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Maybe it’s because you can’t get rid of pain. All you can do is try to burn it out.
Anyway, Mason’s racing tonight and I want to see it.
He’s got his Supra up against Vinny’s Impreza. It’s a friendly race—$2K on the line.
As the cars are lining up, I see a familiar red Trans Am pulling in under the covered road. Camille Rivera slides out of the driver’s seat. She’s dressed in normal clothes for once—well, normal compared to her usual coveralls. She’s talking to Mason’s ex-girlfriend.
It’s weird. I hadn’t seen Camille in years. Now she’s come out twice in a week.
Bella Page is here, too, with Grisha Lukin. He’s Russian—born here, but his father’s an old-school oligarch with Bratva ties. My family’s on shaky footing with the Bratva right now. The Russians haven’t picked a new boss yet, after the Griffins killed the old one.
Anyway, I’ve known Grisha a long time. So we should be cool. Or at least, cool enough to keep it civil.
He gives me a curt nod when we lock eyes. I do the same. I’m sitting on the hood of my Mustang, drinking a forty of Olde English. It’s absolute piss, but it gives a nice buzz. That’s all they had at the bodega on Quincy Street.
Mason and Vinny peel off the line, racing down the covered roadway. The Impreza has more kick to start with, but the Supra catches up in the end, and Mason edges him out.
Watching them race makes me want to do it, too. I get that itch, where my head starts to feel muddled and my thoughts are all mashed up together, and I know that the one thing that will give me clarity is speeding down the road at a hundred and sixty miles an hour.
“Put me on the lineup,” I say to Carlo. He’s running the races tonight.
“Who with?” he says.
“I don’t care.”
I’ll race anybody. It’s not about the money. It’s the challenge.
I notice Camille is talking to Levi Cargill. She looks irritated. No surprise there—Camille is as prickly as a hedgehog, even under the best of circumstances. But I haven’t seen it turned on Levi before. Maybe Camille found out he’s been using her brother to move Molly.
She’d better watch it. Levi might look like a total poser, but he’s got a nasty temper. Sometimes the rich boys are the worst thugs of all. They want to prove they’re hard-asses.
I can feel myself tensing up. My eyes are fixed on the two of them, on Levi in particular. Just waiting for him to reach in his pocket or raise a hand to her.
I don’t know why I should care. Camille and I aren’t even friends.
But I guess I do respect her, a little. She’s not vapid, like Bella’s friends, or reeking of desperation like Bella herself. Camille is . . . real. She is who she is, and she doesn’t apologize. There’s honesty in that.
Maybe that’s the real reason Bella hates her. Because Bella is trying so hard to be the most beautiful, the most desirable, and the most fascinating person around, and it never really works, and she knows it. And then here’s this other girl who’s not trying to be any of those things. And it’s like an insult to Bella. Because Camille won’t even play the game, so how can Bella win it?
Or maybe I’m drunk.
I don’t know what the fuck goes on in Bella’s head. All I know is that she’s squaring up with Camille again, starting another skirmish in their endless war.
I slide off the hood of the car, ambling over so I can hear it.
“Well, it’s too bad all you’ve got is that rolling trash heap,” Bella is saying, “or you could participate, too. But you’d rather just watch, anyway, wouldn’t you? That’s what creepy losers do. They stand on the sidelines watching more interesting people living their lives.”
“You might be surprised,” Camille says calmly.
“About what?” Bella says.
“How fast that beat-up rust-bucket can go. And also, how few people would consider you interesting.”
Bella flushes. She’s always doing this to herself, trying to dominate Camille, and never getting what she wants out of it. You’d think she would have given up a long time ago.
“I doubt your car could make it over the finish line in the same night as mine,” Bella says.
“Only one way to know,” Camille replies.
