Page 36 of Lemon Crush

“Hey.” Rick sounded mildly insulted, then shrugged and let it pass.

“August, listen?—”

“No,youlisten. You don’t have to approve of my choices or me, but I am doing this. The three of you have until Gene comes home to think about my offer and discuss it with him. You haven’t been able to find a car you can fix in time. I have a car, in great condition, that I’m willing to sell for five hundred dollars and a spot on the team. One race only. It’s a great deal, but if you’re not interested, I have other options.”

I didn’t at the moment, but I could sure as hell make some.

I forced myself to walk instead of run back to the safety of my house. Merlin followed, grumbling his own opinion behind me.

Wade was a no vote. I hadn’t seen that coming.

I scratched Merlin’s head. “Well, since I’m officially a mic-dropping badass now, I guess I’ll have to find a way to work around him.”

8

WADE

It wasa few hours before sunset, but the skies had darkened enough that August had thoughtfully turned on her back porch light for me, guiding my way across the water-logged courtyard toward the apartment door. I managed to unlock it one-handed, two bags of ice balanced on my other arm. The rain had been steady for hours, but it looked like the brunt of it had finally arrived. Hurricane Pain-In-My-Ass.

I knew the drill. If weather was coming, it was best to be prepared for anything. Tornados. Power outages. Flooding. We had it all on tap here. We also had a population with memories like goldfish, since most of them forgot the basics and panicked as soon as anything bigger than an afternoon thunderstorm rolled in. I’d seen them at the store, emptying shelves of bread and toilet paper while ignoring the real staples like ice, water and batteries.

Ice was at the top of the necessity list, because if the power went out, you didn’t want your food to spoil. And rain was no guarantee that things would cool down, though I could wish it was. This month had already been like a fever that refused to break.

Like her namesake, August Retta wasn’t breaking either. She hadn’t answered a single text from me all day.

You could knock on her door.

Not after the way we left things yesterday.

Inside, I stepped on the tiny square of a welcome mat that had obviously been made for a doll’s house and toed off my work boots. Since I moved in, I’d been careful about washing up before I left the garage, but I still went out of my way to keep this place as clean as I could. Lease or no, I couldn’t help feeling like a stranger in a strange land. Bernie and Phoebe’s house had never been this…feminine.

When my phone rang, I walked over to the kitchen area and put the ice bags into the cooler I’d brought over yesterday. Then I hit the button on the bone-conduction headphones Phoebe had given me for my birthday. She’d told me to think of them as practice hearing aids. Because I was old.

I hoped her baby was as mouthy as she was.

“Hudson.”

“I have an idea,” Kingston said immediately.

I stripped out of my wet clothes and tossed them into the small stacked washer in what should have been a pantry. “You always do. Are you hunkered down at your folks’ place yet?”

“Yeah. I told them my place already lost power and I’ve been a New Yorker for so long I’ve forgotten how to ride out a storm.”

“They bought that?” I said, pulling on the dry shirt and thin sweats I’d left on the bed this morning.

“You know how egotistical Texans are about their hurricane survival skills.”

Considering what I’d just been thinking, I couldn’t argue.

“What’s this idea you’ve had since the last time I talked to you three hours ago?”

Thunder cracked loudly above me and I rifledthrough the refrigerator, looking for the deli salad I’d brought home from H-E-B last night. Had I already eaten it?

“The Lemons race.”

“What about it?”

“That’s the idea. I’m filming it. If it doesn’t turn out the way I think it will, I’ll use it as a teaching tool in my class next semester.”

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