Status & Glory

Two

I locked the front door and walked down the front steps to my bike. I got on it, strapped my helmet on, and revved the engine before driving away from my house. It was an hour to the time for the race, but I had to leave early. The track was a forty-minute drive from here, so to avoid arriving late, I had to be on my way an hour before. I always got gas on my way there, so I calculated it all together.

Thirty minutes after, I was filling my tank and shortly after I was back on the road. I got to the tracks five minutes before the race.

Eli was all over me by the time I got there. He handed me the keys to my Lamborghini and guided me to it before slipping on my leather gloves for me. Eli had possession of my Lamborghini because I couldn't go home with a Lamborghini that my parents didn't buy for me and I couldn't use the one they bought for me to race, they'd lose their shit if it got scratched even just a little.

I always raced with my leather gloves on. I considered them my lucky charm. The first time I raced and won, I had them on and since then I always wore them to race and I hadn't lost a race ever since.

My opponent, Red, stood by his car, waiting for me with a cocky smirk on his face. His smirk deepened when he saw me.

"So you're the Phoenix, huh?" He sounded like the typical cocky rich kid.

"And you're Red," I lifted a brow at him.

He just chuckled before quickly kissing the blonde bimbo beside him and getting into his car.

We didn't use our real names on the track and so Phoenix was my track name. Only those that knew me outside the tracks knew my real name.

Eli appeared behind me and turned around, and pressed my lips to his. The kiss was for two seconds, but I could taste and smell the alcohol and the cigarette on his breath. He was stiff with shock because I always kissed him on the cheek and not on the lips. He was the only person I would dare kiss since I didn't know anyone else but him and Nick, who was basically his shadow, here on the tracks. If Eli wasn't around, I would pick a random person to kiss on the lips.

It was a law of the tracks that, before any race, the racers must kiss someone. I didn't know why, but it was a tradition and everyone went along with it.

I drove to the beginning of the tracks and watched as Theo counted. At three I revved my engine and immediately he wove the flag I was speeding down the tracks.

Red was fast and had good control, I gave him that, so for the first lap of the race I made it look like he was winning, not leaving so much gap between us and by the time we get to the second lap I was ahead of him but not by much, I could increase the gap but I chose not to, I had to let him believe he could still win me. At the beginning of the last lap, I stepped on the gas but he was faster, coming in front of me. I had to slow down so I wouldn't run into him. About 400 meters from the finish line, I swerved to the side, and as expected, he followed me. I smirked before swerving back to the other side and this time I was faster and I sped right past him, crossing the finish line before him.