by Casey Hagen
My grandmother taught me how to coach.
Lilith started to wander in after a while. She never got on the track herself. She wasn't into roller-skating, the way we were, but she loved to watch, to play music, and God could the girl cheer.
“You want some company?” Lilith called from the open doorway.
I dropped a rusted bolt into the bucket at my feet and turned to her. For just a second, I saw that young girl. The one who’d been hurt over and over by my mistakes.
The one who learned to laugh and cheer again despite them.
I wonder what she saw when she looked at me.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead with my sleeve. “Sure.”
She dragged her hands along the snaps for the skirting we’d never once put on the track. “How’s it going?”
I slid a new bolt into the hole and worked on finger-tightening the nut. “It would have been better if I hadn’t left it sitting here for ten years. I’ll be replacing bolts for a few hours. Might need to take a run to Dawson’s and grab some more.”
She yanked on one of the braces going into the corner, her lips twitching. “You’re really going to do this, huh?”
“Looks that way.” My ratchet clicked with every rotation, a sound I’d always loved for some reason.
“And there’s nothing I can do to change your mind?” she asked, crossing her arms and propping her shoulder against the track.
I glanced down at her stomach, spotted the twitch of cotton under her shirt, and grinned. “He’s active today.”
She laughed. “He’s active every day. Now answer the question.”
Ahhh, so this was the part where she picked me apart. Might as well get it over with. “There are kids involved.”
“And a woman from what I hear.”
“Fourteen of them,” I said without looking at her as I dropped another bolt in the bucket.
“Galloway Bay is only talking about one of them though.”
“Galloway Bay needs to mind its own business.”
“They are.”
“Yeah? How’s that?” I crouched under the track to slide in another bolt. I squinted up at her as sweat trickled in my eye. “By gossiping about her or by running their mouths about me?”
“Ouch,” she said with an exaggerated wince that told me my blunt assessment would do nothing to shut down her little inquiry. “I suppose both. But they’re right, though? You and Maisy?”
Or Mayhem…since we weren’t on a first name basis yet. I reached under and started loosening another nut on the shittiest section of the track I’d found so far. “Is there not supposed to be a woman for me, Lilith? Ever?” I knew this thing between Mayhem and me was a dead end, but I sure as hell didn’t need my sister who had the husband, the baby coming, and the one place that felt like home to the two of us telling me what I did and didn’t have the right to.
“I’m not saying that. You know I’m not saying that,” she said, her voice softening as she laid her hand on my shoulder.
Anger burned in my throat at the scathing words I swallowed. I cut her a glance that had her sliding her hand away. “So, what are you saying?”
“You forget who you’re talking to. I know you won’t stay.”
“Well,” I said, huffing out a breath, “I guess it’s good she didn’t ask me to.”
“She’s going to fall for you, you know?”
“Because I’m so irresistible?” I said with a humorless laugh. “I don’t see you talking about me falling for her.”
“Because I’m starting to figure out it might be a bit late for me to be worrying about that.”
“I’m not in love with her,” I said quietly, choking the words past the sudden lump in my throat.
I’d known her for all of five minutes. We’d been fighting for four minutes and fifty-nine seconds of them.
“Maybe not all in, but you wouldn’t have agreed to this if you weren’t well on your way,” she said with quiet confidence. “Is it really worth the pain?”
“Pain’s kept me company for how long now? I’ll be fine.”
She crouched down next to me, wincing as she settled in.
Just like that, I felt like an asshole for climbing under here. “Not your pain…hers.”
I thought about my first night home and the personal rivalry she battled on that track going head-to-head with Tilly.
About the mother who never returned to their room at the Beacon Motel.
The frayed green lace of her skate she didn’t dare throw away.
Her desperation to save Crossroads.
“She’s in pain too.” I wanted to snatch the words back. Four words that confirmed my sister’s every worry.
“Oh,” she said on a quiet sigh. She sucked in a breath and slapped her palms on her thighs. “Well—damn. I’ve run out of all judgment and sisterly warnings.”
I dropped my hands to my knees and laughed. My rigid shoulders relaxed and I nudged Lilith’s chin. When the hell had she become a woman? A full-blown adult woman who didn’t need her big brother anymore. “Don’t worry, it’ll only take a few hours with me for them to realize what a bastard I am. That’ll solve everything.”
“They’ll eventually respect you for it.” She grabbed ahold of one of the supports and pushed to her feet.
“Lilith?”
“Hmm?”
“I won’t screw up this time.”
“You didn’t screw up last time either. And when it comes to our brother—”
Her words sliced into my chest, the only place I could keep my twin safe now. Even if the only thing I could protect was his memory. “Don’t go there.”
“Abel made his own choices.”
Son of a bitch. “I’m the oldest.”
Her hands went to her lower back where she dug her fingertips into her muscles. “By six minutes, Cain. You’re the oldest by six damn minutes. You’re putting how many years’ worth of responsibility on six minutes?”
“Six minutes is still older. And you need off this concrete.” I nodded to the door, hoping she’d take the hint. “You should go inside.”
“Yeah, well…if it makes you feel any better, you’re not the smartest.”
“Ouch.”
She cocked her head with a smug grin on her face. “Someone had to tell you.”
I grinned up at her. “Point taken, Mouth.”
She bent down and wiped my cheek before pressing a kiss to it. “And you’re a damn good coach.”
She'd never said those words. My history coaching had only fueled attitude and frustration from her—with me, with the way this town turned against me after Lana's accident, and with how I wouldn’t help her understand.
Sweet relief slid through me, my skin tingling with the rush, knowing that even now, after all that I’d done, the mistakes I’d made, my sister believed in me. “Thank you.”
“Okay,” she said, clapping her hands and rubbing them together. “Since I can’t talk you out of the heartbreak you’re headed for, what can I do to help?”
“Just keep my nephew in for another month while we train.”
“You’ll need to go to Philly with them—”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Cain, they’re going to need you there.”
“I said I’m not leaving.” I shot her the same look I gave suspects when they took advantage of my demeanor and got mouthy. Hell, I had to keep up my skills.
“Okay, we’ll talk about that part at another time—”
“Looking forward to it,” I muttered.
“Hey, don’t make me practice my mom voice on you.”
“You don’t have a—”
A knock echoed through the room, cutting off what I was about to say. I climbed to my feet, grabbed a rag, and walked around to the straightaway, my feet rooting to the spot when I saw the familiar face standing there.
“Word around town is Beautifully Brutal is training to save Crossroads,” Tilly said from the door. “I want in.”
After two soul-sucking days of double shifts at The Shipwreck wrangling the families rolling into town for the impending Christmas holiday, followed by two nights spent trying to talk my team into this plan, I just wanted to lay here after my shift and bask in the Christmas lights from the two-foot tree on my end table.
I wanted to shove my face so deep in their glow I’d need sunglasses and SPF50.
Was that too damn much to ask?
I’d done so much taming of tantrums, assuaging of egos, and kissing of disgruntled ass in the past two days, I needed a therapist, a chiropractor, and an asshole bleaching kit for my mouth after all the ass I’d had to lick to bend people to my will.
Ass licking in porn—intriguing.
Ass licking in real life thus far—unpredictable, with a bit of crunch, salty as fuck, and plagued with pesky rogue hairs.
Shut up, we’ve all been there.
A man too macho to consider a bit of manscaping.
An overeager thrust of his hips jamming his man wand so deep down your throat his balls try to crawl in too.
And a ball hair or three with no manners.
Next thing you know you’ve placed a Prime order on the Zon for mega tweezers long enough to untangle short and curlies from your uvula next time because chugging drinks didn’t wash them down this time.
And really, no cocktail existed strong enough to forget they lay back there tickling your throat until they decided to have mercy on your soul and slide down.
The last short and curly I’d been forced to deal with in the past twenty-four hours was Patti’s—um, well, that didn’t sound right.
You know what I mean.
The woman spent two nights giving me side-eye for climbing on her bar despite sending her a slammin’ edible arrangement from Crum Cakes. And I sprung for the cinnamon bun as big as her seventies hair.
But it wasn’t until Mike from Dawson’s Hardware tried to be funny by suggesting Patti start paying me to perform up on the bar that she turned that side-eye on him and silently declared me in the clear.
Well, I should be in the clear. This was partly her fault. I wouldn’t have known there was another banked track around here had it not been for her.
Because Priest sure as hell wasn’t telling.
Pulling secrets—or hell, just straight-up information out of him was like trying to drag a cat into a bathtub of water and pit bulls.
Same could be said for convincing my team to agree to work with him. The exhibition had definite appeal to them. His track did too.
As for his involvement…more than half the team gave a swift no.
But my psyche had grown jagged, sharp claws and hooked into the idea of his training like a horny bitch coming out of a year-long self-imposed dry spell to dig her nails into the scrumptious ass cheeks of a sweaty rock-hard Magic Mike dancer while she wrapped her thighs around him and squeezed him so fucking tight she tried to crack his hips like walnuts.
Basically, I’d refused to take no for an answer.
At the same time, I got it. I completely understood their trepidation.
We’d put in hundreds of hours into our compliance and application to the WRDF. Time away from our families, our friends, hours of sleep lost when we were already stretched so thin.
Plus, we had money into this.
Real money.
Money we would not get back.
With this being a mostly quiet small town, scandal had a hell of a long shelf life. There were more than a few mouths around here willing to spread the word. And it had already begun.
You’d think they had better things to do with Christmas around the corner, but nope. Fueled with festive cocktails, more family around than ever to regal with tales, and embellishments these people had injected the salacious chatter with a hulking round of steroids until it flowed as smooth as rum-spiked eggnog.
But at what point did it stop? Ten years? Clearly not.
What about twenty?
Never?
Did we really need to be worried that somehow word would get to the WRDF?
And so what if word did get to them? Were they going to deny our application based on gossip? If they were, why would we even want to become a WRDF team anyway?
Sure, we wanted to grow derby in our area and up our game play, but did we really need them to do it? If left with no other choice, why couldn’t we just start our own junior leagues, recruit members, build more teams on our own?
I didn’t point that part out just yet. I decided to vent my doses of reality to my team in manageable nuggets. They were already on edge. Even the people who’d readily agreed to Priest’s involvement were fidgeting like they were fifteen again, storing contraband in the form of a half-naked varsity football player in their closet sporting 100% activated boy peen.
No sense in applying pressure on that constant worry because it was bad enough word had already gotten around about Crossroads coming to an end and at some point someone had overheard us talking about the charity exhibition so hope started to take root.
Now Galloway Bay had its very own raging wildfire sweeping through town.
We’d just asked a bunch of our employers for donations, but the minute word got around—the very next day—how we were going for the charity prize, those requests fell by the wayside and became the secondary focus to the glory of the underdog. Storytellers all over town had started elevating us to some weird hero status, counting on us to save all.
Guys…this was the long shot of long shots.
I hated to break it to them, but we needed our plan A and plan B.
We needed prayer chains, rabbit’s feet, crystals, horseshoes, fuzzy dice, ladybugs, shamrocks…hell, we could use leprechauns shooting out of our butts right now, sputtering, “I’m after me lucky charms.”
But fuck if I’d let doubt fall from my lips. I’d lay everything I had on that track for those kids leading up to the exhibition and all the way through it. Rylee’s worried face, as real as if she were right in front of me, popped into my head and a band tightened around my chest. I shuddered out a breath.
And the image sliding into place right after…Priest’s angry mouth and flashing eyes a split second before he mercilessly ate me alive.
My heart rolled a series of slow, hard thumps in my chest before taking off at a sprint. Heat slid through me. My skin grew hot and tight.
Absolutely devoured me.
And I wanted to do it again. I wanted to do it naked.
There should probably be some sort of break between the images flashing through my scattered imagination. A Parental Advisory: Explicit Warning.
Flaming girl bits mobilized… Good thing they came with their very own sprinkler system.
God, I was getting punchy.
I shot off the couch and glanced at the clock. Nine minutes. I rested for nine damn minutes. If you could call the mental acrobatics I’d just gone through rest.
Jamming my feet into my boots, I grabbed my duffel and I headed out the door. If I was going to be this restless, I’d put that energy into something useful.
I took a deep breath of crisp, cold air. A few familiar locals waved, nodded, and smiled as they hurried to and from their cars into the shops on Main Street. Janice Chase, the sheriff’s sister who ran the Galloway Bay library, called out just as I reached the parking lot.
“Make sure you bring in those little ones to see us. We’ve got brand-new books they’re going to love. Oh! And we have that camp series Addison has been waiting for,” she said with a wave.
“I’ll try to get them in next week,” I called back.
“If you can tear them away from Rockabilly’s. Am I right?” Janice called back with a wink.
“Yeah.” I forced out a laugh as my stomach pitched to my toes. Our issues went so much further than steering the kids away from the roller rink.
We needed to figure out how we were going to manage this training and continue our time with the kids at Crossroads.
&nb
sp; We couldn’t give up a solid month’s worth of visits with them to train. It was too much for their little hearts and feelings, and with the battle ahead, we needed a constant reminder of what we were fighting for.
We needed more of the kids, not less.
Well, shit.
I fired up my car, aimed the vents away from me until my little sedan heated up, what meager heat it chugged out, and rolled out of town.
Despite the sun and cloudless sky, the cool temperatures helped the towering pines along Route One cling to the blanket of snow draped over their limbs.
I didn’t need directions. Everyone, even a transplant like me, knew where to find Bishop Farm. Priest’s family had been a fixture in this town for generations. The once-dairy farm hadn’t seen cattle in decades, but now had expansive gardens that supplied local restaurants, helping hold on to their locally grown pride. And the transformation throughout the generations, through the decades, hung in old grainy photos in various local diners, shops, and even in Banked Track.
Those gardens languished for a short time after Stella Bishop died, but before long, Lilith moved to the farm, hired help, and in three years managed to get them flourishing once again.
I knew that story of the Bishops.
Hell, if I knew much else. Again, that whole difficulty pulling information from the tight-ass coach. The timing of the scandal didn’t help.
I’d just lost my mom.
I didn’t care about anything happening in Galloway Bay; I was too busy fighting to stay.
My skin prickled as I pulled up to Bishop Farm a half hour before the rest of the team.
What was it like to have this connection to a place? To people? To a town?
To have generations of family, traditions, and memories to cherish when life kicked you in the tits?
And once you had it, how the hell did you ever walk away?
The two-story white house came into view. Flanked by two chimneys trickling with tufts of smoke, it stretched toward a massive red barn with the added length of additions over the years, eventually ending at the newest section—a two-story two-car garage.
Heavy green window boxes covered in snow lay empty, but spilled colorful blooms from early spring until after Halloween.
