Speed

Book 2: A 44 Chapters Novel

by BB Easton

Genres: Coming of Age; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

With Netflix adapting BB's 44 Chapters About 4 Men into a series, you're going to want the full story behind her outrageous adventures.

Because BB Easton had so much fun writing her bestselling, award-winning memoir, she decided to give each of her four men his own steamy standalone. Speed is Harley's audio book—a gritty, '90s-era love triangle overflowing with dark humor, intense heat, and tangible teen angst. It is based on a true story.

Ronald "Knight" McKnight was Obsessive. Possessive. Downright psychopathic. But that didn't stop me from falling in love with him...or falling apart when he joined the Marines. When he left, Knight told me to "find someone better," but I didn't.

I found Harley instead.

Harley James was a fun, flirty, tattooed mechanic whose face was as angelic as his secrets were sinful. He taught me how to live again. How to laugh again. But would he teach me how to love again?

Over Knight's dead body.

Release date: November 19, 2019

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 400

Sample

ATV (abv.)—All-Terrain Vehicle.

 

AWOL (abv.)—Away Without Leave. A military term used in reference to soldiers who have left their posts without proper clearance.

 

Bajillion (noun)—a made-up number somewhere between one billion and a shitload.

 

Benzo (noun)—Slang. An illicitly used antianxiety pill belonging to the benzodiazepine classification. Examples include Xanax, Valium, Ativan, and Klonopin.

 

Crotch Rocket (noun)—Slang. A specific type of imported motorcycle, characterized by a lightweight, aerodynamic body and favored by street racers.

 

Cumtrillionth (noun)—a person’s bajillionth orgasm.

 

Dip (noun)—Slang. Chewing tobacco.

 

DMV (abv.)—Department of Motor Vehicles.

 

Doobie (noun)—Slang. A term hippies use in reference to a hand-rolled marijuana cigarette.

 

Factory/Stock (adj.)—a vehicle with no aftermarket modifications.

 

Fastback (adj.)—the sexiest muscle car body style ever made, characterized by a roofline that slopes in one continuous line down the back of the car to the rear spoiler.

 

Five-oh (noun)—Slang. A Ford Mustang with a five-liter V8 engine, produced from 1979–1993. The term refers to a small silver emblem affixed behind the front-wheel wells on this particular model that read 5.0.

 

Fishtail (verb)—Slang. When the back end of a vehicle slides from side to side due to a handling or traction problem.

 

Flophouse (noun)—Slang. Cheap or free lodging with minimal amenities, often inhabited by several people at once and used as a place to hide from the police and/or do drugs.

 

Four twenty-nine (noun)—Slang. A vintage Mustang with a 429 cubic-inch engine.

 

Gutter punk (noun)—Slang. A homeless or transient youth whose appearance and lifestyle choices are associated with the punk subculture.

 

Head Shop (noun)—a retail store specializing in marijuana and tobacco paraphernalia.

 

Hooptie (noun)—Slang. A large, older model American sedan, often in poor condition but equipped with flashy aftermarket modifications.

 

Jarhead (noun)—Slang. A derogatory term used to describe a member of the United States Marine Corps. It is in reference to the flattop-style haircut that many Marines have, which makes their heads appear to be jar-shaped.

 

Jackalope (noun)—a mythical creature of North American folklore, created when deer antlers are affixed to a taxidermic jackrabbit.

 

Juvie (noun)—Slang. Juvenile Detention Center. A prison-like institution for minors.

 

Kegger (noun)—Slang. Keg party. A social gathering of teens and young adults centered around a metal barrel full of cheap, piss-colored beer.

 

MDMA (abv.)—the street drug methylenedioxymethamphetamine, commonly referred to as ecstasy.

 

Motorhead (noun)—Slang. A car/racing enthusiast who has a wealth of knowledge about auto mechanics.

 

Mudding (verb)—Slang. Driving an all-terrain or four-wheel-drive vehicle off-road in muddy areas, such as creek beds or fields after a hard rain. The objective of this recreational activity is to get one’s vehicle as filthy as possible without getting it stuck.

 

Narced (verb, past tense)—Slang. To inform the police or authorities that someone is in the possession of illegal drugs. Derived from the word narcotics.

 

Natty Ice (noun)—Slang. Natural Ice, an inexpensive brand of American beer, favored by rednecks.

 

Nine-eleven (noun)—Slang. A Porsche 911 model.

 

Peater (noun)—Slang. A made-up word for a passive cheater.

 

POS (abv.)—Piece Of Shit.

 

Priors (noun, plural)—Slang. Prior convictions.

 

Racing slicks (noun, plural)—Special racing tires that are extra wide and have a smooth surface rather than tread.

 

Rager (noun)—See Kegger.

 

RBF (abv.)—Resting Bitch Face.

 

Redneck (noun)—Slang. A derogatory term used to describe a rural, working-class white person from the southeastern United States. The term refers to the tendency for men from these backgrounds to have sunburns on the backs of their necks due to working manual labor jobs outside.

 

Rolling (verb)—Slang. To be high on MDMA/ecstasy.

 

RPM (abv.)—Revolutions Per Minute.

 

Shittastic (adj.)—the polar opposite of fantastic.

 

SoCo (abv.)—Slang. Southern Comfort, a brand of whiskey.

 

Spoiler (noun)—a flap or arch on the back of a car, designed to reduce drag and improve aerodynamics.

 

Skin (noun)—Slang. A member of the skinhead subculture.

 

Torque (noun)—an automotive measurement of how quickly a vehicle will accelerate, considered more important than horsepower in short-distance street racing.

 

Twenty-twos (noun)—Slang. Twenty-two-inch wheels.

 

Wifebeater (noun)—Slang. A fitted, ribbed white cotton tank top designed to be worn by men as an undergarment. The term refers to the abusive, working-class male characters who tend to wear these garments in classic American films.

 

Winch (noun)—a motorized rotating drum designed to reel in a length of cable attached to something very heavy. For example, a truck that has gotten stuck in the mud, like a little bitch.

June 1998

When I woke up on my sixteenth birthday, I didn’t leap out of bed to go get my driver’s license. I wasn’t thinking about the appointment I had to buy my first car that afternoon—a car that I’d been saving for since the day I turned fifteen and was legally able to work. I didn’t give two shits about going to the mall, or opening presents, or eating a fucking piece of fucking cake. All I wanted for my birthday was to sleep through it, because whenever I was awake, so was my gnawing, soul-crushing pain. I could feel it chewing through the lining of my stomach, devouring my once-bubbly personality, sucking the energy from my bones like marrow, swallowing my will to live. Being eaten alive hurt. Being awake hurt. Being asleep didn’t.

I reluctantly opened my eyes and glanced over at the nightstand. The red numbers on the clock announced that I’d slept past noon again. The blueberry muffin sitting next to it with a candle shoved haphazardly in the top told me that my mom must have come in and tried to wake me up. My wide-open blinds, which were letting in an obscene amount of summer sun, let me know that she’d tried more than once. And that little white pill and glass of water on my nightstand? Well, those only pissed me off.

I sat up and squinted at the assorted bullshit on the table until I spotted my pack of Camel Lights. Swinging my spindly legs over the edge of the mattress, I reached past the food and water, opting for poison instead. I lit a cigarette and waited for that comforting, calming first inhalation to do its thing, but even smoking had become joyless. Just like everything else, I was going through the motions.

Hand to mouth.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Repeat.

I ashed my cigarette in an empty Altoids tin on the nightstand and stared at the pill my mother had left for me—the tiny white hope that had turned out to be just another disappointment. I picked it up and inspected it. If it hadn’t had the word PROZAC stamped on the side of it, I would have assumed they’d just been giving me Tic Tacs.

That shit did nothing. Nothing but mute the vibrant colors of my world to a dirty, dull gray. Instead of my feelings being a violent riot of bitter, angry crimsons, churning, crashing ceruleans, and blinking, cautionary yellows, my inner world was now as gray as the cloud of smoke that hung four feet above the floor and three feet below the ceiling in my bedroom. As gray as my skin, which now draped between my ribs and puddled in the hollows of my cheeks and eye sockets.

As gray as the fading knight tattoo on the inside of my wedding ring finger.

I threw the glorified breath mint across the room and listened to the plink, plink, plink sound it made as it bounced off the wall, onto my “desk”—which was just two filing cabinets and an old door that my mom had scrounged up at Goodwill and spray-painted black—and landed in a heap of shiny Army-green nylon on the floor.

My chest felt as if someone had come up behind me and yanked the laces on an invisible corset. Tears stabbed at the corners of my eyes as images began flashing, unbidden, behind them. Images of a skinhead standing behind me at my locker, sliding a tiny green flight jacket up my arms and over my shoulders to warm my perma-chilled skin. Images of his smile when he turned me around to admire the fit. I’d never seen him smile before. Not like that. I’d wanted to make him smile again, but instead, I made him scowl when I told him I couldn’t keep his gift. When I rejected him, just like everyone else had.

I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed the heels of my palms into them, trying to rid myself of the memory. The flashbacks were only getting worse. The doctor had acted like this was a simple case of normal teenage depression. Like all I needed was a little Prozac and some R&R to clear it up. Like watching your psychopathic, steroid-fueled skinhead boyfriend beat a man to death was normal. Like losing your childhood best friend to suicide and helping your hemorrhaging best friend deliver a baby in the same day was normal. Like having your first love suddenly join the Marines right before you found out that he might have cheated on you with a guy was normal.

Well, it didn’t fucking feel normal. It felt heavy. The gravity of those compounded traumas was pulling me under, and I was too weak to swim to the surface. Too tired. Instead, I just sat on the bottom of the deep end and wondered how long I could hold my breath. Although my eyes stung from peering through nicotine instead of chlorine, my slowed, effortful movements, the weight pressing down on me, the alternating bouts of panic and resignation were all the same.

I was drowning.

Just not fast enough.

Without thinking, I stamped out my cigarette and stood up. Stars danced before my teary eyes, and tunnel vision threatened, but I pushed through the dizziness, fueled by my pain. Grabbing the vile baked good on my nightstand, I headed toward my parents’ master bathroom in search of relief.

Out of habit, I crumbled the muffin into the toilet and flushed, destroying the evidence. I used to not eat because I wanted to be skinnier, prettier, Kate Mossier. Now, I didn’t eat because I couldn’t fucking eat.

Because I was the one being eaten.

In a frenzy, I threw open my mom’s medicine cabinet, fully prepared to swallow the contents of anything and everything I could get my hands on just to make the ache go away.

But it was empty.

I yanked the mirror on my dad’s side of the double vanity away from the wall as well. Empty. The stash of prescription opiates, antianxiety medications, and muscle relaxers I had known I would find there was just gone. Even the over-the-counter painkillers and cough syrups had vanished into thin air. Rummaging through their drawers, cabinets, closets, dressers, I found nothing but toiletries, makeup, and clothes.

No.

No.

No!

My heart raced as the room began to tilt on its axis. I’d rushed in there, expecting to find the exit to my worst nightmare, but instead, I’d found myself trapped inside. There was no escape, and the walls were closing in.

Struggling to breathe, I clutched the edge of the bathroom counter and screamed, “Mom! Moooooom!”

My knees gave out before I heard her footsteps make it to the top of our squeaky stairs.

“Jesus Christ, BB,” my mother said as she walked in on her emaciated daughter kneeling in front of her vanity with her forehead pressed to the cabinet door. “What’s wrong?”

Everything. Every-fucking-thing.

“I can’t find the Tylenol,” I choked out.

“Do you have a headache, honey?” she said in that sweet, sympathetic voice that always made me want to curl up into her lap and cry.

I squeezed my eyes shut and nodded into the knotty wood.

“I’m sorry, baby. Must be a migraine, huh? Let me get you some Excedrin.”

Instead of opening a cabinet or a drawer, my mom opened her closet door, right behind me. I turned and watched as she slid an armful of hanging tie-dyed sundresses aside and began turning the silver knob on a small black safe left and right. I couldn’t see what she was doing once the door to the safe was opened, but I heard the familiar rattle of pill bottles as she rummaged around, looking for what she thought I needed.

When my mom reemerged from the closet with two little white pills in hand, I asked with betrayal in my voice, “Why is all the medicine in there?”

My mom looked around the bathroom and twirled a lock of long red hair around her finger, like she always did whenever she was uncomfortable. “Well, honey,” she said, mustering a sad smile as her soft, earthy green eyes finally landed back on me, “that psychologist we took you to said that it might be a good idea for us to lock up all the pills in the house…and the weapons. You know, until you’re feeling better.”

The slap of those words knocked what little air I’d been able to swallow right back out of my lungs. Twin tears rolled down my pale, gaunt cheeks as I stared into my mother’s face. Her small, reassuring smile did little to mask the pain in her exhausted eyes. Then, I broke the fuck down. Sobs shook free of my bony frame as the gravity of the situation sank in.

My mother had just saved my life.

Sitting next to me on the floor, my mom pulled me into her side and shushed me as I cried. “You know,” she said, smoothing a hand weathered from decades of drawing and painting and sculpting down my freckled arm, “I think you should stop taking those pills. I did some research, and one of the side effects of antidepressants in teenagers is suicidal thoughts.”

“Really?” I said, pulling the neck of my oversize T-shirt over my face to wipe my eyes and nose. I hoped she was right. Blaming the drugs for what I had almost done made me feel like less of a monster.

“Really. Honey, I think you just need to get your feelings out. Do you want to talk to a counselor? Or paint? You used to love to paint. Or maybe you could write? You know, I read that writing letters to people and then ripping them up can be really therapeutic. Or maybe I saw that on Oprah.”

Sitting with my back against the cabinet doors, my knees and face tucked inside the T-shirt I’d worn to bed the last few nights, I nodded. “Maybe I’ll try that,” I mumbled into the tear-soaked cotton. Then, taking a deep breath, I lifted my head and forced a smile for my mom’s benefit. “After we go get my car.”

 

 

Of course, before I could pick up my car, I had to stand in line at the DMV for two hours, try—and fail—to parallel park my mom’s Taurus station wagon for a woman with a clipboard and a fortuitous amount of apathy, and then stand in line again to get my sunken-eyed, shaved-headed, skeletal picture taken.

Nobody likes their driver’s license picture, but mine was physically hard to look at. I looked like a cancer patient. Or a drug addict. I looked like I was dying.

Because I was.

Over a boy.

In fact, everything I’d ever done up to that point had been in the name of a boy. One of my earliest memories is of me letting my kindergarten crush cut off one of my pigtails. Appropriate, considering that I’d been handing chunks and pieces of myself to boys ever since. Maybe that’s why I was almost thirty pounds underweight. I’d finally given too much away.

Driver’s license in hand, I went to see a man about a Mustang. I was a muscle car girl on a Ford Escort budget, but I managed to find a ’93 Mustang hatchback with a five-liter engine and, much to my dismay, a stick shift transmission for pretty cheap. I didn’t have enough money saved to buy it on my own yet, but my mom agreed to loan me what little savings she had to make it work. I think she was more excited about me not having to rely on boys for rides than I was.

I should have been elated. I’d wanted a car—a Mustang—for as long as I could remember. But as I sat in my new/used car in the driveway of my parents’ house and pictured the faces of all the people who wouldn’t be sitting in those passenger seats, the gaping holes in my life only became more apparent.

Knight? Boot camp.

Juliet? Baby duty.

August? Dead.

Lance? Dead to me.

Before my pity party had a chance to bust out the keg and throw on a mix tape, a dusty old Toyota Tercel with a glowing pizza delivery sign on top came barreling up our quarter-mile-long driveway. My parents and I lived in a little gray house out in the middle of the Georgian wilderness. My mom liked it because she could hide her pot habit out there, and my dad liked it because he was under the impression that the government was tapping the phones and itching to take his guns away. I fucking hated it because I lived at least half an hour away from all my friends. Back when I had friends, that was.

I sighed and slid down in the driver’s seat to avoid having to interact with anyone else in my broken condition.

I listened for the sound of Pizza Guy’s car leaving, but instead heard my mom yell, “BB…Bee Beeeeee…Come eat, baby!” totally blowing my fucking cover.

I sighed and got out of the car, ducking my head to avoid Pizza Guy’s gaze when we crossed paths. I didn’t want to see his reaction to the tiny, frail, pale, boy/girl-looking thing that had just emerged from a parked car with rolled up windows in the middle of June. I already knew that I looked like Gollum crawling out of his cave for the first time. I didn’t need to see it written all over some stranger’s face.

Instead of our usual TV trays in the living room, my parents and I sat at the kitchen “island”—a cheap high-top table and a couple of stools my mom had scored at Walmart—to endure all of the obligatory birthday things. After the pizza, which I’d barely touched, my mom presented me with one of her signature misshapen, slightly burned, homemade cakes. True to form, my pothead parents couldn’t find any candles, so my mom lit a match and shoved it into the frosting. She and my dad sang me, “Happy Birthday,” and I smiled politely, counting the minutes until I could run up to my room and smoke a cigarette.

When I was done pushing crumbling cake around on my plate and feeding covert forkfuls of it to our golden retriever, my dad handed me a piece of paper. “Happy birthday, kiddo,” he said with a smile.

The man had been unemployed for years, so I knew the gift was actually from my mother, but the fact that he was beaming from ear to ear as he handed it to me told me that he was definitely the one who’d picked it out—whatever it was.

As I unfolded the page, the curious wrinkle in my brow smoothed and lifted all the way up to my hairline. It was a picture of four shiny five-spoke alloy pony wheels. The Mustang I’d bought came equipped with the most embarrassing set of plastic hubcaps—the tires were pretty damn worn, too—but it never occurred to me to ask to have them replaced.

“Your mother just wanted to get you some safer tires, but I talked her into a little upgrade,” he said with a wink. “You’ve got an appointment to get them installed at A&J Auto Body on Monday.”

Whoever said money can’t buy happiness never gave a set of pony wheels to a muscle-car-loving girl from a working-class family on her sixteenth birthday. I think it was the first time I’d smiled in weeks. Smiled? Hell, I screamed. I hugged. I jumped up and down.

Then, I ran upstairs, popped a Camel Light in my mouth, and called my last remaining friend to tell her the news. When Juliet asked, over the sound of a crying infant, if I’d had a good birthday, I told her yes. And, much to my surprise, I think I almost meant it.

Evidently, A&J Auto Body was the cheapest shop in town—and for good reason. The place was grimy as hell and appeared to have been decorated by a blind person in the 1970s. A squat, furry, troll-like man who looked like he had a dark brown toupee stuffed in the collar of his shirt greeted me with a grunt, then took my keys and left me standing at the front desk.

Not knowing where to go, I wandered through a door to what I assumed would be a nicotine-colored waiting area but instead found myself in the main garage. I normally would have just turned around and gone back in, but the car on the lift closest to me refused to let me leave.

It was love at first sight. A late ’60s Mustang fastback body style, matte black paint job, matte black rims, blacked-out windows, and a massive open-air scoop on the hood. It looked like something straight out of Mad Max.

“Can I help you with somethin’?”

I turned and met the amused stare of a broad-shouldered, baby-faced, blue-eyed mechanic. His dirty-blond hair was pushed back in a messy pompadour. His forearms were covered in hot-rod tattoos. His pouty bottom lip was pierced. And his name was embroidered on the A&J Auto Body shirt hugging his hard chest.

Hellooo, Harley.

“Sorry,” I sputtered. “I know I’m probably not supposed to be back here, but I…” I looked back up at the beast on the lift, and a deep longing seized my chest. “I can’t leave her.”

Harley—if that was even his real name—chuckled and said, “So, you like the ladies, huh?”

“What? No!” I snapped.

“Good.” The mechanic smiled, and the twinkle in his mischievous blue eyes reminded me just how much I liked boys.

Trying to bring the subject back to cars and away from my sexual orientation, I looked around the garage and pointed to my faded black hatchback on the farthest lift. “I drive the baby version of this.”

Harley glanced over at my most prized possession and nodded in approval. “Five-oh, huh? Not bad. Manual or automatic?”

“Manual,” I groaned.

“No shit? Your boyfriend teach you how to drive that thing?”

“No,” I said, letting my mouth hang open in pretend offense.

“Ah.” Harley nodded. “You met him after you got the car.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I said, rolling my eyes.

God, he was cute. The guy had a face like James Dean and a body like Dean Cain. And that accent. Living in the South, southern accents are a dime a dozen, but Harley’s was just subtle enough to be cute. Cute, cute, cute.

Harley smirked at me and asked, “Your old man must be a car guy then, huh?”

“You got me.” I smiled. “I’ve been hoarding all his old Muscle Car magazines since I was a kid. I used to cut out all the Mustang pictures and tape them to my bedroom walls, but the tape fucked up the Sheetrock, so my mom bought one of those clear plastic shower curtains with the photo pockets and—”

Harley held up a hand to silence me. “I’m gonna have to stop you right there,” he beamed, “‘cause right now all I can picture is you in the shower, and I’m pretty sure I’m not gonna be able to process another word you say.”

Oh my God!

I could feel the prickly heat of a blush creeping up my neck. I bit the insides of my cheeks to keep my face from splitting open into a blotchy, big-toothed grin caused by his sexy little comment. This guy, Harley, had to be in his early twenties, he was fiiiine as hell, and he was flirting with me.

Having no idea how to respond to that, I tried again to change the subject. “So, what do you drive?”

“Hmm…” Harley tilted his head and smirked. “Why don’t you take a guess?”

Oh, we’re playing games now. Okay…

I tapped my lips with my fingertips and eyed him, thinking hard.

“You strike me as a…Volkswagen Beetle kinda guy.”

Harley almost laughed, then quickly scowled, trying to look offended.

“Wood-paneled Pinto?”

Harley pursed his ample lips, fighting back a grin.

“No? Hmm. Oh, I got it. Geo Metro.”

That one had him wrinkling his nose in genuine horror.

“I know! It’s a trick question! You drive a Vespa!”

Snort.

I was running out of ideas, so I looked around the shop and spotted a ’64 Impala lowrider. “Ooh! I found it. Right there,” I said, pointing to the hooptie. “The gold rims were a nice touch. I bet you even put hydraulics on it, didn’t you?”

Harley finally let out the laugh he’d been biting back. It was deep and raspy and made my insides tingle.

“You’re getting warmer,” he said. “It’s actually on hydraulics right now.” Harley lifted an oil-smudged finger and pointed to the matte black sex machine above my head.

“No!” I screamed and smacked him in the chest with the back of my hand. “No fucking way!”

“Yep. That’s my old lady.” Harley beamed.

“Oh my God! That’s yours? Yours? Like you own it? And you get to drive it? Holy shit! What year is it? A ’69? What engine does it have? Is it all original?”

Harley cocked his head to one side and said, “You said you’re a muscle car girl—you tell me.”

“Oh, shit.” I rubbed my hands together, accepting his challenge. “Let’s see…if it’s a ’69, which I think it is, then it could be a GT, a Mach One, or a Boss. Or an E, but those are super rare. The GTs had different hood scoops than this one, and I’m pretty sure the Mach Ones had cable and pin tie-downs. So, this has got to be a Boss, right? But is it a Boss 302 or a Boss 429? Ugh!”

Harley let out a low whistle and clapped his oil- and tattoo-covered hands together a few times. “Damn, girl. If you weren’t so young, I’d ask you to marry me.”

I laughed on the outside, but on the inside I was doing fucking round-off back handsprings. The owner of that car, and that face, and that body, and those tattoos was flirting with me!

Unable to filter my big fucking mouth, I said, “You know, sixteen-year-olds can get married in the state of Georgia as long as they have a note from their parents.”

Harley laughed and said, “Well, hell. I guess I’d better scrounge up a ring quick ’cause I’m not lettin’ you get away.”

My stomach did a double salto with a full twist and stuck the fucking landing.

I decided to change the subject from our impending engagement back to the car, if only to help me regain my composure.

“So, is it a 302 or a 429?” I asked, nudging my head toward the matte black orgasm on wheels above us.

“Guess you’re just gonna have to wait to find out.”

“Ah, man!” I whined. “Wait until when?”

“Tonight.” Harley grinned at me like the devil himself, about to convert another sinner. “I’m taking you to the track, lady.”

Lady? Lady. Lay-DEE? LAY-dee.

On the way home from the shop, I replayed my conversation with Harley—the hunky, tattooed, baby-faced mechanic—over and over in my head. Not only was I smiling for the second day in a row, but I also couldn’t fucking stop. I was driving my very own Mustang—with shiny new pony wheels, thankyouverymuch—and I had a date that night with the sexiest motherfucker I’d ever seen in my life.

And he’d called me lady.

Lady. I liked it. It sounded so grown-up. Strong. A . . .