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Indeed, he could see Kru sitting in the passenger’s seat of his rig. “Get out,” he snapped.
Kru kicked open the door and got out, slammed it so hard that Lucas’s truck rocked, and then hopped into Nox’s truck with Torren and Cadence. Ahh, crap. An evening at the cliffs with Cadence. Fantastic. He couldn’t wait to be dragged down memory lane.
Others were loading up into trucks and SUVs too, calling out goodbyes to the party, and none of Damon’s Mountains seemed upset they were leaving so soon. Maybe this was parenting though. Maybe they were just happy to see their kids all hanging out again, like old times.
Ma looked mushy as hell as he followed Jenna to her truck. She pulled a duffel bag out of her back seat, and he waved at his parents. “I’ll be back when I drop her back off.”
“Love you!” Ma sang out.
Dad was just smiling. God, it was good to be back home, but he wouldn’t admit that out loud. “Love you, too.”
A few of the other trucks took off, but Nox lingered, and Lucas could see Torren and Kru arguing. He rolled down his window and waited for Nox to roll his down, too. Nox pushed a pair of blue-mirrored sunglasses up on his forehead and arched his blond brows. “Yes?”
“Tell Kru to get in here with us.”
“No!” Kru yelled, shoving himself in the crack between the back of Nox’s seat and the edge of the window. “I’m fine.”
“Kru, get in the goddamn truck.”
Kru narrowed his bright-green eyes to slits and then whispered, “Fine.” He punched Torren and shoved the door open, then piled into the back seat of Lucas’s rig. He sat on the front edge of the seat and looked from Lucas to Jenna and back again. “Hey guys.”
“Please put your seatbelt on.”
“I’m a shifter. I will survive a car crash.”
Lucas closed his eyes, counted to three, and said, “Sit back, please. I don’t like anyone that close to my neck.”
“If you growl when you say the word ‘please,’ it doesn’t count as being polite,” Kru enlightened him.
Jenna turned around and shoved Kru’s forehead. “Sit back, dipshit, so we can go!”
Lucas snorted and hit the gas hard enough that Kru went flying backward. He heard Nox whooping as they passed, and then Nox was on his ass, slipping and sliding around every curve right on Lucas’s bumper.
Okay, now he was really smiling. They were catching up to the other trucks ahead of them, and it had been a long time since he’d raced. If he remembered it correctly, and if the side trails had been kept up, there was a path off the main dirt road that led through the trees.
“Is the turn-off still there?” he asked fast.
“Yes!” Jenna squealed and grabbed the oh-shit handle as he veered off to the right through the trees on a slightly overgrown path.
Nox missed the turn-off and Lucas gassed it as he checked the progress through the trees. He veered this way and that down the slightly winding road they had first cut when they were teenagers. He could hear Nox’s yelling echoing through the mountains.
Jenna was cracking up, and in the back seat, Kru was telling him to, “Veer right, veer right, he’ll come through the trees!”
And Kru was right. Nox took a clear spot and pulled right toward them as Lucas was passing the other trucks. “Shhhhit,” he growled, loving the challenge. There wasn’t room for both of their trucks on the narrow shifter-made road, so he pulled around a tree right as Nox came barreling into his lane.
“Gun it there!” Jenna called, pointing to a small clearing.
He trusted her. He did. He trusted her with his truck, trusted her to know these woods, trusted her to know this shortcut. He went right where she was pointing and took her direction as she guided them back in front of Nox. Lucas gunned it, grinning as he spied Torren’s middle finger through the window.
“Cut, cut, cut! Now!” Kru yelled, and Lucas took the overgrown road to cut directly in front of the other trucks, Nox directly on his tail.
Nox didn’t make it in and had to settle behind an old, white F-150.
“Oh, he’s so pissed right now,” Jenna said, giggling.
In the rearview mirror, he could see Cadence sitting in the passenger’s seat of Nox’s truck. She was pointing to the road, holding onto the dashboard, a big grin plastered on her face. Oh, everyone was having fun now.
Lucas skidded around a slightly muddy curve in the road, fishtailing as he drifted the truck.
