Aflame (Fall Away #4)

“You’re strong,” Pasha gauged. “Someone who likes to be in control. But wouldn’t it be exhausting—not to mention boring—always being the one in the lead? Never being challenged?”

I turned up the music again and shook my head.

Ben wasn’t boring.

He might not get me hot, but he also wasn’t rude, aggressive, and complicated. And I didn’t need to explain myself to—

“Jared, though?” she chirped over the music, cutting off my train of thought. “I can imagine that relationship threw you on the ground and fucked the daylights out of you, huh?”

I turned my wide eyes on her, barely noticing Jaeger’s car zooming past me.

“Metaphorically speaking, of course,” she added.

I breathed out a nervous laugh, stunned into silence. I had to hand it to her. She was bold.

I charged ahead, powering around the turn and missing Jaeger’s car by a hair. I sped on, taking the lead again as I tightened every muscle in my body and raced hard, jerking the wheel wildly and making her laugh as I skidded around the corners.

Flying across the finish line two more times, I barely bothered to downshift as I turned, feeling the weight of the car pulling and our bodies trying to go with it.

She started laughing, nervously glancing behind her.

“Go, go, go!” she shouted, smiling from ear to ear.

“You’re very weird, you know that?” I commented.

“I consider that a compliment.” She beamed.

Jaeger’s orange Camaro pulled up on my side, and I swerved into his lane to cut him off, knowing that we’d bump on the next turn if he was too close. Backing off, he pulled behind me, honking his horn furiously.

I raced ahead, feeling the energy down to my bones the way I always did here.

But it was more than that, too. It didn’t feel like it was going to be over when the race ended as it usually did.

Tearing across the finish line, I let out a happy laugh, pounding my steering wheel with the adrenaline built up inside of me.

“Woo-hoo!” Pasha screamed, rolling down the window and howling.

I sucked in air, breathing hard as I spoke to her. “So was that boring?”

She acted like it was no big deal. “It didn’t suck.”

The crowd descended, pounding the roof, and I moved to get out of the car so I could smack one of them, because who the hell thought it was okay to pound on my car?

But Pasha grabbed my arm, and I stopped to look back at her.

“You should ask Jared about the one time I almost saw him cry,” she said, her happy face turning serious. “I’m sure you’d find it very interesting.”

Chapter 6

Jared

Jax stood up in the announcer’s stand, peering down at me with a grin on his face that said I was way out of my depth. Yeah, I was kind of getting that.

Tate was different.

I shook my head and turned my gaze back to the track, seeing her hop out of her car and talk with the other drivers. So confident. So strong.

But the way I wanted her was still the same.

Jax was right. I could go around about it for days or weeks or another two years, but I’d still come to the same conclusion as he did this afternoon. I loved Tate, and I would always love her.

I’d never planned on letting her go. Not really. Seeing her with someone else a year and a half ago threw me for a loop, and I thought that maybe I still wasn’t good enough, maybe I couldn’t live up to him, maybe she was finally happy after all the pain I caused, and maybe, just once, I could think of her happiness and leave her the fuck alone for once in my life. Maybe, just maybe, we weren’t meant to be together.

But there were no maybes now. I wanted her back.

For good.

“Girl,” one of the racers drawled, wrapping an arm around Tate’s neck as she made her way through the crowd. “I could’ve won that race. You know I backed off out of pity.”

One corner of her lips tilted in a smile as she made her way back over to where Ben stood a few feet away from me.

“We’ve raced three times,” she pointed out, eyeing him. “Why keep racing me if you’re purposely going to lose every time?”

I laughed under my breath. “Well, if he beats a girl,” I mumbled, pretending to fiddle on my phone, “what has he really won?”

I heard Madoc’s snort from a few feet off, and I swallowed, immediately regretting the words.

Awesome. What the hell was wrong with me? No matter how much I liked to think that I had grown up, being around Tate brought out the bully all over again.

I could practically feel Pasha’s eye roll next to me, and silence fell on Tate’s conversation telling me they’d all heard the insult.

“You don’t believe that.” Tate’s flat voice sounded so sure, and I knew she was talking to me.

I looked up, stuffing my phone into my back pocket as I stood.

“You’re a lot of things,” she continued, folding her arms across her chest, “but you’re not sexist.”

“Look who knows me so well,” I taunted, acting like her boyfriend wasn’t even there.

And he wasn’t. He didn’t matter.

Tate cocked an eyebrow. “You’re not hard to figure out, Jared.”

“No, I’m not,” I agreed. “I’m just bored.”

“Hmmm,” she nodded, shooting me with her fake, sympathetic gaze. “That’s right. This is all beneath you now, isn’t it? We’re simply the amateurs entertaining you with our mediocrity.” And then she raised her voice, stepping closer as she spoke to those around us. “He can take stories of us back to his hot shot friends, laughing about his ‘roots’ . . .” she stopped to add air quotes, much to the enjoyment of everyone listening. “And how far he’s come while we’re all still muddling along in this no-name town.”