Victory Lane (Shady Falls #1) Read online

  “I just got here a little while ago. I’ve been hangin’ out back here for the last hour waitin’ for Jake to finish with his client. He was gonna take me to Uncle Bobby’s bar to see you. When you got here, he texted me and we decided to surprise you here instead,” Mia explained. “I’m movin’ to Mooresville. I graduated in December and got a job at a school here in town.”

  “That’s great!” I exclaimed. “What’re you gonna be doin’? Where’re you gonna be livin’?” I sent rapid-fire questions her way. I was excited to have my friend so close. Looking at Jake though, I became increasingly concerned about what was going on with them.

  “I’ll be teaching in a classroom for students with disabilities. I’m not sure where I’ll be livin’ yet. I was gonna sleep on Jake’s couch tonight and start lookin’ for somethin’ tomorrow.”

  “I have two bedrooms; you’re welcome to stay with me.”

  A huge smile crossed her face. “That would be great! Are you still livin’ with Uncle Bobby?”

  “Sort of, my apartment is in the garage behind his house. He’s right there if I need him, but we have our own space. It’s cheap, it’s safe, and it’s nice.”

  “I would love to. It would help me tremendously, actually. It’s way better than having to sleep on a couch,” she said, glancing at Jake.

  Jake scowled, but didn’t say a word. Mia just smiled at him. The air between them was tense and uncomfortable. I didn’t understand any of it, like how she ended up contacting him when she got here. They didn’t talk at all once we reached eleventh grade, and they were barely friends even before then.

  She turned back to me, “So what are y’all up to?”

  “Before you two get started,” Cade interrupted. “I’m starvin’. Let’s go to dinner. We can all catch up there and celebrate Toni’s internship and Mia’s new job.”

  ~oOo~

  “I’m interning with Kyle Redding,” I told Mia over the music and noise. “On the number fifty-five team.”

  “Are you freakin’ serious? Julius Fuller? You get to work with Julius Fuller?”

  “I won’t be workin’ with him; I’ll be workin’ with his crew chief. I’ll probably never see Julius Fuller.”

  Mia looked incredulous. “It’s Fuller’s car, Toni. Of course you’ll meet him.”

  “I don’t know, Mia. I don’t think I even want to.”

  “It’s Julius freakin’ Fuller, Toni. Of course you want to meet him. You’ve had a crush on him for years.”

  Smacking her arm, I growled over music coming from the jukebox, “This is different, Mia. He isn’t just some famous driver that I’ll stare at from afar anymore. I’ll be working on the cars that he drives every week. I’ll be part of his team, at least for a little while. What if I get nervous talkin’ to him, he’s famous.”

  “You’ll be fine,” she insisted. “You’ll be able to separate the fantasy with your reality. That guy on those posters ain’t real, Toni. The guy behind the wheel, that you’ll meet soon enough, is very real. Hell, maybe reality will be better than fantasy for once.”

  I looked at her and noticed how tired she looked. She seemed so much older and beaten down by life. “What’s goin’ on with you?” I asked. The dark circles under her eyes and the slight discoloration on her cheek sent alarms blaring in my head.

  “Nothin’s goin’ on,” she instantly denied. But I knew better. I could feel her sorrow. It was emanating from her every pore. Something happened to her.

  “Well, how’d you end up here with Jake then? I mean you didn’t even call and tell me you were comin’.”

  “I just wanted to surprise you.” She smiled, but it wasn’t quite right. She seemed like she was hiding something.

  She looked toward the brothers. They were standing there laughing with the bartender, oblivious of her gaze and the looks of several other women. They certainly drew the attention, even if they didn’t seem to want it.

  Mia looked exhausted. Her hazel eyes seemed more gray than brown and were red and puffy. She seemed smaller and frailer than she was last time I saw her. “I messed things up with him so long ago, ya know? I don’t blame him for never forgivin’ me. But in spite of how bad I fucked it all up, he still was willing to help me out when I told him I wanted to surprise you.”

  I just stared at her, confused, waiting for her to explain. When she didn’t elaborate, I asked. “What’re you talkin’ about?”

  She paused a little longer, looking longingly toward the brothers. “Nothin’. It’s nothing’, never mind.”

  “Mia, what the hell’s goin’ on? What happened to you?” I reached over and touched her discolored cheek. “And what happened between you and Jake. Neither of y’all ever told me and Cade shit in high school. It was just like one day y’all hated each other and couldn’t be near each other again. Then years later, you contact him instead of me when you get in town. I doesn’t make sense.”

  She looked sad, and, for a moment, I didn’t think she would tell me anything. Back in school, all either of them would say was nothing happened. Jake always said he didn’t like fake people. Mia wouldn’t say anything about the situation at all, just that she couldn’t be around Jake. Then Mia’s declaration shocked the hell out of me.

  “I lost my virginity to Jake one weekend in eleventh grade. It was that weekend after the homecoming football game.” She stopped and smiled. “It was a great game, wasn’t it?” Jake and Cade were both on the football team, starting wide receiver and linebacker respectively. “We went to the party after the game. Cade took you home because you were tired and had to wake up early for work, so Jake took me home. My parents were away for the weekend, some couple’s getaway tryin’ to fix their marriage or whatever. Anyway, he came home with me and stayed. We didn’t intend it to happen, but I always had a thing for him. He was so handsome, kind, and popular. He never treated me like I was different like so many other guys did. You know, a lot of guys had a problem with me because of my skin, but never Jake. It was sweet and gentle; it was beautiful. But then I got to school Monday and I didn’t know what to do or how to act. I mean, Jake and Cade were on another level in high school, you know? Every girl wanted them; everyone wanted to be friends with them.

  “The cheerleaders were all standin’ around talkin’ about them and all the things they wanted to do with them and I just felt …,” she paused and took a long deep breath, “I felt I wasn’t enough for him. I was never like you, ya know. You were always so confident. None of those girls fazed you. I know it’s stupid, but I didn’t want the cheer team to hate me because I was with one of them and they weren’t. Jake and I made no declarations. We didn’t decide we were goin’ together or whatever, everything was up in the air, ya know? So when Greg came up to me and backed me into the lockers, I let him. But when I saw the hurt in Jake’s eyes, my heart broke. I fucked up so bad and there was no way I could take it back.”

  Everything that happened in high school with Jake becoming a dick to just about everyone but his brother and me became perfectly clear. The fact that he and Mia couldn’t be in the same room together for any period of time, Mia suddenly becoming a serial dater, and the fact Jake has never been with a single girl longer than a week made complete sense. She hurt him terribly; it was obvious to me now. Jake acted like a tough guy, but I knew my friend’s heart. If he was with her, he cared for her deeply. He always said he wanted the kind of relationship his parents had. He was a romantic at heart. Now his change made perfect sense. After high school, he decided love was a myth. He said it was because of what Todd did to me, but it made complete sense that it would also have to do with what happened between him and Mia. But what he was doing now, helping her, offering his couch to her, I hoped he wasn’t setting himself up for future hurt. And I hoped he didn’t hurt her.

  “So what happened for you to call Jake?” I asked. She was still acting different, nothing like the Mia I remembered, but then again we’d all changed over the years. I knew I definitely wasn’t the same girl.
Maybe this was just the more mature version. I just couldn’t shake the idea that something just wasn’t quite right. She was always the popular cheerleader, loved by everyone in our small high school. Always ready with a kind word and a smile for everyone she encountered. Now she seemed more guarded, as if she was hiding something.

  After a few moments of her not responding to my question, I pushed. “Mia, did you hear me?”

  “What? Oh yeah, sorry about that. I guess I’m just a bit preoccupied.” She stopped and looked around. She seemed so distracted and so insecure, nothing like the Mia I used to know.

  “Mia, is something wrong?” I questioned quietly. My concern was written all over my face. I didn’t know what was going on but she was my best friend, I’d help her however I could.

  She looked at me, and almost as if she could read my mind, she rushed to assure me. “No, Toni, nothing’s wrong, I promise. I’m just distracted I guess.” She glanced around then back toward the guys. She slid her chair closer to me and started to explain. “Nothin’ really happened to me in Tennessee. It was just a lot different bein’ in a big city compared to our little town.”

  “Are you sure?” I pushed again. “You just seem kind of—I don’t know—different.”

  “I guess I am different,” she said quietly. “I’m not quite the girl I was back then. But it’s okay. Everyone’s gotta change, right? Besides, who wants to be the same person forever?” She was answering my questions, but not really. If something happened to her in Nashville, she had no interest in sharing. Even though she was my best friend growing up, we had grown apart over the years. Maybe this was our new reality. We had to get to know each other again.

  “You would tell me though, right? I mean, if someone hurt you or if something happened. You would let me help you, right?” I asked.

  She smiled hugely. “Of course I would. You’d be my go-to person.”

  But I wasn’t, Jake was her go-to person. She hadn’t even called to say she was moving to North Carolina, let alone Mooresville. She’d been missing from my life for most of the past four years. I understood distance and the demands of school, but I still tried to maintain communication. Aside from the ‘hey, I’m alive’ emails occasionally, I barely heard from her. It hurt, but I tried not to look into it too much. Maybe it was just as she said. She wanted to surprise me, so she contacted Jake to help her. But then why go to the twin that declared his hatred for her all those years ago instead of going to Cade, or just coming directly to me? The phone call declaring she was in Mooresville would have been surprise enough. I feared I may never figure it out once I start my internship tomorrow. I was going to be busy, of that I was sure.

  “I missed you, so much.”

  “I missed you too, Mia.” We continued to talk about school and her new job, my internship, and anything else that came up. It was as if we hadn’t been apart at all.

  Following dinner, the four of us moved all of Mia’s stuff into my apartment and we let Uncle Bobby know she would be staying. I was thrilled to have her here with me. It would be great to have my best friend back for a while, but I worried about her. I noticed her looking longingly at Jake and worried about them both. She broke his heart once, would she do it again or had she grown up enough to know what she wanted out of life now. I guessed only time would tell.

  After Cade and Jake went home and Mia turned in for the night, I sat in my bedroom trying desperately to rest. I remained awake most of the night. I was so nervous about tomorrow; I couldn’t shut my brain off enough to relax. I sat and looked at my uniform, part of the packet that Roger gave me today. Not everyone got a uniform to wear, but apparently, this was something Kyle insisted upon for me. He wanted me to look the part immediately. Roger said they thought the more I blended in with everyone else, the faster the guys in the shop would look beyond the surface. I was happy to have the uniform. I just hoped I didn’t blend in so much that Kyle wouldn’t notice my work. I wanted desperately to prove myself to this man. I wanted nothing more than the opportunity for a job offer after this internship ended.

  ~oOo~

  The next morning I pulled in front of Fuller Enterprises, the home of the number fifty-five race team, scared out of my mind. Excitement, nervousness, and exhaustion all warred within my gut as my mind raced trying to predict what would happen when I walked through those doors. I played out introductions and conversations in my mind; I even scripted out what I thought would happen if faced with Julius Fuller. I would be calm, cool, and collected. In my mind, everything was perfect. Reality never seemed to measure up to my overactive imagination.

  I sat in my truck, staring at the enormous building. It was intimidating just looking at the sheer size of it, but the part I was most concerned about were the fifteen bay doors lining the side of the building. That was where I would have to bust my ass and prove my worth.

  The grounds were well cared for, clean and well-groomed even in the cold of mid-January. The building was all smooth straight edges and fine lines with lots of windows. It wasn’t a cold and clinical environment; it was warm and inviting. Looking up at the building, I wondered who occupied the offices housed above the garages. Would I have to interact with guys in suits? I certainly hoped I wouldn’t. But then again, I was sure I would have to meet and interact with the owner of the team and possibly some other important people at some point, just hopefully not today.

  Adjusting my baggy work shirt, I strode from my truck toward the main doors, hugging my coat around me to block the bitter wind. I used the time it took for me to get from my parking spot to the main doors to try to calm myself down and focus on what I would need to do. I knew I would have to spend time filling out confidentiality paperwork and sign some other things in order to gain entrance to the garage area. No crew chief or driver wanted unauthorized people to see or know what they were doing with their cars and their equipment. Even though regulations required certain things of the cars and equipment, they were allowed certain liberties to make the cars perform better. I couldn’t wait to see some of the things they were doing to make the fifty-five perform and handle better on the track. I was sure I would have to be introduced to the team at some point today also. Today would probably be introductions, tours, and explanations. That knowledge was enough to calm my nerves. Today I’d learn about the building, tomorrow I’d start to prove myself.

  I walked into the enormous lobby and my breath caught. It was all glass and brightness; the windows cast a natural glow over everything. Even in the gloomy winter morning, the room was still bright with natural light and splendor. There were plants and flowers everywhere, making the space inviting. The artwork on the walls all depicted racecars and tracks.

  “Can I help you?” A pretty blonde sat behind the huge desk in the center of the space. Her pixy haircut was styled perfectly and her brown eyes were friendly and warm. She seemed like she was probably in her late twenties. She had a huge smile on her face, as if she already knew who I was.

  “Hi, my name is Toni … um, Antonia Rizzo. I’m an intern from NPCT. I’m supposed to be working with–”

  “Me,” a deep voice cut me off from across the room. The blonde’s smile widened and she nodded. I turned to see Kyle Redding striding across the lobby toward me. He had on the same uniform I was wearing—a baseball cap with the number fifty-five embroidered on the top and work boots. Kyle was an extremely handsome man and young for a crew chief. He couldn’t be any more than thirty. His long light brown hair stuck out the sides of his hat and curled around the edges. His strong features were warm and his blue eyes were bright, his entire face lit up with his huge smile. “Margie, this is Toni. She’s gonna be workin’ with us for a while.”

  The woman’s smile was bright and welcoming. “Hi Toni, I’m Margie. If you need anything with all of these knucklehead guys, you just let me know.” Margie was kind and seemed very sincere. “They’re a good group of guys, Toni. You won’t have a problem with any of them.” She then paused and frowned a little then in
cluded, “Well, except maybe Julius.” I’d heard he could be difficult and demanding of his team, I worried about his opinion. I was sure if Julius Fuller decided he didn’t want someone on his team, no matter Kyle’s opinion, he would be forced to let them go. I’m sure my worry was written all over my face, I usually had a difficult time hiding my feelings.

  “Jules’ll be fine, Marg,” Kyle said as he came up and stood next to me. He shook my hand and introduced himself, “Hey Toni, I’m Kyle Redding. You’re gonna be workin’ directly with me.” He looked at me and smiled. “Don’t worry, Julius can be a pain in my ass, but you have nothin’ to worry about. Now I know my dad warned y’all that you’d be doin’ all of the grunt work, and it might be true for some of the guys, but it won’t happen here. I heard about you from my dad, and if you managed to impress him, you have no business doin’ grunt work. So I’ll expect you to jump right in.” He then turned to Margie and gave her a mock scowl with a grin. “Knuckleheads huh? I’ll remember that at home.”

  Margie just laughed and turned back to her computer screen. The huge smile on her face showed her fun-loving and carefree attitude. It also showed her affection for the man who stood in front of her. He turned back to me and I probably looked completely overwhelmed at everything. He just smiled. “Margie’s my wife, so if you need anything at all, just let her know. Come with me and I’ll tell you what’s goin’ on today.” I followed him through the lobby and into an elevator. He punched a button for a lower floor and the elevator began to descend. We were silent for a few moments, listening to an instrumental version of Cherry Pie by Warrant flowing through the cab. I snickered to myself a little, only a race team would have eighties rock music in their elevator.

  After a few moments of silence, Kyle started speaking, “After I show you around the garages, I’ll send you upstairs to fill out confidentiality paperwork. I wanted you to see the facility first thing before sendin’ you off for the boring parts.” He smiled warmly then continued, “Fuller Enterprises is the home of the number fifty-five franchise and we’re owned by Turner Racing. Turner Racing Shop supports both the number fifty-five Sprint Cup cars and the number fifty-five Camping World trucks. We build all of our cars in this facility from the ground up. Our fifty-man engine department builds around four hundred engines for us every season. The engine department is located on these grounds, but housed in a separate building. Our trucks are also housed in a separate building. You’ll find we have five different buildings, but you’ll spend most of your time here.” We exited the elevator and he led me down a long brightly lit white hall, toward a set of double gray doors at the end. I didn’t say a word as he continued to describe the goings on in the garage.