places herself under my arm as we wander toward the water, wraps her arms around my stomach as we walk, and presses a kiss to my chest when I look up to the sky and grin at the stars.
None are shooting tonight, but they’re pretty all the same. Not something I grew up seeing, living in a big city.
“Did you like growing up in a small town?” I ask.
“Mm.” She considers. “I guess. I don’t have anything to compare it to, but yeah, I suppose. Living in a small town means I’ve known everyone since kindergarten, which is a perk, I suppose, because it’s not like I enjoy meeting new people. But on the flipside, knowing everyone since infancy means we all come with these preconceived ideas of each other. So the girl that pulled my hair in first grade was always a bully in my mind, even ten years later, even if that wasn’t really her anymore. I was always the shy girl, the quiet mouse, so even though, by ninth grade, I was trying to get out and do more, my classmates had already categorized me. They had long since stopped inviting me to parties and such. Which…” She shrugs. “I guess is how Lisa and I ended up at Infernos that night.” She looks up. “You lived in the city?”
I nod. “Which means I met new people all the time, we had kids rotating in and out of our classes often. My parents worked hard, they worked a lot of hours while they built their business up, so my sister and I were fairly independent by a young age.” He smiles. “We were friends. Even though she was older, and even though siblings often fight, we were friends. We were two little fish in a massive ocean.”
“How did you learn to fix engines and stuff?”
I lead her toward the pier and remember back to my teenage years. “I took classes in high school. Math and science weren’t really my thing, but I seemed to have a gift with my hands.” I look into her eyes and smile with arrogance. “I aced cooking classes, by the way.”
“Shut up.”
I laugh. “True story. I can cook a feast that’ll make you wet.”
“It’s always about sex,” she scowls. “You’re so disgusting.”
“I learned how to sew.”
“You did not!”
“I did. But once I got to auto shop, I found my calling. I dropped the other classes, went to the garage as often as I was allowed, and here we are.”
“How’d you learn to race?”
We wander along the rickety wooden pier as the moonlight shimmers and reflects off the water. It’s breezy tonight, cool, but kinda perfect when wrapped around another person.
“I feel like you should know this about me by now,” I tease. “If I know how to build an engine, then I’m sure as shit gonna test it out. I’m not exactly the meek type that’s gonna sit down and let everyone else have all the fun.”
“So you just got onto a contraption you built with your own hands, willingly added gasoline and a spark, and assumed it would all be fine?”
I slow at the end of the pier, and, pulling her around, I wrap my arms around her shoulders and breathe warm air against the top of her head. “I mean, yeah, I guess, if you wanna break it right down to basics. Sure, I took a spark, added gas, and prayed my ass wouldn’t catch fire.”
Her chest bounces with muted laughter. “How’d you get into racing here, in this town? Piper’s Lane isn’t exactly in the Welcome to Town brochure.”
“Working at the garage gives me a clear in to most of the cars that roll through Main Street. I met Mac when he started working there, and with Mac came Bry.”
“Bryan Kincaid?”
I nod. “Bry races. Or, well,” I shrug. “He used to. I’d heard rumors about drag races being held not so far out of town, so I wandered out, hung back and watched for a while, then I saw Bry pull up to the line.”
I let my grin grow. “It was all over for me after that. I had a friend, an in, and a bike I knew could outstrip every other racer out there. So I put it on the line, bet cash and pink slips, and I lost neither.”
“You won?”
“I’ve actually never lost a race,” I chuckle. “I’m an arrogant son of a bitch, just so you’re aware. I’m confident on a bike, confident with speed, and