Page 109 of Down Shift (Driven 8)
My mood doesn’t lighten at her teasing comment, because this is the tough part. “I need to go talk to him. Make things right.” I rise from the couch and kiss the top of her head.
“Zander.”
I turn back at the sound of her voice just as I’m about to step out the door. “Just so you know, Smitty never told us where you were. And Colton never told me what happened in that hotel room. He’s kept that between the two of you, even though whatever happened has been eating at him. He’s spent a lot of time sitting in your trailer with your car. Not sure what he’s thinking about when he’s there . . . but I just thought you should know that.”
Fuck.
I nod my head in acknowledgment. My chest hurts.
Time to make amends.
To just jump.
Chapter 34
ZANDER
“Look what the cat dragged in!” Garret shouts across pit alley.
“Motherfucker. He’s alive! Alive!” Brad mocks me as he rolls out from his creeper at the nose of the car.
“The love. I feel it!” I shout back to them, grinning as I walk into the garage—my second home. Some crew members pat my back in greeting as I walk by. Loud welcomes surround me.
There are a few of the guys who peer at me from beneath the bills of baseball hats. Leery of my return. The ones I pissed off or let down. Or they know Colton’s bite and aren’t sure how he’ll react to my being here.
I meet Smitty’s surprised eyes over the lid of a Snap-on tool chest, but he doesn’t say a word. Instead the questions are written all over his face. I lift my chin toward the stairs, asking him for a single answer, and when he nods again, I know where I’ll find Colton.
Heart in my throat, I take a deep breath as I start the short climb. Uncertainty about how he’ll react makes my gut churn.
I hear their voices before I reach the top—Colton and his best friend and crew chief and my pseudo-uncle, Beckett Daniels. They’re talking about a competitor, trying to figure the adjustments his team made that resulted in his trimming two-tenths off his lap time.
When I clear the landing, Becks is facing me, leaning against the counter behind him, and Colton is sitting with his back to me, feet propped up on the counter. Becks sees me first, his head startling, his conversation momentarily stopping midstream as his eyes lock with mine—a warning fired off to tread carefully—before he finishes his comment.
“You’ve got company,” Becks says casually as he stands and cuffs him on the shoulder. “We’ll finish this later.”
“Get it ready, Becks.” Becks’s feet falter at Colton’s words as he walks toward me. He stops, looks toward my dad, who simply nods in response, before he continues to the stairs where I stand, and gives me a quick hug, then heads down the stairs without another word.
The hum of a far-off engine is the only sound in the booth as I stand there and stare at Colton sitting just as he was, back to me, head faced toward the track. “You just gonna stand there all day, Zander?” His voice is quiet, devoid of emotion, and I shouldn’t be surprised he knows it’s me. He points to the chair a few feet away from him without looking back. “Take a seat.”
But I hesitate, don’t move. A part of me feels like I’m a completely different man from the last time we talked, almost four months ago, and if I do as he says, then I’m not projecting that. I wipe my hands on my jeans and set my shoulders as I prepare to say the things I need to say.
“Now’s not the time to fuck with me. I’m not telling you to sit down as some sort of power play. I’m telling you to sit down because we’re going to talk man-to-man. If you choose not to sit, you can turn your ass around and walk back out. Your choice.”
I clear my throat. And I move my feet until I’m seated in the chair beside him. When I finally risk a glance over to him, his eyes are still focused on the track below, but he nods his head ever so slowly to acknowledge my presence.
We have a battle of wills against each other through the silence. He had the final word last time we spoke, his reprimand still sharp in my mind, and so I struggle with how to begin this when I know a simple “I’m sorry” isn’t nearly enough.
“Did you see your mother?” he asks after a moment, eyes still pointed straight ahead.
“Yes.”
“Good. She’s missed you.”
A part of me immediately starts wondering if he missed me too. My tongue is thick in my mouth. My heart pounds. And yet it feels so damn good to be here beside him. In that dominating presence of my teenage years where you’re scared of the tongue-lashing you’re about to get and yet revel in knowing he cares enough about you to give you one. His testosterone-laced version of love.
“I fucked up.” Those definitely weren’t the words I had planned to start this conversation with and yet they perfectly sum up the truth.
He nods slowly. Purses his lips. “Yes. Sure as shit you did.”
