by Kylie Walker
“Yeah, she’s ready,” he said, patting his car. Sam could feel Conrad looking at her but she looked at Shawn instead.
“What about you, are you racing tonight?”
“Nah, my car still needs work and Conrad won’t let me drive the Charger.” Sam was forced to look at Conrad then and at least acknowledge him. As soon as she saw his face her body relived everything she’d felt in that kiss and she couldn’t even force a smile. Instead she said,
“Thank you for taking Aaron to the driving school yesterday.”
“I enjoyed it. He was excited even though he didn’t get to do anything but fill out paperwork today.” He smiled and Sam cursed herself again for what that did to her. “Where is he? I’m surprised he let you get away without him tonight.”
Her mood plummeted at the reminder. She stepped closer to him so that only the two of them could hear. The nearness of his body and the subtle smell of his cologne sent an electrical charge through her body in spite of what she needed to tell him. “He volunteered to stay with Luke. I wasn’t going to come. I didn’t want to leave him alone.”
He put his hand on her arm and led her further away. The touch sent shocks racing through her. He let go when they were alone and said, “Why, what’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure. I wanted to take him to the ER but he wouldn’t go. Damned stubborn…Anyways, he looks yellow to me, jaundiced. I looked it up and from what I read there could be a problem with his gall bladder or his liver. Since he wouldn’t go to the ER I was going to stay home with him tonight. I haven’t wanted to leave him alone. Even Aaron was worried about him, but he promised me he wouldn’t leave him alone and he’d call me if there was any change or he needed anything.”
“Shit. The nurses at the infusion center tell him all the time to call or go to the ER if there are any big changes.”
“I know, believe me, we argued about it all day. I even threatened to call an ambulance but he said he’d just refuse to go with them. He thinks it can just wait until Monday.”
“You think it can wait until Monday?”
“I don’t know. I’ m not a nurse. From what I read online, he shouldn’t wait. But, I don’t know how to change his mind.”
“Okay, you race…I’m going to go talk to him.”
“No, I’m not going to stay here if you’re going to go take him to the ER.”
“Why Sam, if you took him earlier were you going to call me?”
“Yes of course I was going to call you.”
“After the fact? You said you argued with him all night and day and yet I’m just now hearing about it at nearly ten o’clock at night.”
Sam felt ashamed of herself. She hadn’t called him because she was uncomfortable talking to him. She knew there was no way to avoid it since she was face to face with him tonight. She also knew that if things had been the other way around, she’d be really pissed. Sucking up her pride she said, “I’m sorry, you’re right. I should have called you.”
“Thank you for that. I will call you if I convince him to go to the hospital. In the meantime there’s no real reason for us both to leave.”
“What about your race?”
She saw his eyes fall on Shawn. With a heavy sigh he said, “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” He walked over and held out his keys.
Sam watched Shawn’s face register surprise as he looked at them. “What’s this?”
“I need you to take my race.”
“In the Charger?” Shawn’s eyes were huge with disbelief. Conrad told Sam that Shawn is one of the best racers in Southern California, but he has a history of being so aggressive the car he’s driving almost always sustains some kind of body damage. His Charger is his baby. To Shawn, Conrad handing over the keys had to be the ultimate sign of trust.
Conrad curled his lip and said, “If you wreck it or blow anything up I’ll need a new roommate.”
Shawn chuckled. “You’d kick me out on the street for wrecking your car?”
“No, I’d kill you. Give me your keys I need a car.” Shawn handed him the keys to his old Porsche. “Take care of her,” he told him with one last longing look at the Charger. Shawn was still grinning.
“I will, don’t worry she’s in good hands.” Conrad looked worried as Sam walked with him to Shawn’s car.
“Listen,” he told her before getting in, “You’re racing a guy named Loco Larry tonight. The Loco isn’t just a nickname, the guy is crazy. If you beat him and I’m pretty sure you will, don’t engage him at all afterwards. Edward Lee is the guy in charge of that crew and he keeps a pretty tight rein on Larry but just be careful, okay?”
“Okay, thanks Conrad. Don’t forget to call me if Luke goes to the hospital.”
“I won’t.” Sam turned around to head back where the others were. She only got a few steps when she felt a pair of strong hands spin her around. Conrad’s lips met hers as he pulled her up against him. She didn’t even have time to react as his tongue invaded her mouth. She heard a shocked moan and realized that it had come from deep down in her throat. By the time she registered what was going on, her only reaction was to kiss back. His incredibly competent tongue teased hers and she teased back until she felt like her legs were made out of rubber and wouldn’t support her any longer. She was glad he was holding onto her or she might already a quivering heap of flesh on the asphalt. When he released her lips he continued to hold onto her body and she could feel the rumble in his chest before she heard the husky, breathless voice say, “Once we make sure Luke is taken care of, we need to talk…okay?”
Her head was swimming with the pressure of his body against hers and the feel of his warm hand against the small of her back. Shivers of desire raced through her body and it was all she could do to mutter an almost inaudible, “Mm hmm.” When he did release her she instinctively reached out for support. Her hand made contact with the back end of Shawn’s Porsche and flashes of the streetlights swam in front of her eyes for a few seconds before she was able to focus them.
“Are you alright?”
She focused them on Conrad’s face. His cheeks were flushed and his lips were dark red from the kiss. It took her another few seconds to process the question. She had to clear the lump from her throat before saying, “Yeah, I’m good. Call me.” She walked away then on legs that were still shaking. She could almost feel his eyes and his smile following her. What the hell was that?
**
“How embarrassing is it going to be for me to carry you into the ER?” Conrad and Aaron were standing at Luke’s bedside. He was shivering and his face was as yellow as the sun.
Luke narrowed his eyes at his step-son. “You wouldn’t dare.” He saw Aaron’s lips twitch as he said,
“Try me, old man.”
“Why the fuck can’t you all just let me be? I have to see that damned doctor on Monday anyways. Why can’t this wait?”
Conrad picked up the mirror on the bedside table. He figured Sam must have already used it to show Luke his face but he was going to do it again. “Look at yourself. You can see that’s not normal. Damn it Luke if you won’t do this for yourself then do it for us. We’re all worried sick.”
Luke was staring at his reflection. The look in his eyes tugged at Conrad’s heart. He couldn’t even imagine what had to be going through his head. Even his eyes were yellow. There was something seriously wrong beyond the cancer in his pancreas and he wasn’t kidding when he told Luke he’d carry him to the ER if he had to. In a tone that sent shivers down Conrad’s spine Luke said, “Put it down.” Conrad sat the mirror back on the bedside table and Luke looked from him to Aaron and said, “The cancer is in my gall-bladder and my liver. The doctor warned me that the jaundice would probably happen sooner rather than later because there is a tumor blocking the bile ducts. They’re hoping the chemo shrinks them, but it’s going to take more than one round of treatment.”
Conrad dropped down into the chair next to the bed. Aaron looked like he wa
s going to be sick. “So you already knew it was spreading? Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because look at you all. You’ve all three already decided to dedicate your young lives to taking care of me. I couldn’t bear to give you any more bad news.” Aaron started to turn away and Luke reached up and grabbed his wrist. Aaron flinched but he didn’t pull away. “Sit down Aaron, please.” Aaron looked at Conrad. Conrad wasn’t sure what he was looking for but he nodded and that seemed to relax the boy some. He slumped down into the chair on the opposite side of the bed. Luke let go of him and said, “This chemo is not going to get rid of this cancer. It’s too far gone already. It’s taking over my body and the chemo might slow it down, but it’s not going to kill it.”
“Why don’t they take it out?” Conrad asked. He didn’t know much about any of it, but he couldn’t understand why they didn’t operate and at least try to remove it.
“Because when they gave me the choice of having surgery or chemo or nothing at all they told me that because of where the cancer is and how far it’s advanced; surgery couldn’t get it all and opening me up might actually aggravate it and cause it to spread faster. The chemo will slow it down and give me a little more time with you all, so that’s why I made that choice. But after only a week of it I’m regretting that. Sam calls it “poison” and that’s what it feels like inside of me. Before the chemo I was in pain, I’ll admit that. But I’m still in pain and now I’m falling apart in other ways because of the medicine.” He looked at Aaron again and Conrad saw tears in his eyes as he said, “I’m dying boys, sooner rather than later. No amount of surgery or poison in my veins or radiation is going to stop it. The choices I have now are whether I want to live out the rest of my life sitting in a recliner every morning while they put medicine in my body that makes me wish I was dead, or with the energy to at least be able to spend some quality time with each of you before I go.”
No one said anything for a really long time. Conrad was worried about Aaron. He looked like he was right on the verge of losing it. He knew that Luke chose the chemo for all of them in the hopes that it would prolong his death and maybe give them all more used to the idea that he was leaving them. He was prolonging his suffering for them. “If the chemo is not going to save you and it prevents you from enjoying the life you have left then you should stop it.” Aaron jerked his head up and his watery eyes met Conrad’s. Conrad tried to convey to him in that look that Luke’s immediate fate was in their hands. If Aaron absolutely fell apart, Conrad knew Luke would go through with finishing the next three rounds of chemo as he got sicker and sicker in the process.
Aaron cleared his throat and proved that he wasn’t the kid they all treated him like he was. “You have to do what’s best for you at this point, Luke. We’re all going to hate losing you. I worry that I won’t have enough time to prove to you how grateful I am for you saving us. But pressuring you into having chemo because we want to hang onto you for another month or two or however long that might be…that’s just selfish and I’m not going to ask you to do it.”
Luke’s eyes were filled with tears then and so were Conrad’s. Luke opened up his arms and Aaron actually folded into them. Conrad knew from his time around Beau that allowing someone to touch you that way…especially an authority figure…was a huge deal for someone that was used to being abused. The hug only lasted seconds, but he felt like he was watching the teenager cross an ocean. He knew it wasn’t really his right, but he was proud of him. His next thought however sent a pain racing from his head straight to his heart. Who was going to tell Sam?
CHAPTER 24
Sam raised her glass to Shawn, Drew, Beau, Stew and Casey’s. She couldn’t stop smiling. She’d not only beat Loco Larry, she’d annihilated him. To top that off, Beau and Shawn both won their races too and Conrad’s Charger was in the same pristine condition he’d left her in. It was a good night, especially since she’d also gotten a text from Conrad telling her that he was on his way down to the Island to meet them. She’d text back to ask about Luke and Conrad had told her not to worry, Luke was okay. That news only added altitude to the high she was already flying on. “To us,” Shawn said. “We are kick-ass drivers.”
“Unbeatable,” Beau said. His smile looked more real and relaxed than any one Sam had witnessed since she’d first met him. She wondered how much Casey sitting thigh to thigh with him had to do with it. Whatever it was, it was good to see him happy for a change.
“The future of racing,” she said.
“Here, here!” They all drank to the self-indulgent toast. If any group of people deserved a little bit of happiness and self-pride, it was this one, Sam thought. She looked around the table at her new friends and thought about what she knew about them. Collectively they were a group that shouldn’t even be functioning at the lowest level of society. Drew, the pretty little red-head who always seemed to be smiling was raised in one foster home after the other while her parents struggled with their addictions. Conrad told her that by the time Drew was twelve, they had both disappeared, never to be heard from again. Casey watched her mother slowly wither and die from MS when the girl was only ten years old. She was raised by her father after that and he was a good man albeit slightly absent emotionally. When he remarried Casey was fifteen and she had been optimistic about having a woman in the house again. That optimism was quickly crushed underneath the weight of her step-mother’s hateful words and her father’s reluctance to stop it. Beau grew up a lot like Aaron, without an older sister to lean on. Stew and Shawn were probably the most “normal” to the group, but Sam knew from experience that everyone carried around some demons and although they seemed like they had it together on the outside, that didn’t necessarily mean all was well on the inside.
“Well, this looks like a happy group,” Conrad’s voice brought her out of her reverie. With the huge grin still plastered across her face she sat her iced tea down and looked up at him. The sight of his gorgeous face once again reminded her of the kiss and her blood ran warm. But that feeling only lasted until she really looked into his green eyes and saw the pain he was trying to hide there. She looked at him questioningly and he smiled slightly before his attention was drawn to the others who were excited to tell him about their night. Conrad ordered a beer and sat down with them. The next half an hour was almost agony for Sam as she listened to them all tell their stories and Conrad congratulate each one of them individually. Something about the way he kept looking at her gnawed at her insides and she knew that whatever he had to tell her was not going to be good. Finally she felt his hand on her thigh underneath the table and he leaned into her ear and said, “Can we get out of here? I need to talk to you.” She nodded, afraid that her voice would give away how nervous she was. Conrad moved his hand from her thigh to her hand and he gripped it tightly. He didn’t let go as they said good-bye to the group and he asked Shawn to drive the Charger home. He held it all the way out to the parking lot and when they got to the Mustang he used his body to press her into it and kiss her lips softly before finally letting it go. She missed it as soon as he did. “Let’s go to Luke’s,” he said. Sam nodded and slid into the driver’s seat. Once Conrad was in the car he took her hand again and helped her shift the gears as they drove in silence. When they got to the house he said, “Let’s go in the shop so we can talk alone.”
Once they were inside the shop with the smell of oil and rubber somehow comforting her senses Conrad started talking. She sat quiet and composed as she listened, feeling like she was dying a little bit inside with each one of his words. When he finished talking he waited quietly for her response. When she finally spoke she barely recognized the sound of her own raspy voice as she fought back a torrent of tears that wanted to fall. “You think he’s doing the right thing?”
Conrad nodded. “I think he has to do what’s best for him and I think we need to accept it and make it as easy as possible on him to make that choice.”
“I don’t want to lose him,” she said.
<
br /> “Neither do I, but the only real choice we have at this point is how we lose him. I saw hair on his pillow the other day and it made me nauseated. It was just the thought that what they’re putting inside of him is powerful enough to do that and wondering what it was doing to his insides. If it was going to cure him and give us another forty years with him then I’d be all for it, but if all it’s going to do is make the few months he has left on earth miserable, then I don’t see the point.”
Sam knew he was right. She knew that if it were her she’d probably make the same choice. But it’s not her, it’s Luke…and it was his choice to make. Conrad opened his arms and she folded into them. They stood propped up against the steel wall of the shop and he just held her while she absorbed everything he’d just said. When she pushed back and looked up at his face she could see his concern for her in his eyes and in spite of the sadness she felt for Luke, shivers of desire still coursed through her body for this man that had suddenly become her rock.
He put his fingers underneath her chin and held her face up to his as he said, “We need to talk about us too. If that’s too much on top of everything else, it can wait.”
“No, I’m okay. I fucking hate the thought of losing him, but I know we have to let him go with his dignity at least intact.”
He nodded and gave her a small smile. “About us…I owe you an apology for the way my moods have been for the past couple of weeks. I freaked out when I found out that we were kind of related and it took me a while to figure out why.”
“Why?”
“Because I was already working on having feelings for you and I was hurt and confused and just plain old pissed off when I thought I couldn’t have you.”
