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These assholes.
My parents bought this house before Eli and I were born. We had to use it as collateral to get the loan from the bank. However, the very second we fall behind on payments, Seaside creeps in and offers to buy the house and pay off the rest of the loan.
I promptly told them to fuck off. That we weren’t interested in selling.
Yet, they keep trying.
Mrs. Gonzales across the street seems to think they want to wipe out the neighborhood and build a condominium.
I wouldn’t blame them for wanting this land if I hadn’t lived here my whole life. The view from our backyard is amazing. Nothing but the beach and the ocean for miles.
I can’t let anything happen to this house. It would devastate Ma.
Now I race as often as possible so that I can stay on top of as much as I can here.
Walking back through the garage and into the house, I quickly flip through the last few pieces of mail.
“Junk mail, sales papers…” my heart sinks.
Northern California Correctional Facility.
“Eli,” my voice cracks.
I make my way into the kitchen and fall into a chair at the table, dropping the stack of mail on the table in front of me.
Every letter from my brother gets harder and harder with time. Some days it seems as if I haven’t seen him in years. Some days, it feels like it was just yesterday that I watched him get shoved into the back of that cop car.
The familiar blocky handwriting tugs at the corner of my lips.
I miss my brother.
Tapping my fingers on the edge of the letter, I chew the inside of my cheek. I’m dying to rip open the envelope and read the words he’s written. However, I know what Eli’s letters mean to Ma, so I set the letter back on top of the pile with a sigh.
She needs every bit of happiness she can get these days.
My phone chimes with an incoming message from Deacon, one of the race coordinators, and he fills me in on the time and place to meet up tonight. I shoot off a quick reply and stand, stretching my arms over my head before heading back into the garage to check the engine one last time.
The race is taking place one town over, so I stop for gas before getting on the highway.
I’m just about finished when the blip of a siren sounds behind me.
My head whips to the side and I take in the smiling face of Officer Sander Harding, my childhood best friend.
Sander and I met in grade school and did everything together from that point on. After graduation, he headed off to the police academy, and I started hanging out with my brother. When Sander finally came home wearing a badge, I found it extremely difficult to be close to him while maintaining my brother’s street racing habits.
Sander did what he could to keep me updated on everything that was going on when Eli got arrested. He made sure my mom and I were safe. But the second I made the decision to start racing, I knew what that would mean for our friendship.
We found ourselves on two different sides of the law. Keeping secrets and lying only made things more difficult. Add in the sudden unwanted attention I was getting from a specific drug lord, and it set the wedge between us. I knew I needed to distance myself while I could, but that didn’t stop me from keeping up an amiable front.
Sander parks his cruiser and climbs out, adjusting his belt as he walks over to me. His friendly face always makes my chest ache. Things used to be so simple between us.
“Hey, beautiful,” he says, nodding his head in greeting as he rounds the hood of my car. “What are you doin’ around these parts?”
Then there’s that.
I don’t know if it is because he’s a cop now, or if being friends for so long made him feel responsible for taking care of me in some way, but in the last couple of years, Sander has taken on a protector-like role in my life. One that no longer feels brotherly on his part.
I’ve done my best to ignore his subtle advances, but he’s become more persistent as of late.
