Whole Lot More

Chapter Forty Eight

Chapter Forty Eight

Martin stormed on to his best friend's motor coach, glaring at Junior as he walked in, "Where's your girlfriend?"

Junior rolled his eyes, "Why do you want to know?"

"I have a question to ask her. So where is she?"

"I don't know," he shrugged, "With Delana or something. What's going on?"

"I want to know where Brynne is."

"Where Brynne is? That's a stupid question. You know where she is. She's in Boston living her life without you."

"No, she's not. The club burned down last week. I flew out there earlier this week to make sure she was okay, and there was no one in her apartment. There was actually nothing in her apartment, everything was gone. I even went so far as to knock on her neighbor's door and the old bat told me Brynne had packed everything up a few days before and left. No one's heard from her since."

"Why do you think Julie knows where she is then?"

"Really Junior? She's her best friend, of course she knows where she is!"

"Listen Hoss, did you ever think that maybe when she wants you to know where she is, she'll contact you Martin?"

"Well," Martin said, "I'm not willing to wait around for her anymore. I need to see her and I need to see her now." He walked down the stairs, standing in the doorway, "Let Julie know I'm looking for her when she comes back and I'll be back later."

Junior sighed as his best friend left and pulled his phone out, figuring he would warn his girlfriend Martin was looking for her. It wasn't his business where Brynne was, and if Julie wanted to make it Martin's business that was her own prerogative.

MT is looking for you, he wants to know where Brynne is.

*

Martin was running like shit this weekend. There was no better term for it than that. He couldn't stay focused to save his life, so his car sucked because he wasn't able to give his crew feedback.

His crew was beyond frustrated, Bono was beyond frustrated and Martin himself was beyond frustrated. It was Saturday, and still hadn't been able to track Julie down. Obviously, she was avoiding him.

But she couldn't keep avoiding him all weekend. In fact, he was hoping that would end now. Most of the other drivers were out on the track for final practice; Martin had come in early because his team needed to do some major changes on his car to make it drivable. That meant with Junior still out on the track, there were very few possibilities of where Julie was right now and he intended to check all of them until he found her.

He climbed on top of Junior's hauler and smiled when he saw her up there, she had made his search easy.

"Hi Julie."

She slid the radio off her eyes and smiled slightly at him, "Hey Martin."

"I've been looking for you all weekend."

"Have you?" she asked, "I didn't know."

Martin laughed, knowing she was lying, "Whatever you say. I take it you know why I've been looking for you?" She nodded. "Well good then, where is she Julie?"

"Boston."

"I wish that were the case," he sighed, "Because I would have already found her then. But according to her neighbor, she's been gone for almost a week now and they aren't sure where she went."

"What makes you think I know where she is then if her neighbor's don't even know?"

"Because she's your best friend," Martin said, "And she wouldn't leave and go somewhere without you knowing. Besides the fact that if you didn't know, being that you're her best friend, when I just told you that she left and her neighbor's didn't even know, the first thing you would have been doing right now is try to get ahold of her."

"Martin, why don't you try and call her and ask her yourself then?" Julie asked.

"She won't answer my calls, or my texts, my e-mails. Trust me, I've tried."

"Have you tried lately?"

"No, why would I waste my time trying to do something that I know isn't going to work. I was trying to give her space hoping that's what she needed, but that's before the club burned down. I think the last thing she needs right now with the club gone, is space. Especially from me."

"You know," Julie said, "I've been trying to talk her into contacting you. Whether that be a phone call, text message, e-mail anything. I've been telling her that was the least she could do, it's not like any of us expect her to fly out here and reconcile with you right now, but I think she would find comfort in at least talking to you."

"Thank you, I appreciate that."

"But I take it as you're standing in front of me asking me where she is, that she has yet to do that. She's been seeing a therapist recently too and her therapist has even convinced her she can't be bitter or angry at you any longer, because she's not getting herself anywhere being mad at you. She loves you so much, Martin."

"I love her, too."

"I know that," Julie nodded, "And that is the sole reason I am even having this conversation with you right now, and the only reason I would ever tell you what I'm about to tell you." Martin held his breath; this had been a lot easier than he was expecting it to be. "She moved back to New York with her parents."

Martin grabbed Julie and hugged her, "Thank you so much. Can you get me their address?"

Julie nodded, "What are you going to do, Martin?"

"I'm going to go after her... after the race tomorrow, obviously."

"Be gentle with her Martin, she's still pretty fragile. And tell her not to hate me too much, please. I was only doing what I thought was in her best interest."

"She could never hate you, Julie."

She sighed, she sure hoped not.

*

Junior's plane was all ready to take off to New York as soon as the race was over.

400 miles, all he had to get through was the next 400 miles, approximately 3 hours and then he could be on his way.

It was the only thing he was thinking about.

Maybe that was his problem.

He made it through the driver's meeting, driver introductions and the opening ceremonies, through a pre-race interview where he made sure to mention Brynne's name and before he knew it was strapped into his car and the green flag was being waved.

Things seemed to be going at a fast pace, and he hoped that continued. The quicker the race went, the quicker he could get to Brynne.

Starting back in 32nd place though, when the green flag flew he knew he had to focus on what was going on around him. He hated starting back this far because it always seemed like this is where the trouble began in the beginning of the race when everyone was bunched up into one pack.

The first ten laps everything was fine, everyone driving conservatively so they could get control of their cars and figure out if they had enough under the hood to take their car up to the front. But after that things got out of control. Cars were bouncing off of each other, off of the wall, one car even sliding through the grass.

And he knew if he didn't get away, he was going to be caught up in something he didn't want to be caught up in.

Before he even had time to react to that thought, two cars ahead of him collided and from there on out collected half of the pack behind them – including himself. There had been nothing he could have done, it all happened too quickly and too close to him to be able to prevent. He ended up getting spun around by the car behind him and hit and shoved into the outside retaining wall by a car who had come out of nowhere and not been able to stop.

Essentially his day was done.

He pulled the car behind the wall and brought it to the attention of his crew, who looked it over and declared there was no fixing it.

"That sucks," he muttered.

Bono had been standing behind him and he hadn't even realized it. "Yeah, I think that was the most focused I've seen all weekend long."

"I was ready to have a good finish and head off to New York to go find Brynne."

"Well, might as well not let this stop you and hold you up anymore, you may as well go and head off to New York now. No sense in sitting around the track any longer, we're not going to be able to do anything with this car, and if Junior wins I'm sure he'll understand."

Martin nodded, "Thanks Bono."

"Oh and Martin?" Bono called after Martin's retreating back, "Get this figured out please, because I want my old driver back."

*

He had been jet-setting a lot recently. In addition to traveling to and from all the tracks they had been to, in the last week alone he had flown back and forth to Boston and now he was on his way to New York.

Hopefully this will be the last time I have to worry about flying from place to place searching for her

As the plane took off, Martin got comfortable knowing even this relatively short plane ride was going to feel like eternity.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, and when he saw Kaleen's number on the display he silenced it and let it go to voicemail, he really didn't feel like dealing with her at the moment.

The phone vibrated once more signaling she left a message and he sighed and conceded to listening to the message, knowing that once this plane left she would be the last thing he worried about until after he found Brynne and convinced her to take him back.

"Martin! I'm going into labor! You better get your ass back to North Carolina, NOW!" And she had hung up.

The pilot poked his head into the cabin, "You ready to head out?"

"Yeah," Martin nodded, "Let's get to New York."

*