While I’d been talking, Layla, Hunt, and Brady had drawn closer.
Layla pointed to the flags. “Since when do you wanna start the races?”
“Since I can’t wait for it to be over.” And because I wanted to have some part in this race, to feel like I was riding along with Griffin in some way.
The crowd around me quieted in anticipation. The music was turned down while Griff and Rich revved their engines.
I positioned myself between the two cars, my eyes on Griff for a moment I wanted to drag out forever, before I raised the red flags to either side of me.
I told him.
he answered.
Then I brought down both flags.
Griff was off a millisecond before Rich, who burned rubber as he pulled out.
I spun and held my breath against the smoke, watching the glow of taillights grow distant, knowing it would be over faster than seemed possible.
Brady, Hunt, and Layla joined me at the starting line.
“Looking tight,” Brady commented as Griff and Rich seemed to be pacing each other.
“Come on, Griff,” Layla urged though he wouldn’t hear her. “You can do it!”
“’Course he can,” Hunt said. “Griff’s the man.”
Griffin pulled ahead a few feet, and I laughed, suddenly buoyant.
He was going to do it. Of course he was.
Griffin could do anything—fucking anything—
A terrifyingBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMclapped the night before rolling like thunder. The earth beneath our feet rattled—as Clyde erupted into a fireball.
Its back tires on fire, already smoking, the Aston Martin’s body visibly shuddered as it raced past the burning Mustang.
I knew I was screaming but couldn’t hear myself.
My ears were ringing.
My heart had stopped beating.
And the Mustang—with Griffin inside it—burned like a raging inferno.
Again, the Mustang exploded, the flames pushing higher, bigger, wider—deadlier.
My heart thudded back to beating, now too fast.
Pieces of Griffin’s car rained down from the sky to the ground with horrifying clatters that were muffled by the incessant ringing.
I might have still been screaming when I took off at a flat sprint—fuck-me heels be damned.
Layla, Brady, and Hunt ran beside me.
Toward our friend.
Toward the man I loved.
The man we all loved.
Even when it was obviously too late. We’d find Griffin’s beautiful body in charred, mangled pieces—a precise reflection of my heart.
