by Amy Sparling
They both shake their head.
I turn around and walk as quickly as I can to the doors that lead outside. And then I run.
The stadium is round, and a third of the way down is where the entrance is for the racers. They’re all parked outside in the parking lot, but they have to get inside the stadium somehow, and this is how I’ll do it, too.
There are people all over the place, managers like Marcus, and other dirt bike people who put on the races. I keep my head up and I pretend that I’m totally supposed to be here and hope no one says anything.
There’s an ambulance parked back here, and right when I walk past it, two EMTs run up and climb inside. They drive the ambulance forward to the doors that lead to the stadium, and then the back door opens and a female EMT jumps out, lowering a stretcher. I see the two guys from the golf cart pull up, and they’re carrying Jett on one of those orange plastic stretcher things. My heart skips a beat and I run toward him.
“Stay back,” one of the EMTs says, holding out a hand to stop me.
My heart is racing as I try to catch a glimpse of him, but he’s got an oxygen mask on his face, and he seems really out of it. They load him into the ambulance, and I rush forward. “Please,” I say to whoever will listen. “I need to go with him!”
“Family only,” the woman says, not even looking at me in her haste to get Jett into the ambulance.
It feels a little gross, but I say what I need to say. “I’m his sister!”
She looks back at me, lifting an eyebrow as she gives me a once over. “Please!” I say. “I’m the only family member here with him.”
“Get on in,” she says.
Chapter 4
Jett
When I open my eyes, it’s bright as hell in here. My head is killing me, but it feels slow as well. Sluggish. This isn’t the first time I’ve woken up in a cold hospital room with all the sense knocked out of me. I get it immediately. I know why I’m here.
Dirt bikes. It has to be.
I close my eyes and try to focus on my breathing, hoping my rapid heartbeat will calm down if only to make that stupid machine shut up. Where the hell am I and what race is it?
That’s right. Details come back to me slowly. San Antonio. Heat race.
I couldn’t get out of the way fast enough.
“Shit,” I say, opening my eyes. I get a bright dose of hospital lights and I lift my head, but I can’t sit up much. I’m groggy, heavily drugged from the feel of it.
“Hello!” I call out. There’s hospital blankets on top of me, and I smell like sweat. I look down and see my leg is in a cast. Fuck.
A cast. A real one, plaster and all, not just a walking cast or a splint.
This is not good.
A curtain opens and a white coat doctor with graying hair appears with a cheerful smile on his face. I look around find myself surrounded in these white curtain walls. That explains why it’s so damn loud in here. We must be in the ER.
“Hello, Mr. Adams,” the doctor says in a booming voice.
“Mr. Adams is my dad,” I say on impulse, although that doesn’t really matter right now.
“How’s your head feeling?” the doctor asks.
“Like shit. What’s wrong with me? My leg? Anything else? How bad is it?”
I try sitting up on my elbows but I quickly fall back down because the drugs are making me woozy. The doctor chuckles. “Just take it easy, son. You’re not in too bad of shape. Just a minor concussion and a fractured tibia.”
I sigh and curse under my breath. “A fracture is a big deal, doc.”
“You’ll be healed up in about six weeks,” he says, giving me an assuring smile that does absolutely nothing to assure me.
“Six weeks is a lifetime in my world.”
He chuckles again and holds a narrow flashlight up to my eyes. He does a few more checks and says some more shit about how I’ll be able to leave the hospital today and that my head isn’t that bad. I don’t pay much attention. All I’m thinking about how is how I can’t race for Team Loco for the next six freaking weeks. This might ruin me. What if Marcus kicks me off the team?
The tail end of something the doctor says catches my attention. “Your sister is here, so she’ll be in here soon…”
I look at him. “My sister?”
He nods. “She’s here. You do have a sister, right? I’m tired of these dirt bike guys being followed around by stalkers claiming to be family members.”
I nod slowly. “I have a sister but—my parents are here?”
“No, just your sister. She told me you live few hours away.”
That doesn’t make any sense. My sister is a baby. How the hell is she here?
The doctor opens the curtain and motions to someone, and then Keanna appears. She’s got a timid smile as she slips past the doctor and approaches my bed.
“Hey,” she says. “Good thing I was here because they only let family join you.” She gives me wink.
I grin. “Thanks, sis.”
The doctor tells us someone will be in here shortly to discharge me and then we’re left alone.
“Oh my God, Jett,” Keanna whispers. She grabs my hand and squeezes it. “You scared the hell out of me.” Tears immediately flood her eyes and roll down her cheeks. I reach up and swipe them off, cupping her face in my hand.
“Baby, I’m okay.”
She shakes her head, blinking quickly to clear the tears. “You’re not okay. You have a broken leg and a concussion. I watched you crash and you didn’t get up and it was the worst thing ever.”
She takes a ragged breath. “It’s just—I’m just glad you’re okay.”
Seeing her makes me happy, and for about thirty seconds I feel relieved and glad to be with her. Then it all comes back to me, the reality of my situation and how I’ve just been injured on the first damn race of the season.
“This sucks,” I say, covering my eyes with the hand that’s not holding onto Keanna. “I’m out for six weeks.”
“Marcus is waiting in the lobby,” she says. “He’s not mad,” she adds after my eyes go wide. “He’s just really concerned about you. He sent Clay in to race after you left, and he qualified in the next heat race so Team Loco is still being represented tomorrow.”
I nod slowly. “That’s good.”
She squeezes my hand. “Marcus wants you to focus on getting better and then he’s putting you right back into the races. He told me to tell you that so you wouldn’t be mad.”
I chuckle. “So, he’s not kicking me off the team.”
“No way.” She leans down and kisses me. “You’re just on a short hiatus.”
“Hey now,” I say, giving her a playful look. “Sisters don’t kiss their brothers like that.”
She turns beet red. “Shut up! I had to say it so they’d let me on the ambulance.”
I run my thumb across her palm, staring at the ring I gave her. “We should get married. Then you’ll have all legal rights to be with my broken ass in the hospital.”
She swallows. “What, like right now?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Soon. I mean…that’s where we’re headed, right?”
Her lips break into a smile that’s so sweet it makes my heart hurt. “I hope so,” she says quietly. “But you can’t just marry me because it makes it easier to get into your hospital room.”
“That’s not why I’d be marrying you,” I say. It’s a sweet moment, but a nurse interrupts us by barging in and talking about the discharge procedure. I’m loaded into a wheelchair and rolled outside where Marcus is waiting in my truck to take me back to my hotel.
Every freaking bump on the road sends pain shooting through my head, but I believe the doctor when he says my concussion isn’t too bad. I’ve had worse. My leg aches as well, so the hospital meds are probably starting to wear off.
Clay and Marcus help me get into a wheelchair the hotel has on hand while Keanna looks at me like I’m go into break into pieces if I’m not handled carefully. “I’m fi
ne,” I tell her. “I’ll be able to walk on crutches after my freaking head gets a little better.”
“We’re getting you a wheelchair,” she says, her face resolute. “I have to go fill your pain med prescription so I’ll get a wheelchair, too.”
“I’ll drive you,” Clay tells her as we all pile into the hotel elevator.
“Thank you,” she says, giving him a smile. She puts a hand on my shoulder. “You’re going straight to bed, mister. No walking around. You need to rest.”
“Shit, how the hell am I going to get us home tomorrow?” I say, looking down at my foot. I can’t exactly drive with a huge ass cast on my right foot.
“I’ll drive us,” she says. Despite how she’s scared of big trucks and she’s never driven mine at all, she says it with confidence and a tone in her voice that says I’m not allowed to argue.
I kind of like it when she gets like this. It’s totally sexy.
When I’m in my hotel room, Clay and Keanna head to the nearest pharmacy and my heart immediately beats a little harder in what is most definitely jealousy. I’m glad it’s Clay with her though…the other guys on my team would no doubt try to hit on her. But Clay only cares about motocross, so hitting on my girlfriend would be the last thing on his mind.
Marcus gets me a soda and hangs around while we wait for them to get back. I know the procedure—get a concussion, have everyone watch you like a baby for a few hours. It’s annoying.
“You got a good girlfriend,” Marcus says.
“Trust me, I know.”
He laughs. “I’ve seen so many motocross fangirls in my life, and they’re always in it for the wrong reasons. Not that girl, though.”
“I know what you mean.” I pile the pillows on the bed so I can sit up on them. “She’s the best.”
“When I was racing, I never had a steady girlfriend,” Marcus says. “They were all in it for the wrong damn reasons.”
Marcus was a pro racer about twenty years ago, but he only lasted three years before his parents died in a car wreck and he quit to take care of his siblings. My dad knew him a little bit, but Marcus was older than him so they never raced together.
I’m pretty sure he’s been single his whole life, or at least never married. You never see Marcus with a girlfriend, and he never talks about dating anybody, but maybe he just keeps that part of his life to himself.
“I’m going to marry her,” I say.
Marcus holds out his can of soda to me in a toast. “I bet you will, Adams. I want to be invited to the wedding.”
I grin. “You better get us a badass wedding gift.”
Chapter 5
Keanna
I don’t know much about Clay, so it’s a little weird walking with him to the nearby pharmacy. He’s tall, taller than Jett, and a little wider too. Tattoos line both of his arms, some of them colorful and some are just black shadows and shapes. I find myself trying to sneak a glimpse of them without being too obvious.
He used to have hair, which he kept floppy and in need of a haircut. That’s how he looked when I first saw him on the Team Loco website. But a few months ago, he shaved it all off and now he looks like a scary bouncer at a night club.
“You gotta make me a promise, okay?” Clay asks me as we walk.
“Um…okay?” We barely know each other so it feels weird that he wants promises from me.
He gives me a hesitant smile. “Now that Jett’s out of the season for a few weeks, Marcus is going to put me in the races in his spot. There’s no denying that Jett is the faster guy here, that’s why I got second place and he got first in the summer series. I just—” He runs his hand across his head, almost as if he expected to be able to run his fingers through his hair. He sighs, letting the air out slowly through his lips.
“I’m not trying to upstage him or anything, okay?”
“No one thinks you are,” I say. This is a new side of Clay, the timid and slightly worried side. He’s always seemed to uptight and serious when I’ve been around him.
He nods quickly but he still looks nervous. “I don’t want Jett to be pissed at me for taking over, you know? If you could just, I don’t know, like say nice things about me to him? Let him know I feel like shit and I hate that he got injured.”
“I think he knows that, Clay. It’s not like you jumped out and pushed him off his bike or anything.”
He shrugs. “This is a competitive field. I can already see the articles now…journalists asking me if I’m happy I got another chance to up my race stats and take over as the top rookie…” He shakes his head. “Jett and I are teammates. I want it to stay that way. I’m on his side.”
“I’ll make sure he knows,” I promise.
At the pharmacy, Clay opens the door for me. While I get Jett’s prescriptions filled, Clay walks around the store, collecting random items. We make our way to the front desk to pay, and Clay dumps it all on the counter.
“It’s on me,” he tells me, taking out his wallet.
“What is it?” I say, lifting an eyebrow at the stuff he’s chosen.
“A care package for Jett. Magazines I know he loves, candy, junk food, a phone charger because he was complaining that he left his at home, and some Band-Aids.”
“Band-Aids?” I ask.
Clay smirks, handing his credit card to the cashier. “Inside joke.”
Clay holds the bags of stuff as we make our way the three blocks to the hotel. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” I begin.
“Uh oh,” Clay says. “Those words are almost always followed by something I’ll take the wrong way.”
I laugh. “It’s just that you’re actually a cool guy.”
He grins. “That wasn’t so bad.”
I scratch my arm and glance over at his tattoos again. “You just seem like a boulder. Like this mean asshole who doesn’t ever know how to smile.”
“Okay, that was mean,” he says sarcastically.
“I told you not to take it the wrong way!” I say, slapping him on the arm.
He chuckles. “It’s cool. I get that a lot. I’m just a quiet guy most of the time. I don’t care for small talk or any of that shit, unless I’m with friends.”
“So are we friends?” I ask.
He throws an arm around my shoulder. “Looks like we are.”
***
The next morning, I pack up all of our stuff even though Jett wants to help. I have to glare at him and tell him to keep his ass in the bed where he belongs. The last thing he needs is to break his other leg while hobbling around the hotel room packing a suitcase.
“Baby…” Jett says in a whining voice. “I’m not an invalid. Let me help.”
“You’re recovering from a concussion,” I say, giving him a pointed stare. “Your butt stays on that bed until I say so.”
“You’re even worse than my mom,” he says.
I heft the suitcase onto the bed and zip it closed. “What’d she say about all of this?”
He snorts. “She hasn’t said a damn thing because I haven’t told her.”
I put my hands on my hips. “You were in the hospital with a concussion and a broken leg and you didn’t call your mom?”
He shrugs. “Why should I?”
“Because she cares about you!”
“It’s not that bad of an injury,” he says, but he does look a little guilty. “I would have called her if it was something bad.”
I roll my eyes. “Give me your phone.”
His eyes widen and he grabs the phone off the nightstand, pressing it against his chest. “She’s just going to worry.”
“No, she’s going to be pissed that you didn’t call and tell her immediately.”
Jett sighs and holds out his phone. “You’re right.”
I take it and call Bayleigh. I was right, of course. She was not thrilled to hear about Jett’s injury a day after it happened. But she tells us to be careful getting home and even offers to drive up to get us. I tell her we’re fine, and that leads me to the obstacle I�
�ve been avoiding.
Driving Jett’s truck.
It’s huge, with an extended cab and big tires and it feels like a monster on the road, especially compared to my tiny Mustang back home. It’s small and close to the road and I feel comfortable in my own car. I haven’t been driving long and Jett’s truck feels like a monster I’d have to wrangle into submission. But I’m doing this for him, and for me, to prove we can handle anything.
Jett climbs into his truck just fine by himself, even though I stand around to make sure.
“Baby, it’s a broken leg. I’m fine, really,” he says, kissing me just before I close the passenger door for him.
My heart pounds as I walk over to the driver’s side, the part of this truck I’ve only ever been near when I’m kissing Jett goodbye from the outside. With a deep breath, I grab the handle and yank open the door, then I climb inside as if I’m totally cool with this.
After all, I do know how to drive. It’s a straight shot back to Lawson, just a few hours of interstate and then we’ll be home. I can do this.
“You look sexy in a truck,” Jett says, winking at me as I start the engine.
“You look sexier than I do in the driver’s seat,” I say.
He grabs my leg and squeezes it, then reaches up and brushes my hair behind my ear. “Baby, you’re a great driver. Don’t let the truck intimidate you. You’ve got this.”
My heart warms and I return his smile. Then I put the truck in gear and pull out of the parking lot.
I was right about the interstate. It’s not so bad driving on it because there are no turns or red lights. By the time we get back to Lawson, Jett’s pain meds have kicked in and he’s asleep in the passenger seat. I feel a sense of pride at being the girlfriend who can handle things when he’s injured. It feels empowering, too. Like we’re both partners here.
When we get home, Jett’s dad meets us in the driveway with a pair of crutches that are covered in dirt bike stickers. Jett laughs when he sees them.
