Page 11

ELEVEN

TRENT

We met Ashley under a black canopy tent set up in the middle of the gravel lot. A gaggle of twenty-somethings dressed in Hawaiian shirts and fanny packs smiled as they vacated the camp chairs positioned in front of a sign that read “Road to Nowhere Rally!”

“Take a seat right there.” She motioned for us to sit down, brow furrowed as she concentrated on the phone in her hand. Kit grabbed the closest chair and inched it away from the second.

“Let’s start with your names, what you do, and where you’re from.” Ashley pulled her gaze from the phone and beamed at me. Not Kit. Me.

I kind of understood Kit’s earlier annoyance.

“I’m Trent Vogt, first-string wide receiver of the Norwalk Breakers and top player in the NFL, and I’m originally from Dallas, Texas.”

Kit cocked her head. “Top player in the NFL? Really? Who told you that?”

“It’s a fact.”

She shook her head with a stifled laugh. “Kit Holden, lab scientist, and I’m from Collins Creek, Virginia.”

“Collins Creek? Where’s that?” I asked, realizing not for the first time that morning that I didn’t know jack shit about the person I’d signed up to spend five days with. Not even her hometown.

“The western part of the state. What do you care?”

I shrugged. “I just sort of thought you were from Norwalk.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Hell if I know,” I shrugged again. “I’ve just never heard of Collins Creek before.”

“Do you want me to get a map?” Kit asked, exasperation piercing her voice.

“How did you all meet?” Ashley broke in, her concentration on the phone fading, causing her camera to dip down. “Oops!”

“Bad luck?” Kit sighed.

“I joined a kickball team, and she was on the team.”

“Team captain,” she corrected. “Or at least, I used to be.”

“Are you going to fight with me over every question?” I turned to Kit, catching the faint hint of a mischievous smile on her lips before it faded away.

“He wanted to be best friends with my best friend,” she continued. “And now we’re sharing a best friend.”

“Do you think Derek is my best friend?” I asked excitedly, amping up my reaction to annoy her.

She tilted her head back with a groan. Got her. “And then he took my best friend, the person who was supposed to be here, to play paintball and pushed him off a fort.”

I laughed. “I was on the other side of the field. You’re just lying now.”

Kit lowered her voice and leaned toward the camera. “Allegedly, Derek was alone in that fort. But who can really say?”

I cracked my knuckles. Two could play that game.

“And his dying wish was for us to do this rally together.”

“Wait!” Ashley dropped her attention from the phone again. “He’s dead?”

Kit shook her head, pushing her shoulder into mine. “He’s not dead. He needs surgery so he couldn’t come on the rally. And since Trent was already at the hospital and has no life, Derek asked if I’d take Trent along as an act of charity. And also self-preservation, so Trent couldn’t hurt him anymore.”

“More like Derek begged me to take you so you’d let loose a little.” I dropped my voice to a mock whisper, leaning toward Ashley. “Kit’s not exactly a party animal.”

“Unlike you?” Kit spluttered.

“You two have great sibling chemistry.” Ashley cut in before I could respond.

“Sibling chemistry?” Kit wrinkled her nose.

“Yeah,” she dropped her camera again. “You know, like not sexual, but sort of like pestering one another. So, you’re more like frenemies.”

“Without the friend part,” Kit said.

“Temporary frenemies,” I said. “But working on a solid friendship.”

“We’re not working on a solid friendship. We’re barely acquaintances.”

“We played music bingo together!” I pressed a clenched fist to my chest, leaning away from Kit dramatically.

She pursed her lips, expression bored. “Fine, close acquaintances. I’m hoping to make it out of this trip without hurting him, mentally or physically.”

“See what I mean? This friendship is already underway.” I crowded Kit’s space, knocking her shoulder with mine. “And don’t worry. I’m pretty tough. It’d be hard to hurt me.”

“And yet you have such a fragile little ego.”

“That’s great,” Ashley set down her phone. “It’s so nice to meet you both. We’ll catch up with you later in the race. Good luck out there!”

“You know,” I said, loping an arm around Kit as we left. “That was really helpful. Like therapy, except we paid it in the form of an entry fee. I think this race is going to bring us together.”

“This race isn’t some turning point for our friendship,” Kit groaned, but didn’t pull away. “It’s a car rally. It’s not a spiritual journey or an emotional awakening. It’s a rally for shitty cars and dumb roadside attractions. That’s it!”

“But if we happen to have a spiritual journey at the same time…”

“No. No journeys. No epiphanies. No upending our world view. If we don’t get to ride to the top of the big sombrero at South of the Border, I’m going to be livid. That’s all I want out of this experience.”

“So that’s what this is about? Huge inanimate objects?”

“Exactly.”

“Good.” I dropped my arm from her shoulder, giving her a soft punch before pulling away. “Because that’s the exact kind of stubbornness you need before having a giant revelation in the middle of a car rally.”

She dropped her head, massaging her temple with her fingers. “That’s it. I can do this alone. Find another team.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I really do. I’m going to check the fluids and make sure we didn’t lose anything on the ride here. You go schmooze with the other teams.”

“Schmooze? Do I look like your eighty-year-old uncle? I don’t schmooze.”

She barked out a laugh. “You can’t drive stick, and you can’t navigate. At the very least, you can schmooze. Be friendly with the other teams and make nice with that cute judge some more. We need the points.”

I glanced back at the judge, now interviewing a group of college guys dressed as different Nicolas Cage characters. “You think she’s into me? I thought we were doing a harmless flirting thing, and she was with that other judge, but I’m not not interested.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Ew.”

“I’m willing to do anything to help this team out.”

“I’ve noticed,” Kit said dryly as she popped the hood of the car, leaning underneath to pull out the dipstick.

Dismissed, I wandered into the middle of the parking lot, surveying the field. Kit was right about one thing: we wouldn’t win. All the cars looked like they were one slight jostle away from blowing up on the highway. And, in terms of preparedness, Kit and I fell firmly in last place. The other teams had costumes, carefully packed supplies, and large road maps with potential stops. Probably even a team name.

A couple dressed like Barbie and Ken driving a bright pink Geo Metro scoured a map of the Eastern seaboard, the paper already marked with potential stops and routes. I sidled up beside them, glancing over their shoulder at the map.

“Wow, you all came to play, huh?” I said, tucking my hands in my pockets and plastering on my friendliest smile.

“This is our third rally. We’re aiming to place,” Barbie said. She turned around, eyes roving my body. “You know you get extra points for a theme, right?”

“I’m a late addition. I just read the rules on the way here,” I admitted.

“Costumes aren’t everything,” Ken said. His eyes narrowed. “Hey, do I know you?”

“Trent Vogt.” I held out a hand and he took it in a firm handshake.

“Mike, and this is my girlfriend, Hayden. You play for the Breakers, right?”

“Wide receiver.”

Hayden’s eyes went wide. “Wait, what? What are you doing here?”

“It’s off season, babe,” Mike answered.

“I’m here with a friend. Or a friend of a friend. It’s sort of complicated. We’re in the Cougar.”

Their gaze drifted back to rust-laden Cougar and Kit. The open hood had served as a siren song to the fellow car enthusiasts, and she’d gathered a half dozen other people to look, a reserved smile on her face. One she’d never bothered to use with me.

“Wow,” Hayden breathed as she surveyed the car. “Brave.”

“You got any tips for some first-timers?” I asked. I hadn’t done much to make Kit happy today, and finding out some insider information was the least I could do. Especially after driving stick shift went so poorly.

“Did you scout any of the potential stops? We found that helps.” Mike pulled off his fake blond wig and threw it into the back of the Metro.

I shook my head. “Like I said, I was a last-minute addition. I think Kit’s been focused on getting that car running.”

“Oh, social media!” Hayden’s hand flew to her pocket, and she pulled out her phone. She tapped on the screen and let out a low whistle. “You have 4.1 million followers. Wow…”

Her eyes grew wide, and I winced when I remembered the last picture I posted: me by the pool, shirtless. “Yeah, I’ve got a few followers.”

“Well, bad news.” She wrinkled her nose, blue eyes skirting the ground. “You’re definitely not going to win. The judges will make sure of that. They like to keep this a fun counterculture, low-key affair. Shitty cars, weird people, you know?”

“I could make an alt account.”

Hayden shared a dubious look with Mike before she shrugged. “Sure, I guess. I mean, some people don’t have any social media presence, so they just make an account for the race. You could do a themed account for your team. There are awards for the best social media posts sometimes. Do you actually run your own accounts? I thought most celebrities just used assistants.”

“Not me.” There were a few guys on the teams who outsourced those jobs. I had an assistant, but other than contractually obligated sponsored posts, I kept up with my own account, which had gotten me into trouble a time or two. But I knew how to take viral pictures and reshare-worthy captions. “An alt account is something I definitely know how to do. So, we just take pictures at each stop to get our points?”

“That’s it, with the stop hashtag and your team hashtag. The judges tally your points up each day so you can see how you’re doing.” Hayden extended her phone. I took it, flipping through their last race.

“Wow, that’s a lot of posts,” I said with a low whistle as I scrolled through dozens of pictures: UFO-shaped houses, mirror mazes, and Bigfoot hunts.

“It was a ten-day rally through Texas.” Hayden took back her phone. “It nearly destroyed our relationship. We had to lasso a cow and let me tell you, it didn’t matter how much flirting I did, I couldn’t find a single rancher willing to let us try.”

“She finally gave up and asked me to bribe a farmhand,” Mike said.

“And he offered twenty dollars! Can you believe that? Twenty dollars! I told him that’s a fifty dollar ask at minimum!”

“A cool hundred, actually.” Mike paled at the memory.

“He would have taken fifty if you hadn’t insulted him first,” Hayden countered.

“Wait, how many people do I have to bribe on this trip?” I asked.

“Usually none, but that was an exception. You can also just choose not to do a task,” Mike said.

“But if you’re aiming to win, you need all the points. Every stop, every optional activity.” Hayden straightened. “Oh! I think we’re about to get started!”

Ashley, the judge, rushed to the center of the parking lot with a bullhorn in hand. She handed it off to Tom, the older guy with sunglasses and a backward hat. He took it and climbed onto the roof of the station wagon as the teams gathered around. “It’s just about time to go, so I need everyone over here!”

I parted the crowd, beelining for Kit even though she hadn’t so much as made a passing sweep for me.

“Okay, I got some intel,” I whispered into her ear as I wedged in beside her. “We can get extra points for good social media posts. And you know the only thing I’m better at than catching footballs?”

“Talking about yourself?”

“Close.” I powered through despite the insult, not letting it stop me. “Social media engagement. The only bad news is I can’t use my main account. Apparently, the judges don’t want to bring a bunch of attention to the rally.”

“Shocking that they don’t want this race flooded with influencers and cocky athletes.” The edge of her lip lifted in a shadow of a grin.

“And yet, you brought me here, anyway.” I ducked my head, my lips brushing her hair and inhaling the faint scent of cherries. “It’s like you don’t even want to win.”

“I didn’t have much of a choice.” She sighed a breathy exhale. “Fine. You’re our social media coordinator.”

“We need a team name. What did you and Derek come up with?”

She ripped her gaze from Tom. “I had to fix a whole ass car. I didn’t have time for cutesy names and social media accounts.”

“That’s not a winner’s mentality.”

“We won’t win,” she hissed under her breath as Tom’s voice grew louder. “I already told you.”

Unfazed, I wracked my brain for a team name. “Trent and Kit Go South?”

“Really? Ew.”

“Kitten and Texas Hit the Road?”

“Absolutely not. Besides, that’s a whole ass novel.’”

“Roadside Renegades.”

She pulled her attention from the guy screaming at us over a bullhorn. “How do you come up with these so fast?”

I considered the question for a moment. “I’ve been on lots of teams. And you can’t spend your whole life being the ‘green dinosaurs.’”

She snorted. “Green dinosaurs?”

“It’s a dumb team name. You’ve got to come up with something cooler if you want to win.”

“Fine, but we’re about to go, so just come up with something half-way decent and move on. I don’t want to hear you workshopping names and dropping the ball on your navigation duties.”

“Or my driving duties?”

“Those are on hiatus until you can be trusted not to wreck the transmission.”

“If we could cut down on the sidebars so everyone can hear the instructions, that’d be great!” Tom boomed over the bullhorn.

Kit shrank back.

“As I was saying,” Tom rambled on from his perch on the station wagon. “This is an honor system event. You can bribe, steal, cheat from anyone but the judges. We need clear photographic or recorded evidence of task completion, and you need to use the correct hashtags to get your points. I’m not combing through your makeup tutorials and trips to the beach to figure out if you actually saw the world’s biggest rocking chair or not. If you find something cool not on the list, take a picture for consideration for extra points. There’s a hashtag for that too. Everyone can come up and grab their guidebook from Ashley. Good luck out there! The race is on!”