“I am. To an extent. I have my life and they have theirs. What about you?”
“I haven’t spoken to my father since my mother’s funeral and don’t plan on seeing him until I’m standing over his grave.”
I lifted my head and looked down at him, surprised at the venom in his voice. He claimed it all happened a long time ago but the anger in his voice revealed that it was still fresh.
“I have a different family.”
“Your crew?” My question hung in the air as the crooning from Rejected One’s “Dissension”, played in the background.
“Yeah.”
“How did you become so tight with them? Didn’t you say you all hated one another at first?”
He chuckled. “Yeah, we did. Then the accident happened.”
I remember his tattoo and Lenny mentioning an accident. “Tell me what happened.”
I felt Luke shift his body as if looking down at me, but I continued to stare out into the night. After waiting a few heartbeats, he began talking. He told me about the race that almost killed two of his crew members, Kelex and Tak, and bonded the rest of them.
“That night changed all of us, in one way or another.”
“How did it change you?” I asked.
“It showed me that life can end in the blink of an eye. And it gave me what I needed to rip off the final hold my mother had over me. I broke off contact completely with my family and began living life on my own terms.”
“Is that why you live out here while the rest of your crew lives in Vander City?”
He pushed out a deep breath. “I moved out here to train with Banks.”
“Banks died two years ago,” I said before I could think better of it. Inwardly, I cringed as soon as the words passed my lips. I was certain Luke would clam up and refuse to talk about his former trainer.
Instead, he sighed and said, “I’ve considered moving back. I had Lenny hire a realtor and he sent me a couple of places he found.”
My stomach tightened at the idea of Luke moving so far away. Clearing my throat, I asked, “What about Jacob?”
“What about him?”
“Would you move closer to Williamsport?”
He snorted. “Nah. We’re still working through our shit.”
We remained silent for a moment before I said, “Parents can do a number on us all, can’t they?”
He made a sound at the back of his throat.
“Speaking of parents, there’s something…” I trailed off when suddenly, a pair of headlights nearly blinded me.
I held my hand over my eyes, squinting to see who the headlights belonged to.
“The fuck?” Luke sprang up, looking as if he was ready to fight.
“Evening folks,” a male voice called as he got out of the car.
I pushed out the breath I’d been holding when I noticed the lights attached to the top of the car, once the officer turned down the headlights.
He began approaching us with his flashlight.
“What’s going on here?” He asked.
