Cady got her bags into what had been her room until Emily converted it into a studio after she left, using a big piece of plywood to transform the single bed into a cutting board. Emily had moved the wood to the sewing station that took up most of the floor space. The wall above the sewing table was plastered with images torn from magazines: Vogue, the New York Times Style inserts, some that were obviously printed from the social media feeds of up-and-coming designers. Mixed in with the high fashion photo shoots were images of a teen star Cady recognized from a show featuring teenage werewolves in Manhattan. Her current crush. Which made her think of Harry, and try to figure out how long that had been over. Months and months. Which meant it had been a very long time since she’d gone to bed with anyone, superstar or not. Adrift on a sea of exhaustion, she found herself staring at the narrow bed, wondering if there was any way she could fit herself and Shoulders, aka McCormick, into that bed.
That wasn’t going to happen. It was a random encounter with a man doing his job, nothing more. She left the bags where they were and walked back down the hall to the kitchen, where Emily was drizzling honey into steaming water. A cup of hot cocoa sat on the counter.
“Does that happen often?” Em asked.
“What?” she asked, still distracted by the memory of Shoulders’ muscles flexing.
“Crazy drunk guys coming out of the shadows.” Emily held out the mug.
Usually security prevented them from doing much more than shouting from the public areas. To avoid worrying her mother and Emily, she’d kept the details of her security from them.
“Meh.” Cady shrugged in what she hoped was a casual way and held out her cup for Emily to clink in a toast. She sipped the drink that was as much honey as water, and let out a sigh. She’d shed Chris, her stylist, her bodyguard, the band, the roadies, the fans, and was finally alone and home, the place she’d been longing for. Everyone thought she was home for the holidays, catching up on sleep and Netflix.
Emily was watching her over the rim of her mug. “I’m serious, Cade.”
Cady gave her a tired smile and sipped her honey water. “Forget about him. I have, because it’s so good to be home.”
CHAPTER TWO
Connor McCormick drove through the gate in the six-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire encircling McCool’s Garage and pulled into an empty parking space. When he opened his door, the November wind bit through his denim jacket, so he flipped up the sheepskin collar, shoved his hands in his jeans pockets, and trotted around the corner of the building, ignoring the door labeled OFFICE in favor of the unmarked one next to the bays. The sound of an air-powered socket tightening a bolt covered his footsteps.
His closest friend, Shane McCool, stood under Conn’s ’69 Camaro ZL1, cursing steadily as he cranked away at the car’s undercarriage.
“Hey.”
Shane jumped about a mile, barking his knuckles on the transmission housing when his grip slipped. “Jesus Christ,” he said, his smile softening the words. “A little warning?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Your fuel pump, that’s what’s wrong. You need another new one, and you need to race this beauty more than once a month.”
“I’ve been busy,” Conn said. “Work.”
“Then let me put on an aftermarket fuel pump.”
“You know the rules,” Conn said. “Nothing on this car changes. The weight needs to stay exactly the same.”
“Yeah, except when something else falls off,” Shane quipped. He reached into the backseat and hauled out an alternator. “If I’m making another trip to U-Pull-It, want me to find one of these, too? For when this one breaks.”
“Yeah. At least my Dad drove a Camaro. He could have raced a Model T.”
“You know,” Shane said, “you probably did more damage to your times by gaining twenty pounds of muscle than I would by putting on an aftermarket fuel pump,” Shane said.
“I weigh what Dad weighed,” Conn said as he ducked under the Camaro and peered up into the undercarriage. “She’s leaking oil, too,” he observed.
“I can see that,” Shane said testily. He was shorter than Conn’s six foot five by three inches, and carrying more fat, but enough muscle to threaten. “You’re a couple of races away from blowing the head gasket. I’ve had a couple of offers to buy her…”
Conn ignored the suggestion. “Not yet,” he said. “We’re coming up on the best part of the season. I’ll beat his time.”
His father’s dial-in time was 9.99 seconds. The closest Conn had come to his father’s best time in the ZL1 was ten even. Less time than it took to blink. He was racing the car his father raced, with the same components, at the same weight. At this point the only difference was driver reflexes. Conn could live with the car being the reason he couldn’t beat his dad’s time, but it wasn’t. Every time his time flashed on the scoreboard felt like a backhand to the face. A reminder he couldn’t get out of his head.
Quick reflexes aside, in the rest of his life his dad had been a small-time loser more invested in his own ego than in his family. He’d skipped town more times than Conn could count, chasing the next scheme, the next big thing, until finally he stayed gone for good, leaving Conn to bounce among his extended relatives, none of them all that excited about raising a deadbeat’s kid, all of them relieved when he joined the army straight out of high school. Conn had enough psychology classes under his belt to know why he wanted to beat his dad’s time. He just couldn’t figure out how to do it.
Shane tucked the socket wrench back into its slot on his massive toolbox. “Fine. I’ll go to U-Pull-It and freeze my balls off finding you a part that will blow in two races, max.”