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“Oh shit, the silverback can drive!” Kru yelled from where he was gripping their headrests. Even Lucas could hear the excitement in his voice.
God, they had lived for this when they were younger. How many times had he raced down this mountain after he’d gotten the keys to his first truck?
He made it to the main road, did a quick check, and pulled out in the opposite direction the others were going.
His phone rang almost immediately, and Son of Kong showed up on the caller ID. The second he connected the call, Torren asked, “Are you running?”
“Kind of. Beer running. Do y’all want anything?”
“None of that girly shit!” Nox called in the background. “Or if you need to get girly shit, at least get those mini umbrellas with them.”
“Got it. Canned margaritas for Noxy-boy. You want anything, Torren?”
“I’m good with whatever. See you guys there. We’ll get the canopies set up.”
“Yep.” Lucas disconnected the call and couldn’t help the smile that lingered on his face. When he felt Jenna watching him, he glanced over at her. She was staring at his lips, a faint smile painting hers. “What?” he asked.
Jenna’s pretty silver eyes lit to his and then down to her hands, which she wrung in her lap. “Nothing,” she said on a breath.
God, she was pretty. He liked the way Jenna filled up his whole truck with that fruity shampoo scent. She felt so big, but she was petite. So comfortable. So…different from what he remembered.
“I used to dream of racing with you boys,” she admitted, shocking him to his bones.
“You did?”
“Yeah! You were older and so cool, and you boys were always souping up your trucks and making them faster and louder, but I just had my Honda Civic back then. I couldn’t keep up.”
“You could’ve hitched a ride. I always had extras in the truck.”
She shrugged and the smile slipped. “I wasn’t one of the cool kids.”
And he thought on that. She wasn’t, but he’d also thought she didn’t want to do the wild things him and the boys liked doing back then. She was quiet and…better. Better than them, too good to climb up in the cab and point out breaks in the road. That’s what he’d thought, at least, but now? Now, he wasn’t so sure he could trust his memory of her. His head had been wrapped up with Cadence back then.
He cruised around the curve of the mountain and pulled in at an old gas station that housed so many of his childhood memories. Some of the Crew had worked at and eventually bought Moosey’s Bait and Barbecue, and that restaurant had expanded to smaller operations in a few of the local gas stations. This one smelled of smoked brisket the second he pulled into the parking lot, and his mouth watered.
“It’s still here,” he murmured, half-surprised.
“Oh, they expanded Moosey’s,” Jenna assured him. “This location isn’t going anywhere. Captain runs the pit here.”
“Gunner’s brother?” he asked. Dang, it had been forever since he had seen him. He had been in the Ashe Crew with Jenna.
He got out and fought the urge to rush around the front of his truck and open the door for Jenna. It wasn’t like that between them. He did, however, wait and hold the door to the gas station open for her. She thanked him and bounced in, full of energy as she made a beeline for the refrigerators in the back.
She picked the same gross beer Kru had brought him earlier, and explained that she and Cadence liked them. Lucas grabbed a twenty-four pack of something he recognized, and grabbed a little package of the colorful miniature umbrellas just to mess with Nox.
“I call the purple one,” Jenna said as she waited by him in line.
“Purple is your favorite color?” he asked. The answer was important to him, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why.
“Nope. Teal, but they don’t have teal.”
She stepped in front of him in line to pay for hers, and he studied the mini-umbrella options. The pack in his hand didn’t have teal, but another one did. Quick as a whip, Lucas replaced the one he had with the one that held her favorite color.
“I saw that,” Kru said under his breath from behind him.
Lucas ignored him as he watched Jenna make her way to the back of the gas station where the Moosey’s Barbecue area was located. She sure was pretty.
Kru put a pack of canned margaritas on the counter with Lucas’s beer and grinned at him. “For Nox.”
