One For The Road

11: Elsewhere

Just before we had to leave for Madrid for my very first robot fight, I got a call from Griffin. I picked up my phone and hoped he wouldn't ask me anything about the race from a couple days before, since I hadn't even bothered to watch it.

"Hey Griffin," I said.

"You would not believe what happened to me last night," Griffin said.

"You slept with Elizabeth, and now you're looking to be NASCAR's power couple, when even my dysfunctional relationship with Tyler Bailey was better than that shit," I said.

"No, but I wouldn't exactly be opposed to that." Griffin paused, and when I didn't reply, he continued. "Kate, I'm fucking kidding. She's cute, but she's not you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I know you don't like her, and I couldn't do that to you—"

I interrupted. "I don't even know her. The first time I ever heard of her, it was because she was taking my job. How does everyone expect me to react to that?"

I was supposed to be poised when things weren't going my way, but it never worked out like that. Poison spewed from my mouth instead.

"You know I'm on your side for this mess, Katie. You're not perfect, but you're better than perfect. You're human. But anyway, like I was saying before you made this conversation all about you, I was—"

I interrupted again. "Remember when we met?"

It was a rainy September afternoon when I woke up in a hospital room with a stranger in the doorway. I couldn't see that far, thanks to the meds I was on, but there was no way in hell anyone besides Paul was going to visit me.

I asked him who the fuck he was, and he told me that I didn't know him, but I knew of him. And he wasn't wrong; everyone in my line of work knew about Griffin Gallagher, the rookie sensation who drove like he had nothing to lose. He got better finishes out of his car than he should have, and that success put RTR in a spotlight and handed them a truckload of money. And Griffin Gallagher apparently knew who I was.

I was just a kid from Akron who broke her neck in a wreck at fucking Talladega.

I remembered exactly what he told me. Or, at least I thought I did. Those drugs didn't fuck around. "I think you're doing great things for this sport. You're competitive as hell, and you're gonna make it big. You have to get back in that car once you heal up."

A revenge tour and a championship later, I got my (piss-poor) chance with RTR. But more importantly, I had someone who cared about what I was doing.

Griffin chuckled. "Do you remember? You were pretty drugged up."

"Of course, I do. If I didn't know you, I would have never signed with Truscott in the first place."

"Don't say that. It makes me feel like it's my fault that shit hit the fan. Why did you bring it up anyway?"

I paused. "I don't know, I just miss you. I miss you like hell, and it hasn't even been a week since I left."

"I'll tell you what, if you tell me when your first race is with your new team, I'll do everything I can to be there. I promise."

I grimaced. "Well, what if I told you it wasn't exactly a race with cars?"

"What the fuck did you get yourself into this time?"

"I fight robots now. Isn't that cool?" I smiled, even though he couldn't see it through the phone.

Griffin didn't reply.