“Eden,” Tyler says warily, firmly. His grip on his seatbelt tightens. A hundred and ten. “Eden.”
The second I hit that mark, I move my foot to the brake pedal, depressing it as fast and as hard as I can as the tires tear across the asphalt. I lock my arms tight against the wheel as my body flies forward, and I suddenly start to panic as I realize how little room there is left between here and the edge of the lot, so I squeeze my eyes shut. It feels like it takes forever for the car to finally skid to a halt. I’m breathing heavily by the time it does, and once I establish that we’ve stopped, I slowly open my eyes and glance out the windshield. We’re only inches from the sidewalk.
When I glance to my right, Tyler’s staring at me in disbelief. His eyes are wide and his lips are parted, and the only thing he can bring himself to say is, “Damn, Eden.”
“I’m not finished yet,” I point out with a smile, and now he really does look panicked. Letting go of my thigh, he sinks back against the seat and heaves a sigh of relief that he’s still alive.
I pull off the hair tie on my wrist and gather my hair up into a high ponytail, out of my way. And, feeling fueled by adrenaline, I pull off my hoodie and my shirt. The car’s heated up by now, anyway. I toss them onto Tyler’s lap and I roll my eyes as he smirks back at me. It’s like he’s never seen me in my bra before.
I reach back for the wheel and, calmly and slowly, I drive back to the center of the lot and come to a complete stop. Breathing deeply, I concentrate hard. I’ve only successfully done this once before. I’m adamant I’m going to do it again, to impress Tyler, but I know there’s a high risk that it’ll go pathetically wrong and I’ll end up looking like a fool. But it’s worth a shot.
Tyler’s focusing on me hard as he tries to figure out what I’m doing, and as I slowly rev up the engine for the final time, I turn the wheel completely around to full lock, and I hold it there.
“No way,” he says once he realizes what my next move is. “You’re gonna owe me new tires after this.”
And he’s right. I will owe him new tires after this, because I’m about to burn the hell out of them.
The engine revved enough, I hit the accelerator and floor it. The car spirals to the right, the tires burning against the ground, screeching. I laugh as the car continues to swerve, and when I glance in the rearview mirror, I smile proudly as clouds of smoke engulf the vehicle. As swirling loops appear on the ground, I decide to quit burning anymore rubber, and I hit the brakes.
We sit in silence for a few seconds, my heart beating rapidly from excitement, and we wait for the smoke to clear. “Okay, I’m done,” I announce. I can’t wipe the smirk off my lips.
“Where the hell did you learn how to do that?”
“Dean’s dad showed me,” I admit. It was back in March, and we spent hours on it until I finally got it right.
Tyler furrows his eyebrows at me as though he doesn’t believe a single word I’m saying. “Hugh taught you how to spin donuts?”
“Yeah,” I say with a shrug. I still feel rather smug about my impressive skills, however. Tyler most definitely wasn’t expecting it. “He was about to replace the tires on his truck so he let Dean and me wreck the old ones first.”
“Hmm,” he says. “Alright, switch.”
As he steps out of the car and walks around the hood to the driver’s side, I climb over the center console and nestle myself into the passenger seat. I don’t bother to pull my shirt or my hoodie back on, but I do tug on my seatbelt. We’ve got the half-hour ride home now.
But in Tyler’s mind, the stunt show isn’t over quite yet. He shuts the car door behind him, pulling on his seatbelt and glancing in the rearview mirror as he intensely studies the area behind us. He doesn’t give me any warning whatsoever, and just as I’m narrowing my eyes at him suspiciously, he puts the car in reverse and steps on the gas. He cranes his neck to look back over his shoulder, his eyes zeroed in on the road behind us as he stares out the rear windshield. The car begins to pick up speed as we fly backward in a straight line, and as Tyler quickly turns back around to face the front, he murmurs, “Hold on.”
The second he says this, he slams on the brakes, spinning the wheel in a full circle. The car spins around 180 degrees to the right, and the instant we’re facing the direction we just reversed in, Tyler slams the gearshift up into first. The momentum from reversing at such a speed is transferred quickly, and we’re suddenly driving along the same straight line, only now we’re no longer backward. Tyler brakes just as we reach the exit of the parking lot.
I blink at him and reach up to switch on the overhead light. It makes the emerald in his eyes seem even brighter. “Since when could you do J-turns?”