Page 19 of Jackrabbit

The countdown rolled, and right out the gate Colt was too hard on the gas. Lost control and ate concrete faster than the first round. Colt growled, and Beau stepped around the back of the rig to lean his forearms on the top. “He your bitch yet?”

From the kitchen, something crashed as his damn cat knocked something off the shelf. Colt was silent, though. No quip, no sarcastic comment or innuendo. Not a word as he set the sim up again, not so much as a sideways glance whenBeau came around the side to get a look at his face. Colt’s brows were knit in determination, lips set in a firm line. Dialed in like crashing was something personal. Like he had a score to settle.

That same damn look Sutton got. The one that led to something so goddamn foolish his mama threatened to whoop them both.

Swallowing, Beau flexed his hand and put it in his pocket. “Again.”

The first time Colt made it through a turn, he was so surprised his grip went slack and the wheel jerked out of his hand. He slammed into the wall.

Sweat dripped down the back of Beau’s neck. “Again.”

On his sixth try, Colt made it through two turns clean. He was just starting to smile when a car he wasn’t watching for found a line and took it. Colt didn’t react in time, and he snarled as he hit the wall again.

By the eighth crash, Beau’s heart was hammering against his ribcage. He stalked across the garage to the fridge and grabbed two bottles of water. Then he drained half of one in three long swallows before heading back to the sim just in time to watch Colt crash again. Beau’s shoulders tightened.

“Here.” He held the other water out to Colt. Colt shoved it away and rolled his shoulders, and Beau gritted his teeth. “You’re sweating out all your water, boy. You need to drink.”

“No.”

Beau blinked as Colt started another race.

No?

Two weeks of spending damn near all day, every day with him, and this was the first time Beau had heard that sharp tone saying that even sharper word.

When Colt crashed this time, he snarled and smacked one of the poles. He started another race. Crashed. Beau knew his problem. It was flashing like a neon sign that said ‘this is where you’re fucking up’. But if Colt couldn’t figure it out for himself, then all of this was wasted effort. Beau could teach someone who wanted to slam his head into the brick wall until it cracked.

“Fuck,” Colt hissed as he crashed again.

Colt threw off the harness with shaking hands, and pulled himself out of the rig so fast he was lucky he didn’t smack his fool head on the bars. He stormed off, leaving the imprint of sweat on Beau’s seat as he hauled ass to the open garage door. Both hands slid into his hair, and he pulled at it.

Right. So Beau had been wasting his time.

Just like Sutton. This kid wasjustlike him. Beau knew this story. He’d lived it. Colt would cuss, break something maybe, refuse to see what he was doing wrong until Beau grabbed him by the ear and waved the answer in his face. Which Beau wasn’t about to do. Not again. He wasn’t going to strong arm another idiot onto the track just to watch him—

Colt turned. He pulled the bottom hem of his shirt up, abs flexing under the garage lights, sweat pouring down into his jeans. He wiped his face with the shirt before he dropped it, and then he stalked back over to the rig and hopped in. Did the harness up himself.

But he didn’t start the sim right away. Instead, he sat there staring at the screen and flexed his hands on the wheel. Rolled his shoulders. Closed his eyes and took a breath, held it, let it out slowly. He repeated that three times before he opened his eyes again, and he didn’t look angry anymore.

Beau’s grip slackened, and his water bottle slipped out of his wet hand. He caught it, water drizzling out the top and onto his boots. He hardly noticed.

Colt started the sim again with calm, sure movements, and pulled out right. He kept his pace, adjusted as the other cars moved around him.

On the third turn, Colt found his line.

Chapter 12

Nothing existed but the seat underneath him, his hands steering, and the track. The roar of the simulated engine drowned out his thoughts so thoroughly it was like being part of the machine. Colt’s arms ached from the resistance from the wheel, his leg was thirty seconds from going numb because of the pedal’s push-back, and his shoulders were burning.

None of that mattered.

The sim had been whooping his ass for two goddamn hours. Sweat dripped into his eyes as he came up on the third turn. His nemesis at this point, the one he’d crashed on so many times he’d stopped counting.

Not this time. His foot was pressing the brake before he even saw the curve, slowing him enough to fall behind the car he’d been keeping pace with. As he came up on the turn, he let off the brake and came into it wide instead of trying to come in tight. He kissed the apex and let the car lead him back wide again, and then he was off on the straight, sailing past the car that had overtaken him. Blood roared in his ears as he repeated the move on the fourth turn, the fifth, until he’d hit the five laps Beau had ordered.

Colt took another lap just to prove that he could, and it finished even easier than the last. Beau’s arm appeared in his peripherals as Beau leaned down to stop the sim. Chest heaving, sweat-drenched and exhausted, Colt pried his hands off the wheel and turned as Beau straightened. Colt took a long, shaky breath and looked at the sim, then back to Beau.

And then Colt exploded.