by Larkin Rose
“That you sold the photos to Doug’s family?” Sellars shifted closer to Lacy’s side.
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
Lacy turned to look at her. Her heart rate quickened until she saw the lack of malice in Sellars’s eyes. “No. Of course not.”
“Then how did they get the photos?”
“Me. I gave them every single one.”
“So they could go after NASCAR?”
Lacy shook her head. “No.” She turned her gaze on the ceiling. “I couldn’t keep them. Couldn’t look at them. But I couldn’t delete them, either.”
“That must have been hard,” Sellars whispered. “Witnessing that. Capturing that.”
Lacy felt her throat tighten with the sound of pity. She didn’t want Sellars’s pity. Not anyone’s, as a matter of fact.
“Lisa had a case. I had the proof. It was the right thing to do.” Lacy rolled onto her side to face Sellars, eager for this conversation to be over, eager to get back to the place where they were too breathless to speak.
“So you gave them the ammunition and hightailed it across the map? Did you think NASCAR was going to put out a contract for your head? I don’t think it works that way.”
Lacy considered her question. She hadn’t run from NASCAR. That lawsuit would have come at them regardless of Lacy’s photos. Even they knew that. They’d settled so fast, it never had a chance to enter a courtroom, and the seat belts had been changed in every car as a result.
No. She’d run from her own demons. The demons those pictures created. The demons Leonard created with his filthy lies.
Fact was, she was terrified it would happen again. Terrified the next person would be Billy.
“Leonard’s right. I was in a man’s world. I didn’t belong there. I’m not cut out to be a groupie. Or a NASCAR photographer.” Lacy fingered Sellars’s arm, anxious to shut those lips, to shut out the images that were starting to nudge at her conscious.
“Bullshit,” Sellars said. “He was just trying to get in your head.” She cupped Lacy’s wrist. “And you’d never let a man run you off. He wasn’t the reason.”
Sellars rolled Lacy onto her back and settled between her thighs once again. “What were you running from, Lacy?”
“Shut up and fuck me.”
Sellars smiled while she hooked Lacy’s legs over her hips. She slowly arched into her.
Lacy pushed her hand down the length of her body until she found Sellars’s slick opening. She teased for several seconds, watching Sellars’s smirk melt from her face.
She drew her fingers back up and slowly circled her clit.
“Finally. I didn’t think you were ever going to shut up.” Sellars lowered herself over Lacy, slipped her own hand between Lacy’s thighs, and pushed inside her.
Together, they fucked each other, panting, crying out, until they both fell beside each other in a sweaty heap.
What felt like eternity slipped by while Lacy surrendered to the tranquil moment. Normally, she’d be dressed by now. Normally, she would be headed for the door.
But nothing was normal lately.
And right now, this was perfectly abnormal.
Even when Sellars moved, she wanted to stop her. She needed a few more minutes of this. This, nothing. Just lying there, thinking about nothing. Doing nothing. She never did nothing enough. Always on the go. Always working on something. Always.
“Get dressed. I have a surprise for you.” Sellars bent over the bed and started chucking clothes at Lacy.
“I don’t like surprises,” Lacy said as she sorted through the clothing for her shirt and pants.
She didn’t like surprises because she never got them.
Unless it came in the mail from Billy or Gabby, surprises didn’t land at her feet.
“Do you trust me?” Sellars stuffed her legs into her jeans.
“Hell no. Why would I trust a death wisher?” Lacy buttoned the shirt into place.
When she looked up, Sellars was staring down over her.
That look of need in her eyes was all Lacy could handle.
She reached out and pulled Sellars back down.
Whatever the surprise was, it would have to wait.
Chapter Fourteen
When Sellars turned onto the no outlet street, Lacy knew immediately where they were going.
The racing school.
She could feel her anxiety settling in for the long haul.
She tried to calm her knotting stomach, repeating to herself that the school was closed this hour of the night, that no one would be on the track, that it was okay.
She hadn’t been to a track—any track—since the day of Doug’s fatal wreck. Not even to watch Billy. Not even when the crew threw him a birthday party from the pit. Never.
“Why the fuck are we here?” Lacy could hear the tremble in her voice, and the sound aggravated her.
She didn’t like being a damsel. Didn’t like appearing weak.
“Helping.” Sellars parked the car and jumped out. She came around to Lacy’s door.
Lacy shoved the door open. “We’re still not on a date. I’ll open my own damn door.” She stepped out and glanced at the building. “How is standing in a parking lot of a racing school in the middle of the night helping? Helping with what, is the better question.”
Sellars withdrew her cell phone, sent what Lacy assumed was a text, then took Lacy’s hand. “Come on. You won’t regret it. I promise.”
Sellars pulled her forward and Lacy prayed she meant those words.
She fought to put every foot in front of each other. Sellars’s hand felt so good in hers, and that was the only reason she kept taking the steps that were leading her closer and closer to that racetrack. To that evil death track.
She hated her fear more than anything. This, a track, the adrenaline of the race, was where she’d always felt the most confident in her photography. The men behind the scenes. The racers themselves. They’d always made her feel like family.
Until that day.
No matter how many pep talks she had in silence with herself, no matter how many times she reminded herself that when your time was up, then time was simply up, no matter where you were. She could never talk herself out of allowing the fear to eat her alive from the inside out.
Worse were the memories. The images she could never shake from her mind. They would forever be ingrained.
A young man wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a flop haircut appeared at the entrance. He pushed the door open with a smile and motioned for them to come inside.
Lacy hesitated. She wasn’t sure why. It was the middle of the night. There wouldn’t be cars on the track, nor could she hear that enticing roar.
But she was close. Close to a track that had claimed a life. A life she’d captured until his last breath.
Sellars squeezed her hand, and the pressure reminded Lacy that she was showing her weakness again.
She stepped inside.
The walls were full of photographs. Big names. Like Richard and Dale and David. The greats, as they would always be referred to.
She tried to concentrate on them instead of looking through the opposite wall of glass. The glass that looked out over the track. The very one she’d been looking through the day of Doug’s death. The fucking one she couldn’t get a good enough view through.
With a swallow, Lacy turned to another wall, desperate not to even let the glass move into her peripheral vision.
“Jared is our little secret.” Sellars interrupted her mental anguish. “He lets me come here at night. To practice.”
Lacy finally turned to look at her, praying that anguish wasn’t written all over her face. The last person she wanted to feel sorry for her was Sellars. “You’re not allowed anywhere near a track during your suspension.”
Sellars stepped into her, and Lacy felt the needles of doubt ease. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”
Lacy glanced over Sellars’s shoulder to find Jared grinning at them. Sh
e stepped back. “Don’t be so dramatic. I couldn’t give a shit if you drive headfirst into your own demise. It’s obvious by your track record, on and off that oval ring, that you’re a big girl making little girl decisions. Now, again, what are we doing here?”
Sellars gave her that signature smile and pointed toward the stairwell. “After you, princess.”
Lacy wanted to be brave, but that little voice in her head screamed that this was a very bad idea, that if they got caught, it was all over for Sellars. And if she got too close to that death track, it would be all over for her as well. She wasn’t so sure her heart could take the steady palpitations already making a hardy rhythm in her chest.
Memories threatened, and she lifted her chin, defying their entrance.
She started walking. Down the circular stairwell to the bottom floor where the wall of glass felt like a panel of death.
That voice was screaming as she strode to the double doors that led outside, no doubt the direction they were headed.
What the hell was Sellars up to? And why?
What purpose did this trip serve?
She shoved open the doors and drew in a deep breath, aware that Sellars was close on her heels.
Another set of stairs led down to the edge of the track where Lacy spotted a race car. She stopped cold.
“We’re not getting in that car.”
Sellars stopped beside her, unsure if this was such a good idea after all. Lacy might sound normal, minus the catch in her voice, but she was anything but normal. Her eyes were darting around like she expected danger to appear out of thin air. Sellars felt like a total shit for bringing Lacy back to the scene of the crime.
This was where Sellars came to help fight those demons. Or rather, in her case, entice them to the surface.
But it had seemed like a logical idea. Logical self-medication, as Lacy had said.
Right now, she was second-guessing her own intentions with that look of helplessness in Lacy’s eyes, no matter how hard she was trying to hide it. This was anything but a good idea.
Maybe she should take Lacy and her sarcastic devil tongue back to her apartment before those verbal slaps in the face gave her whiplash.
“You’re right. We’re not. You and Jared are.”
Sellars almost stepped back when Lacy turned a glare on her.
“I will do no such fucking thing.” Lacy shook her head, her gaze returning to the car at the edge of the track.
Sellars resisted the urge to hug her. Not only would that dog bite, she’d chew her up and leave unidentifiable body parts in the aftermath.
But one thing was for sure. Lacy was terrified of this place. It was written all over her expression. Those demons were on her back.
Was it wrong for Sellars to want to help her shake them? Was it wrong to think this was the place to do it? Was it wrong to get involved at all? To care?
Of course it was. Lacy was only here for the paycheck at the end of the ride. She was only here because, once again, her grandfather was paying Sellars’s way out of her own mess.
But something deep inside pulled at her, telling her that Lacy needed this moment far more than Sellars needed to come clean about her past.
For some reason, that made her feel good about herself. That if for nothing else, she would have done a good deed for someone other than herself.
“Yes, you will because you know I’m right.”
Lacy continued to stare at the car and Sellars wondered what she was thinking. Was she considering the fact that Sellars was right? Did Sellars’s presence make her more comfortable? Because Sellars carried her own demons, even if Lacy didn’t know the details?
“Then you drive.” Lacy turned around and pasted an “I dare you” expression on her face.
Sellars gave a nervous chuckle, hearing her own fear in the sound. “Jared is the pro here. Not me.”
She hadn’t had a woman in the passenger seat of a car that was doing over freeway speed limits since Sarah’s death. Since she opened her eyes to a film of blood and the love of her soul lifeless across the hood.
For a second, she closed her eyes against the images only to realize they were fresher with her eyes closed.
“You drive or take me home. The choice is yours, and it’s the only choice you have.” Lacy lifted her chin.
Sellars stared at that stern expression, those eyes serious and daring, searching for the bluff. She didn’t find one.
“Make up your mind. I don’t have all night.” Lacy turned and started down the steps as if she knew, or hoped, Sellars would fall for the challenge and follow her. “Or maybe I’ll just drive the damn thing myself. I’m not afraid of the car, idiot.”
Sellars drew in a deep breath, watching Lacy retreat even farther down the stairs, already feeling the weight of emotions dragging her down. “I can’t, Lacy. Let’s just call it a night.”
Lacy stopped and turned to look at her. “Bullshit, you can’t. You dragged me here in the middle of the night, tell me to face my fear, and you can’t even take the wheel? Sounds like a coward to me. A hypocritical coward.”
Lacy was right. Sellars hated that more than anything. That the tables were being turned. That the good of the night had turned on its head, forcing her into her own regression. Forcing her to face her own demon face-first.
With a grunt, she stormed down the stairs. She could do this. It was just a car. It was just a woman in the passenger seat. No harm. No foul.
Yes. She could do this.
Lacy watched Sellars jerk the suit off the hood of the car. She kicked off her shoes and stepped into the coveralls while Jared helped Lacy with her own.
She wouldn’t even look at Lacy, and her expression was unreadable.
Was she realizing what a waste of time this trip was? Did she want to take Lacy’s hand and U-turn them back up those stairs, back through the building, and get the hell out of here?
Who the hell did she think she was? She wanted to heal Lacy with a rip around the track but wouldn’t answer even the smallest question about her own past?
Fact was, she wasn’t going to open up. She’d made that clear. And the fact that she thought she could bring Lacy here and heal her with speed medication was a joke.
Was she pissed that she didn’t win this argument? That Lacy was forcing her to help smash the demons? Mad because Lacy would prefer she take her around this track? Would it make her feel better to know that out of the two people here, maybe out of a dozen racers, Billy not included, she trusted Sellars the most?
She was an amazing driver, smooth and graceful, and she didn’t risk safety on the track. She was one hell of a driver and Lacy trusted her. Completely.
But there was something deeper. Something that meant even more than her ability to control a race car. Lacy somehow knew Sellars would never cause her harm.
She trusted her. And that trust didn’t come easy.
A fact she would keep to herself for now. Sellars had a big enough head as it was.
Sellars yanked the zipper closed. “Let’s get this over with.” She dodged around to the driver’s side, lifted her legs over the frame, and dropped into the seat like a pro.
It was rather sexy. She was sexy. Another fact Lacy needed to keep to herself.
Lacy climbed through the door. Not as gracefully as Sellars.
She dropped into the seat and anxiousness overwhelmed her.
Fear. Excitement. Adrenaline. The combination balled in her gut, but she refused to give in to the demanding need to escape.
Sellars was right. It was time to do this. Time to face her fear. Time to circle this track. If for nothing, she’d do it for Doug. She’d do it for his family who had easily won their case with Lacy’s photos. Changes were made. Racers were safer because of her bravery. Lives would be saved because Lacy was in the wrong place at the wrong time, doing nothing more than looking for a fuck and taking a new camera for a spin.
Jared reached in and pushed the helmet over Lacy’s head, buckled it und
er her chin, then snapped the seat belt into place. “Have fun!”
He backed away from the car, and Lacy had the urge to jerk at the tightness. Claustrophobia nipped at her mind, and she lightly inhaled to fight the emotion.
Sellars worked her own helmet into place and fired up the engine. The car rumbled beneath them.
The vibration soothed Lacy somehow.
Now. She needed Sellars to drive now, before she changed her mind. Before she ran screaming from this pit of despair.
Sellars reached over and jerked on Lacy’s seat belt. Then again.
Lacy pushed her hand away. “Put your fucking foot on that pedal!”
Sellars felt like the oxygen had been pulled out of the air. Lacy was in the seat beside her. Not Sarah. She was on a racetrack. Not a back road. The only thing that could possibly jump out in front of her this time was air.
She said that to herself again as she pushed in the clutch. Once again as she pushed the gear into position. And finally, once again, as she pulled away from the curb.
Her chest tightened as they exited the pit area and merged onto the track.
She could do this. She could. She was no longer that punk high schooler simply racing for the fun of it. She was no longer that arrogant dumbass who thought no harm could come her way.
It could. It had. And it had cost her the most precious thing in her life.
Lacy wasn’t Sarah. This wasn’t a slick ride where she got to fuck in the back seat by the end of the night.
She was a professional racer. She had won many races. She had dominated.
She was damn good at racing. She owned the speed. She owned the car and every maneuver. She was a badass. She was born to control a car.
So why didn’t she feel more confident? Why did she feel like a weight was pinned against her chest?
“For the fucking love of puppies, are you going to creep around this track too?” Lacy barked. “Do I look like a goddamn damsel? Punch this bitch.”
The weight pushed even harder with Lacy’s demand.
How had the tables been turned? How was she the one on the verge of hyperventilating when this trip was to help Lacy chase her demons away?
How the hell had Lacy managed to turn the table on her?
