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Neil drove us there in his Hennessey Venom GT Spyder. It was the most expensive of all his male ego validation vehicles, and I was always afraid he’d take it out on the street and get into a fender bender. Not to mention the fact that the seats were about as comfortable as an ergonomic chair designed by someone with backwards knees. My ass was thoroughly asleep by the time we reached our destination after two and a half hours.
I fluffed my hair—though it didn’t need it, after all the hairspray I’d used—and reapplied my lip gloss. “Okay, so what am I doing here? Mostly silent arm candy?”
“Never! Besides, we won’t spend much time socializing. I just want to show you around the place. Acquaint you with the safety regulations and protocols—”
“I get it,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “How can you guys even drive out here in the winter?”
“Heated track,” he said, as though it were the easiest answer in the world. “The cars handle differently in the cold, obviously, but there isn’t ice or snow to worry about.”
I was expecting a hangar with wide-open garage doors and guys in NASCAR suits running around pushing tires. Instead, we pulled up outside a building that was part car dealership, part country club. Neil tossed his keys to a valet and said, “I have a two o’clock slot reserved.” To me, he added, “All four miles.”
“Four miles?” I gaped at him as we walked toward the doors. “I was imagining a little oval.”
He laughed, an “Oh, you,” kind of laugh. “No, I would not pay these yearly membership dues for ‘a little oval’. It’s four miles, a few curves, with long straight sections and no speed limits. The Hennessey is the fastest street legal car in the world. Do you fancy going two-hundred and seventy miles per hour?”
“No!” I shrieked, and my voice was a bit too loud as we stepped through the doors and into the building.
There was a showroom aspect of the main building that was impossible to miss; cars parked behind velvet ropes lined the path to a reception desk, where Neil flashed a membership card. The blonde girl behind the counter smiled wide and nodded to me, and as we passed, she said, “I like your boots!”
“Thanks!” I called back as we walked. Then, to Neil, I said, “Where are we going? Why did we leave the car with a valet? What are we going to drive? Can I just stay here and hang out with the girl who has good taste?”
“They’ll take the car and give it a look over; check the tires and the fluid levels—”
“The brakes?” I interrupted hopefully.
“Yes, and the brakes,” he told me. “Right now, we need to get you into a helmet.”
There was a room at the back with huge windows that looked out on the track. The white metal framing around them broke up the sunlight into long squares on the black-and-white checked carpet.
“So, this place fulfills all your little boy Formula One fantasies, does it?” I teased. Two giant televisions broadcast the news on one screen, a car channel on the other.
“Says the woman who actually cried on her first shopping excursion to Barney’s,” he shot back. Damn, I really wished I hadn’t told him about that.
There were wide lockers across the back of the room. I counted them. “Hey, are there only thirty-six members?” I asked, counting them again, because I was sure I’d missed a couple.
“Thirty-six who use the lockers.” He nodded toward the windows. “There are overnight accommodations for out-of-town members who only pop by once or twice a year. And there are members who live in the area and just bring all of their gear with them.” He typed in a four-digit code—I assumed it was 6969—and pulled the handle, opening the door between us. “I have something for you.”
“You do?” I wasn’t going to turn down a present, but it seemed weird that he had one here, when we didn’t know I’d be coming along. When he emerged with a sheet of paper, my present hopes were dashed.
He smirked at me, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “It’s a waiver.”
I scanned the paper with a frown. “Jerk. I thought you were giving me something.”
“Oh, I’ll give you something, if that’s what you—”
“Stop,” I cut him off and held up a hand. “I’m seeing a lot of references to ‘accidental injury, death or dismemberment’ here, and it’s not turning me on.”
“Don’t worry about any of that. It only applies if you’re accidentally injured, killed, or dismembered,” he assured me with morbid good cheer. “Just sign the thing, and then, we can go really fast.”
The man might be fifty, but he was five if he was a day. “After this are we going to go look at a fire truck, too?”
“That’s a thought. I could buy one of them, see how it handles out here…” He scratched his chin thoughtfully.
“Forget I mentioned it. Please.” I sighed and signed the paper against the door of the locker. “If you dismember me, I dismember you, got it?”
“I promise, there will be no loss of life or limb on this drive,” he vowed solemnly. He took a pastel purple helmet from the locker and handed it to me. “It was the prettiest one I could find.”
I shoved the waiver at him and held up the helmet. Across the curve of the lilac plastic, pink Swarovski crystals spelled out “Sophie” in graceful cursive loops. “You did have a present for me!”
