Page 45 of Speeding Hearts

“Stella!” John called. “You joining us?” All the Speedway employees were meeting at The Rox to celebrate. “Now that you’ve qualified, your presence is mandatory.”

“Or you could hang out here,” Freddie said, grinning. Freddie wasn’t 21 and couldn’t join us.

I winked at him. “Tempting.”

I’d been hedging about going to the planned celebrations ever since I’d heard about them. What I most wanted to do was go back to the trailer and crack open the bottle of champagne I’d bought myself last weekend just in case. But the empty chair next to me by the creek would probably be too damn depressing.

I glanced up at the stands one last time, my stomach sinking with the truth of it.

Dean wasn’t there. He knew I was racing—his mom had to have told him, probably more than once—and he hadn’t bothered to come and see me.

The last two weeks had been filled with the biggest highs and lows I thought I’d ever felt. After that night with Dean in the trailer had ended with Dean pulling the quickest exit I think I’d ever seen from a man, I had assumed we’d talk about it and either agree it was a mistake—probably the smartest thing to do—or figure out where to go from there. I knew Dean hadn’t wanted to hook up. He’d made that crystal clear. But I also knew he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t enjoyed it. At least, I thought I knew.

How could we have stayed up almost all night talking and then been so close that morning—close enough I still got a swoop in my stomach thinking about it—and it meant nothing to him?

It had to mean something, which meant he’d gotten spooked.

Well, fuck him. I’d been so pissed when he’d taken off like that and hadn’t even bothered to call that I’d accepted his mom’s kind offer to stay in the trailer for at least the rest of the month. She said I should stay the whole summer until I went home to Jewel Lakes in September, but I said I’d need to think about it. She had to have known something had happened between me and Dean, so thankfully, she hadn’t pressed.

I’d insisted on paying her for the trailer—shockingly, the out-of-town owners of the motel had refunded my money for the rest of the summer. I think they wanted to keep the place out of the press as much as possible, and placating the displaced guests was for that reason more than them actually caring about what happened to us. It was weird staying at Dean’s mom’s place, but at least I felt like I wasn’t freeloading.

I’d also stormed into Colin’s office that Tuesday morning when I’d gotten back to work. I’d made sure my bandage wasn’t visible under the cuff of my jumpsuit, and then I’d told him I would step outside the duties of my role as mechanic and help him in the office if he let me race.

“I want to join the qualifier,” I had said.

“You want to race in the Bender?” he’d clarified.

I’d hesitated. “Yes,” I’d said, though I wasn’t sure if that was true yet. In that moment, I’d mostly wanted to stick it to Dean and his—let’s face it, despite his having helped me—his absolute opposition to me racing.

I wanted him to worry.

I was shocked that Colin had shrugged his shoulders and agreed. At first, I’d thought he misheard me. Then, he’d said there was one condition to letting me race.

“I need help,” he’d grunted.

I sat down as Colin confessed that he wanted my help with marketing efforts for the Speedway. In a way I’d begun to recognize as his facade of acting like things didn’t bother him, he’d admitted that the Speedway was running on fumes. He’d long since paid off the property, but the dwindling attendance over the years had led to most races being held at a track in a neighboring county, which led to fewer attendees. It was a vicious cycle.

“Betty used to run the office, but ever since—” He glanced at me. I knew Betty was close with Dean’s mom, and I wondered if he was alluding to Dean’s accident—the one that had driven a wedge between the families.

“Well, we decided fifteen years ago I’d run the racetrack. But I don’t have the head for it. I’d ask Betty for help, but things are different now. Websites and all that. Besides, she’s retired now. Hell, I’ve been wanting to retire for years.”

He rested his hands on the desk. “If I don’t get people back to the dirt track, and fast, I’m going to have to sell,” he said.

“I bet if you wanted to sell, a thriving racetrack would get a higher price than a failing one,” I said.

He nodded. “It would.”

I’d learned a few days later, almost by chance when speaking with Dean’s mom about my racing aspirations, that the same company that owned the motel had made an offer on the Speedway. They had an eye on turning it into an industrial complex. Not exactly a happy end to Colin’s forty years of running this place.

So, over the next few weeks, I’d spent the mornings at my actual job and the afternoons up with Colin. I’d helped him install some new computer software that would actually make his life easier and showed him how to schedule staff in a way that would economize expenses while not needing to lay anybody off. I’d also helped design a handful of fliers and book some media that would actually get noticed.

And it had worked. It was only a qualifier, but attendance went way up. I had more than just the race to celebrate tonight.

Yet as I strode to my car after hanging up my gear, I couldn’t help but feel emptier than when I’d first arrived here.

I hadn’t been empty on my way to Oak Bend. I’d been excited. I’d been thrilled about the possibility of seeing my lifelong dream through but maybe more, I realized now, about seeing Dean again.

Keeping him in my life when I’d thought I had lost him.

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