Collided: Dirty Air (Book 2)(8)

Nope. Absolutely not. I’d rather leave the country than see him again.

Wait. Now that’s an idea.

I grab a recently opened bottle of white wine from my mini fridge as I turn on my laptop. Forgoing the glass, I take a big swig straight from the bottle as I open up my dad’s Formula 1 calendar. He already booked next month’s flight to Melbourne.

I open up Pinterest, wondering how Melbourne looks. As I scroll through some posts while intermittently taking sips of wine, I click on one labeled Bucket List.

I end up getting sucked further into the land of lost time and pins, scrolling through multiple travel bucket lists. Blame my burning sense of curiosity at what people come up with. I love a good list, but I’ve never considered half these crazy items. My head grows foggier as I continue sipping wine and searching.

My eyebrows shoot up to my hairline as another Naughty Bucket List crosses my feed. Interest eats away at me as I open up the list. Naughty is a word I’ve never associated myself with. At least not since I was five and my dad threatened to tell Santa I deserved coal for Christmas after I spilled a milkshake all over the interior of his McCoy Illusion.

Holy shit. People are mighty creative. I spend too much time going through multiple naughty lists. I could be studying, or sleeping, or finding a new beau on a dating app. But no. Buzzed me enjoys pinning my favorite sexy items. Where was this nonchalance two hours ago?

I don’t know if it’s my lonely evening or the wine I’ve consumed that inspires me to open my expertly tabbed agenda to one of the extra hidden pages in the back.

I work on a list of items I’ve never done but have always wanted to try. An hour later, I somehow have the coordination to type up the entire thing and color-code it. Before I press the print button, a name for the list comes to mind, and I type the words Fuck It List at the top.

I stare at the piece of printed paper, wondering why the hell I created this. Can I really convince my dad to let me join his F1 schedule? Better yet, can I really go through doing half these items? Ignoring my doubts, I pull out my personal laminator because, yes, I’m one of those people. I get the paper to fold after a few failed origami attempts and growls of frustration.

The Fuck It List shines in all its laminated glory. I smile at the twenty items I boldly, yet semi drunkenly, chose.

Go skinny-dipping.

Buy a vibrator.

Try foreplay with ice.

Kiss a foreigner.

Do karaoke while drinking.

Try new food.

Go skydiving.

Watch porn.

Play strip poker.

Get tied up.

Be blindfolded.

Come from oral sex.

Try mirror sex.

Have sex in public.

Have sex against a wall.

Get high.

Have a quickie.

Have outdoor sex.

Kiss someone in front of the Eiffel Tower.

Experience multiple orgasms in one night.





Now I only need to do one last thing, probably one of the hardest tasks before I can start crossing items off my list.

Convince my dad to let me join him.





“I have a few rules before you join the tour. If you break them, I’ll book you a seat on the next flight back to Italy.” My dad taps away on his iPad, taking up his usual spot on our living room couch.

“I know you’re a celebrity with the engineers, but when you call it a tour, you make it seem like you’re a rock star.”

“Famous among the nerds, I love it.” He does a rock symbol with his hands that should never be reproduced again. “Anyway, the first rule is that I want you to try your best to stay away from the racers. I mean it, because they tend to have questionable intentions. Two: you need to check in with me daily so I can be sure you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere. And last but not least, stay out of trouble. Say them back to me.”

“You’re getting old, needing all this repetition.”

“Just because I have gray hair doesn’t mean I’m old.” He runs a hand through his thick strands.

My dad can be described as anything but old and frumpy, unfortunately for me because he’s single, and the ladies do sure try to mingle. Women flock toward him like his aura says money and good times.

“No, but the fact that you have more rules than a private school handbook kills your young silver fox vibe.”

“Please follow the rules. That’s all I ask of you this summer.”

My dad loves rules because he fears I’ll end up like my mom. We don’t talk about her much since she left us soon after she had me, deciding she wanted to save under-developed countries. The idea of diapers and baby bottles weighed her down and cramped the carefree lifestyle she loves. Nowadays, my mom lives her best life in Africa with her new boyfriend, who is five years older than me.

I’d say my dad has undisclosed abandonment issues. Every time I talk to my mom—a rare occasion as it is—he checks that I don’t want to book my next flight away from him.

“If I weren’t about to turn 22 this year, you’d probably make me wear one of those leash backpacks to keep me within a five-foot radius.”

He looks up at the ceiling. “Don’t tempt me because that idea sounds pretty good right now.”

His vigilance worsened once I started college, with him being unable to control the desires of horny boys and F1 racers alike. The situation got to the point where he conveniently paid for me to go away every single summer—all coinciding with his F1 traveling.