One For The Road

26: Desire

"I should probably go," Drake said.

"Go?" I held my hand out to him. "Why the hell would you want to go?"

"I said that I should, not that I want to. I know your type, Katie, and we're two very different people." He ignored my welcoming gesture and stood up.

"My type? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Was I really that unbearable? I knew I had my glaringly obvious issues, but there wasn't anyone out there who didn't have any. I was definitely more perfect than most other people.

"Look, I'm very attracted to you. I am. But I know better than that." Drake said. "We want different things. There's nothing wrong with that, but—"

I pulled my hand back to my side. "If you're going to be an asshole, then you definitely should leave. Get the fuck out of here."

How the fuck did he know we wanted different things? He didn't know what I was looking for, and even if he was probably right, that didn't mean that we couldn't have a little fun with each other.

It was his loss.

However, Drake didn't leave the room right away like I thought he would. He lingered in the doorway for a moment.

"I wasn't fucking around. I said you should leave," I said.

He hesitated before answering. "That's the thing, Katie. I should, but I really don't want to."

"Well, then why wouldn't you do what you want? I don't get it."

"That's the part where we're two different people comes into play," Drake said, and he finally stepped out of the room and shut the door behind him.

I turned back to the TV, and the woman on the screen cried in Spanish.

"Oh, shut up. You're not the one who's trying to put up with this guy's shit. Everywhere I go, my boss just loves to fuck with my mind," I spat.

My career never belonged to just me, and I hated it. I hated it more than anything.

I didn't sleep at all that night, and when we arrived with Sacrilege at the arena the next morning, I bought myself a coffee to keep me going. The loud screeching of metal and the smell of burning rubber would eventually wake me right the fuck up, but until then, I just had to pretend like everything was completely normal. I would never hear the end of it if Josiah found out about the way Drake shut me down.

If someone would have asked me if I wanted to kick the shit out of a robot with another robot to get my feelings out, I would have agreed without a second thought. But this robot had so many damn strings attached to it that I didn't want to fight with it.

Well, I really did want to fight with it, because who the hell could ever come up with a better, cooler idea? But it was Drake's, and I was mad at him.

My type? What did that even mean? Was the problem that I wasn't a goddamn nerd?

Katie Moore was the pinnacle of female racing, and anyone who didn't think that was the most badass shit ever was just stupid.

Before the tournament began, we were all assigned our very own pit station to work on our bots and give them last-minute fixes. Obviously, I didn't know how any of that shit worked really, so I wandered out into the main area. There were a few people filtering into the arena to watch the fights. I was from northeast Ohio and had no idea that it was even a thing, so I wasn't sure how the hell anyone else knew about combat robotics, but I also had my head up my ass most of the time.

Fortunately, I removed my cranium from my rectum just in time to see two familiar faces.

"Griffin? Paul?" I said.