Down Shift (35 page)

T
o avoid the emotional sting of Zander's departure, to stifle the hurt, I've thrown myself into work and have found myself stepping out from behind the bar more than usual. Helped some of the servers carry drinks to the tables. Wiped down the tables on the patio out front. Anything to tell me I'm going to be okay when all is said and done. Luckily business has been bustling. Last-minute vacations taking place in the late-August heat before the unofficial end of summer with Labor Day fast approaching.

I lose myself in the noise of the next wave of customers off the ferry. I pour their drinks. Make small talk. Ask where they're from. Anything to keep my mind off how lonely the bed felt last night. How empty the house seemed this morning.

Yes, we were able to speak for five minutes last night when I ran back into the storage room to take his call, completely disregarding the long line of orders to fill, but it still wasn't enough. With the change in time zones, by the time I got off work, it was almost four in the morning his time. And as much as I still wanted to call him, to get the details of how it went talking to his dad other than “Things are good. I'll tell you all about it later,” I also knew I couldn't let him think I was a crazy stalker either.

And I'm not.

I just miss him.
Ridiculously.

For that reason alone, even though I've picked up my cell and pulled up his phone number ten (or twenty) times this morning before my shift started, I never actually hit send. I wasted time trying to justify it all to myself: why he hadn't called me this morning.
Was it because of the time difference? Maybe he was being courteous by letting me sleep after having a closing shift so he didn't want to call and wake me? Or maybe because it's race day? And race day means he's spending time with his family, helping his team somehow, and fulfilling numerous media requests?
Regardless of which way I try to justify things, a large part of me recognizes that he's back where he belongs. The newness of being with me will have faded. The benefits in our
friends with benefits
will be gone.

He'll be moving on.

At the same time, I know I'm being ridiculous. It's been less than forty-eight hours, which means I'm definitely bordering on stalkerish behavior. He's coming back. He said he was. And I'll get to tell him how I feel then. I can carpe the hell out of the diem when he returns.

Because I made a promise not to live life with regrets—and I already regret not telling him.

“Hey, Getty, Liam's looking for you.”

“Thanks, Tracey,” I say with a smile and a sigh at my constant mental games.

Within seconds, I'm back at the counter, hands full of empty glasses and bottles I've cleared along the way. Liam's face is alive with excitement when he looks up from the phone at his ear to meet mine.

“Phone's for you,” he shouts above the clamor of the bar, holding the phone up so I can see what he means in case I can't hear him.

And of course my heart drops. Why would someone call me at the bar? I move behind the counter and realize he wouldn't be smiling if it weren't good. “Who is it?”

“Take five and head to the back so you can hear,” he says, shoving the phone at me. “I've got to go change all the TV channels.”

The minute I clear the back room and shut the door, I put the phone to my ear. “Lazy Dog, this is Getty.”

“You're very sexy when you sound all official. You wearing your socks, Socks?” His voice is like liquid sex coming through the phone: low, suggestive, and one hundred percent attractive male.

“Zander! Why are you—?”

“If you'd answer your cell, I wouldn't have to call the bar,” he says with a laugh that has me digging into the back pocket of my shorts to see several missed calls from him on the screen.

“What the hell?” I comment more to myself than to him as I check my phone. “Sorry. I think I hit my Do Not Disturb button when I put it in my pocket. I'm such a dumbass.”

His laugh coming through the line makes him feel close, like he's right behind me. The damn doubt I've been trying to ignore for the past two days disappears at the sound of his voice. “Today's been ridiculously crazy, so I don't have much time and I know you're probably swamped with orders, but I wanted to call to say hi and tell you to make sure you watch the race today.”

“Okay. Sure. I'll get Liam to tune one of the screens near the bar to it. Why, what's up?”

“Because I'm in it.”

“You're what?”
I don't know why all of a sudden my stomach drops at the same time my eyes widen and heart races with excitement. “How is that even—”

“It's a long story, but you were right, Getty. About all of it. All my dad wanted was the best for me. I was blinded by the pain I was in.” Tears burn in my eyes. His voice sounds so surprised. So untroubled. And the sound of it truly makes me happy. “He'll never admit it, but I found out he's been hauling my car to every race. Paying my crew to show up, just in case I did.”

The awe in his tone makes me smile to myself. Even if a part of me is sad that I'll never have that kind of love, it makes me so happy that he does. After everything he's been through, he deserves to realize its presence in his life.

And while to others that may sound like some weird show of affection between a father and a son, I understand how important this is to Zander. He accused his dad of loving racing more than him. And yet his dad took that love, hauled it from city to city around the country. And waited for him. He had faith in the son that he'd raised into a man to know he'd figure his problems out and come back around.

He believed him to be the man he knew he could be.

“Oh, Zander.” My eyes well with tears over what I'll never have and for what he always will.

“I know,” he says with that tone of his that allows me to see him nod. I can picture the soft smile on his lips and the appreciative look in his eyes.

There's a blast of noise in the background. A voice on a PA system. The roar of a crowd in response. And it shocks me back to the here and now and the excitement he must be feeling and the sense of rightness with the world he's gotten back.

“So, oh my God, you're racing! Does it feel good to be back in your car?”

“No. Not my car.” He laughs. “When I get back, we're going to sit down and I'm going to teach you all about what I do.”

I hear nothing else except for
when I get back
—the words I didn't even realize I was waiting to hear—and it takes me a minute to wrap my head around them while he's talking.

“. . . so it's too late for me to race my car. I didn't qualify, so she's out. But unlucky for him and lucky for me, Alan came down with the stomach flu early this morning. They've been pumping him with IVs to try to hydrate him, but he's still sick as a dog . . . so I'm going to drive his car. I'll have to start in the back since I'm a different driver than the one who qualified for the race, but I'm confident I'll be able to move up the pack pretty quickly.”

My head is spinning and my cheeks hurt from grinning. “I'm nervous.”

His laugh fills the line again and calms my anxiety. “Me
too, Socks. But nerves are a good thing. They keep you on your game. Make you focus.”

“Then stay super nervous so you stay safe for me.”

The line falls silent for a moment. There's so much commotion in the background I wonder if he even heard me. And a part of me hopes he didn't, because I just possibly went into boundary territory, implied too much between us. I close my eyes and mentally chastise myself.

“Sorry, but I've got to go to the drivers' meeting in a sec.”

“Okay.”
Don't go yet.
“Well, be safe and good luck. I'll be watching.”

“Bye.”

*   *   *

I'm useless behind the bar.

Every rise in the pitch of the announcer's voice has me leaning over the counter to look closer at the screen, in order to find the distinct lime green color of the car Zander's driving.

And despite an already-packed house of tourists, word got around the island and all the locals have joined us here too. Wanting to cheer on the man they've adopted as their own. Zander has definitely won over this tough crowd.

Either way, every face in the bar is riveted to one of the multiple television screens. Even the tourists have gotten caught up in the
atta-boy
s shouted in support as Zander methodically passes car after car, working his way up the field, during the first hundred laps of the race.

The
atta-boys
slowly morphed into sighs of frustration and groans of disappointment and gasps when he steered clear of a car touching the wall and careening out of control.

And now with fifteen laps—thirty-seven and a half miles—left in the race, the crowd is on edge. The announcers' continual reference to the track's Tricky Triangle hasn't helped my heart rate slow down any either.

With a scattered mind and restless fidgeting, I make myself focus back on my work. On the next order. Not the next lap. At least I try to. I know Liam's just as excited as
I am about Zander's unexpected entrance in the race—and not just because this has given the bar a little celebrity status in this typically uneventful town. But because he really likes him.

I grab a bottle of vodka. Pour a drink. A female tourist looks bored to tears as her husband watches with the rest of the crowd, and I silently thank her for being patient while I watch too.

Suddenly the bar gasps collectively and I'm around the counter in an instant with my eyes pinned to the television. Heart in my throat and afraid to look at the smoke and debris ricocheting off the track's concrete barrier. My hands clutch the edge of the bar as I search for the unmistakable lime green car.

“Donavan's through,” the announcer says, and while I breathe a sigh of relief, the car that flies out of the tunnel of smoke is red. It's Colton. Chills rack my body as I walk closer to the television, twisting at the bar towel in my hands as the seconds tick by. “Mason, Jameson, Dallas, Dane, are all through. Zander, Green . . .” I don't hear the rest because the crowd erupts in a communal sigh of relief.

Mine included.

A caution flag is waved and I step back behind the bar, my eyes trained on Zander as he pulls into the pits, and within the span of time from when I look down and back up—ten seconds max—he's already driving again. The announcers shout in excitement as he gains two spots on cars with longer pit stops.

“Son of a gun,” one of them laughs out. “The Golden Boy's here for one race and already Lady Luck is back on his side.”

The nickname makes me smile wider because I know how much he loathes it. Plays it up. Makes fun of it himself.

I try to fill as many orders as I can while the yellow flag is out so I can get caught up and watch the rest of the race without getting in too much trouble. But when the green flag waves again with only nine laps left, I don't think Liam cares about the pace at which we're filling orders, because he and everyone else in the bar are glued to the action.

They fly around the track. The mass of cars on the restart sit so close together that I worry about another wreck. About two tires touching and Zander going headfirst into the wall or even worse.

My heart beats in my throat and I'm gripping the towel so hard my knuckles are white. Adrenaline runs through my system like a drug. I can't stand still. And yet I don't want to move in case it blocks my view of the television.

Six laps left.

The announcers are talking fast with excitement, but I can't pay attention to them because my eyes are locked on the lime green car pushing boundaries like I've never seen before. And I know I'm not savvy about racing, know nothing about it, and yet Zander's talent on how to read an opponent, when to push the car that much more to get an edge on the car beside him, is uncanny. He's aggressive and arrogant with his attempts, but at the same time even a novice like me can see his knowledge and precision about when to take the risks.

He's mesmerizing to watch. I'm sure the facts that my nerves are skittering out of control and that I have an emotional investment skew my opinion, but there's something extremely sexy about watching him in his element. Doing his thing and taking charge. Especially when I know this domineering, skillful man also has a sense of humor . . . and calls himself
Mander
to ease an anxious woman's nerves.

He passes two cars in front of him within a one-lap period, and with each one the bar becomes more and more frenzied. “C'mon, Zander” and “Just four more” sound out repeatedly until it's practically a chant.

Four laps left.

“It's like Zander Donavan returned on a mission to make the other drivers remember this young man's incredible talent. And look at that! He's making another move on the twelve car. There is no limit he's not willing to push today. I'm sure his crew chief is having a heart attack, but man oh man . . . this is some spectacular racing, folks.”

“And he did it!” the second announcer yells in surprise
as Zander skirts the high side of the track and just ekes by the twelve car.

The noise level of the cheers in the bar has me wincing, drowning out all sound from the television. But it's got nothing on when the second-place car right in front of him moves down on the low side of the track with a trail of smoke billowing out of the back of the car.

Three laps to go.

Strangers exchange high fives. Testosterone rages. The air grows thick with excitement and energy and I can only imagine what it would be like to be in the grandstands at the race right now, let alone in Zander's shoes.

But once the camera pans to the stretch of track where they're racing, I realize the only person left for Zander to pass to take first place is his dad, Colton. My eyes flicker back and forth between the red lead car and Zander's second-place green car, and I wonder if he even thinks about the thirteen car being his dad or if he's so focused on winning it doesn't even faze him.