” He pulled a gold pen out of his breast pocket and wrote down his number on a napkin. “Give this number to your friend. What did you say the Police Detective from Wichita’s name was?”

“Detective Kane.”

He wrote that down in a little notebook that also appeared from his breast pocket. “I’ll take care of that too.” He lifted his glass in my direction. “There is nothing I enjoy more than taking out the trash, my young friends.”

He grinned, and it was completely shark like. I was kind of glad he was on our side right now. I wouldn’t want to oppose him in court.

The conversation turned back to gentler topics and the next time I looked at my watch, it was nearly one in the morning.

We stood and made our excuses, and Trent called for the town car. All four of them walked us to the door, and Vanessa hugged me goodbye as the guys all shook hands. “Stay strong. It's hard being a trailblazer, but you’ve got a spine of steel and strong shoulders. Just remember you can lean on them too. You don’t have to do it all yourself.”

I smiled and hugged her one more time.

“I will.”

It was another hour before I was climbing into bed between Frankie and Dylan. Snuggled between their bodies, I could reassure myself that it would all work out. This was almost over.

30

The call I had expected but half hoped wouldn’t happen came at exactly 9:02 a.m. the following morning. The secretary for the president of the WBRP called and wanted to set up a meeting with the board in Fresno tomorrow at nine a.m., if I was available. Yeah, of course I was available. I was here to ride until they told me I couldn't.

I messaged Caly that the board had summoned me and all she sent me back was a flame emoji. I was going to assume that was a good thing and not overthink it. But waiting around for the entire day with a guillotine hanging over my head was torture. I was restless and swung wildly between sad and angry until Frankie took me for ice cream. I got the largest sundae on the menu and sat down to devour it like the hearts of my enemies.

Frankie ate his single scoop mango sorbet delicately in contrast to my angry shovelling. “You have nothing to worry about,Gatinha.They cannot fire you. The best they can do is suspend you for a couple of rounds. Otherwise, they would have to suspend Branch and Dylan too, and there is no way they are going to do that to the top points holder and the WBRP’s golden boy.”

I wasn’t so sure about that really; these people could set you on fire and make it seem like they were just trying to keep you warm. Still, I gave Frankie a half smile and went back to eating my ice cream.

While getting out of the hotel room had helped, I was still jittery. That might have actually been the sugar comedown from the twelve different forms of candy on the sundae. Either way, I bounced around the hotel room until Beau finally got sick of me. Grabbing my hand, he pulled me toward the bathroom. “Get undressed, we’re taking a shower.”

My feet stumbled a little. “We?”

But Beau was being no nonsense, ushering me into the tiny bathroom that was only just a fraction bigger than an airline bathroom, and started undressing me. It was a tight squeeze, but we worked it out. When he turned on the shower, setting the water to steaming, I looked at the cubicle and then at Beau.

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