False Start (Straight No Chaser, #1)

by Casey Hagen

Because in life, and especially in roller derby, when they knock you down, you get back up. You always get back up.

Not impressed, dude? Yeah, me either.

“To stiff dicks, perky tits, bitches getting every last bit of karma they deserve…oh, and that straight piece in Tetris.”

Emotional investment wielded great power, but not when it was built on a foundation of bitterness and pain.

Patti never had kids, but when she took someone under her wing, she might as well have birthed them herself for how protective she became. The look on her face left zero doubt. She’d claimed all six of them here tonight as her own.

Galloway Bay would never be what it once was for me. Too many mistakes and long memories would make sure of that. It could never be home again, no matter how much I wished it could be.

Every day they trained me more and more for motherhood I wasn’t even sure I wanted.

“Back in your day, women couldn’t have credit cards without their husband’s signatures.”

“I told you. She’s good with those two, not that she’d ever admit it. Tried to compliment her once, and she got this pained look on her face. I swear she’d rather eat mud than have someone give her any sort of praise.”

I told myself I was only seeking information, but with every new detail, my blood pumped harder and faster. I couldn’t afford to care, but I couldn’t stop myself from wanting—needing—to know more.

“That sense of responsibility you’ve got is going to be the death of you.” “Better than a lack of responsibility being the death of others.”

God, I hate that I noticed. And maybe that was my problem with him all along. His presence.

“You know, forget me taking you over the railing with me. How about I just shove your ass over and be done with you?” “You wish. More like you’re going to lean against that railing, cross your arms over your chest like a good girl, and I’m going to bend you over backward and see how flexible you really are.”

The rough way his fingers curled around me should have pissed me off. I should have yanked my arm away, but no. After the way he eye-fucked me before, my inner lusty bitch betrayed me and leaned into the pressure while wondering what it would be like to feel the same grip on my hips, my breasts, the inside of my thigh—he was too close. Too much. Too fucking much.

If I let her get too close, if I let her tap into the long-buried part of me, it wouldn’t eek out in a trickle. Oh no. I’d been holding that shit back for so long, it rivaled the force of any turbulent, storm-ravaged sea crashing relentlessly against a rocky coast. Cracking open that well of pain, anger, and resentment would flood everything and everyone in its path. Resurrecting the past wouldn’t change it. It would only bring agony, but fuck if I could separate the two and make sense of any of it. Even when I knew every encounter with her, with derby, with my mistakes would eventually destroy everyone left in the world I cared about, here I was, itching to challenge her.

I wanted her in my face, full of attitude and insults. Every time I came at her, I wanted her to come back harder. I wanted to push every button she had until I figured out her reactions, her every impulse, and then, only then, I’d bend her to my will. I wanted to teach her how to hammer every one of her weaknesses, pummeling them over and over until all that remained was steely strength. I wanted to coach. Needed to coach. And I couldn’t.

“You told me when you brought it up. You’re a bad actor, Coach. You’re not one for small talk. Grunts, judgment, and a wide-berth requirement are more your style. Just the fact that you mentioned it told me you felt awkward about it. So you figured if you brought it up, you could deflect the attention and credit. Not exactly complex.” “So what I’m getting is that I’m an unapproachable, predictable prick headed for permanent hermit status. I don’t think I like this new degree you’re earning.”

“Well, you know how these things are. Stories get embellished.” “You think?” “But you want to kiss her.” “This is a trap. I feel it.” And fuck yeah, I wanted to kiss her. I was pretty sure the feeling was mutual, only it looked like the both of us were smart enough to not act on it.

Basically, the ones who had no life outside of derby. Or made derby their life. Distinguishing between the two really depended if you were a glass half empty or half full sort. Most days, I was a glass half full.

Perfection didn’t have secret stories to tell. You didn’t sink into perfection and make warm memories.

I would expect someone who wanted to win at any cost to be snarlier than that. Mean maybe, borderline cruel in his pursuit of a win. Mean and cruel were not words that fit with a guy who noticed a rib out of place on a stranger and fixed it.

feckless

I didn’t need to be giving the town the wrong idea. Or her. Or me for that matter. Because the closer I got, the harder it became to see the boundaries between reason and a colossal mistake in the making. And that was after only two encounters. It was going to be a hell of a long two months.

And I didn’t want to do it alone. God, that sucked to acknowledge because needing someone meant I’d get close. Getting close meant someone would get hurt. But damn, I wanted a friend alongside me.

“Dude, whatever you were outrunning, did you win?” “I never do.”

Someone has to feel bad for her. After all, what does it say when your own mother has to go and die to get away from you?

These guys were too damn young to be feeling all of that uncertainty and hurt. The thought of them lying in their beds at night, sad, maybe hungry, or worse…scared—I knew that gnawing feeling in the gut. I knew it intimately. The uncertainty of tomorrow, and the next day, and the next after that. What it was like to hear the muffled sobs of the girl in the next bed. It never really went away. Not for me. So, while they were with me, they had my undivided attention and much to Leo and Noah’s disappointment, consequences for their decisions.

They nodded in unison, Ellie and Addison with beaming smiles while Rylee bit her lip. Hopefully she stopped doing that before she fell. It was an emergency room visit waiting to happen.

No longer casually observing her for my own amusement, I voraciously studied her. Every last bit of her. Her affectionate grin alone delivered a crippling blow to my gut. But that was just the warm-up for the uppercut coming right after when she slipped the errant strands of hair from the scared little girl’s forehead, tucked them behind her ears, and cupped her cheek. The nurturing there punched right through my ribs into my chest and mercilessly rooted around for my heart.

If she didn’t sweep those little girls right into another lap, the one who fell might never go back out there again. Mayhem gave her the gift of faith. It would leave a mark. Mayhem left her mark. Apparently, she left indelible touches everywhere. Banked Track. The Shipwreck. Here. Inside me.

“Does she come in here a lot?” I was a fucking idiot. Hands down, the dumbest shit on the planet. The guy who couldn’t resist a temptation, or in this case, a stupid challenge. I was the guy. The guy who’d stuck his tongue on the 9V battery. The dude who’d stick his tongue to the metal flagpole during recess when it was twenty degrees out. The idiot who took the dare to grab on to an electric fence because how bad could it be? Oh, and that puddle I stood in while doing it? That just made me more of a badass when I pulled it off. I was a drowning man, and this asshole sidled on up next to me to help hold my head under water.

They all volunteer over at the youth center. Actually, they do time at the food pantry and created a mobile library too with the help of Marty’s cousin London who came up for a visit from New York and helped with the logistics.” “What’s the deal with the boys sitting with Wes?” “They said skating is for girls.” Not my problem. Don’t do it, Bishop. Don’t you fucking do it. I pushed away from the locker and turned to him. “And you didn’t set them straight?”

“Yeah, well, maybe I’m a bad influence all the time,” I muttered. “That’s Lana’s parents talking. What do you say? You up to setting the boys straight after the hit you took, old man?” “Old man? I could kick your ass right now.” “You could, but unfortunately I know for a fact your sense of honor won’t let you.” “Half the people in this town want to skin me alive; the other half of you want to pin some sort of saint medal to my chest.” I glanced over at the boys one more time and knew I was screwed. Absolutely fucking screwed. “That’s a small town for ya.”

Three laps in, all the kids had smiles and one of the boys had started tugging on Mayhem’s sweater to snag her attention. And in another hit to my pride, just like that I was jealous of a kid who hadn’t even reached the double digits. She nodded down at him and pointed to Jackson and me on the floor before turning back to us, that smile on her face once again, but this time, aimed at me. I wanted her on the floor with us. I wanted my hands on her.

Skating had a way of liberating something inside of me. The freedom in the speed, in the movements, the way my heart and soul aligned, acting as a balm on my turbulent past. A temporary fix, a sliver of relief for old wounds, and a euphoric moment of absolution prompting me to do something incredibly stupid.

My hands, the treacherous little bastards, memorized her on contact. My fingertips flexed until they brushed over her waistband and found warm skin. I wanted her by her hips. I wanted her pinned to a wall all panting breaths as I devoured her. I wanted my name on an oath from her lips. Not Priest. Cain. Just Cain. I pulled her back and took her hand. Raising my arm, she ducked under and slid right into the spin. This. If we didn’t have to leave this moment, I could stay in this town and just do this for the rest of my days. Dangerous fucking territory. I needed to remember what I was. What I’d done. What I'd cost the people I loved. What I could cost her.

Taking her hand, I propelled us ahead of Jackson and handed her off. I needed the distance. To make sure she didn’t get the wrong idea. Okay, to make sure I didn’t get the wrong idea.

Jackson touching her grated on my nerves and in the span of a dozen beats, I was snatching her back from my friend, glaring at the fucking knowing g...

“She died.” I had to get out of here. I didn’t want this heart-to-heart. I didn’t want to give a shit. And I definitely didn’t want to bond over two dead mothers. I stood, grabbed my skates, and turned away from her without a glance. “You don’t have to leave.” Her words came out in a rush to my retreating back. Like she was desperate to hold on to something. Only I was a bad bet and the worst possible anchor in any damn storm. I stopped but didn’t turn around. “I think I do. This… whatever this is, it’s not a good idea.” “I thought you said you weren’t the enemy?” she said quietly, my words coming back to haunt me, like everything else in my past. Just one more reminder why this had to stop now, before it went too far. Before I lost the iron fist on my willpower and gave in to the attraction, immersed myself in her, until it soothed my loneliness or worse. Until she became someone I couldn’t walk away from. I turned to look at her one more time over my shoulder then. “And you said we aren’t friends.”

Yeah, that meant the heart-stopping ones too. Like Priest on that floor. God, the sight of him on skates, as if he spent more time on wheels than in shoes, sent a bolt of fire lancing through me that had every part of me capable of spine-tingling arousal standing to rapt attention. And I had questions…so many questions. Too bad we weren’t friends. I could kick myself for tossing those words out there. Actually, I could kick him for remembering them so well and tossing them between us like he’d just framed out a wall…with two-by-sixes instead of two-by-fours. The boy wasn’t just building any wall. He was building one to withstand a hurricane.

Derby coach didn’t mean skater. It never had. But Priest was a skater through and through. He moved with sleek confidence but fueled with a deep-seated disquiet. Skates with red leather flames streaking along the sides that inspired so much adoration in Noah, told a secret story. Only pieces remained out of reach…so many pieces. He didn’t look like a cop. He didn’t look like a disgraced coach. He didn’t look like the bad idea he was…at least according to my team.

He was way more than a gooey cookie, more than an edible, way more than a snack—he was a whole damn meal. A captain’s seafood platter piled high with fried haddock, whole-bellied clams, scallops, and shrimp with none of that pesky slaw on the side to take up space on the plate. No lemon wedge either. And fries? Fuck fries. He was a straight-out-of-the-sea-that-day, drool-worthy bag of yum fried in fresh oil. And this bitch was hungry.

Was I really that woman? The one who wanted a guy who could take control and did so without asking first. Yes, yes, apparently, I am.

And so what if he did commit to only hurting her. Every yell, curse, slap, punch, and kick, even if only directed toward their mother, was a yell, curse, slap, punch, and kick for them.

“Can we go skating again next week, Miss Maisy?” Noah asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with his fists. I laughed, his sour mood from earlier today all but forgotten. I bet Noah was going to set his cousin straight the minute he saw him again. “Let me talk to Eve, but I don’t see why not.” “Can Mr. Jackson and the man with the flames skate with us again?” “I’m sure Jackson can. I’m not so sure about Priest though. If I see him, I’ll ask. Okay?” Noah grinned. “Okay,” he said right before he took off at a run, chasing after Leo.

“I spotted Rylee outside my door at an unfortunate moment. The minute Rylee overheard me, I knew I’d screwed up, and if she was going to say anything, it would be to you.” She slumped even more at the admission. “That little girl adores you. You’re the first person who’s managed to earn her trust again.” I waited her out and didn’t say anything. Couldn’t say anything past the ache throbbing in my chest.

My past, my present, the memories made, the ones I thought would come to be, they tried to slip away with the news, destined to become fond recollections and lost connections if I didn’t do something, but fuck if I knew how to fix this.

“You didn’t see me cry, Mrs. Ru—Rita.” “Well, look at you, you finally did it. You finally called me by my name.” “Yeah, well, I needed you smiling. So smile. Because if you keep crying, I’m going to keep crying, and Rylee is going to be onto both of us.” “We’re equals now,” she whispered as she took my hands. “Yes, and we don’t have much time.” I blew out a rough breath and squeezed her fingers reassuringly before letting them go. “Okay. I’m calling a team meeting, and we’re going to figure something out.” “I love you girls so damn much, but don’t get your heart set on saving this. Really. It’s a lot of money, and the people in this town don’t have a lot to spare.”

“Yes, well, squeezing people means unexpected piles of shit too, so wear boots.” I laughed, the tightness easing in my chest when I did. “Good advice.” “Maisy?” Holding the edge of the door, I turned back to her. “Yeah.” “I just want you to know, the time you’ve spent here with us giving back, working with you after seeing you go through this program yourself—it’s been the highlight of my career.” I crossed the room and hugged her hard one last time. “Thank you, but wipe your eyes and prepare to be here for a good long time. We’re not going down without one hell of a fight.”

After sex-on-skates Priest whipped me into a tizzy with the way he commanded a roller rink, only to be plummeted off a cliff with a devastating blow an hour later at Crossroads, I needed to find my mellow or I wouldn’t sleep tonight. The tears had broken free again when I left the youth center, so I called Patti from the road. I know, I know, hands-free laws, but I made sure to pull over before I dialed and put her on speaker. I had to pull over anyway because trying to see through tears was like trying to find the road in a downpour with no wipers. Patti had mercy on my pathetic, sobbing, snotting soul and saved the corner booth and the surrounding tables so we could have an emergency meeting. She even helped me get ahold of the entire team, strong-arming them to be here at seven. Free booze worked wonders. Her idea of strong-arming. The idea was brilliant, really.