One For The Road - Chapter 27: Chapter 27

"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.
My former teammate and crew chief? What in the fuck?
Griffin looked up at me and smiled. My god, it was the most heartwarming smile. "I wanted to see you kick the shit out of robots. That's so fucking awesome."
"Yeah, this seems like a total dude thing. What got you into it?" Paul asked.
I laughed. "Well, I tend to enjoy destruction and things that make really loud noises, and what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."
Paul looked all around the arena—the ceiling, the flattened carpeting, the windows that let in too much light—and said, "I almost thought you were just making this up because you didn't want Roger Truscott to win."
I shrugged. "Sounds like something I'd do, but this is legit. Very, very legit." I paused for a moment. "Do you guys want to see the robot? Her name is Sacrilege, or Peanut for short."
Griffin nodded. "Fuck yeah."
I led them back to our pit, even though I was very sure I wasn't supposed to do that. If someone would have stopped me, I would have listened, but people didn't usually tell me no, with only one recent notable exception.
Once again, Paul turned to look at everything in the room. There were a bunch of other teams stationed all around, and back in the corner, Megha Ratti squatted next to Amazon. She tossed her ponytail over her shoulder and tightened something with a screwdriver.
Was there a rematch in our future? I hadn't really improved since our last meeting, but I had a little extra motivation in my pocket this time around. My type were winners.
"Katie, come make yourself useful and hold this wire for me," Josiah said as he looked up. "Oh my god, who the hell are these people?"
"This is my best friend and former teammate Griffin Gallagher, and this is my old crew chief and replacement dad Paul York," I said.
"Get them out of here. The last thing you need is a distraction from what's really important," Josiah replied.
"Charming as always." I bit my lip. "Griffin, Paul, these are my new teammates Josiah and Drake."
"Thank God my girlfriend isn't here. She'd lose her mind over Griffin. She watched a bunch of interviews with you and Katie, and she was all like, Josiah, you should grow a beard so you can be hot like him." Josiah looked up from his work again. "Bye now."
Insecure much?
Good. He should have been.
"She likes me? Well, tell her that I said she has amazing eyes," Griffin said with a smile.
I rolled my eyes. "I need to get changed, so try to stop hitting on someone else's girlfriend."
Josiah laughed. "Real funny, Katie."
The firesuit was laid out on our table, and I picked it up. Annie really was the cutest thing ever for making it for me. She was so fucking talented, and yet she spent her time making sure everyone else was happy instead of herself.
I smiled at Josiah. "I'll be right back."
"Wait, you need to hold this wire so I can—" He stammered when I didn't turn around. "What the fuck? Drake, do something."
"She's just gonna do what she wants," Drake replied.
Indeed I was.
Since Cleveland was a bigger city than Akron, I had been to about a million concerts in the city while I was growing up, but I had never been to this venue, The Vision. Supposedly, it was for the artsy and edgy community, which is exactly why I had never heard of it. I wandered for a moment before I found the bathroom.
The stalls looked like they hadn't been cleaned in about a week, but combat robotics didn't really draw much of a crowd, so I just undressed in the middle of the restroom.
I pulled my hair out of my face and into a ponytail. There were fingerprints and streaks all over the mirror, but they didn't blur the dark circles under my eyes. Those were just a given in my chosen lifestyle, and they sure as hell didn't take any of the attention away from my new look for the tournament. The fire suit hugged a little tight on the thighs, but other than that, it was more than perfect.
"Holy shit, Annie," I mumbled to myself.
There was no way she should have been wasting her time with Josiah with a talent like that.
I rushed back to our pit, where only Drake and Josiah remained.
"Guys, guys. Look at this. Annie made this. How insane is that?" I turned around for them to see all my best angles. "Why the hell didn't you let her design outfits for the team before?"
Drake looked up from the robot, and his eyes stayed on my face rather than the fire suit. "Looks great."
"We don't need something so fucking stupid. It's a distraction," Josiah said.
I crossed my arms, and the fire suit moved right with me. She really knew what she was doing. "But it's fun, and I look cute as hell."
"Fun doesn't win fights, and neither does looking cute as hell."
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. "Whatever."
There were several fights scheduled before ours, and I scanned the rest of the pits. It didn't look like anyone else had a horizontal spinner as scary as ours, and as long as it was securely on the robot, I could probably knock some people out with sheer kinetic energy.
"So who is our fight today? Amazon seems like the most intimidating bot here, and I really want to win against Megha. She's cool," I said.
"She's only the second seed, so there's someone better than her." Drake nodded his head over to the table. "The bracket is over there somewhere."
"That's not what I asked. Who are we fighting?"
"What? Can't you read?" Josiah asked with a slight chuckle.
I lowered my eyebrows. "Of course I can. I made it through my sophomore year of high school, asshole."
"Doesn't mean you can read."
"Would one of you just tell me already?" The words slipped out a bit louder than I wanted, and a few people looked up at me. I smiled at them.
Theoretically, I could read. What more did they want from me? I drove shit for a living.
Drake let out a sigh. "It's a robot called Snowcone. I have no idea who that is, though."
"Snowcone is a badass name," I said. "Why didn't you guys come up with a cool name like that for Sacrilege?"
"Katie, just shut up, or I'll stab you with this." Josiah waved a tiny screwdriver at me. It was no longer than three inches, and it looked like it would tickle rather than hurt if he tried to kill me with it.
"Maybe I'd be a little more intimidated if it wasn't the size of your dick," I said.
He put the screwdriver down. "Alright, that was a good one. I can respect that."
Oh, Annie. You deserved so much better than that.
I smiled. "When'd you get a sense of humor?"
"Last night. Your misery brings me joy," Josiah said.
I looked over at Drake, who continued the last-minute preparations on Sacrilege. "Oh, so that's how this is going to be. You're gonna bitch because I'm the one with the balls to do something about the flirty bullshit."
"What aren't you getting? I don't know how the hell you think anything like that could ever end well," Drake said.
I knew damn well it wouldn't end well, but I was fun for a while, at least.
Josiah sat back and smirked. What a bitch.
"Why wouldn't it?" I asked. "Tell me why it would never end well."
Drake didn't answer for a moment.
"I'm serious, Drake. Is it me?"
"I told you already. We're in two very different stages in our lives," Drake said.
Yeah right. "Is that all?"
Josiah cut right into our conversation. "Plus you're fucking crazy, you do whatever the hell you want regardless of the situation and the consequences, you can't keep your mouth shut, you have a massive ego, and you act like you don't even want to be here."
I took in a breath and looked over at Drake.
"I never said all of that," he said.
I nodded slowly anyway. "Well, it all makes sense now. Thank you."
As much as I wanted to walk away, I couldn't. We still had a fight to win, and it wasn't the first time the person who owned the thing I drove didn't like me. But fortunately, I drove for myself, not the team.