“You never know,” Conn said as he walked around the hood to the passenger door. “I once busted a mom in a Volvo station wagon for doing sixty-five in a thirty. She was running late for her daughter’s ballet class.”
Cady backed out of the driveway, stopping every few feet to adjust her position so she didn’t take out a tree. “Someday I want you to teach me to do that backing thing where you zip down the driveway at thirty miles an hour.”
Conn looked up from his cell phone, obviously startled. “Any time,” he said easily.
Were they not supposed to talk about the future? Because Cady was having a very hard time imagining a future that didn’t include Conn by her side, day and night. Don’t be ridiculous, she thought. He’s got a job. Roots. He’s not some aimless adrenaline junkie who can pick up and leave at the drop of a hat. As she drove through the gates and onto the main highway leading into Lancaster, she ratcheted back her expectations and tried to imagine herself in a hotel in London, maybe even Paris, after a show or an interview, checking her watch to calculate what time it was back in Lancaster. Shows ended around midnight. That would be right when Conn would be finishing his shift.
“Do you work nights or days?” she asked.
He slipped his phone in his pocket. “Three to eleven on patrol. Whenever when I’m needed for undercover work.”
“Oh,” she said, trying to think through the time difference. This was ridiculous. She’d text him like she’d text any other friend. Except Conn didn’t feel like just her friend, and the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach told her texting wouldn’t be enough. “What were you doing?”
“Texting Shane to see if he was at the track with Finn.”
“And?”
“He is. He brought my car, too. He’s got the timing issue worked out. I told him Finn could give it a couple of trial runs before the next race night.”
“That’s nice of you to let Finn drive it,” Cady said.
“I remember what it was like to be sixteen,” Conn said, then went quiet. He loosely gripped the handle over the door, but in way that suggested it was a reflex, not an indication that her driving frightened him. His hand flexed, the knuckles going white for a moment, then he relaxed.
“How long have you been drag racing?” she asked.
He huffed. “All my life. I started going to the races with my dad when I was six or seven.”
“That’s neat. He passed it on to you,” she said, expecting that his father had given him the car when he had grown too old to race, or as a rite of passage.
“He left it behind when he left town. Eventually I forged his signature to a title transfer.”
“Oh,” Cady said, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “It happened a long time ago.”
That was the thing, she reflected as she took the on-ramp to the highway leading south of town, that made writing songs so easy, and so difficult. Things happened. Their dad left when Emily was a baby, and yet Emily was still dealing with it. Conn’s dad also left, and he never even mentioned his mother, so Cady assumed she hadn’t been in the picture any longer than his father had. You could put something like that out of your mind, but never out of your soul.
She was home, but she wasn’t home. Home used to be her mom’s house. For the last eight months it had been a tour bus, a series of hotel rooms in which Queen Maud slowly took over more of Cady. Her roots felt shallow, dry, exposed.
Was this how Conn always felt?
Silence reigned on the rest of the drive. Conn was lost in thought about something, and Cady used the quiet to let the melody and lyrics for a new song burble through her head like a stream over rocks. Normally she had confidence in her process, but the last few months had been so abnormal, and the last few weeks had been like being tipsy and tossed in a blanket. The narrative arc she’d weave from notes and lyrics, carrying chords and bridges from beginning to end, weren’t coming together.
Let it go, she thought. Let it all go, the song and the stalker, the sex and the secrets. Set it all aside and be here now.
The gates to the airfield were open, the lights on. Fewer trailers and trucks lined the taxi strip, and Cady heard nothing except the roar of engines and tires revving. She found Shane’s trailer and pulled in beside it.
“No announcer?” she asked.
“The guys on the track run the show. Cars go one at a time, not in tandem, in case a rookie loses control,” Conn said. “The point isn’t to get your best time. It’s to learn how the process works.”
He did a fist-and-shoulder-bump thing with Shane, then Finn. “Hi, Cady,” Finn said, his cheeks pink. He alternated between staring and looking away, then his gaze snagged on Conn’s hat. He glanced at Conn’s bare head, then Cady’s covered one, then a crestfallen look crept over his face.
“Hi, Finn,” she said, bumping him a little with her shoulder. “How’s it going?”
“Good. Really good.”
“I hear you want to race,” Shane said.