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to Aiden.
Noah heads over to Mason’s Range Rover, parked beside Julian’s truck, and hops in, his head emerging from the sunroof seconds later as he hoists himself up and sits on the roof, his legs dangling down the side of the SUV. Mason finishes with Aiden and goes over to his vehicle as Aiden walks back over to me. He stops in front of me and puts his hands on my hips, the warmth from his hands spreading throughout my entire body.
“Be safe,” I whisper, my mind too focused on his warm hands to come up with anything else to say.
He nods, an unspoken agreement in his eyes, before he tightens his grip and easily lifts me onto Julian’s pickup.
I stand with Charlotte and Annalisa, still not recovered from Aiden’s closeness and the tingling feeling his hands left on my body. He gets into his Challenger and the engine roars to life, and we watch him drive to the starting line to embarrass Ryan and screw him out of more cash than I’ve ever seen in one sitting. To say that I’m nervous would be an understatement.
Aiden drives to the starting line to race his enemy and stepbrother for two thousand dollars—his enemy, who vandalized my car, probably made Aiden’s life miserable as a child, and threatened to sic his abusive father on Aiden’s little brothers. Ryan deserves a lot more than losing two grand in a race. Aiden and Ryan stop their cars side-by-side at the starting line, and Jonesy walks between them. I see Ryan hand him an envelope of cash. Aiden does the same, and Jonesy takes a second to quickly count all the money. Apparently satisfied with the envelopes’ contents, Jonesy shoves them in his pocket and takes a few steps back.
“Who’s ready to race?” he yells over the music blasting from someone’s car, and the crowd cheers in anticipation. People are standing on cars and crowding the starting line, trying to get a look at the two greatest known enemies going head to head. From where we’re standing in the bed of Julian’s pickup, we have a pretty good view of the track. The headlights from the numerous scattered cars illuminate the pitch-black winding country roads, the bright moon only giving off so much light.
“Parker?” Jonesy yells and points at Aiden, who revs his engine in response.
I wipe my sweaty hands on my pants.
“Simms?” Jonesy does the same for Ryan, who answers in the same way as Aiden.
The crowd cheers louder, hoping that the person they bet money on wins.
“Let’s start in three . . .” Jonesy holds up three fingers as he steps backward.
My heart pounds in my ears.
“. . . two . . .” He puts a finger down and continues backing up.
I hold my breath.
Jonesy stands still and points at the drivers with both hands. “Go!”
Ryan takes off seconds before the word is even out of Jonesy’s mouth, Aiden an instant later. The cars speed through the deserted country roads, traveling away from the main part of the track, making it hard to really see what’s going on in the dark. For the most part, if you have good eyesight and are higher up, like we are while standing on Julian’s truck, you can make out the cars, even if they look tiny because of the distance.
Despite Ryan’s short head start, Aiden catches up pretty fast, and I cheer for Aiden despite the nerves twisting up my stomach. They’re driving right beside each other when Aiden suddenly pulls forward and cuts Ryan off on a turn, leaving Ryan some distance behind him.
“Yes, Aiden!” I’m yelling and jumping up and down in excitement.
“He’s got this!” Charlotte shouts beside me, the others cheering in agreement.
Aiden remains in the lead through two more turns, but then Ryan suddenly advances on him and now they’re driving side-by-side. My heart is pounding so loudly I wouldn’t be surprised if Julian could hear it from beside me.
“Come on, Aiden!” I cheer with Charlotte.
They get to an area in a distance where there are some sparse trees blocking the road from our view. We can only hear the loud roar of their engines, and I can only make out some blurs of the red from Ryan’s Mustang shining through the trees.
“What’s happening? I can’t see shit,” Annalisa says as she tries to get a better view around the trees.
Suddenly, a pair of headlights comes out of the area with trees, another pair following just behind it.
“Who’s in the lead?” I yell.
As if answering my question, the cars turn, and we see Ryan’s red Mustang trailing barely a foot behind Aiden’s Challenger.
They continue through the rest of the track with Aiden slightly in the lead.
“This is the last turn before the straight shot to the finish line,” Julian tells me and Charlotte without taking his eyes off the race.
It’s a tight, windy turn, definitely hard for drivers to make at such fast speeds. To make it you’d either have to slow down a bit or drift, otherwise your car would spin out into the fields.
