It was not as easy as one might expect for Ronan Lynch to street race. Most people obeyed the speed limit. For all the press road rage received, the majority of drivers were either too safety conscious, too shy, too principled, or too oblivious to provoke. Even those who might have considered a few minutes of traffic-light dragracing were generally aware that their vehicles were not suited to the task. Races were not to be found just lying on the street. They had to be cultivated.
So this was how Ronan Lynch found trouble.
A brightly colored car, for a start. Ronan had spent hours of his life as the only black car in a short, straightforward game of candy-coated vehicles. He looked for hatchbacks, coupes. Almost never a convertible. No one wanted to mess up their hair. This was a street racer’s wish list: aftermarket parts on any sort of car, yawning exhaust pipes, asphalt-scraping ground-effects, cavernous hood scoops, smoked headlights, mismatched flames painted on fenders. Any car that came with a wing. The more it looked like a handle to lift the car, the better. The silhouette of a shaved head or a hat jerked sideways was a promising sign, as was an arm hanging over the door. A deeply tanned hand braced on the mirror was better. Thumping bass was a call to battle. So were vanity plates, so long as they didn’t say things like HOTGURL or LVBUNY. Bumper stickers were a turnoff, unless they were college radio. Oh, and horsepower didn’t count for anything. Half the time, the best sports cars were piloted by middle-aged bankers fearful of what might lie beneath their hood. Ronan used to avoid cars with multiple passengers, too, figuring that a solo driver was more likely to burn rubber at a light. But now he knew that the right sort of passengers would egg on an ordinarily tame driver. There was nothing Ronan liked better than a skinny tanned kid half-hanging out of a noisy, mostly dead red Honda full of his friends.
And this was how it started: Nose up to the light. Meet the driver’s eyes. Shut off the air-co to give the car a few extra horsepower. Rev the engine. Smile like danger.
This was how Ronan found trouble, except for when the trouble was Kavinsky. Because then it found him.
After church, Ronan and Noah headed in the general direction of the hellish affluent subdivision where Kavinsky lived with his mother. Ronan had half a thought that he might put the dream pair of sunglasses in Kavinksy’s mailbox, or tuck them in the windshield wipers of the Mitsubishi. The BMW’s air-conditioning was on full blast beneath the furious midday glare. Cicadas shrilled at one another. There were no shadows anywhere.
“Company,” said Noah.
Kavinsky rolled up beside the BMW at an intersection. Above them, the traffic light turned green, but the street behind them was empty and neither car moved. Ronan’s palms were suddenly sweaty. Kavinsky rolled down his window. Ronan followed suit.
“Fag,” Kavinsky said, stepping on his gas pedal. The Mitsubishi wailed and shuddered a bit. It was a glorious and hideous piece of work.
“Russian,” Ronan replied. He stepped on his gas pedal, too. The BMW growled, a little lower.
“Hey now, let’s not make this ugly.”
Opening the center console, Ronan pulled out the sunglasses he’d dreamt the night before. He tossed them through his open window onto Kavinsky’s passenger seat.
The light turned yellow, and then red. Kavinsky picked up the glasses and studied them. He knocked his own sunglasses halfway down his nose and studied them some more. Ronan was gratified to note how closely the new pair resembled them. The only thing he’d gotten wrong was that he’d made the tint a bit darker. Surely Kavinsky, master forger, should appreciate them.
Finally, Kavinsky slid his gaze over to Ronan. His smile was sly. Pleased that Ronan recognized the game. “Well done, Lynch. Where’d you find them?”
Ronan smiled thinly. He turned off the air-conditioning.
“That’s how it’s gonna be? Hard to get?”
The opposing light turned yellow.
“Yes,” said Ronan.
The traffic light above them turned green. Without any particular prelude, both cars exploded off the mark. For two seconds, the Mitsubishi snarled ahead, but then Kavinsky screwed the shift from third to fourth.
Ronan did not.
He blew by.
Just as Ronan tore around a corner, Kavinsky honked his horn twice and made a rude gesture. Then Ronan was out of sight and speeding on his way back to Monmouth Manufacturing.
In the rearview mirror, he allowed himself the slightest of smiles.
This was what it felt like to be happy.