“One of us really needs to talk to him.” He rubbed his thumb across my knuckles in a small act of possession that wasn’t lost on me or my libido.
“I know. I will. It should be me.” I pursed my lips, valiantly trying to slow the beating of my heart.
“He’s meeting us at the shop with Vic.” The finality of his words sank down on me, stealing my breath.
My heart dropped into my stomach. “Oh.” That’s all I could say, oh. Devin’s presence meant he’d know I was with Jordan. There’d be no avoiding the talk. “Did you set this up on purpose?”
“No, I was on my way there when I got your message. I told him I got caught up with something. I’m sure by now he knows what it was.”
I shouldn’t have been so quick to jump to conclusions, Jordan wouldn’t have put me on the spot like that. If he could, he’d take the brunt of everything from any of us. By the hard set of his jaw, it was obvious he wished he could take the responsibility from me and the pain from Devin.
I had an epiphany in that moment, the first of several I would have before this was all over. I was more afraid of hurting Jordan, than I was of hurting Devin. I couldn’t do it. I would never put him in front of that particular bullet. “You can drop me off at one of the stores right here and I’ll have Breanna pick me up.”
The look he gave me told me exactly how much he didn’t agree with that idea.
“I don’t want to cause problems with the two of
you.” I didn’t. Hurting Jordan was the one thing I couldn’t willingly do.
“Nah.” He squeezed my hand, as if to reassure the panic that was rising in my chest. “Riding from a race with me ain’t a thing. Now, if he caught you in my bed it might cause problems.”
The thought of it sent my heart pumping and not out of fear. The panic was replaced with a deep-rooted desire. I wanted to squirm in my seat. Instead, I focused on the parts of Arkadia that flashed past the window. Anything to keep from thinking about being in his bed.
My cheeks warmed and my chest flushed. I had to pull my hand free. Just touching him had me thinking about being in his bed, beneath him, with his hands and his lips on me.
“Yeah—” He coughed to keep his voice from cracking. “Me, too.”
I hadn’t said a word, he read me that well.
The parking lot of the shop was full, but this time there weren’t any North Side townies with too much money and too much time. There wouldn’t be, unless you counted Devin when he got there. He’d been a North Side townie, until his dad had bought a big piece of land and a house in the country.
Thinking about Devin, kept the lurid thoughts of Jordan temporarily at bay, helped me regain my composure. He had always been the quiet, pretty boy. The one that was an easy target to these big country boys and their bullying. At least until he’d befriended my brother and Jordan. Jordan had protected him, as had all of us, and Devin had flourished.
“Want to know why I called you? Not Devin?”
He encouraged me to continue with another raised brow. “There are guys who love to race and love their race cars, like you and Aiden. Any chance you get, you can both be found racing or working to get ready for a race. Then there are guys like Vic, who just love cars and anything to do with them—if it has a motor and four wheels—he wants to check it out. I can relate to that. I grew up with men like that all around me.”
My words came in a rush now, tumbling over each other in a race to see which thought would come first. “But, then you have guys like Devin, who only want to be race car drivers. He doesn’t love it like you and Aiden. He wants to be known as a guy who does it. He wants the attention gained from street racing. He always has, it’s why he’s always followed you guys around. As much as I love the guy, it’s who he is.”
“I think you’re being hard on him, so you don’t feel guilty.” He said it softly, as if he was cradling me from an unseen blow.
“No, that’s not it. It’s hard for me to explain, Jordan. But there is a love that you and Aiden and even Hunter have for racing. It’s in your blood. You need to know who is the fastest at any given moment, whether you get beat or not. That’s why you were the first one I thought of. That kid, he reminded me of someone. I needed you to fix that for me, I needed you to put it right, because you couldn’t not win. It’s a way of life for you.”
“I bet five hundred bucks that the two things you think about more than anything else in the world are sex and racing. Knowing I’d spend time alone with that creep would have been enough to make you want to beat him. But, that wasn’t all. You live racing, you breathe racing, everything is racing. Even Vic is in love with racing. For Devin, it’s just something to do…something to be. He wanted to be a part of what his friends were a part of, so he is. He wants to be known, to be the guy people talk about on Sunday morning, so he’s trying to put together a car fast enough to beat you at SKS. He wants to be the big fish in the little pond. If nobody cared, he wouldn’t do it. But you? Aiden? You’d still sink every dime you had into your car to see if you could outrun the next guy.”
He couldn’t say much to that, there wasn’t any arguing my point. Because I was right. But then, he surprised me. “Ever think it’s you he’s trying to impress?”
I snorted derisively. Devin might think himself in love with me, but I couldn’t believe he’d built an entire race car just to impress me.
Jordan reached over to turn my face to his. “Look at the guys you’ve always gone for and tell me that’s not what Devin is trying to be.”
I jerked away and opened the door. “And that’s exactly what pisses me off. He doesn’t love me, the only reason he wants me is because you do.” I stormed off, swallowed up by the steadily growing crowd of people in the shop parking lot.
By the time Devin found me, my temper had simmered from its boiling point. Jordan had been wrong. I wasn’t looking for things to make me angry with Devin, to make it easier to tell Devin I wasn’t interested. I could see his faults and still love him, as I saw Jordan’s and my brother’s and still loved them. What I’d told Jordan were a list of reasons I couldn’t love Devin the way he wanted me to. There were things I’d know, things that would fester inside of me, especially if Jordan was right and Devin did them for me.
At the end of every day I would know I loved Jordan Slater because he was true to himself. If I learned anything at all from my time away and all the things that had happened, it was that you couldn’t alter yourself for anyone.
“Hey there, Raelynn.” Devin propped up against the tailgate of Breanna’s truck where I was perched.
“Hi, Devin.” I had to look past him so that the anger didn’t show on my face.
From the corner of my eye, I saw that his smile never faltered. I was struck again with how attractive he was. If that’s all it was about to me, I could go there in a heartbeat. Like every other woman in the county. “I heard you and Jordan won a race tonight.”
“He won a race. I merely hustled my way into a couple of hundred bucks.” I intended to split my winnings among Breanna, Jordan, and myself.
“That’s cool. What are you doing tomorrow night?” And there it was, he didn’t even hesitate. I took a deep breath as soon as he finished his question.
“Can we talk?” My voice stayed even, but my stomach twisted into a knot. Better late than never. The fewer things I had hanging over me the better. I had to make it quick, like ripping off a Band-Aid.
“Sure.” He brightened, misreading me completely. Jordan would have never misread me. He’d see the ripping tide that waged war with the thundering storm inside of me.
From across the parking lot I could feel Jordan’s eyes on us. He knew what was going down.
I used my keys to unlock the front of the shop, the bells on the door singing their echoing clang into the empty room as I coded off the silent alarm. I didn’t turn on the lights. I told myself the parking lot lights gave enough light to see. But at this point, I didn’t want people to be able to look in and see what was going on. I wouldn’t do that to Devin.
And maybe I didn’t want to see him, to see the mark my rejection was going to leave.
He gave me that dazzling smile. My stomach wound itself into even more knots. The smile on my face was forced and most likely came out a grimace. I missed when it was easy, when I could look at Devin and not wonder what he was thinking and if he was misinterpreting something I said or did. I wished for the days when I could hug him and not worry about giving him the wrong idea.
“I miss when none of this mattered.” I gestured between the two of us.
“What do you mean?” The smile slid slowly from his face. I’d reached the point of no return. Over his shoulder, in the parking lot, Jordan watched us.
“Devin…” I lifted my hand and let it fall hopeless and dejected to my side. “I know what it feels like to think I wanted something that I really didn’t.” I didn’t mince my words. I couldn’t. I remembered all too clearly what sort of pain rejection could bring. The poor decisions that pain could force someone into.
“You never know until you try.” His defiance rang clear.
“That’s just it, I do know. I know that whatever you think you feel for me, I don’t feel the same way for you.”