Page 26 of Reckless Curves
People rarely caught Marcus off guard, so it was amusing to Tom to watch Marcus fumble. Tom broke into a grin and then laughed while backing away. “Oh, man! You should’ve seen your face.”
Marcus gave him an uncertain smile and then chuckled. “Ha ha. Very funny.”
“I know it is.” Only his promise to Kendra made Tom keep up the pretense of joking around. “The real reason I will show Kendra is because you suck at teaching. You’ll just get mad when she doesn’t catch on fast enough and yell at her. Then you guys will fight and she’ll give up because she can’t stand you. That will not help her. You know I’m right.”
Marcus scowled in irritation, but he conceded Tom’s point. “Yeah, I know. I try, but—”
“You suck at it.”
They turned to see Tom’s other best friend, Lexie Walker, standing near them. Marcus’s expression darkened again, but Tom was thrilled to see her.
Lexie had been in the same auto mechanics class as Tom and they’d become firm friends. She was a stunning beauty, but for some reason their friendship had always remained platonic. Tom had taken Lexie into his formula one team on the European circuit. They’d had so much fun on the circuit until she fell for one of the rival team’s drivers—Jason Colter.
“Lex!” He embraced her. “What the hell are you doing here? You didn’t tell me you were coming into town.”
Lexie hugged him back, but Tom felt how tense her shoulders were and grew concerned.
“It was a surprise,” she said.
Pulling back, Tom met her dark eyes, but her gaze slid away slightly. “Everything okay?”
“Not really. Can we talk?”
Tom was further surprised when he saw her blink tears away. “Yeah, sure. Come on to my office.”
She and Marcus traded scathing glances while Tom motioned for her to go ahead of him and he almost sighed. The two of them would never get along. Marcus hated Jason. And unfortunately, Lexie was part of Jason’s life, her husband, when the accident on the race track happened. Jason’s recklessness caused the crash and Marcus just couldn’t get passed his career ending like it did. He’d been on target to win the driver’s championship for the second time.
There it was. Now his two best friends were at odds and it made things awkward for Tom whenever they were together. He’d tried to get Marcus to see that Lexie wasn’t to blame, but Marcus’s memory was long—and twisted with bitterness.
Once they settled in his office, Tom behind his desk and Lexie in a stylish black leather chair, he asked, “What gives?”
Lexie looked at the ceiling a moment and then back at Tom. She was trying to hang on to her composure. “Jason and I are done. For good this time. I caught him with another track whore. I can’t take it anymore.”
Once again today, anger surged through Tom. “Son of a bitch. I’m sorry, Lexie.” He wasn’t overly surprised though.
She slapped her hands lightly down on her thighs. “Don’t be. You tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen. Well, that’s the last time he makes an ass out of me. I filed for divorce last week, licked my wounds, and now here I am, ready to get on with life.”
One side of Tom’s mouth lifted. “It takes a little longer than that to recover from that kind of thing, Lex.”
The pain in her eyes made Tom’s fists tighten with the need to bash Jason’s skull in with a tire iron. If he ran into the scumbag, Marcus would have to get in line.
“I don’t have time to sit around gnashing my teeth and wailing. I’m flat broke, Tommy. Jason took off with all my cash, any that was left that is. He sniffed most of our money up his nose.”
Tom leaned forward in shock. “He’s using again?”
Lexie gave a sarcastic laugh as she pushed her dark hair back from her face. “Yeah. I don’t think he stopped, but he hid it well until a couple of weeks ago. I came home from being out with some friends and caught him doing a line off the kitchen counter. We got in it, and that’s when he told me we were poor. He’s not worked since he got kicked off the racing team. We’re so poor he’s sold the car to pay off his drug dealers.”
Tom rubbed his jaw. “Christ. Listen, I’ll give you as much money as you need, honey. You just—”
“No. I don’t need money from you,” she said.
“Okay, then what? Just name it.”
Lexie blew out a nervous breath. “I need to work. I need money to live on, but I need to work just as much as I need the money. I need a job. Hire me.”
Tom relaxed back in his chair as dismay set in. “Lex, I’d love to, but we just don’t have a spot right now. And even if we did, you and Marcus would eat each other alive. I can’t have that kind of drama around here.”
Lexie’s expression filled with something Tom had never seen on her beautiful face.Desperation.She was desperate.
