BACK IN MY ORBIT

The weekend came and took every competing racer and their team to the camp site in the mountains.  Every member of my team has worked with me before, and that include the twenty mandatory mechanics, and so they knew of my aversion to being late.

If you’re going to be late, you should rather not be there.

And so my team is one of the first to arrive. Camp is a gravel site, the smell of earth and nature hanging heavily in the air. I take a huge lungful, and right as I’m expelling the air, I see him.

Harrison Kane.

He hasn’t noticed me yet. He’s dressed in his Kane gear but not completely, similarly to how I’m dressed. While I feel out of sorts in mine, the leather too stiff as I’ve gotten used to coveralls. On the other hand, he looks as comfortable as he would be if he was wearing pyjamas.

He looks exactly the same, and at the same time he does not.

Broader shoulders, man shoulders. Filled out from the lanky, long boy I’d seen last at seventeen. The curve of his smile is even cockier, stretching out his full lips.

And because life is unfair to everyone but him, he looks even better.

As if sensing my eyes, he looks up from the pad in his gloved hands, and I look away immediately.

“We got clearance to our tent.” Rafael tells me, with proof of the key-chain marked Delta.

Thank fuck.

We lumber our way to our tent, the cars should arrive later with my brothers in tow. They asked me to do a press conference, but they knew better than make me do it. As the current CEO and CFO of Delta Industries, they could handle it.

“Not bad.” Amber says as we take in the tent. It’s like every mechanical pit stop, it has everything we need, anything more would be provided by Delta Industries, and because this is an important event, we won’t be skimping on it.

“Yeah, but he’s D-1. It ought to be bigger.” Milo says with a snort.

I didn’t mind. The space was perfect for me. There’s a kitchen here, an office for strategies, bathroom with running water. TV to view the races in real time.

A set of heavy footsteps walk in while I have my back to the door, inspecting the tools they had given us. All of them are brand new and–

“You’re late.”

My thoughts come crumbling down, and my body completely freezes.

I know that voice.

Seven years is not enough time to erase it completely from my mind. There’s a gruff to it that wasn’t there before, but it’s the same. Like a laugh in zig zagging it’s way around his words. Vine like.

“I’m ten minutes early.” I say without turning around, there’s no need to see his face before we began racing. He hates being ignored anyway, if I do that, he’ll leave.

“Eh, that’s late in DeeDee world. Early starts at twenty minutes.”

I try to keep my memories and breath in check.

“Don’t call me that.” I growl, turning around to him.

Big mistake.

The icy blues of his eyes are smiling at me, sucking me in a time vacuum I’d packed up and left in a corner of my mind with zero plans to revisit.

“D.” he breathed instead.

Just like that.

The chasm I’d managed to build in seven years didn’t happen.

“Kane.” I say, eyes focused on his forehead.

Not all of us were blessed with smiles, sunshine and rainbows.  

His smile does not falter as I expected it to, if anything, it grows. It ribs the wrong way.

 “Did you make a wrong turn? This is a Delta tent.” I tell him and start to walk away, but of course, he’s right on my heels.

Milo was right, this tent is too fucking small.

"No. I just came to tell you something.”

This time, I pointedly ignore him, giving him my back, and checking everything they’d left out for me. He tries side stepping me to be in front, I don’t let him the same way I don’t let those memories out.

In that box in the corner they belong.

“I plan on winning this, D.”

There are exactly seventy four racers here, there’s no one of them that didn’t come to SLAT without the aim to win this. Again, I say nothing.

“Let’s make a bet.”

I shut my eyes quickly as another boy, a different Damien in a different time heard that sentence for everything. He’d quickly agree.

Harrison doesn’t mind that I’m ignoring him, he carries on like I agreed to his bet.

“When I win, you will give me something.”

“Get out, Kane.” I say without looking at him.  

How cocky can one get? We’re in the same competition and he’s asking me to give him something when he wins? How fucking dare he?  

“Get the fuck out of my tent.”

This time I turn to look at him. His lips are stretched into a cocky grin, hands raised in surrender.

“The bet’s still on.”

“Get. out.” I grit every word out.

His grin seems to widen, shoulders shaking with mirth.

“See you later…” he lets his statement hang purposefully, eyes dancing with mischief.

“Roomie.”

And then his loud footsteps make their way out of the tent, hips swaying as he goes.

It takes my brain two seconds to catch up with what he’d said.

 Turning to Amber who had been watching the whole exchange with a frown on her face.

“Tell me he was fucking pulling my leg.”

“Since when do you swear like a sailor?” she asks, stepping out of the spot she chose to spy on us.

I’m basically trembling with a lot of things, anger being the biggest of the emotions. I hate this. Folding my gloved hand, I squeeze it, pressing the nails until they dig into the leather gloves.

“Since I have to breathe same air as him, apparently.”

She presses her lips together again. Amber is better with things without feelings, like cars. Emotions aren’t her strong suit.

“What more can go wrong?” I grumble.

“You have photo-shoot with all the racers. Now.”

Great.

Even more torture for my lungs to breathe him in. However. there are seventy two other racers, there’s no way I’d stand beside him and pose for pictures.

“Group photo and uh… D-1 and K-1 photos.” she says in a hurried breath.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

“Your brother wasn’t the only one with the idea to capitalize on the dynamic. But don’t worry, there are other dynamics here. Hellcat and Grouch are having the same urge to kill as you do now.”

Fuck me.

Milo steps into the pit with a walkie talkie before wagging it in the air.

 “It’s time for the photo-shoot.”

“Don’t look so intent on murdering him. We need the sponsorship.” Tyson says, walking into the tent.

Great. I fix my face, or try to fix my face.

 When it doesn’t work, I tell Amber to look after the cars Tyson brought with him before leaving.

“I like that you look ready to kill him, it’s great fuel for marketing, but too much and we’ll lose fans to him. We need the people to like you if we want brands to believe you’ll sell them.”

Ignoring my elder brother, I step outside and towards the gathering of racers. The sooner we get this shit over with, the better.

I shake hands with other racers, ones I know from the game and respect. It’s easy not to glare at them.

“Damien!” one of the racers greet. I don’t know him personally, so it surprises me when he doesn’t use my last name like everybody else.

“Manchester,” I greet.

“It’s Hosea. I’m a huge fan. It’s an honor to be competing alongside you.”

Oh.

I’m unsure how to navigate this.

“D doesn’t do well with praise, tell him something about knocking his teeth and you’ll get a better reaction.”

At the sound of his voice, I bristle.

Thankfully, they call for the group photos and I stand on the other side, away from him. After a few photos of that, they do personal photos and just when I think I’m done and can leave, they call for D-1 VS K-1 photos.

I’m forced to stand back to back with him.

“Took you seven years to catch up.” he murmurs when we’re the same height.

I ignore him again. It doesn’t work. We’re too up close for that.

“Do you still snore in your sleep? Should I get ear plugs?” he asks through a smile for the photograph.

I’m putting all my effort into keeping my expression neutral. I’m struggling with that.

 We have to do a face to face one when he says,

“I’m taking the top bunk.”