Magnetic Shift (6 page)

“Dean.” Lenny raised his spatula in greeting. “You’re just in time. Food’s about ready.”

“I timed it that way.” Dean flashed him a grin and turned to me. “Lexi, these are the guys. Lenny here”—Dean patted him on the back—“is our crew chief, but he’s also a seasoned cook. And, of course, you’ve met Jimmy, our spotter.” I nodded at the man who had picked me up from the credentials office. “This is Dylan, our car chief, and Alan here is one of our jacks of all trades.”

Colton leaned toward me. “That’s Dean-talk for technician.” Dylan and Alan waved and I nodded and smiled at each of them.

“The other guys prefer to stay at the hotel,” Dean added.

Dylan laughed and reached in front of him toward the cooler. “They’re wussies. Real men shouldn’t need silk sheets to get a good night’s sleep.”

“Ah, let ’em. Just means there’s more food for the rest of us,” Alan said.

Lenny pointed his spatula at me. “I hope you like burgers, sweetheart, cause you won’t find any rabbit food on my grill.
You better not be one of those veggie whatchamacallits.”

I folded my arms across my chest and smirked. “I was raised in a salvage yard and tore cars apart on a daily basis,
sunshine
. Do I look like a rabbit food-eating kind of gal to you? I’ll eat a thick, juicy steak over a salad any day.”

Lenny shot his brows up and snapped his head back to where Dean was. “I like this one. She’s got spunk.”

“Easy, Lenny. She ain’t legal yet,” Dylan cracked.

Lenny propped his fists at his round waist. “You callin’ me a perv, Dyl?”

“If it quacks like a duck,” Alan answered, bringing his beer bottle to his lips to take another swig.

Lenny’s jaw dropped. “Don’t listen to those twerps. I’m a happily married man. They’re just joshin’ ya.” He flipped another patty on the grill and handed me a plate with an open burger bun on it. “Just for that,” he said, raising his voice for all to hear, “Lexi gets the first one.”

“Aw, come on, man! We’ve been waiting here longer than she has,” Jimmy whined.

Lenny scooped up a patty and slid it onto the bun. “Welcome to the crew, sweetheart.”

“Thanks.”

Colton pointed me to the condiments table. I prepped my food, found a seat in the shade, and observed the crew. Their banter reminded me of the days when Roy went out of town, of how the mood lifted in the shop during his absence. Here, it seemed to be the norm. This whole day hadn’t turned out the way I’d planned, and it just felt too good to be true, but I decided to enjoy it for the time being.

Colton reached into one of the coolers and handed me a
bottled water before sitting across from me. A loud roar pierced the chatter.

“Is it seven-thirty already?” Dean glanced at his watch.

“Yep,” Lenny said. “Trucks are out.” He meant the truck series scheduled to race tonight. “Music to my ears,” he added, flipping another burger on the grill.

As the night wore on, Dean, Jimmy, Dylan, and Lenny reminisced about last year’s ProNation season. Alan was new to the team this season. Some of the crew from last year had opted to stay on the ProNation team and Alan had been hired to fill one of the vacant positions—at least, that’s what I’d managed to understand between all the jokes and nonstop laughter. Poor Alan was simply trying to keep up. At least I wasn’t the only one.

Their stories consisted mostly of “remember when?” they’d played on each other in the shop and funny moments that had occurred at some of the races. Colton just sat there quietly, elbows resting on his chair’s armrests, fingers laced together over his abdomen.

An odd breeze of awareness blew through me. He was staring at me. I couldn’t see his eyes behind those mirrored shades of his, but I was sure of it. He was watching my every move. The unease made me fidget and shift around in my seat. I tried to immerse myself in the conversation and even got up to get another drink, hoping to shake the feeling—or his stare—but nothing worked. Had I done or said something wrong? Or was he still assessing the need to send me to a psychiatrist or to a loony bin? My insecurity pushed me toward the latter.

Blood simmering and temples aching, I sat back in my chair, arms crossed, and stared back at him. Two could play at
this game. Within seconds, his leg began to fidget. I shot him a knowing smirk.

Busted
.

But instead of looking away and pretending this staring game wasn’t happening, he stood and removed his shades. “Well, guys, I’m off to bed. Another big day tomorrow.”

The guys took their turns wishing him goodnight with pats and handshakes, and then dived back into another one of their stories. Colton looked down at me as he pulled the brim of his cap lower over his eyes and hooked the arm of his sunglasses into the neck of his shirt. With pursed lips, he gave me an expressionless nod and strolled off.

I got up and started after him. I had to know what his problem was, why he’d been making me feel like some kind of zoo attraction since we’d sat down to eat.

“Hey, Lex, while you’re up, can you grab me another beer?” A tipsy Dylan asked me. I wanted to tell him to get it himself, but I couldn’t. I was going to have to work with these people for nine months; I couldn’t let them get the idea that I was some stuck-up teenage bitch. I reached into the cooler near the chair Colton had been sitting in and tossed Dylan another bottle of Budweiser. I gave up my mission and wilted back into my chair. If I left now, I’d have to explain why to the crew and draw attention to myself, which I loathed.

My questions were going to have to wait until tomorrow.

I sprinted through the infield, my uncombed hair tucked under a ball cap. Thanks to the state Colton’s stare-down had
left me in last night, it had taken me so long to fall asleep that I’d tuned out my alarm and overslept. Lucky for me, I’d found a text from Dean waiting on my phone that said Colton would be last to qualify. There was still a chance I could make it on time to see him run.

Dean stood alone on top of the hauler, holding a spare scanner and headset, and sporting a quirky grin. He’d seen me coming, running through security like a flailing idiot. I plopped my butt down on the drink cooler and heaved forward to catch my breath. “Am I too late?”

Dean shook his head. “You’re just in time. He’s going up next.”

“Oh, thank God,” I huffed.

Dean handed me the same scanner I’d used yesterday and went back to watching and timing the speed of the car currently out on the track. While waiting for my breathing to slow, I clipped the scanner to my waistband and slid the headset over my ears. Colton was already in his car, waiting for his turn to hit the track. The team with the fastest lap took the pole position in tomorrow’s race, the first of forty-three cars in the field, and I knew without a doubt that Colton desperately wanted that spot.

When my chest stopped heaving, I joined Dean at the railing. “Who’s the one to beat?”

“Take a wild guess,” he said. I sensed bitterness in his tone. Bad history with the team to beat, perhaps? I took a peek at the clipboard in his hand. Dean had two-time Cup series champion Mitch Benson’s name penned at the top of the page with a lap time of 194.087 mph. I guessed that meant Benson was this year’s biggest contender.

“Okay, Colt, it’s time to go,” Lenny said through the scanner.
“It’s time to show ’em whatcha got.”

“Let’s go do this thing,” Colton voiced back.

I curled my fingers around the railing in front of me as Colton took to the track.

“Yee-haw!” Colton cried, and then laughed.

“How’s she feelin’?” Lenny asked.

Colton cued his mic. The high-pitched growl of his car’s engine filled my earphones before he spoke. “She’s still a bit loose on that first turn, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“That’s good. You have one more lap to go. Focus,” Lenny told him.

“Bah, it’s in the bag,” Colton shot back.

Dean stood there, unfazed by the banter, with his clipboard and his stopwatch, clocking Colton’s time. Race officials had computers that tallied up lap times and speed, but I got the feeling Dean had been around the sport for a long time and preferred the old methods of keeping track. My insides fluttered as Colton flew through turns one and two, ducking low, keeping to his lines. The car ran steady and perfect. He leveled out through the backstretch and then dipped thirty-one degrees as he went high, then ducked low again through turns three and four.

“Let’s git ’er done!” Colton yelled in his mic as he came out of the last turn, heading toward the tri-oval and the start/finish line. Colton had definitely found his calling. He was good. Real good.

Dean held up his stopwatch just as Colton crossed the checkered line. “Yes. Yes. Lord, yeah!” A more prominent southern drawl found its way into his speech through his excitement. He cued his mic. “Colton, I think you’ve got yourself
the pole in your first ever Daytona 500.”

Colton screamed so loud I had to reach for my scanner’s volume control knob.

“It’s official, 194.738 miles per hour. Way to go, Colt, you did it!” Lenny said.

“No,” Colton replied. “We did it.”

“Bring ’er on home, kid.”

Dean and I met up with Colton in the garage afterward to congratulate him. He grinned at me over Dean’s shoulder as Dean raved on about how good he’d done. A wave of warmth ran up my arms. I looked away before I lost all of my senses and took a second to reorganize my thoughts.

“Hey, Lex.”

Crap.

Colton approached, slapping the tips of his driving gloves against the palm of his other hand. This was the perfect time to ask him about last night. I took a deep breath, lifted my chin, and returned his slight smile. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks. I’m glad you came to watch.”

“Wouldn’t have missed it.”

An awkward silence fell.
Now. Ask him now.
I ignored the crampy knot in my stomach and seized the moment. “Umm … do you have a sec? There’s something I wanted to—”

“Colton!” I cringed at the familiar brat-tastic squeal of Gwen’s voice coming up behind me.

You have got to be kidding me.

She pushed past me—pretty hard, I might add—and practically jumped into his arms. “There you are, Colton Tayler!” Her high-pitched voice screeched inside my head like one of her manicured nails sliding down a sheet of scrap metal.
The way she said Colton’s full name in a 1-800 number voice made me want to stick my fingers down my throat. “Daddy wants you to join us in the Superstretch Suite for the ProNation race.” She let go of his neck and tugged at his waist.

Colton smiled and pulled back. “Sure, hold on a sec.” He turned himself toward me. “Was there something you wanted to talk about?”

Gwen’s beady little eyes burned through me. “Spit it out already. I don’t want to miss Link’s start.”

Eighteen-year-old Link Bowers was another one of Dean’s drivers. Dean had scouted him as Colton’s replacement on his ProNation team when he moved Colton up to the new Cup team.

Dean had a good eye for talent … and hotness, apparently. Just saying.

I waved them off and backed away. “That’s okay, we can talk later.”

Colton stepped toward me and away from Gwen’s reach. “Are you sure?” he asked in a lower tone. “If you need to talk, I can skip—”

“Oh, no. No worries. You go ahead.” I pinched my lips together, then looked down at the ground. “It’s not that important. I’ll … I’ll catch you later.” I wrapped my arms around my midsection and walked away without looking back.

The race day crowd was overwhelming. I’d never seen so many people in one place. It was worse than Disney World during peak season. I pushed through the sea of fans, passed
through the amped-up security, and made it to the hauler in one piece and on time to witness the crew pushing the car out onto pit road.

I hadn’t seen Colton again last night or this morning and my urge to question him had faded. Maybe I’d imagined it. Maybe he hadn’t been staring.

Dean greeted me when I reached the top of the hauler, handed me my headset and my scanner, and pointed over to the cooler. “Help yourself to something if you get thirsty.”

I nodded. “Will do.”

Mr. Langdon glanced back and nodded a greeting. “You remember Mr. Langdon and his daughter Gwen?” Dean asked.