Page 9 of Until You’re Breathless (Insatiable #1)

Jagger

A fter I toss and turn all night, I decide to give up on sleep, at around four o’clock in the morning.

The only other dude I know that is up at such an ungodly hour is my friend Axl.

Well, that’s what everyone calls him, but that’s only because his real name is Walter, and he’s a race car driver.

We’ve been friends since I got backstage passes to meet him during the Grand Prix one year.

And the only reason why I scored those is because the vendor sent me them when I opened my business and sent them a prototype to test out for free.

I've got to go to Rush’s place later, but for now, I need to hang with my buddy that has the same passion as me.

Not any of my brothers or any of my other friends share the same passion for speed, acceleration, power or control.

Well, only one other person, but she’s been out of the picture for as long as I can remember. ..

The room spins as I toss back another shot of Jack Daniels.

I think I’ve swallowed a couple of quarters, too, but I can’t be sure.

Jinny is laughing her ass off at me. She’s used to the hooch, but not me.

I’m a cheap date at best, especially with this hard shit.

“Come on, man. I’ve had enough.” I chuckle, I think.

“You’re looking a little green, there, Jag.” Jinny teases. “Don’t puke on my mother’s floor or I’ll kick you in the nuts. If you need to toss your cookies, the bathroom is down the hall.”

I decide that the best course of action here is to just go to the john in an attempt to escape.

Those stairs seem cumbersome right now with my head spinning, so I resolve myself to stay on the second floor.

Bowie is downstairs but she’ll be coming looking for me soon enough, and I’ll get her to pump me with water or soda or something.

Anything other than this shit. I can’t think straight and nothing looks like it’s supposed to. The door is closed, so I knock on it.

“Yeah.” I hear a female voice say. I have no idea who it is nor do I care. “Come in.” She says.

When I walk in, I see Kayla Hartman bent over the toilet bowl, doing much the same as I feel like I’m going to be doing in a minute.

Her face is solemn, like she’d give anything to take the moment back, to not be so stupid, and most of all, to not feel so horrible. “I need to puke but it won’t come up.”

“Yeah, I’m there, too.”

“Were you playing quarters?”

“Yeah.”

“Here. I’ll take the sink. I only had soup for dinner. And the other bathroom up here is too far.”

“Thanks.”

She barely makes it to the sink and tosses her cookies. Seeing and hearing her sets me off and I empty the contents of my stomach into the toilet. We puke in unison for a couple of minutes when she lifts her head and walks, with effort, to the door. “I need to lie down.”

I crawl to the door. She climbs, limb by limb, up the bed, and then sticks her hand out to help me. My head hits the pillow of the unmade bed. “It’s so loud.” She whines.

I pull the covers over her. “Here. Maybe this will help.”

“Thanks.” She breathes, almost whimpering, she feels so sick.

We’re both breathing into each other’s faces with our eyes closed.

She smells like a toilet, and I wager I do, too.

That’s when the back door opens and the brightest fucking light in the world shines in, and I see the biggest asshole on the planet on the other side of it.

I’d rather puke than see him again, but then I see Bowie coming in from the bathroom.

I try to tell her that I’m sick and to bring me some water, but she just gasps and runs away.

Probably because I smell like a trucker.

But who knows. About three seconds later the world turns black. ..

I don’t see Bowie again for ten years...

“Hey, my man. How’s it hangin’?” Axl says, sitting on his front porch, drinking coffee. “Why, I can’t tell you, but I knew I’d see you this morning.”

After I shake his hand, I sit down next to him. “You’re so full of shit. You know exactly why I’m here.”

“You found out about Kruger, didn’t you.” He surmises.

“Yeah.”

“You want coffee?”

“Na. I’ll have a cup with Rush when I go there next.” I look at him. “Do you ever sleep?”

“I could ask you the same thing. And, no, I don’t. Too much to do and too little time to do it in...that’s my problem.”

“What’s going on?”

“Well, it’s the same old story, my friend. Engines that don’t cut the mustard. I believe you sent me one a long time ago, but we never did much with it.”

“I told you, buddy, I can’t do business with you.”

He takes a sip of his coffee. The sun is coming up at the horizon, which is a perfect view from his porch.

He’s got trees lining either side of his mansion, but the center pathway is clear, and it’s a perfect view to the small launching pad he has at the marina from there as well.

In his spare time, Axl loves to boat, since, like me, he was born and raised in North Carolina. “Tell me again why that is?”

“Because you can’t keep your goddamn nose clean, that’s why.” I chuckle.

He waves. “Ah, bullshit. A few indiscretions here and there never hurt.”

I lift my brows. “A few? Shit, you have no filter, Axl. The only time you keep your mouth shut and stay out of trouble is when you’re behind the wheel.”

He chuckles. “I get bored when I’m not racing. Look at all the fucking money I have. I’m not hungry anymore. Except for making the perfect race car. And don’t ask me to work with that asshole Boston Kruger, because comments like that will have you out on your ass.”

“So practice racing.”

“I’ve got a fucking track in the back, and goddamn raceways here. Shit, North Carolina is the NASCAR capital, my friend.”

“You don’t have to tell me, Axl. I was born here, too.”

“Then you know that your heart beats around engines and cars, too. I just don’t get why you can’t do business with me. I mean, you teased the fuck out of me sending me that goddamn prototype back in the day, and yet y’all won’t make an engine with me.”

“I told you, man. I’ve got to get my foot in international waters first. I don’t want to split my focus.”

“I don’t get why you’re so hell bent on that, anyway. That fucking engine you sent me kicked ass. It had all the nuts and bolts for racing success. With a couple of teams working on that thing, we’d have something viable in six months, Jagger.”

It usually ends there. Every time we meet up, it’s the same conversation. Every. Single. Time. He draws in a deep breath and releases it. “I see Boston’s still a dipshit. Glad Bowie finally saw through that asshole.”

“Don’t even get me started on her.”

The other problem with Axl is that he lives in the past. He can never let shit go. “If she’d a heard you out, this would never have happened. You two would be married, running a business together, and you’d be designing and building racing cars for me, too, I’ll betcha.”

I let him take a walk down memory lane for a few moments. “Yeah, well, she crawled in the sack with Boston so fucking fast, I didn’t have the chance to explain.”

“It should have been obvious. You were both fully clothed and the bathroom smelled like a truck stop. Doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out.”

“She panicked.” I explain. “I get it. It’s taken me a long time to say that, but I do.

I was her first and seeing me in bed with someone else, innocent or not, spooked her.

The part that I have trouble understanding is if she loved me so fucking much, why the hell did she have no problem whatsoever hopping into bed with that asshole. ”

“Yeah, but you were her first, too. That should have accounted for something.”

I slap him on the leg. “Yeah, well it didn’t. And it’s been over ever since, so let’s just let it go.”

“Will you make racing engines with me?”

I smile. “You stop mouthing off to the media, and getting yourself in so much shit that you need to keep two lawyers on a retainer, and we’ll talk.” I rise. “See you next time.”

“You gonna crush Kruger now that he’s one man down?”

“We’ll see what Rush has to say about that.”

“I say go for it. Even if he didn’t steer you wrong since day one, you still deserve top spot, not him.”

“Thanks, man. I appreciate it. But we’ll see what happens.”

Rush’s place isn’t a house it’s a goddamn airport.

I could never live in a place where the living room looks like a fucking bowling alley.

Even the parcel of land is overwhelming.

It takes a team of landscapers to cut his lawn and manicure the brush and plants and cover he has.

If anyone ever wonders where his money goes to, this is it.

He’s even got a fucking water feature at the front of his house.

If you ask me, he thinks that he’s some kind of goddamn Greek god with a piece of shit like that masquerading on his lawn.

But that is what makes him happy. That and being the king of his own hill, that is.

“Hey, brother. Coffee’s over there.” He states as I walk in the front door. I’ve got a code to get in and I use it often.

“What was that bullshit about yesterday?” I query him, pouring myself a much-needed cup of brew.

“What bullshit are you referring to?” He asks, tongue in cheek, sipping his own coffee. He’s already in his suit, and his briefcase is open on his kitchen counter, looking like he’s been working for hours already.

“Where you came out to talk and ended up doing anything but?”

His tone raises an octave, like I’m being ridiculous. “What are you talking about? We talked.”

“Fine. We talked. But you didn’t give me the list of potential recruits. And don’t think that I didn’t catch the glances that you and Halen were exchanging, either. Because I was on to you.”

“When you say it that way, it just sounds weird.”

“Quit trying to change the subject. What’s the deal with the pool?”

He exhales sharply. “Alright, fine.” He rises to grab his laptop off the counter. “Here, this is why I didn’t want to tell you.”

As he turns the computer around, I see the list with a snippet of each person’s resume attached, and my eyes go directly to what I’m guessing Rush was trying to hide from me.

My tone is clipped. “So what.”

“So what?” He almost squeaks. “So the whole deal isn’t a fake, man. Stevie dug deeper and found out that it’s all fucking true. Boston and Bowie are splittsville, and now she’s coming to knock on your door.”

“So? That doesn’t mean that I have to hire her, does it.” I point out.

“It doesn’t.” He’s matter of fact. “But did you see the rest of the pool? A loser, a former economist for the last shitty government, a guy that’s just received a pardon for fucking tax evasion, and her. That’s what we have so far.”

“So, someone else will come up.”

“You think it’s that easy, Jagger? This isn’t an internship for a fucking accounting firm.

We need someone with her background, with her integrity, with her vision, man.

Unless you want to hire Axl Lennon, she’s it right now.

I mean, in six months, attrition might bring on a handful of other candidates, but dude, you haven’t got six months.

You said yourself that you’re fucking drowning.

And that’s not even the worst of it, man.

How do we even know that she’s being genuine? ”

“What the fuck are you talking about? I thought you said that she and him called it quits?”

“Exactly. How do you know that she’s not knocking on your door for revenge, Jagger? We want someone with a heart for this company, not someone looking to get the ultimate revenge.”

“So, say she did come aboard for revenge. Wouldn’t that make a great motivation to kick Boston’s ass?”

He cranes his neck, looking at me like I just said that I want the cast of Friends to run my business. “And what about your head , Jagger?”

Now it’s my turn to crane my neck. “What about my head?”

“Don’t tell me that this won’t mess with it.”

I scoff. “Look, Rush, I get that you’re looking out for my best interests, man, but I’m a grownup, remember? And this is my business, my heart and soul, not some part-time job that I’d like to keep so I can save up for a set of wheels. I can be professional.”

He lifts a brow. “Are you sure about that? Because I saw your assistant’s face print on your fucking laptop last night.”

A hand scrapes down my face. “That’s different. It’s just about sex. She doesn’t want anything more and neither do I.”

“Well, what if you take a ride in your wayback machine like your friend Axl just loves to fucking do, and suddenly you let your heart get in the way of business, hm? I know what you went through, man. I lived with you. You were just a kid.”

“Exactly. That was a long time ago, Rush. I’ve been over it for years, and that’s the way that it’s going to stay. You and Halen don’t have anything to worry about.”

The muscles in his jaw are working. “Do you want to wait it out? Make her sweat a while for old time’s sake? See if something else better pops up?”

The thought of steering this ship alone doesn’t scare me.

It never has. I have no interest in complicating my life further, and right now, I feel like doing it alone for a while longer is the lesser of two evils.

Bowie is the best candidate for this job, and she would kick the ass of anyone else that we could recruit, but the stakes are too high.

If she’s going to be here for any other reason than to drive this company to the next level, then I don’t need that any more than I need to hire an ex con. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s wait it out.”

He frowns and nods. “Good choice, brother. I believed in you.”

I smirk. “So, does Halen owe you fifty bucks for this now?’

He stuffs his laptop into the bag and gives me a wink. “A hundred, actually.”