Page 143 of Twisted Trails
Dane clicks on something and frowns. “There are a few things we could clean up in here. Streamline the numbers. Make your sponsor pitch tighter.”
I raise an eyebrow. “We?”
“Yeah,we.Don’t look so shocked. Show me the plan, Greer, I’ll help you make it happen.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Mason
At the beginning of this season, all I wanted was to make that money for Dad. To get him somewhere nice to sleep, a real bed, and maybe scrape the mud from the Payne name in the process.
And somehow, I’ve ended uphere.
I’m lying on the hotel bed, still a little damp from the shower, wearing nothing but a pair of black sweats. The room is warm, the sheets soft in that expensive way I’ve never really felt before. I’ve got my arms folded behind my head, staring up at the ceiling, but I can’t wrap my head around this.
This shit is fancy.
Not one of those moldy motels Dad and I would have booked overseas. No, this is bloody ridiculous like five-star spa bullshit. Everything smells like clean wood and too much money. There are even complimentary robes.Robes.
And Dad got his own room.
Hisown fucking room.
All of it paid for by Alaina’s dad, who apparently owns half the goddamn world and flies around in a private jet likehe’s too good for first class. Because that’s how we got here. In his fucking jet. I didn’t even know people outside of movies actually did that.
I hated it at first. Felt too much like charity, like we were being bought, but then Luc leaned in while we were hauling our shit up the stairs and muttered,“Take everything he gives. He’s a fucking dick.Petitedeserves to milk him a little, so let her. You don’t owe him a damn thing.”
And, yeah, that helped.
It still feels weird, but at least it doesn’t feelwrong. Especially not when I think about what the other option would’ve been—Dad and I crammed into some Airbnb with one creaky bed and no heating. We would’ve made it work, but this? This feels like breathing room, and we haven’t had that in a long time.
I roll over and grab my phone off the bedside table, opening my music app and tapping on “Rollin’” by Limp Bizkit. The beat kicks in fast and loud, and I settle back into the pillows, letting it fill the room.
Greer swears this is my song.
“Aggressive, but fun,”he said during track walk.“Like you, man. Not angry, just got that drive. That grit. That don’t-fuck-with-me energy.”
Still not sure I get his whole melody theory. I don’t usually listen to this kind of stuff. My dad raised me on AC/DC and Metallica, not this weird growl-pop rap shit.
But it’s not bad. There’s a rhythm to it, something in the beat that makes my foot tap against the mattress, allowing me to feel an echo of that adrenaline I only get when I’m racing or tuning my suspension, and I can’t exactly argue with the results of Greer’s coaching.
I fucking won Val di Sole.
A track I’ve hated since juniors. I’ve crashed there moretimes than I can count, but this time, with Greer’s line choices, I nailed it.
So yeah, I’ll keep listening to the song. Try toget into the melody. Even if the chorus still makes me feel like I’m about to get into a bar fight in a monster truck arena.
I listen over and over as the jetlag crawls under my skin.
It’s early evening, but my body is not buying it.
I’m notexhausted, but I feel like my blood is moving a half-step behind the rest of me, and if I give in and close my eyes now, that’s it. I’ll be wide awake at three in the morning and useless by race day.
I tell myself I just need to make it another two hours. Just enough to tip into the right rhythm, to shift my clock onto this new time zone so I’m not dragging ass when it counts. But once I’ve listened enough and turned the music off, the quiet is too quiet, the weight of the room pressing in like I don’t belong in something this clean.
I still don’t have Alaina’s number, which,why the hell don’t I?So I shoot Luc a quick text.
Wanna watch a movie? Try out the fancy room service? I need to do something or I’m gonna crash.
