Chapter 21

Jace:

The best part of race night was never the race. It was after. When engines finally cooled. When adrenaline turned into laughter. When rivalries took a break long enough for everyone to remember they were just a bunch of idiots obsessed with cars. The quarter-mile had gone quiet. Only the occasional burnout echoed across the old shipping yard now. Floodlights still bathed the cracked concrete in bright white, but most of the racers had drifted into little circles around their cars. Music blasted from someone's truck. Coolers were open. The smell of grilled hot dogs had somehow appeared out of nowhere. A normal Friday night in Riverside. Or… As normal as Riverside ever got.

I leaned against my Camaro, taking another sip of bottled water instead of the beer someone had handed me earlier. My head still wasn't one hundred percent from yesterday.

"You're getting soft." I looked over. Reid. Naturally.

"Hydration's cool now."

"It isn't."

He snatched the bottle from my hand and replaced it with a cold beer. "There. That’s more like it man."

"I didn't ask for this."

"No." He wrapped an arm around my shoulders before I could protest. "But you're coming with me."

"Where?"

"You'll see."

"I don't like surprises."

"You used to."

"I also used to jump bicycles off roofs."

"And?"

"And that's why my knees hurt."

He laughed loud enough to turn heads. "C'mon."

Before I realized what he was doing… He'd dragged me across the lot toward one of the Riverside crews gathered around three trucks and a pair of old Mustangs. Half the faces were familiar. Half weren't. A bonfire crackled inside an old steel barrel. Somebody had brought folding chairs. Typical. The conversations quieted the second we walked up. I recognized them one by one. Mason. Tyler. Big Drew. Guys I'd grown up racing against. Working beside. Getting into trouble with. Nobody said anything. Not at first. Fair enough. I'd disappeared for two years.

Then Reid clapped his hands dramatically. "Alright."

Everybody looked at him. "Our local dumbasses owe this idiot a drink."

He pointed directly at me. I frowned. "What'd I do?"

"What'd you do?"

Reid looked around the circle. "This genius just stopped somebody from blowing up a brand-new GT-R."

A few eyebrows lifted. "What happened?"

"The radiator hose."

Reid shook his head. "Somebody disconnected it."

The conversations around us immediately changed. "No kidding?"

"He caught it before the kid raced."

"Against Reve, too."

Several people exchanged uneasy looks. One guy whistled low. "Damn."

Reid nodded toward me. "Same old Jace."

I rolled my eyes. "Don't."

"What? You've always had that stupid savior complex."

Laughter rippled through the group.

 "It's true." Tyler pointed a beer bottle at me. "You remember when he stopped a race because somebody's wheel studs looked cracked?"

I groaned. "It was gonna fall off."

"It didn't."

"Because I fixed it."

More laughter.

Big Drew chimed in. "You also rebuilt my carburetor for free."

"You were broke."

"I still am."

"You weren't then."

"Details."

Someone else laughed.

"What about when that hurricane hit?"

"Oh God." I already knew where this was going.

"He spent three days pulling flooded cars outta people's yards."

"I had a winch."

"You had zero reason."

"They needed help."

Mason grinned. "Remember Mrs. Holloway's old station wagon?" I couldn't help smiling. "It was underwater."

"And?"

"You spent eight hours getting it running."

I shrugged. "She made really good peach cobbler."

The group burst into laughter again.

"There it is. The real reason. I knew it wasn't kindness."

A cold beer suddenly appeared in front of me. I looked up. Big Drew held it out. "Take it."

"I'm driving."

"So am I."

I hesitated. Then accepted it. "...Thanks."

He nodded once. "No problem." No speech. No dramatic moment. Just… A beer.

Funny how something so small could mean so much. The conversation drifted naturally after that. Somebody brought up the old airport races. Another guy started arguing that his Fox Body would've beaten Camden's Camaro if the timing hadn't been screwed up.

"You're outta your mind," I laughed.

"It would've."

"It barely outran bicycles."

"It was weight reduction."

"It was rust."

The whole circle erupted.

Tyler nearly spit out his drink laughing. "Remember Camden trying to convince everybody primer gray was a color?"

"It is."

"It absolutely isn't."

"It looked mean."

"It looked unfinished."

"It looked free."

"Exactly."

For the first time… Camden's name didn't make the air heavy. It made people smile. That felt… Right.

Someone nudged my shoulder. "You know..." It was Mason. "I was pretty pissed at you."

I nodded. "I know."

"When you left."

"I know."

"I figured..." He looked into his beer. "...if you didn't do it..." His voice trailed off. "...you would've stayed."

I stared at the bottle in my hand. "I wanted to."

Silence settled.

"I couldn't."

Nobody rushed to fill it. 

Finally… "I couldn't walk through this town." The words came quieter than I'd expected. "Every face..." I swallowed. "...looked at me like I killed my brother." Nobody interrupted. "I didn't know how to survive that."

Reid looked down. Tyler rubbed the back of his neck.

Big Drew sighed. "I should've called."

I looked over. "What?"

"After you left." He shrugged. "I didn't. I figured..." He laughed bitterly. "...I figured you probably hated all of us."

"I didn't."

"I know that now."

The honesty surprised all of us. Another beer cracked open somewhere behind me. Someone turned the music up a little louder. Life kept moving. Like it always did.

Mason lifted his bottle. "Well." He looked around the group. "Whether you stayed gone too long or not..." His eyes found mine. "...I'm glad you're home."

One by one… Bottles lifted around the circle. No grand toast. No speeches. Just a simple acknowledgment. Welcome back. I raised mine too. The glass clinked softly together beneath the floodlights. For the first time since crossing back into Calusa Cove… I didn't feel like an outsider. Not completely. Trust wasn't rebuilt in one night. It couldn't be. Too much had happened. Too many years had passed. But trust… Like an old project car… Didn't come back all at once. You started with one bolt. One wire. One piece at a time. Tonight… Maybe I'd found the first piece. And for the first time since I'd come home… The laughter around me didn't sound like it belonged to someone else's life. It sounded like mine.