If anyone would have told me a few months ago that I’d be attending superstar motocross racer Reid Travers’ wedding, I would have said, “Awesome. Looks like I’ll finally reach my potential as caterer waiter.” At least I wasn’t dancing around a pole, fishing for tips from drunk, overweight men like my mother did.
Up until a little over a year ago, I was a nobody. Just a girl who liked to ride dirt bikes. And then in one chance encounter, someone decided that I was actually worth more than just tips and hand me down race equipment. Pretty soon it was sponsorships and contracts and a whole hell of a lot more than I signed up for, but you can’t turn down an opportunity that might actually make something out of you, right?
The last thing I wanted was to be painted as the next big thing. And I sure as hell hadn’t planned to become some ‘role model’ for female extreme athletes. The whole situation was overwhelming—the practice, the focus, the know-it-all coach that kept pushing my buttons. More buttons than I cared to admit—even to myself.
The whiskey in my hand was going to help numb the ache of pressure that I constantly felt in my chest. God bless it.
I found an open door and walked into the dimly lit changing room that Nora and Georgia must have used to get ready. Clothes and makeup were scattered around every surface and even in little landmines on the floor. I locked the door behind me before plopping down on an empty bench. Letting out a deep breath, I willed myself not to cry. I’d hold my breath if I had to.
I never cried. Not when I crashed. Not when I lost. And never, ever over a guy.
My reflection taunted me from the mirror across the room. My dark hair was beautifully curled and my makeup was more demure than the heavy charcoal liner and sweep of color I usually applied when I was going somewhere “fancy.” Any other day, dirt would have been the only thing on my face.
I despised everything about this damn day.
I hated that I actually felt pretty. I abhorred the fact that I liked the simple black dress that someone had picked out for me. The fact that I’d relaxed while being pampered at a salon that morning and wanted to know all of the tips that the hairstylist and makeup artist were doling out? In-fucking-sufferable.
Something was happening to me in this Godforsaken town and I needed to get out of it. Soon.
“It will be good for your image,” Nick Pilsner, the head of Throttled Energy’s PR department had said. “Reid is your teammate and we’re a family. You should show your support.” What the hell was I supposed to know about family?
My chest felt tight as I thought about how I’d let Hoyt finally convince me to join him in Podunkville.
“Come with me,” he’d said, his sincere brown eyes pleading and promising things I must have imagined. “It will be fun.”
If I would have just used my head and said hell no like I’d originally intended, then maybe I wouldn’t be sitting in an empty room feeling sorry for myself. But I’d pictured myself on his arm and I’d liked what I saw. It felt like a promise of…something more. But like bones, promises could be more than broken. They could be shattered. I knew about both all too well.
Damn it all, my eyes had even threatened to water when Reid and Nora exchanged vows. A part of me—a part that I promptly told to shut the fuck up—decided that I, too, wanted a beautiful wedding and a man to pour his heart and soul out to me in a room full of friends and family. One day.
Most of all, I loathed the fact that the second I saw Hoyt Travers in a three piece suit, I wanted him to see me as more than just his newest pain in the ass pupil. And I wanted badly to see the body under that suit. It appeared as if his eyes had widened when he’d seen me in this dress, but maybe I’d been hallucinating.
Of course I had been.
I’d never met a man like him. He was so dedicated and focused and always doing the right thing. He was the epitome of everything I wasn’t. I had a knack for screwing things up. Just ask my dad, who only acknowledged my existence when I was wearing a helmet. Hoyt, like everything else I had encountered that day, was something I’d never deserve, never be worthy of.
I was just a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who got lucky. My dad liked to remind me that the only reason I was even on the circuit radar as a pro-rider was because my last name was McCade. “Good luck filling the boots I left behind,” he’d said, referring to his own career as a pro. A career that he lost because my mom got pregnant with me.
I twisted the cap off the whiskey bottle and let it fall to the floor. As the sweet burn coated my throat, I fought the constant turmoil that was brewing inside of me. The battle of good versus evil. Should I suck it up and prove that I was actually worth the trouble Hoyt and Throttled Energy were going to, or say to hell with the whole thing and catch the next bus out of Dodge, or wherever in the hell I was currently located?
I was leaning toward buying a bus ticket when a sharp sound startled me.
Knock, knock.
“Just a second!” I answered quickly before cursing silently under my breath. My eyes scrambled to find somewhere to stash my stolen bottle.
“Chayse,” Hoyt’s voice called out gently. “Can we talk?”
Pilsner had given me a strict no alcohol policy after I’d missed a couple practices. Hoyt would report back to him, I was sure of it. I scooted over to the edge of the bench and pushed the clutter in the top of the trashcan to the side before burying the bottle on the bottom. I felt the panic start to subside the second I covered the bottle and pulled a piece of gum from my small leather clutch.
“Please,” Hoyt said again.
I had no desire to listen to his apology. No matter what I’d let my head dream up about us, it wasn’t going to happen. I had to mentally close that door completely before I could open the literal one he was on the other side of. He could wait out there for a few more minutes while I got my shit together.
When I attempted to move the trashcan back a little, it tipped over and a few of the contents fell out onto the floor. I practically growled at them. Slipping the bottle back into the wastebasket to hide the evidence of my failure to obey the rules, I realized that maybe my life wasn’t all that bad. So I had a dark past, a stressful career, and man trouble in the form of a smoking hot coach who would never want me. At least I wasn’t in here covering up a pregnancy test like the last person who must’ve been looking to hide something in this very same trashcan.
Despite the ick factor and the fact that it was none of my business, I took a second glance at the long, slender test that lay on the floor.
Two lines were visible in the little window.
It was positive.
Can Chayse and Hoyt find common ground on and off the track?
Or will their secrets and the secrets of those around them present obstacles they can’t outrun?
CLUTCHED
Book three in the Wild Riders series, COMING FEBRUARY 2016!
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