Page 7 of Billionaire and the Barista

NATHAN

Irolled to a stop. Mitch stood in front of me like some kind of giant with arms akimbo, trying to look all badass. I could tell from the expression on his face that he was pissed for some reason. I could have just run right over him, like some kind of boney road bump.

“What crawled up your ass?” I asked as I took my helmet off.

“You were supposed to bring your bike in before racing it again. Weren’t you the one to say the timing felt like it was hiccupping around one-ten?”

I shook my head and shrugged him off. “It’s fine.”

“Don’t tell me it’s fine when someone is shoveling you off the pavement like so much ground beef. You want to race this pretty baby tonight; you are pulling into my shop right now.” He pointed an angry finger at an impromptu setup he and a few guys had. They brought the tools, they tweaked the bikes, and they never charged a dime.

I could throw some Benjamins at him for taking care of the kids who could barely afford the rides they had. I had no problems affording a mechanic. Neither did a few of my buddies. Most of the guys here, and a few girls, had scaped every penny they had— sleeping on the streets to save rent money, going hungry instead of buying food— all so they could have a top-quality machine. And then there were a few of us who were basically slumming it. Our overly funded asses were here for the danger, the thrill, the easy girls. Not that rich girls weren’t easy, they just required more expensive presents. We were here because it would piss our parents off, and it was fucking fun.

I rolled my Ducati to Mitch’s little service bay and let him tinker with her.

“A hiccup in the timing isn’t going to put me on the pavement,” I complained.

“Probably not, but don’t you think you owe it to Gabby to make sure that doesn’t happen.” He didn’t look up.

“What does Gabriella have to do with any of this?” I tried to keep our relationship casual as far as anyone else was concerned.

“You shitting me?” His glare was hard enough to cut glass.

“What?” I looked at him.

Mitch pushed to his feet and was in my face in seconds. A few inches shorter, a few dozen pounds lighter and I was still wary of the man. I did not doubt that he fought dirty and that he would take me. I may have been bigger, but he had years of street experience I would never be able to duplicate, no matter how many hours I spent in a dojo learning martial arts.

“That little girl is so in love with you, that’s what this has to do with this. I’m not doing any of this for you. She’s had a hard fucking life, and I’m doing this for her.”

“So, you’re in love with her?” I mouthed off.

“Don’t be ignorant, it’s not attractive, pretty boy,” Mitch smirked.

I laughed. Truth was, I agreed with him, Gabriella had everything to do with it.

“I’m just fucking with you,” I confessed. “She’s more like your kid sister. I’ve seen how you are with her. Thanks, man.”

“For what?” he grumbled, returning to my bike.

“For taking care of her, and by extension, looking after the bike.”

“If you are going to be stupid enough to race through these streets, at least be smart about it. She should be good.” He patted the front wheel.

I sat and started the bike. With a low rumble, I eased it back and slowly rolled over to where a group I recognized were hanging around drinking.

“Hey, you, bring that in here. Let me look at it before you get yourself killed,” Mitch yelled at some other potential racer. His pitch was always the same, ‘Let me fix your bike or you’re gonna die.’

“Hey man.” I fist-bumped the guys and accepted a swig of something sharp and brown from an unmarked glass bottle suspiciously shaped like Captain Morgan. It tasted suspiciously like Captain Morgan too.

A DJ, not some touring celebrity DJ, but a local kid with a beatbox and a mix table, played tunes. Girls dressed in skimpy minis and push-up bras danced on car hoods. It was a go-go bar for the fast and the stupid, complete with mechanics. This was my life, and it was like something out of a movie. Complete with the totally hot girl with the long glowing honey-colored hair, and a smile that inspired erections in the oldest of men, as my girlfriend. And I was going to have her alone tonight. All night.

And my parents wanted to pull the plug on all of this. It was time to go big before I went. I left my bike and found the bookie. He looked like bookies did in the movies from the sixties, a cigarette poised on his lip, hanging on by dried spit alone. He wore a tacky Hawaiian, one of those fedora things, that really wasn’t a fedora, but smaller. I couldn’t remember the name, I just knew that every time fashion shows called it a fedora, my mother would yell at the TV it wasn’t a fedora. And then she would drop the name, something like a tribble. I couldn’t remember. He was small, sweaty, and handling thick handfuls of money rolls.

I handed him a stack and placed a bet on myself to win for my second race. He raked me with weaselly assessment and huffed out what I think it was supposed to be a laugh. He took my money.

“I won’t be seeing you later.”

He didn’t know what I rode. He didn’t know jack-shit. Tonight, I would win, this was my going out in glory moment. And that’s exactly what I was going to do.

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