I was overanalyzing the situation when Devin walked out. “What’s up, Bree? Raelynn?” He tilted his chin to us both, but his eyes seemed to linger on me the longest. Breanna caught it too and shot me a look that only a sister could decipher.
“Hey, handsome.” She dropped from Jordan’s embrace to kiss Devin’s cheek.
He blushed, though not as deeply as I’d seen before. I could not fathom why he’d have feelings for me. Breanna was tall, gorgeous, and confident. Three things I was not. It would make more sense that Devin would crush on her, not me. The situation with Devin gave me a nervous twitch in my eye.
“Imagine my surprise when I find out you three convinced my sister to go racing her first night back. Geez, you didn’t even give her one weekend before you sucked her back in.” A dimple teased at her cheek. That dimple meant mischief. I knew it very well because I had one too.
A grunt, like that of my father, was Jordan’s only audible response. His eyes responded very differently. The fluorescent bulb attached to the overhang of the shop hummed and cast incandescent light across the gravel. That light illuminated Jordan and gave me just a moment to see regret in his eyes before he climbed into the race car.
I danced out of the way as Jordan fired up the Malibu and slowly turned it around. The crunch of the gravel beneath tires was almost drowned out by the throb of the engine. The high-octane fuel, so close, nearly stole my breath.
Some things come back as easily as breathing, you never forget them. I fell into step in front of the car, the loud popping of the racing tuned engine was music to my ears.
As I lined Jordan up on the ramps of the trailer, Devin and Vic went to work on loading the Camaro on the trailer behind Devin’s truck. Working in tandem made things move more efficiently, and I wasn’t about to just stand around and watch the boys work. I had too much pride for that.
I walked backward onto the trailer, not even flinching when the engine revved louder as the car pulled the ramps. I could taste anticipation and adrenaline and we’d only managed to load cars.
The car successfully on the trailer, I jumped down onto the grass. It was too hard to look at him, too hard not to wonder if Breanna was right. Three years ago, maybe two, I’d have done anything to be near him. Now, I was torn between running away and chasing after him like a little girl.
I was too old to have been goaded like a child. Yet, Jordan calling me a chicken had been an easy way to agree to go with them. My mind screamed to run, but my heart had wanted nothing more than to be here.
Two parts of me warred with each other. To silence them, I got to work. “She sounds good.” I grabbed the cinch strap and started to hook the Malibu up.
“Yeah?” He didn’t look at me. He moved with efficiency, he’d done this a thousand times before. Not a hint of the regret I thought I’d seen.
“Yeah.” When he finally looked up, he caught me studying him.
“Don’t sound so surprised, Rae.” Jordan moved effortlessly around the trailer.
There was no reason for me to follow him, no reason for me to continue to talk to him. Yet, I couldn’t stop myself. I had to jog to keep up. “I’m not, not really.”
“Then what’s with the—” He gestured to the air around me.
It wasn’t possible that I was so transparent he saw right through me, yet fear made my heart pound in my ears. “The what?”
“You’re acting weird,” was all he could evidently come up with.
“I am not.” I was. I was because I was chasing Jordan, heartbreak be damned, so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the possibility that Devin had feelings for me. Jordan had rejected me, told me he didn’t want me, and that made him safe. “I am not acting weird.” Reinforcing the lie seemed to be a good idea.
Jordan responded with a deadpan stare from the other side of the trailer. No getting anything over on the King of the Street. To further avoid the subject, I moved to the back tires, where gravel was still stuck to the large racing slicks.
Silently thankful I’d had the practice session with my brother earlier in the day, I was confident I could still strap down a car, back one up at the line, and do all the things I’d grown up doing. My touch was still good. I wouldn’t flat out embarrass myself in front of Jordan.
“It was something Breanna said…” Jordan had a way about him. A silent intimidation tactic. He’d leave me simmering in my own thoughts until I had no other choice but to tell him.
“And that was?” A lone brow disappeared beneath his ball cap.
If anyone could contradict what Breanna had told me about Devin, it was Jordan. “She thinks Devin has a thing for me.”
“Yup.” He didn’t contradict her. Instead, he leaned back against the tailgate of his truck and shoved his hands in his pockets.
The icy dread from before settled in a cold, hard lump in my stomach. “Seriously?”
“Don’t whine, kid. Could be worse.”
It could be worse, it could be Caleb. But, I couldn’t say that to anyone, especially not to Jordan. “What, it could be you?” I meant it as a joke.
Jordan wasn’t laughing.
“Could be.” The two words sounded like he poured honey and sex all over them.
I stopped in my tracks. I couldn’t breathe, the air around me so thick I could taste the last touch of honeysuckle that clung to summer. What would it be like if it was Jordan? If he looked at me right then and told me he’d been wrong before. I wasn’t sure if I was afraid or excited, but my pulse pounded loudly in my ears.
“He’s had a thing for you since you were in high school.” Jordan looked past me, to where Devin and Vic finished loading the other car. “I don’t think he’d ever say anything to you. But, he’s said things to me before.”
“What things?” This wasn’t happening. A sort of morbid curiosity forced the question past my lips.
“That he had feelings for you.” Jordan rolled his shoulders before turning away, seemingly unwilling to say more.
“So, what do I do now?” I tossed my hands in the air and let them fall uselessly to my sides. I couldn’t stand there and stare at him like I was that kid he’d rejected all over again.
“What do you want to do?”
“Let him down easy?” I pinched the bridge of my nose and followed him.
“Why? Devin’s a good guy, he’d be good to you.
Good for you.”
My dorm mate had said something similar about Caleb. Thinking about it now made my skin crawl. I hated feeling that way about Devin. He wasn’t the memory that haunted me.
With Devin, everything Jordan said was true.
Devin was nothing like Caleb.
Devin was also nothing like Jordan. “It’s not him. I just…can’t.”