Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 153946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
“Gus, you know I didn’t mean—”
I held up my hand to stop him. “And I’m willing to sell Jiminy to the team, on the condition that I’m allowed to drive him in this one race.”
There. You finally said it.
“No fucking way,” Wade growled.
I gaped at him. The nerve of this man!
“Are you seeing this?” Lucy laughed in disbelief. “Certain things are making so much more sense now, aren’t they, Rick?”
“They are. Rookie move, Wade.”
“Fuck you both,” Wade snarled. I’d never seen him so angry. “This isn’t bumper cars, and she was so sick for most of last year, she couldn’t walk around the block. Whether you take the car or not, I want her to think about this for more than a hot minute.”
It was official. I was back to not liking Wade Hudson. He didn’t just irritate me, he enraged me.
“Should I think about it as long as Gene did after he got his remission news, Wade?” I fired back. “Because if I remember correctly, he went directly from the hospital to purchase his first racecar, with you cheering him on.”
Rick sent me a finger gun of approval as he finished the last of his bacon cheeseburger.
Lucy morphed completely into peacemaker mode. “Let’s give Wade the benefit of the doubt, August. Gene bought a hunk of junk that time, but that’s your mama’s love bug out there. It meant a lot to her, and you wouldn’t be getting it back. Even if you did, it would never be in the same condition again.”
“To turn it into a Lemon, we’d have to scrape out the interior. Completely gut it,” Wade told me quietly, the anger drained out of him and his eyes now begging me to reconsider.
Why? Because he felt sentimental about the car? Or because he didn’t think I could handle myself?
“Do you even know what to expect on a racetrack?” he asked, unknowingly answering my question. “Have you gone to a single Lemons race to watch what happens?”
“You think I can’t do it because I haven’t done it before?” Disappointment brought me to my feet. “Neither had these knuckleheads until a few years ago, but you walked them through it without questioning their abilities.”
“Hey.” Rick sounded mildly insulted, then shrugged and let it pass.
“August, listen—”
“No, you listen. You don’t have to approve of my choices or me, but I am doing this. The three of you have until Gene comes home to think about my offer and discuss it with him. You haven’t been able to find a car you can fix in time. I have a car, in great condition, that I’m willing to sell for five hundred dollars and a spot on the team. One race only. It’s a great deal, but if you’re not interested, I have other options.”
I didn’t at the moment, but I could sure as hell make some.
I forced myself to walk instead of run back to the safety of my house. Merlin followed, grumbling his own opinion behind me.
Wade was a no vote. I hadn’t seen that coming.
I scratched Merlin’s head. “Well, since I’m officially a mic-dropping badass now, I guess I’ll have to find a way to work around him.”
8
WADE
It was a few hours before sunset, but the skies had darkened enough that August had thoughtfully turned on her back porch light for me, guiding my way across the water-logged courtyard toward the apartment door. I managed to unlock it one-handed, two bags of ice balanced on my other arm. The rain had been steady for hours, but it looked like the brunt of it had finally arrived. Hurricane Pain-In-My-Ass.
I knew the drill. If weather was coming, it was best to be prepared for anything. Tornados. Power outages. Flooding. We had it all on tap here. We also had a population with memories like goldfish, since most of them forgot the basics and panicked as soon as anything bigger than an afternoon thunderstorm rolled in. I’d seen them at the store, emptying shelves of bread and toilet paper while ignoring the real staples like ice, water and batteries.
Ice was at the top of the necessity list, because if the power went out, you didn’t want your food to spoil. And rain was no guarantee that things would cool down, though I could wish it was. This month had already been like a fever that refused to break.
Like her namesake, August Retta wasn’t breaking either. She hadn’t answered a single text from me all day.
You could knock on her door.
Not after the way we left things yesterday.
Inside, I stepped on the tiny square of a welcome mat that had obviously been made for a doll’s house and toed off my work boots. Since I moved in, I’d been careful about washing up before I left the garage, but I still went out of my way to keep this place as clean as I could. Lease or no, I couldn’t help feeling like a stranger in a strange land. Bernie and Phoebe’s house had never been this…feminine.