Page 49 of Speeding Hearts

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If I was goingto go for a random hookup, The Rox was a good place to do it. It was one of the few places in town that wasn’t a full-service restaurant but served more than beer. I scanned the space as I stepped inside, waving briefly at a guy I’d gone to high school with over by the pool table and a woman whose mother I knew was in Mom’s scrapbooking group. I looked quickly away from her—the last thing I needed was my mom getting wind that I’d randomly hooked up with one of her friends’ daughters.

Especially since it was the last thing I really wanted to be doing.

I wasn’t quite sure in that moment if I loved or hated being back in the town I’d grown up in. Either way, I wished, just then, that I could be a little more anonymous.

I sat down at the bar and ordered a beer, deciding I’d scan the room for prospects after a dose of liquid courage. I told myself I wasn’t stalling. I’d gotten together with women casually plenty of times in the past. But this time, I didn’t feel an ounce of excitement in the idea.

There was only one woman I wanted to hook up with. I downed the last of my beer and asked for another. I’d have to stick to two if I wanted to drive home. Though I could technically leave my truck parked outside and walk to my apartment from here, I didn’t actually want to get wasted. If that was what it took to want to hook up with another woman, I was fairly certain it wouldn’t be worth it. I’d probably take home the wrong woman and be filled with even more goddamned regret than I was now.

“Well, look who’s here,” a sultry voice called out.

My stomach sank. Speaking of the wrong woman. I turned to see Victoria sidling up to the bar, looking fully the high school beauty queen even now—more than a decade out of high school.

“Hey, Victoria,” I said.

“You’re looking awfully lonely up here on your own. I would have thought you’d be at the party, what with your friend racing and everything.”

I looked at her face, heard the hurt in her voice.

“I’m just having a beer,” I said, guilt running through me. I had come here to hook up with the first warm body I could find, and I didn’t want it to be her. What I really wanted to do was ask her why she cared, but I didn’t know how to say it without sounding hurtful. The thing was, I didn’t even think Victoria felt the way she thought she did. I think she was holding onto something slipping away from her, just like she was holding onto her bubbly high school persona. And hair. And everything. I wanted to tell her she was smart. She was kind. She would do well to find someone who appreciated all those things about her.

I was trying to think of some way to tell her that when I saw something over her shoulder.

There was a raucous crowd of people on the other end of the bar. Victoria had said there was a party—it was here. I recognized the staff from the Speedway. My uncle. John, the mechanic who sometimes called me for technical advice.

And there, at the center of it all, a woman so stunning my mouth dried up. I wouldn’t have been phased by a beautiful woman in the bar—Victoria was one, after all. But this one made every cell in my body seem to expand.

It was Stella. In adress.Her hair, forever in that ponytail, now hung in a soft curtain over her shoulder. I couldn’t help but flash back to the last time I’d seen it down—the last time I’d seenher, besides at the racetrack just now—that morning in the trailer.

She laughed, tipping her head back so the length of her throat was exposed. I’d been there. Right there. It was then that I saw the guy standing just a little too close to her: a good-looking dude with an easy swagger.

Jealousy rushed through me, so hot it was like it had taken over the blood in my veins. I gripped my beer bottle hard.

Why was I jealous? Stella didn’t belong to me.

I’d made sure of that.She’dmade sure of that.

“Maybe you should go over there?” Victoria said, interrupting my thoughts.

She sounded so resigned that I tore my gaze from Stella and the guy.

Victoria’s head hung low, her hair, bouncy and flowing a moment ago, now seeming as limp and dejected as she did.

Shit. It was my fault she was looking like this. Feeling like this. Maybe I should go home with Victoria. Maybe it would make everyone happy.

Everyone except me.

“Do you want to sit down?” I asked.

But Victoria stuck her chin out. “No, thanks. I think I’m done here.” She turned to the bartender. “I’ll take a Vodka soda,” she said.

“You sure you don’t want a grappa?” an accented voice said on her other side, loud enough for me to hear over the growing din of the place. “I’m getting one for the table.”

Victoria’s back was to me, but I saw how she straightened her shoulders. How she laughed as the guy said something else.

What the hell was I doing here? I threw back the rest of my beer, slamming the bottle down on the counter, along with a twenty I’d pulled from my wallet. I needed to leave. Leave this bar, leave Oak Bend. I needed to run from this place where not only did the past reside, but where I’d made new, painful memories with Stella.

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