by Shandi Boyes
The juddering of my car vibrating through my body drags my mind away from the thoughts souring my already hostile mood. Gemma’s panicked gaze flicks between the road and me numerous times before she faintly mutters, “I didn’t do anything. I swear.”
When a familiar clomping noise sounds through my eardrums, the reason for my cars violent shudders make sense. “Pull in the alleyway. We’ve got a flat.”
Gemma’s grip on the steering wheel tightens so much, the lightly tanned skin covering her knuckles turns ghostly white. “The alley?” she stutters, her voice rickety.
When I nod my head, her throat works hard to swallow while her skittish eyes check her surroundings. After ensuring the coast is clear, she slowly glides my car toward the alley. Although she pulls in far enough that we are out of the danger zone of oncoming traffic, not even half the hood of my car is sitting in the actual alleyway.
Once she finishes scanning the area for a second time, Gemma shifts her massively dilated eyes to me. She looks more frightened now than when I was trying to scare her with my erratic driving. But even with her eyes shrouded in uncertainty, her panicked glance still stirs something deep within me. I don’t fucking get it. Honestly, I don’t. Gemma is attractive. One hundred percent. But that isn’t what is causing my astonishment. It is the fact a stranger can spark a reaction out of me at all that makes it so bizarre.
When you’re a man living with grief, inexplicable instances of happiness that occur with family and friends can be written off without too much thought. A smile at a playful antic or the way my heart rate quickened when I found out Hugo had a son – rare occurrences like that I can explain. But when the glance of a stranger gives me a pinch of hope that not every word in my story has been written is an absurd and ridiculous notion I cannot explain. A look can’t give me back my heart I buried five years ago. It can’t erase every bad thing that has happened in my life. So how can it encourage hope? It can’t. That is why it is such a ridiculous notion. It is nothing but a fantasy – the misguided hope that I'm not a completely heartless and broken man.
A humid July wind smacks me in the face when I throw open the passenger door of my car and peel out of it. I need to get this tire changed and Gemma to her hotel before any other idiotic ideas formulate in my dysfunctional head. Maybe I should just come out and tell Gemma who I am? Then she will look at me with the same amount of sympathy everyone else does, and the little spell she has me under will break. I considered doing exactly that earlier tonight when she introduced herself. But no matter how often my name sat on the tip of my tongue, my mouth refused to relinquish it.
Any chances of keeping my head out of idiotic territory evaporate when Gemma curls out of my car and stands next to me at the trunk. “If you break it, it’s your responsibility to fix it,” she mumbles, quoting another one of her dad’s famous sayings.
My brow cocks into my hairline. “You’re going to change the flat tire?”
The startled expression on her face fades as she spreads her hands across her tiny hips. “You don’t think I can change a tire?” she asks, a whip of edginess to her voice.
Not waiting for me to reply, Gemma snatches the jack out of my grasp and saunters toward the front passenger tire of my car. Inwardly grinning at her fire-cracking self-assuredness, I unscrew the lock clamps on my spare tire, drag it out of the trunk, and roll it to her. My lips twitch as I struggle to conceal my smile.
Gemma kneels on my suit jacket with her expensive-looking dress tucked in the hem of her panties. I hesitate when I say panties as I have no clue what the hell she is wearing underneath her dress. From what I saw earlier today, her panties are a cross between gym clothes and the spandex pants bicyclists shouldn’t wear. With her hair tied off her face, held by the piece of thread that was holding my jack together, she looks like a NASCAR pit model who decided to glam it up for the night.
“I know how to change a tire, but I never said I intended on getting dirty while doing it,” she informs my mocking expression.
She surprises me when she rolls the jack under my car and hoists the front passenger side of my Camaro off the ground without requesting assistance. My attempt to conceal my smile grows when her hearty endeavors to unfasten the lug nuts on the tire don’t budge them the slightest. After blowing a rogue strand of hair out of her face, she increases her pressure on the wrench. If I had anyone to share them with, I’d be tempted to snap a sneaky picture of her kneeling on the filthy ground wrangling with the tires on my Camaro. The little veins in her forehead have darkened from her almighty pushes, and a beading of sweat has made her damp hair stick to her temples. She looks flustered and desirable at the same time. It’s an enticing visual for any red-blooded car guy, let alone a NASCAR fanatic who knows of her connection to the industry.
Spotting the corners of my mouth tugging higher, Gemma turns her eyes to me. “You think you can do better? Be my guest.” She waves her hand across the front of the tire like the models on The Price is Right do when displaying the latest prize up for grabs.
My feeble smirk turns into a smile when my first crank of the wrench undoes the nut Gemma’s been working on the last ten minutes. Unable to hide my naturally deep-rooted cockiness, I drift my eyes to Gemma and arch my brow.
“Lucky shot,” she mumbles under her breath. “That one was easy as I loosened it for you.”
She crosses her arms over her chest when the second lug nut closely follows the first one. The cute little pout she is wearing increases with every nut I remove. By the time I have the flat tire replaced with the spare, her entire forehead is lined with a heavy set of wrinkles, and she wears her sexy scowl with pride. I can’t remember the last time anyone has scowled at me like that. Jenni, the mark I’ve been protecting the past six months, is the only female I’ve been around lately. Even surviving a traumatic six months, Jenni wouldn’t know what a scowl is. Inflamed cheeks. . . that’s an entirely different story.
“Whatever,” Gemma hisses, taking my smile as a dig at her epic failure. Her voice was aiming for stern but it came out with more spiritedness than she hoped for. “Who needs to know how to change a tire when you have an entire pit crew at your disposal to do it for you?”
She tries to keep her gaze narrowed. She miserably fails. After wiping the grease from my hands with a rag tied around my jack and lowering my car back to the asphalt, I return my eyes to Gemma. Once she finishes scanning the alley for the tenth time the past three minutes, she locks her wide eyes with mine. A flush of color creeps across her cheeks when she notices she has secured my prying stare. Although I can see a snick of embarrassment forming in her eyes, she maintains my gaze.
This is probably more my grief talking than logic, but being looked at through the eyes of a stranger is a nice change. Even with Gemma’s horribly fake annoyance, not being seen as a damaged man for even the shortest period of time makes the weight I’ve been carrying on my shoulders the past five years a little lighter. Although I said earlier my wish not to be a broken man for just a second frustrates me, it doesn’t stop it from being true. I know the insane feeling I get when Gemma looks at me won’t last, but when you're grasping at straws, even a nanosecond of being treated normal is a huge deal to a man who has nothing to look forward to.
I know why people stare at me in sympathy. Everything I wanted in my life was working out how I had envisioned. Then faster than I could snap my fingers, my entire world changed. But their silent sympathies can’t undo what happened. It just adds to the grief I’m already drowning in.
While standing from my crouched position, I remember the quote Mrs. Marshall said to me the day of Jorgie and Malcolm’s funeral. “Grief is not a straight line that disappears into the horizon with time. It’s just like the beat of your heart. It goes up and down, slows for a while, then speeds up when you least expect it. Your soul knows what to do to heal itself, Hawke. The challenge will be to silence your mind.”
Deciding to test her theory, I shut down my mind before thrusting
my hand out, offering to help Gemma off the ground. A trace of a smile curls on her lips before she accepts my friendly gesture. When her smile causes an even bigger impact to me than her inquisitive glances, I calm the guilt trickling into my veins by repeating Mrs. Marshall’s quote over and over again.
After running her hands down the front of her dress, Gemma locks her curious eyes with me. “Considering you don’t have the Marshall heirloom blue eyes, I’m fairly certain you’re not Hugo’s brother, Chase. So, who are you?” she asks, no longer capable of leashing her nosiness. She peers into my eyes, her curiosity growing by the second.
“Carey,” I reply, my voice as uncertain as my facial expression. “My name is Carey.”
I know I'm being somewhat deceitful with my introduction, but for every second Gemma glances at me, it feels like an hour is taken off the lifetime sentence I was handed five years ago. If one second in her presence is that potent, imagine the impact an entire minute or hour could have on a broken man?
Would you lie for a chance to feel normal again?
Chapter 6
Carey’s mood bounced between dour and passive the first twenty minutes of our trip, but the ten minutes following our impromptu battle of the sexes tire- changing game exposed a new side to him. It is an approachable side that welcomes the occasional question, and awards my attempts at wittiness with sporadic smiles. Although his true personality is still a little hard for me to gauge, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the time we’ve spent together—even with the flare of victory brightening his dark eyes.
I’m not going to lie, my efforts at changing his tire were woeful. But in my defense, I’ve never changed a tire in my life. And despite that, just the fact I left the safety of Carey’s car was a remarkable performance for me. I only grew the courage to face my fears when I recalled the steps Dr. McKay taught me the first six months of my intense recovery. Wanting to bolster my beliefs that I didn’t lose any power in a dark alleyway years ago, I became a woman on a mission. I was more determined than ever. I just never fathomed how much muscle it would take to remove the lug nuts on the tire. I don’t care how many times Carey denies it, I swear on my grandfather’s grave, those lugs were seized in place from years of corrosion while sitting in a storage shed.
While I'm being totally forthright, I’ll also admit, I don’t feel guarded when I’m around Carey. I don’t know why. Maybe it is because he has such a reserved demeanor, I feel like I need to bring a more outlandish personality to the party to even us out. It’s funny, six years ago a word like “outlandish” wouldn’t have made a dent in my former personality. Now the only outlandish thing I do is switching my coffee order from artificial sweetener to sugar. I wouldn’t say I was an extrovert before the event that changed my life course, but I honestly didn’t believe anything could ever bring me down. How naive was I?
Any further thoughts on my naïveté are left for dust when familiar scenes start zooming by my window. With my heart beating at a double speed, I shift my eyes to the driver seat. I blink, slightly confused when my excited gleam is met with a pair of inquisitive dark eyes I don’t immediately recognize. With cherished memories engulfing me, it takes me a few moments to remember where I am in time.
Once I grasp that I’m no longer a ten-year-old girl sitting in her father’s truck, my excitement swells. “Do you have anywhere you need to be right now?” I ask Carey, my voice high.
Carey’s eyes flick from the radio clock showing it is nearly midnight to me. He takes a few moments to absorb the excited expression on my face before he briefly shakes his head.
Barely holding in my squeal, I request, “Take a right on Lewis.”
Carey eyes me with silent reserve before doing as instructed.
For the next twenty minutes, I direct him to our destination by using nothing but happy memories. The further Carey’s Camaro glides down a narrow black road, the more my backside lifts off the seat. The crackling of energy in the air is electrifying, sparking every fine hair on my body to bristle with excitement. I’m not the only one excited; enthusiasm also beams out of Carey in invisible waves.
I squint my eyes as I scan the familiar location. Although several years have passed since I’ve been here this late at night, cherished memories are real-life snapshots. You never truly forget them, no matter how much they fade.
“Stop,” I demand when a white wooden mailbox enters my peripheral vision.
The sound of gravel crunching under tires booms into my ears when Carey pulls his Camaro into the driveway of my dad’s first country estate. Before he sold this property four years ago, we lived here six months out of the year. From the outside, there’s no clue of the beauty hiding behind the overgrown hedges and unkempt lawn.
When Carey’s car comes to a stop at a large twelve-foot-high electric gate, he turns his eyes to me. He looks baffled and unsure. From the scared look in his eyes, anyone would swear I just guided him to a scary country rendition of Blood Manor.
Our necks crank to the side in sync when a luscious female voice asks, “Hola, puedo aydarte?”
An excited squeal ripples from my lips when I recognize the sultry voice. The muscles in Carey’s thick thighs flex when I lean across his chest to roll down his driver’s side window. “Hola, Valentina, es Gemma,” I greet into the intercom hidden in the stonewall of the entrance gate.
Valentina squeals nearly as loud as I did when I identified her voice. I haven’t seen Valentina in over two years, but I’d never forget her hot-enough-to-melt-chocolate voice. It’s as seductive as her curvaceous body. Ignoring Carey screwing up his nose from Valentina’s ear-piercing squeal, I apologize in Spanish for arriving at such a late hour but plead with her to grant us access to the back half of the property.
“We’ll be so quiet, you won’t even know we’re here,” I add on in English to strengthen my plea.
Seconds feel like hours before Valentina agrees to my terms, but with one stipulation. The next time I'm in her neck of the woods, I have to visit at a more appropriate hour and introduce her to the dark-haired hottie I’m rubbing my boobies against. My cheeks initially flame from her witty request, but considering Carey didn’t flinch the slightest, my embarrassment quickly subsides. I’m confident he doesn’t understand a word of Spanish.
“Gracias, Valentina, and I will, I promise,” I reply.
The sound of a loud buzzer drowns out Valentina’s farewell. I air blow an air kiss to the camera recording my every movement before sliding back into the passenger seat. After the electric gate slowly chugs open, Carey pulls his car down the asphalt driveway. My eyes shoot in all directions, more than eager to absorb the space that hasn’t changed the slightest in nearly three years. Although this residence looks rundown and scary on the outside, once you enter the rusted old gates, magic happens. With rolled turf, established manicured gardens, and a residence that puts Graceland to shame, this property is not only superb; it is one of a kind.
“Follow the path on your right,” I request.
The further Carey’s Camaro rolls down the isolated side track, the more recognition dawns on Carey’s face. New NASCAR billboards are scattered between the original ones my dad had installed nearly twenty years ago.
“Valentina. . .” Carey leaves his sentence open like I had earlier, hoping I’ll fill in the blanks.
“Valentina Cratis. Wife of—”
“Andre Cratis,” Carey fills in before he cranks his neck back.
Although the former Calderon-Lévesque mansion is shrouded in darkness from the cloud-filled sky, the light illuminating the main stairs of the residence makes it easily distinguishable to any NASCAR fan. My dad was photographed on those very stairs ten years ago with his vast collection of championship trophies surrounding him, and Andre and Valentina wed on those same stairs three years ago. That was the day my love for photography flourished. I still have the picture I snapped of them with an old retro polaroid camera their wedding photographer lent me. It is sitting on the duchess in the bedroom
of my apartment in New York. It is one of my most treasured possessions. That picture saved my life in more ways than words could ever express.
“We’re at Matias’s private ranch?” Carey asks, his voice the highest I’ve heard.
Smiling, I nod my head. “This isn’t my dad’s private ranch anymore, though. This is Andre and Valentina’s home. They have lived here the past four years.”
The shock on Carey’s face grows when his car comes to a halt at the edge of the race track my dad had built back in the late 90s. When it became apparent my dad’s grueling training program and my school schedule weren’t melding, my dad built a replica NASCAR training track in the back paddock of our winter residence. When it was finished, he never practiced on another track. Critics slammed him, saying he was reckless and that he’d lost his passion for the sport. He proved them wrong. He won his final three championships the years following his decision to upend his training program to an unknown town fifty miles outside of New York.
Carey sits in muted silence when I crank open the passenger side door and curl out of his car. After flicking on the overhead flood lights, I pace toward the large steel gate of the track. My heart swells in pride when I notice Valentia and Andre have kept the track in its original condition. Even the track’s name remains the same: Calderon Mile.
