Chapter Six
Three hundred and forty-two texts. Sixteen phone calls. Nine days.
Now those numbers won’t mean anything to most people, but to Leah it was her daily end tally when it came to the saga of Law and me. Since he’d left it felt like I was just going through the motions. Picking myself back up that very morning and heading to the studio to get a last-minute practice in and then off to the theatre for another performance.
I’d had to stop myself from searching for Law in the crowds. I knew he would never be there, but something in me always wanted to be sure that he wasn’t. But still, I performed like he was. Like at any moment he could walk into one of the shows and I would want him to be proud of what he saw. It was becoming a dangerous obsession.
When the final curtain went down last night for our show I felt relieved, not because it was over, but because I wouldn’t have any obligations to perform when my heart wasn’t in it. For the first time in my life, when I stepped on stage last night, I didn’t want to dance, because all week all I could think about was why I should be dancing if Law wasn’t there to watch me. What was the point? The only person I cared to see my performance wasn’t even there, so why do it? It was a crazy thought, but I couldn’t stop it from coming to mind.
“I need wings and a beer. Bad.” Axel’s suggestion for where we should eat Sunday dinner shocked me. We typically had strict diets, and wings were not a part of it, but then again, our latest show was over. We were free for the time being until Anne finished up her latest masterpiece. She assured us tonight that it would be no more than two weeks before we started rehearsal and tryouts for the roles. I made no move to get on her good side for a lead role. Hell, I would be fine with any role that didn’t involve me in the spotlight.
“Oh! There’s a new sports bar just around the corner!” Leah piped up as she grabbed my arm and forced me to turn the corner with them. We were reaching into the afternoon on this Sunday, so the streets were becoming less crowded. That was until we came up to the bar. There were people cheering and a line of people at the outside bar.
“Let’s try a seat inside.” Axel suggested. He opened the door and led our little group inside. It wasn’t busy as outside, but there were still crowds around the bar, staring at every TV that was on.
“Just three?” the hostess asked us.
“Yes,” I shouted over the roar of cheering. She led us to a booth off to the side. We were out of the way of the bar, but still had the view of a few TVs. “What do you think they’re watching?”
“NASCAR race started an hour ago,” the waitress answered me as she sidled up to our table. “What can I get you all to drink?”
“Whatever you have on tap, I’m fine with,” Axel ordered, not even looking up from the menu she had shoved in his face.
“I’ll have a water,” I said as I thumbed through the menu I grabbed from a stand at the side of the table.
“Same,” Leah added.
The waitress left and I counted the seconds before Leah or Axel were going to ask if Law was in this race or not. I had no idea, though. I didn’t know his schedule. In fact, I should have been researching more about his career because I knewnothingabout race car driving. Just that they went around in circles and sometimes there were crashes. I sat up straight in my side of the booth.
Crashes.
“You okay?” Leah asked and brought her hand across the table to mine and squeezed it. “You just went completely white there.”
“Yeah.” I stared at the nearest TV and tried to read what was on the screen. There were names and numbers scrolling across the top of the TV. Law was number twenty-two, that much I knew. I watched until I saw his name flash. Top ten. I looked at the cars driving on the track but couldn’t decipher who was who. There were colors for each car and brands, but I had no idea who was his sponsor and they only showed certain drivers at certain times. “There shouldn’t be any crashes, right?”
The pitch of my voice rose as the last of the word left my mouth. Leah and Axel were staring at me with sympathetic looks.
“Kansas has a good track. Not many wrecks there, but lots of good passes.” The waitress from before was back at our table setting down our drinks. “You new to the sport?”
“You could say that.” My answer came out softer. My full focus was on the screen behind her head because Law’s car was now on the screen, the number twenty-two in bright green letters with a full black car. It suited him, but I still struggled to see who was on the top of the hood so I could find where he was. But when they panned out, I realized Law’s car was the only black one.
I relaxed back into the booth, relieved I’d be able to find him by just finding the black spot on the track.
“We’ll take an order of twenty teriyaki wings, all flats, extra sauce, and tons of ranch, with a side of blue cheese,” Axel ordered for us and it wasn’t until he snapped his fingers in front of my face that I looked back at them.
“What?” I snapped, not meaning to. “Sorry.”
“It’s a race. It’s his career. He knows what he’s doing.” Axel looked me in the face as he spoke to me, trying to reassure me this was just something normal that Law did, but in my head it wasn’t normal. I had no idea what to expect when it came to these kinds of races. “He’s been racing for a long time. Trust me, he knows what he’s doing.”
It was like he could read all my thoughts and doubts. I looked back up at the TV to see Law going off the track with a bunch of other cars.
“What’s happened?” I became aware again and was sitting at the edge of the booth, fully focused on what was happening in front of me.
“They’re making a pit stop.”
I whirled my head around to the waitress again. She stood behind me with a bemused smile on her face.
“A yellow flag was waved for a tap that occurred on the back stretch that caused some debris to fly. They have to make sure everything is off the track before the racers can go at full speed again. See?”
