#Junkie (GearShark #1)(18)

The inside was long, like a big rectangle or a bowling alley. Against the far wall was the line where the cook was preparing orders in plain sight for all the diners to watch. In front of the line stretched a long countertop with round stools that was peppered with napkin dispensers, ketchup bottles, and salt and pepper shakers.

The waitress was behind the counter on one end, standing behind a cash register—not a computer, but a genuine register. It made beeping sounds as she punched in the ticket someone had given her to pay.

She was an older woman with poufy red hair and a white button-down shirt that looked like it belonged on a man. She had a pen tucked behind her ear and gum in her mouth.

Elvis was playing over the speakers, and the entire place smelled like a combination of pancakes, coffee, and burgers.

Because it was late, not many people were in here. Off to my left in the last booth on the row was a group of teenagers with their heads all focused down on the electronic devices in their hands. A man sat at the counter, eating a piece of pie with meringue piled so high I wondered if there was any filling beneath it. There was another booth by the door, holding a young man and woman sharing a milkshake.

They were probably finishing up a date, having come from a movie or something, and this was the only place left they could come to prolong their time together.

Trent went right, walked to the end, and slid into the last booth, his back to the wall so he was facing the room. I slid in across from him and snagged a menu from behind the condiments and napkin dispenser.

The waitress appeared seconds later and took our drink order for two root beers. When she came back with the sodas, I ordered a cheeseburger and fries. Trent ordered a Rueben on rye and fries.

When she was gone, I picked up my straw, ripped the end off, and blew the remaining paper across the table at Trent. With a smirk, he snatched it out of the air, tied a knot in the center, and dropped it on the table.

Next, I dropped the straw on the table, picked up my glass, and took a drink.

“If you aren’t going to use the straw, why do you do that?” He asked me that every single time I blew the paper at him. Which was every single time we went to a place that gave me a straw.

He always asked, and I always answered. The conversation was always the same.

“Because I can.” I shrugged and settled back against the seat.

Trent shifted back as well, draping his arms along the top of the bench seat and kicking out his legs. Our feet bumped together, but I didn’t pull back. He did.

Seconds later, his Nikes appeared as he propped them up on the seat next to me. His legs were long enough he could use my seat as a foot stool and still sit comfortably in his own.

“Make yourself at home,” I invited, glancing down at his giant-ass feet.

“Thanks. I will,” he drawled and leaned his head back. The brim of his hat made it hard, and he pulled it off and tossed it beside him.

My attention was won by his hand running through his hat hair, mussing it.

“You nervous?” he asked.

I blinked and had to replay his question in my mind before I could answer. “Yeah, wouldn’t you be?”

“Shit, I am.”

I felt my lips tilt up at one side. This was why I asked him to come. This was why when Gamble called, the first person I wanted to tell was him.

He understood.

He got how big of a part of me racing was, how badly I wanted this meeting, and how much I had riding on this. And not necessarily in a professional sense.

Even though, yeah, there was a lot at stake there, too. If I didn’t make something happen with this racing stuff, my father was going to say the dreaded I told you so and give me some lecture about why I should have just listened to him and left racing as a hobby.

He’d be right.

It would be a painful f*cking day that day.

But that wasn’t what I meant. What I meant was on a personal level. What I wanted to prove to myself.

If I couldn’t make it in driving, what would it mean?

Would it mean the man I thought I was, the one with speed in his DNA, wasn’t real? Would it mean this life I went out on a limb for, basically turned my back on everything I’d been working toward for years, was a life I wasn’t meant to have after all?

If this didn’t work out, it would crush me.

Even when I’d been living the life my father groomed me for, the life everyone told me was mine, deep down I still had hope. I still held on to the idea that the real me was in there somewhere and he would claim the life he really wanted when the time was right.

Hope was a dangerous emotion. It made a man believe in possibilities. It whispered in the back of the mind, even on the darkest of days, even when I was sure the me I thought I was had faded away.

I fed that hope. The day I showed up on Ivy’s doorstep. The day I sat next to Trent in Screamerz. The day I decided to stay in Maryland, and the day I told my father.

My hope was growing. It was getting greedy.

This call from Gamble was almost like the culmination of a life on two separate paths. Two paths that would soon merge into one.

Trent nudged the side of my leg with his foot, bringing me out of thought. “Earth to Drew.”

Without thinking about it, my hand closed over his shoe and held on. I needed a change of subject. Shit was getting too real in my head. “You get a lot of shit for leaving tonight?”

“Nah.”