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“Let’s go to The Spot. It’s Friday night. I’m sure something is happening up there.”
“What about Blake?”
“What about him?”
“He doesn’t like you going up to The Spot, especially without him.”
“Blake’s not here, and even if he was, I don’t care. He’s not in charge of me.”
The fact that she had to make that last statement proved to me just how in charge he was. I’d always thought he was too overprotective of her and that she never stood up for herself with him. It almost crossed boundaries sometimes. I grew up with two very vigilant brothers, but I’d seen Blake go crazy before when it came to his sister. But it was a sensitive topic where Tayia was concerned, so I learned a long time ago to just drop it.
“So I guess we’re going to The Spot,” I said with zero enthusiasm.
“Okay, I’ll pick you up in thirty minutes.” Tayia squealed. I looked over at the clock in horror and saw that it was almost ten. I knew there was no way I’d be ready in thirty minutes. I had way too much hair to tame.
“Uh-uh. Don’t you even think about getting to my house before eleven, Tayia. I’m serious.”
“Fine,” Tayia grumbled, and then hung up the phone.
Chapter Five
I sat there feigning interest, still unable to believe that I let Tayia talk me into going to The Spot. Partly because I’d already searched for Mack’s car, and it wasn’t here. I knew that it probably wouldn’t be, but I’d hoped anyway.
This place no longer had the appeal that it used to. In high school it was the place to be. Having brothers who raced made me pretty popular among the kids in my class, so imagine being the only person whose parents forbade her from being here. Of course I had my ways around it and even my brother’s weren’t aware of how often I was here. I got very good at hiding and evading. I knew most of the racers. Many had come and gone. Mostly wannabes who focused more on the appearance of their cars but not the performance of them. Those guys liked to sit with the hood open, music blaring, and engine revving. And completely oblivious to the guys with the cars that looked like old beat-up clunkers who were smart enough to put their money into making the car fast, not pretty.
One of my favorite things to do was to watch races where flashy cars were outrun by cars that were real sleepers, which meant they looked boring on the outside but had a whole lot going on under the hood. Especially the cars no one thought could win. And flashy cars never made it on Mack’s list.
Racers were also some of the cockiest men around, especially when it came to women. I’d gotten pretty good at turning them down, that was, until Dylan. He was my first love and the only real boyfriend I’d ever had. When I was sixteen I’d lost my virginity to him on a secluded area of the beach while we watched the Fourth of July fireworks. He was sweet to me, and my family seemed to like him. Dylan’s father was a prominent and well-respected doctor who ran the small hospital on the island. He had high expectations that his son would follow in his footsteps. Dylan loved cars and confessed to me that he didn’t really want to be a doctor, but wanted to get into serious racing. He never had the guts to stick up to his father. I told him that if he went off to start the premed program at his father’s alma mater when it wasn’t what he wanted to do, then we would be over. I refused to even consider being with someone who couldn’t stand up for himself. Dylan didn’t fight for himself or for me. He went off to school at the end of the summer and crushed my heart. A year later and with Dylan nearly a thousand miles away in Maryland, I’d realized that the choice I’d given him wasn’t fair. I looked him up online and saw that he was in a relationship with someone else and seemed happy. Letting him go was the only thing in my life I’d ever regretted. It’s funny how you don’t realize you’re making a mistake until it’s too late.
Speaking of mistakes.
“Jonna, oh no. There’s Travis,” Tayia whispered next to me, and I immediately turned my head in the direction she was looking. Travis Frye was my rebound guy. I’d hooked up with him for a little while after Dylan left. He was cute and cocky as all get out. He drove a flashy yet surprisingly fast car, and he was the first to disprove my theory that the two didn’t mix. At first, being with him was a lot of fun. I wasn’t looking for anything serious, and he seemed to want the same. That was until he started developing stalker tendencies.
In the beginning, he would show up unexpectedly at the restaurant while I was working. He and his crew would hang out for hours and be obnoxiously loud, much to my complete and utter embarrassment. Several times my dad or Drew had to make them leave. Travis also had a sweet side. He wrote little poems for me that he would leave on my car or taped to my front door. While I wasn’t a girl who appreciated poems I still thought it was cute until I started finding the poems inside my apartment, obviously left there when I wasn’t home. I’d find them on my nightstand, inside the refrigerator, and I even found erotic poems in my underwear drawer. He’d also started a routine of showing up at my front door usually around three in the morning wanting to do exactly what he’d described in his notes, every
night. At first all of these things, while a bit extreme, made me feel oddly special, but the sweetness quickly evaporated and was replaced with feelings of creepiness. Little notes in my underwear drawer? Creepy shit, indeed.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said to Tayia, but it was too late.
“Jonna?” Travis called out as soon as he spotted us.
“Get away, Travis. I have a restraining order against you.” I did my best to sidestep his approach and maneuver around him.
“You know it’s impossible to enforce that thing. We live on a tiny island. Plus I hang out here, and I’m not going to leave because you freaked out over a few notes. You know I would never hurt you.” He added that last sentence in a low voice meant to sound sexy, but all it did was make my skin crawl.
“Yeah, but being loved to death isn’t appealing either,” I mumbled under my breath. “Listen, I’m just going to end this conversation and go.” When I stepped to his left, Travis grabbed my hand, and I tried to tug it out of his grasp.
“Let me go!” I warned.
“I just want to talk to you.”
“No.” I yanked my arm a lot harder this time.
“What’s the problem?” I heard Mack’s voice out of nowhere, and then he stepped right between Travis and me. “Is he bothering you, Jonna?”
Travis instantly let go of my hand and shook his head. “No, everything’s good here, man.” He raised both hands and backed away a few steps. I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered. I hadn’t realized that Tayia was standing beside me until I nearly bumped into her as I tried to turn away. Mack stared at me for a moment before his eyes turned cold as he shifted them back to Travis.
“I thought you wanted to race for the number ten spot? I ain’t got all night.” Mack’s voice sounded tight as the muscles in his jaw twitched.
