“It’s been a while, huh?” My brother, Hoyt, said from his seat riding shotgun. I could see the nostalgia on his face as we pulled to a stop on the flat piece of land.
“Yeah.” I stepped out of the truck and as soon as my feet hit the dirt, it hit me.
I was home. For the first time in seven years.
The property we were standing on had once belonged to my parents, and even though I had said I would eventually come back, I hadn’t known if it would ever be possible. When I left, my parents had sold the land I’d grown up on—the land I’d learned to ride on—to fund my racing career. It wasn’t even a career then. It was a whim and prayer that I could take my talent to the next level. Luckily, I had been able to. Which is exactly why I was back. I was going to give them back everything they’d sacrificed to support me. I was going to give them their dream home and finally erase the financial burden they’d carried with them to help me.
I stared out across the grass-covered land. One hundred acres. It was everything my parents had ever wanted. They had plans—literal blueprints prepared—to build their dream home right where I was standing.
“Where are the hills?” Brett’s skepticism about the Midwest was evident. “How in the hell did you learn to ride the way you do in a place this... flat?” He walked up next to where my brother and I were standing.
“There’s a track down there,” I informed him, pointing at the timber on the far side of the property. “Or, there to used to be.”
My brother, my dad, and I had spent many long days down there clearing trees and building a race track that rivaled some of the best tracks I’d ever rode on. Unfortunately, when I started getting attention for my racing, I really needed to be somewhere where I could practice year round. The Illinois winters were not conducive to a professional career. So my parents sold our house, this piece of land, and we moved to Texas where I trained and perfected my craft.
“Well let’s get the bikes out and go see,” Brett suggested.
I knew the eleven-hour drive in a vehicle with four wheels had killed him as much as it had killed me. We were two wheel guys. Dirt bikes, more specifically.
“Can we at least get situated before we go rip up the dirt?” Hoyt frowned at us. He was the planner, the think-things-through guy.
We were complete opposites. We may have looked alike—same brown hair, similar build, close in height—and we both loved to ride, but that was where the similarities ended. I was the die-hard and he was the recreational rider. At one point, I really thought Hoyt was going to make a serious run at racing, but he could never fully commit himself. He was just as talented as I was but he was over-thinking things when he should have just gone with his gut.
It worked out in the end though. I hadn’t suggested it yet, but Hoyt would make a fantastic riding coach. He saw things that others didn’t and I often looked to him for advice when I was on the track. In the meantime, he’d taken on the role as my manager and made sure I was always where I was supposed to be. He kept me in line and made sure I was taking time away from the track to do other things besides race. I would have ridden from sunup to sundown if he would let me.
“Fellas, hold up a sec. For real,” Hoyt broke in as Brett and I started unstrapping the bikes from inside the trailer I was pulling. I let down the gate of the trailer, continuing my mission while Hoyt continued his speech. “I need to call the realty office and get someone to bring the papers out. We don’t even officially own the land yet.”
“Relax, Hoyt,” I teased, giving him a pat on the back and stretched my arms out to signify the complete lack of anybody. “You see anyone around?”
“Seriously?” Hoyt always did have a hard time handling my sarcasm.
I was already rolling my bike out of the back of the trailer we’d hauled all the way from the Lone Star State and Brett already had his running, headed out across the grass. Dipshit didn’t even know where he was going. He’d always been a little squirrelly. He was a mix of fearlessness and stupidity. The perfect combination for a freestyle motocross rider and a best friend. We’d met on the amateur circuit when I was seventeen and hit it off. When I moved from Illinois and we both started racing professionally, we became inseparable. Unlike some of the other guys, I genuinely like Brett. It didn’t hurt that we competed in different categories. He liked to jump his bike, while I preferred to have my wheels ‘ripping the dirt’ as my brother so eloquently put it. I was a racer. And a damn good one. That’s not me being cocky. That’s a fact. I’d just finished my fourth professional season on the top of the leader board.
“Fine,” my brother huffed. “But I’m going to go ahead and call about the title.”
“So call. We’ll be back soon. I just want to check out the track. Or what’s left of it,” I said with a wink as I pulled my helmet on. The roar of Eileen’s motor had my blood pumping in the way only she could. Yes, I named my bike. I name all my bikes. But, Eileen, she was special. She was my first fully custom-built bike.
Hoyt waved me off and pulled his cell from his pocket to call the realty office. I was halfway down the trail when a moment of nostalgia hit. Memories of being with her. What had seemed like a lifetime ago, was now all I could see. All I could feel.
Her long legs squeezing my body from behind. Her arms wrapped around my chest as we zipped through the field. The sound of her excited laugh echoing in my ear as we rode like we were wild and free.
I’d had to make some choices back then and the sudden recurrence of memories I tried to forget had my heart pumping as fast as the gas through my bike. Choices that I was fine with. I had to be. Asking my parents to support my dream of becoming a professional rider. Choosing to race over going to college. Ending things with her.
I was doing right by my parents. My family. They had no idea that by the end of fall, I’d be giving them the keys to their dream house. The decision to not go to college had been the right one. I’d made enough money to secure a future for myself, plus I was still racing so more was to follow, as long as I kept winning. Which I intended to.
Ending things with Nora Bennett had been the hardest decision I’d ever made. The one I’d struggled with for a while. Still struggled with, if I was being honest. She’d been my first love, but we were young. Did we even really know what love was? And, what was I supposed to do? Ask my seventeen-year-old girlfriend to wait for me? To give up on having her own life to pine for some dude out in Texas that was trying to capture lightening in a bottle? I couldn’t do that to her. She had a life in Halstead—family and friends. I’d done a pretty good job of not letting myself think about her, but being back in this place—this place where I’d loved her so long ago—had something flowing through me that felt a lot like regret.
You did the right thing.
I’d been telling myself that for years and I would keep telling myself until the visions of her in my head stopped. It worked before. It would work again. It had to. I was here for like five minutes in the grand scheme of things. Three months and I’d be back in Texas. I had zero time to be drudging up the past.
Brett brake checked me forcing me to stop abruptly before hitting my front tire against his back.
“You taking a nap?” he teased.
“No.” I shook it off. “Just thinking about what it was like to grow up here,” I confessed and waited for him to start busting my chops about the past. Instead, he gave me a knowing smile. A moment passed between us where I knew that he understood all that I’d sacrificed back then. I’d talked to him about when I first moved to his home state.
“Let’s go, daydreamer,” he finally said. His Texas drawl might have been charming to most, but it didn’t faze me. A smart ass was a smart ass.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m coming.” I rode past him to the track.