“And cheesy,” she chuckles. She taps the phone. “Go!”
I’m flawless. I’m smooth as butter. I’m bouncing from first and into third, skipping gears to get that lower powerband. To grip the pavement hard and launch us toward the cone. This car can do zero to sixty in under three seconds. It has a roaring six hundred horse power under the hood and I’m tapping into every one of them as we fly past the cone. I cut it close, intentionally zinging it so that it flies up into the air just as Lilly taps the phone again.
I let off the gas the way she did, coasting the car into a normal speed. “What’s my time?”
“I don’t think this phone is accurate,” she stalls.
I laugh. “What does it say?”
“We should do it again. I timed it wrong.”
“Bullshit! What does it say?”
She turns the screen toward me grudgingly.
Eleven six.
“Fuck yeah!” I cry. “A new personal best.”
“I’m telling you, this thing is wrong.”
“Yeah, well, tell it to Apple ‘cause I’m keeping that number, thank you.” I take my phone from her hand and do a screen capture of the time. “That’s beautiful.”
“Colt, who is that?” Lilly asks anxiously, her hand coming down hard on my arm.
I slam on the breaks, screeching us to a halt. In the headlights is a figure.
Someone’s walking out of the stadium. They’re buried in a big jacket, their stride long but unhurried. I’d recognize it and the lowered head of jet black hair anywhere.
I roll down my window a crack, cold air rushing inside. “Yo, Matthews!”
He looks at me vaguely. Uninterested. I roll the window down farther as he leisurely makes his way to my door.
“What’s up, man?” I ask him.
He juts his chin at me. “Hey. You’re here late. Doing some racing?”
“Yeah. We were in the stadium but she got cold so we came out here. Figured an empty parking lot was a good place to run the quarter mile.”
“I guess so.”
“What are you doing here?”
“You know we have practice in a few hours, right?” he asks, ignoring my question.
“I know. I’ll be there.”
“You’re gonna be tired,” he warns.
“So are you.”
He nods slowly, his eyes turning to his car.
“Did you meet Lilly at the party yesterday?” I ask him, gesturing to the passenger seat.
Lilly leans down to wave out my window at him. “Hi.”
“Kurtis. Hi,” he introduces himself blandly. “I wasn’t there. Are you a friend of Lexi’s?”
“No. I’m a baker. I made the cake.”
“Sorry I missed it.”
“She made the cookies I brought to practice today,” I tell him.
“Yesterday,” he corrects me.
I glance at the dash. It’s almost two. A wave of fatigue hits me like a freight train, like my body didn’t know how tired it was until the clock told it to be. “Shit, I guess that’s right.”
When I look back out the window Kurtis is walking away. “I’ll see you later, Colt. Try not to drive like such a bitch next race, alright?” He lifts a hand to Lilly. “Have a good night.”
“You too,” she calls after him.
We watch as he unlocks his old Bronco and climbs inside. It’s at least twenty years old, a sore thumb sticking out in the usual crowd of Lambos and Escalades that haven’t seen their first oil change. I asked him once why he still drives that old thing and he told me he likes it. No other explanation than that, because Kurtis Matthews doesn’t elaborate on anything. Ever.
“He seems… nice,” Lilly surmises diplomatically.
“He’s a good guy.” I yawn loudly. “I don’t think he really likes people, though.”
“I don’t blame him. They’re assholes.”
“All of ‘em.”
“What time is your practice tomorrow?” Lilly asks me suddenly, glancing at the clock.
“Six.”
She winces, her breath hissing between her teeth sympathetically. “Yikes.”
“Yeah. What about you? When do you have to be to the bakery?”
“Four thirty.”
“AM or PM?”
She looks at me sideways, a small, reluctant smile on her lips. “AM.”
“Damn! You should go home.”
“So should you,” she laughs.
I shake my head. “Nah. I’ve still got some time.”
She settles into her seat, leaning her head back on the rest. “Me too.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I have more than you do.”
“No you don’t,” I laugh at her stubbornness.
“Whatever. Hey, tell me something.”
“What?”
“Where does your mammoth dog fly to that costs so much damn money?”
I chuckle, glancing back at Kat. She’s really not that big. Sixty pounds soaking wet, but she looks huge taking up the entire back seat of my car. A big yellow ball of fluff doing a number on my upholstery. “She goes to Kansas with me in the offseason.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
“Galena, born and raised. Oldest mining town in southeast Kansas.”
“Who’s the oldest in northeast Kansas?”
“Who cares? Those guys are assholes.”