One For The Road

38: Control

As Annie and I stepped out the front door, I pushed a low tree branch out of our way and stepped down the concrete stairs. I had spent most of my life in a much more urban environment, and although Ohio more known for its flat ass farmland, we had plenty of factories. Hell, Akron was the rubber capital of the world.

There wasn't a better place to take a breath in my life than Ontario, Canada, especially since not too many people gave a shit about me there. But I missed the hustle of cities. I missed home, and although I wasn't quite sure where that was, it was definitely in America.

"So what did you want to talk about?" I asked.

Although she said she had good news, she didn't seem as excited as she usually did. Maybe she was beginning to get pissed off with me too. I sure as hell had a knack for doing that.

"You know how I took your car to the garage to get it all fixed up a few months ago? It's finished now, and we can go get it anytime you'd like," Annie said. Her pink hair had an extra shine to it in the sunlight, and because I knew damn well I could never have her, she looked beautiful in a completely platonic way.

I rose my eyebrows. "Really? I almost forgot about my Corvette."

She nodded. "The guys just called me this morning. All they want is an autograph because they really pushed to get it done that fast. It's the least you can do for them."

"Of course. I'm not that much of an asshole." I chuckled, but Annie didn't.

She was pissed at me. Fuck.

"Annie, I'm sorry. It's just that—"

"What are you apologizing for?"

"I," I stammered, "I don't know. Should I be apologizing? I don't normally do this."

"I don't think so. Ultimately, what happened at brunch this morning is not that big of a deal."

"Oh. I just thought that you were upset with me for something, which I'm sure there are plenty of reasons—"

"Katie, you don't have to take this whole Drake thing personally. He struggles with this kind of stuff."

I didn't respond to that right away. I figured that out, obviously, but I thought maybe he'd let me in eventually. There were plenty of times I told him stories about the good and the bad, but I never meant for it to scare him away from me. I just felt like we could have had something for a while, maybe a year if we were lucky.

All I wanted was a connection. We were close to having one.

Just another race I lost, I supposed.

"I guess I shouldn't have pushed it so hard. He didn't want to get involved with someone like me in the first place," I said.

Annie swatted the air. "Come on, you're good for him. It's about time he gets back out there in the dating world."

"Well, that's done anyway. He can get mad at me all he wants for what comes out of my mouth, but the second he starts saying that all I do is make people miserable, I can't take it anymore. Hell, it reminds me of Truscott."

"What?"

"It's not like we really had anything anyway. It was all in my head." I shook my head and took in a breath of fresh air. "That's probably the first time that I was the one who made a bigger deal out of something than it was."

"Does the drug testing ring a bell?"

I rolled my eyes. "I'm still convinced I was right about that."

She finally cracked a smile. Thank God. "I'm just teasing you. But seriously, you mean a lot more to Drake than he lets you know. He respects you as a driver, and he won't shut up about how you're pretty."