Page 32 of Lemon Crush

Wade had gone out to get burgers while I regaled my brother-in-law’s friends with stories from his first week in Italy, including today’s donkey installation. For the most part, I was making it up on the fly, but they didn’t seem to care. In fact, they looked like they were thoroughly enjoying themselves.

“Always,” Wade replied, sending a warm thrill up my spine. “And she never used her powers for evil, though Bernie did her best to bring her over to the dark side.”

Little did he know…

I didn’t want to think about the past right now. I wanted to get back on topic so I could spring my Jiminy surprise while everyone was in a mellow mood.

I wasn’t entirely confident that this plan would work yet. Dropping it on them out of the blue could backfire and make it seem like my offer wasn’t genuine—and Gene, Rick and Lucy took all their hobbiesveryseriously.

Before they started racing cars, they used to wear armor and practice sword fighting with The SCA (The Society for Creative Anachronism). They’d gotten together for twenty-four-hour D&D quests biannually for the last twenty-eight years, attempting to set a record. Then there was their yearly Renaissance Festival madness, where the men donned tights and camped out with college students playing the state’s largest game of Jenga.

I didn’t say thehobbieswere serious. I said they took them very seriously.

The old August used to do fun, unserious things like that. I’d gone to Ren fests, music concerts and street fairs. I’d done book signings in interesting places and traveled to reader conventions where every night was a different costume party. Once, I’d worn this huge pair of metal wings that were the envy of everyone I didn’t accidentally bump into.

I wasn’t always like this.

That’s why you’re out here now. To try something insane and fun and a little bit dangerous before moving to San Diego.To leave on a high note. To have one last adventure in Sam Retta’s name.

The only way I could do that was to convince them to let me, an outsider, join their team right after another outsider royally screwed them.

I could practically hear Chick’s pep talk in my head right now.“August Sunshine Endora Retta.” (Not my name.)“You aren’t an outsider. You are a successful, confident woman in her forties.”(Everything but my age was debatable.)“Open your mouth and demand they let you and Jiminy into that race.”

I opened my mouth and bit into the last of my cheeseburger instead.

“August followed through on her part of the bargain,” Wade was telling them. “Now you two better go on ahead and share your tale of woe.”

He seemed less tense than he had when I first joined the party. Maybe he’d been hangry?

“We really should have gone with them,” Lucy said. “Can you picture the amount of trouble the three of us cruising the Mediterranean could get into?”

Rick scoffed. “Morgan wouldn’t have stood for any shit.”

“To Morgan,” Lucy declared, raising his glass. “Gene is a lucky man.”

Rick tapped his glass against Lucy’s. “Hewas, until he let Dave hold the keys to the Mustang.”

I leaned forward, ready to get back on topic. “What really happened with that?”

“What happened is Dave fought with his wife, got drunk and totaled our vehicle instead of his own,” Lucy said bluntly. “He left us carless and short a driver a few months before the race. For the last week, we’ve been looking for another car—one that’s not in need of a complete overhaul and in our price range—with no luck. Which is why we came to our problem solver here. Our fixer. Our Obi Wade.”

“I’m the mechanic,” he corrected gruffly. “I fix cars, not stupid decisions. Have the answer, I do not.”

If they weren’t all so solemn, I’d have laughed out loud at that.

“And there you have it,” Lucy said, looking unusually downtrodden. “Unless Wade can pull a rabbit out of his ass, makeit shine,andtake a few laps around the track in Dave’s place, I’m not sure how we pull this off.”

“I’m the pit crew,” Wade said firmly. “I still have a few lines in the water, so I’ll probably be able to come up with a car. But I don’t race, so the rest of it you’ll have to figure out without me.”

Did anybody want to ask formyadvice? Because I’d figured out the rest of it already. Or I thought I had after scouring the website. “I thought you only needed two drivers?”

Even without Wade, they already had three.

“According to the rule book, that’s true,” Lucy agreed. “The thing is, my shoulder keeps me out of the racing seat, Gene only has a few hours in him at a time, and despite insisting otherwise, Rick can’t carry the bulk of a weekend race on his own.”

“Says you,” Rick said into his glass.

“This is perfect.”

---