Page 13 of Furious

But how can I not ask him? If I wait until I’m eighteen, six months from now, it might be too late. I might be too slow. Too out of practice. Too distracted. Plus, if I don’t apply this summer, I’ll have to wait another full year for the next application window.

From underneath the sheets of paper, I can feel my racing future moving further and further away from me.

Shit.

Sitting up, I let the application sheets waterfall off my face and down my torso. I have the day off from Grandma Jolene’s, and I wasn’t planning on attending El’s volunteer club meeting. I really, truly wasn’t. After all, I won the go-kart race and our bet, meaning she had to cover for me.

But, let’s face it, what else am I going to do? Sit around the farmhouse and watch Grandma pack for Italy? Help her decide whether Florence would like her better in a red sundress or a pink one? Of course, I could just spend the day wandering around Dell’s Hollow on my own. Or I could stick to the couch, bingeing HGTV and talking to myself like the friendless shut-in I am. Shudder and no thank you on all fronts.

Plus, I kind of hate the idea of El thinking badly of me. Like a lot. Even now, remembering the frown that scrunched up the place between her eyebrows when I asked her to … how did she put it, “help her to scam herself”? It makes me cringe.

She’s the cutest girl I’ve met in ages. Who also happens to be into Fast & Furious. And funny. And hurting now that her sister has disappeared.

Oh no.

Am I crushing on El?

That’s ridiculous. I’ve met her like twice—and thought about her all last night after I left Putt by the Pond, and checked out all her social media, but who’s counting that? Not. Me.

Really, there’s only one way to confirm if I’m solidly in crush territory: see El again. And that means going to the volunteer gig at a place called Syed Rescue Farm, of which I have vague memories from my childhood visits to this town.

Yes, okay, fine. I also looked up all the club’s scheduled events, and planned out the quickest bike route between Grandma Jolene’s house and the farm. But there’s nothing suspicious about gathering information. That’s called being prepared.

Right.

I’m so prepared, I can still remember how El’s hand felt in mine as I helped her out of her kart. And how her laugh sounded. And that she smelled like coconut shampoo and motor oil.

Hello, I am officially a creep. Okay. Time to go see this girl for real, rein all this in—ha! horse puns for a day at the horse farm!—and figure out how to get my license without tricking interesting girls into helping me.

After a shower, clean clothes, and—Lord, help me—some actual winged eyeliner and lip gloss, I pound down the stairs. (Not a crush. I just have on a dress and makeup to look nice. To help brush horses and clean out stables. Ooof. I am in trouble, aren’t I?)

As I skid into the living room, I see Dad in the kitchen, working on his laptop. He stares intently at the screen, ignoring me as I grab my blue Doc Martens instead of the usual grimy brown ones I wear to work. Boots and backpack on, I’m almost out the front door when Dad hollers at me.

“JoJo, come in here, will ya?”

I freeze. It’s his serious tone of voice. His “we-need-to-have-a-talk” tone. Has he somehow figured out I have the F1 Academy form? Or that I’m hoping to leave Dell’s Hollow for the world of racing?

Faking confidence I don’t feel, I call out, “What’s up? I need to get going.”

“Come talk to your old dad for a minute.”

A long sigh escapes me. Since Dad’s been so busy with finding work and keeping up with his fitness (i.e., riding his dorky bike around the local bike trail in a loop for several hours a day), this is the first time he’s wanted to talk in a while. There was a time after Mom died when all he did was lie on the couch and cry. Then, he started seeing a therapist who wanted him to talk, and he pulled me into that. For a few weeks this spring, he was constantly asking me what I was feeling and how my grief was shaped.

Seriously. How my grief was shaped. Like I could give a coherent structure to the bone-deep ache of never being able to feel Mom’s arms around me again or the finality of her just suddenly being gone.

I had no idea what to tell him then and I still don’t now. All I know is that if I keep moving fast enough, my grief doesn’t have a chance to catch up with me or to take a clear shape. And that’s been enough to keep me going these last few months. Well, that and the hope of getting into the F1 Academy.

“Hi, Street Racer,” Dad says as I walk in. “Grab a biscuit. Just made them fresh.”

Swiping a biscuit off the pan on the stove (Dad’s been baking, which is a good sign, since he’s not baked anything since Mom died), I turn a chair around backward and straddle it. “How’s it going, Dirty?”

For reasons that are beyond both my understanding and my desire to know, everyone in town, including his own mother, calls my dad, whose real name is Brian Boyd, “Dirty.” It’s an absolutely unsettling nickname, and I cling to the hope that it has to do with his days as a mechanic and head of Mom’s pit crew and not something more sordid. But who really knows with southern country boys and their nicknames?

“Dad,” he corrects, holding back a grin. “Please, please don’t call me ‘Dirty.’” He runs a hand through his thick brown hair—my hair, though the rest of me, from my lack of height to my face shape and eye color, is all Mom—and takes a long sip of coffee.

I pull my biscuit apart, letting steam escape and breathing in the sweet scent of butter and flour. “Fine, how’s it going, Dad?”

“Better,” he says, gesturing to his laptop. “I’ve found a job selling car parts online. Should bring in enough money to get us our own place.”