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Criss didn’t say anything because he knew I was right.
But that wasn’t the reason I wasn’t saying anything.
I just really didn’t like attention.
Which was hilarious since I was a NASCAR driver who literally had a career based on attention being focused on me.
“Well, how about considering the underwear ad we talked about?” Criss asked. “That’s something that you can really use right now.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not posing for an underwear company.”
“Why not?” he pushed.
“Because I don’t want my junk, nor my body, out there for the world to see,” I said.
Mostly because I hated attention.
“What about that girl we saw you talking to in the rags from last week?” he asked hopefully.
He didn’t have to say which girl.
I knew.
Zipporah, better known as Zip.
Zip didn’t have a last name.
She’d changed it from Singh about a year ago upon learning of her father’s misdeeds.
So now she was just known as Zip.
Though, I knew that her middle name was Nancy, not that she liked it.
I’d seen her last week while out, and the media had an apoplectic fit.
See, Nash Christopherson didn’t have anybody in his personal life.
Sure, he had parents and siblings.
But he didn’t have a girlfriend.
And even I had to admit, when I was around Zip, I sometimes forgot myself. I forgot that I had to remain cool and controlled as to not draw the attention of anyone who might know me—and in the South, that was more possible than not. People in the South took their NASCAR seriously.
“You’re not bringing her into this,” I grumbled, thinking back to that day when the media had descended on us both.
She’d been in skintight shorts and a billowy t-shirt.
I’d been in dirty clothes after a wreck during a few practice laps in my new car with a fresh concussion, not quite thinking right after all the shit that’d gone down with Val.
She’d come straight from practice at the circus.
• • •
“Are you sure?” I groaned.
“We typically like to get the radiologist to read the MRIs.” The doctor groaned. “But the only one here is assisting in both surgeries.”
I looked at her pleadingly. “Can he just call me when he gets a chance to read it?”
The doctor frowned. “I mean, yes. Sure. But we don’t like to send patients home if we don’t know how bad the concussion is. You could be bleeding from the brain, or…”
“I’m fine,” I lied.
My head was pounding.
But I didn’t think I was bleeding into my head.
It wasn’t that bad.
“I know you think it isn’t that bad, but it could be,” she explained. “It’s…”
No less than fifteen cops walked in the door, along with the freakin’ mayor of Dallas.
My eyes widened as I looked at them.
“Looks like you have bigger problems on your hands,” I admitted.
The director of the ER had been the one to come in and check on me after everything had gone down. Val had left for the ER straddling the guy’s gurney, and I’d gone to wash my hands and then decompress in my little corner room until this lady had walked in.
She’d introduced herself, but I’d heard it and forgotten it between one second and the next.
“I’d say so,” she agreed, then sighed as she glanced over at me. “You will come back the second you experience any more issues related to the concussion. Any nausea, dizziness, eyesight changes…”
She listed everything I knew to look for, then gave me some discharge papers that I hadn’t seen her hiding in her pocket.
I was off my game.
In my life, I’d acquired a certain set of skills. All of them random and not correlating whatsoever.
For instance, at twenty, I’d decided that I wanted to go to school for my medical degree. But only my medical degree. I didn’t want to become an actual doctor. I just wanted to understand what everyone was talking about at the dinner table.
When all, and I do mean all, of your family were medical professionals—most of them doctors—you tended not to understand what they were talking about when they got on tangents about their days, or awesome cases they’d participated in.
At fourteen, I’d decided that I wanted to learn how to protect myself, so I’d started to dabble in mixed martial arts. I did a little bit of Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai, Judo, and wrestling. And by the time I was eighteen, I’d fallen so in love with it that I made it a huge part of my everyday life.
Then, there was me at sixteen, deciding that I wanted to learn how to crochet. I’d learned it, too. And I learned the art of patience and perseverance. But it also taught me to do something while also paying very close attention to my surroundings. Like noticing certain details about people.
Needless to say, I had an eclectic array of skills that allowed me to be very observant, and my brain was battered enough that it wasn’t coming as easy to me at that moment in time.
