Page 24 of Off the Mark
“There are stipulations. Big ones.”
“Name ’em,” I said.
“You are onshaky ground.Consider this like a probation. One more mistake and you’re out. Permanently. I’m talking an inch of bad press, an unflattering picture, a PR fuck-up.” She ducked to hold my gaze. “And continued losses.”
Jittery nerves flooded my veins, but I hoped that my goggles and helmet obscured them from her view. An announcer called out the two-minute warning, and I reached for my handles.
“Win everything and don’t fuck up,” I repeated. “I can do that.Willdo that. Dempsey, I’m being serious here—you’re a lifesaver.”
She checked a message on her phone but with a pleased smile on her face. “So I’ve been told. Oh, sorry, I forgot to mention the most important part.” She looked up, beamed. “Bring that nice boyfriend of yours to the press event.”
My relief vanished so swiftly I got light-headed. “My…what?”
“I casually let it slip that you had a Philly boyfriend during the meeting and the reps wereveryhappy to hear it, which is a hopeful sign. They want to meet him.”
The announcer’s voice boomed across the field. “Riders, are you ready?”
It was terrible timing for those of us panicking.
“Anyway, don’t forget to win. It’s super important,” she yelled over her shoulder, stepping away from the track in her stilettos.
I cursed under my breath, scrambling now. The green flag fluttered, then dropped, and the starting gates released. The crowded pocket of chaotic energy I was in exploded forward, riders peeling ahead and around the first sharp turn. But by the second lap, I was still mid-pack.
Mud flew around us, and the crowd was a technicolor blur of signs and waving hands. Every time I coasted off a jump—usually a moment of gravity-free bliss—was overshadowed by the embarrassment I’d been boiling under since huffing out of Rowan’s office.
The end of my dad’s career was less about one single injury and more the accumulation of injuries from too many bike crashes on the track. But when his last accident permanently damaged his knee joints, a professional career was impossible.
So much of the household responsibility landed on me. I had to manage a part-time job after school while balancing my own fledgling moto career. Had to stretch my dad’s final winnings and measly savings account to cover our multiplying bills.
My aunts and uncles didn’t seem to care. My mother was in the wind. Our town had a penchant for malicious gossip, so even as a teenager, I knew not to utter awordabout our struggles.
Most days, I’d rather get a tooth pulled than ask another person for help.
Asking Rowan for help—especially for a favor that was so weird and intimate—had been ahugemistake.
I was the one who’d fucked everything up anyway. I could fix it by myself. Would have to, after I figured out a way to un-boyfriend myself to Dempsey.
Regret curdled in my gut. The entire experience had been made worse by the fact that Rowan was only considering going along with my scheme because he thought heowed mefor being there with him the night of his shoulder injury. I hadn’t seen it happen—actually felt lucky that I didn’t have the game on, because per Rowan’s recollection, he’d collapsed onto the field after the throw that shattered his arm.
Just him telling me the story was a chilling enough image to stay with me for weeks.
But the minute he called me —voice strained and ragged, hospital sounds in the background—I’d kicked every damn patron out of the bar and booked it the five long hours to Queens. It was the one time, truly, where I’d been my most vulnerable and honest.
He thought it was some kind of…transaction.
I tightened my grip and attempted to focus as we came around the third lap with only two to go. The trio of riders in front of me stayed there, dodging my efforts to sneak past no matter how hard I tried. The memory of asking Rowan O’Callaghan tobe my fake boyfriendkept eroding the edges of my concentration.
So did his smile. That confident flick of a grin that was just sweet enough not to be smug. And just sexy enough to send me flying off a jump at an awkward angle in the final lap.
I landed wrong in a rut, way too close to another rider, and my back tire didn’t cooperate. I grimaced through the muscular work of keeping the bike upright, but my right hand slipped and smacked against the rear tire of the rider I was battling it out with.
The glove mostly protected me, but a sharp pain still exploded from the point of contact. Frustrated tears stung my eyes.
I was making rookie mistakes like it was my job now. And the finish line was closing in much too fast. A loose pack of us crossed the line in a final blur.
I finished fifth.
I gradually came to a stop in a cloud of dust and pulled off my gloves, goggles, and helmet. A quick scan of the board only confirmed that I’d lost.
