One For The Road

33: Temporary

Days passed slowly in the Sacrilege House, but time flew by faster than the Daytona 500. I hoped my agent was sorting through potential teams for me to end up with for the next season, but unless there was something big, he wasn't going to tell me until it was closer to the time to make a decision.

It would be easy: I'd follow the money and leave this robot shit show and get my old life back. I could just pretend that nothing ever happened.

We didn't have another robot tournament directly in our sights, but Drake and Josiah had already gotten their hopes up that I was the one piece they needed to solidify their chance at their dream of competing in BattleBots. Pretty much the only information I had gathered about it was that it was essentially the highest level of competition but with an emphasis on the entertainment factor. It was televised, after all, and people loved a good show. Hell, they liked me for the most part.

I wasn't entirely sure when this tournament was supposed to begin, but it clearly was a huge deal in the community. And as more people figured out that I was kind of a big deal in the sports world, Josiah was convinced that they would want to target the fan base I had built up over a few hard years.

Was that a lot of pressure? Sure, but I was used to it. I was the face of female racing up until I had it stolen from me by a younger, classier, cuter face.

Eventually, I'd take it back. All I needed was to get through Sacrilege, and the empire I had built on my name would be mine again. It had to be. Nothing Truscott said was true, I could still drive, and there was no match for what I brought to the table.

Unfortunately, I wasn't a very patient person.

One early August morning, I sat at the kitchen table by myself. Drake and Annie had already left for work, and Josiah was out in the garage tinkering with the robot. Supposedly he was a genius when it came to the fine details of building one, and as long as he didn't fuck up the way it drove, it didn't really matter to me.

The summer weather in Ontario was much closer to what I grew up with in Ohio than the miserable Lousiana ones I suffered through for RTR.

Missing racing was a hell of a lot easier when there was something to do. I wasn't blessed with that luxury, and although I could see it catching up to me, a reminder of how good things used to be was still in my rearview mirror.

I took out my phone and looked up how the fuck I could get a work visa. Anything would have been better than doing nothing. I had been raised better than that.

When my few friends from high school were all getting their first jobs, I was driving every sort of car I could get my hands on, the faster the better. It wasn't long after that I left school to pursue my career even though everyone told me I was throwing away my chance in life. I believed any chance I could create for myself would be better than one that came along from the road everyone took, and I still wasn't sure if that was the right decision. The problem was that now I didn't even have a high school diploma, not that it would have been a guarantee for me anyway.

"Katie," Josiah said and poked his head into the kitchen.

I looked up from my phone. "What the hell do you want?"

"Has Drake told you anything about," he hesitated for a minute, "anything?"

I shook my head. "I don't know what you're referring to, but he hasn't, and even if he did, I probably would be a bitch about it and wouldn't tell you."

"It pains me to admit it, but I think we're more similar than we are different," he said and took the seat across the table from me.

"No, we're not. I'm only an asshole sometimes. You are every second of every day."