Saviors 101

Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Theresa looked for her new buddy-boy at the finish, in her trailer, and later at the bar as all the guys ate serious crow.

No weird dude named Virgil. No cool-as-s**t car.

Bastard was a no-show.

On her first win of all things. She was a Goddess tonight. Could do anything. Could get that car of his out on the speedway and see just what the old beast could really do through a four-banker track.

“Women aren’t shupposed to win at this sport. They aren’t shupposed to race in this sport.”

She’d heard that often enough. But Bobby Joe was too deep into slurland for her to be offended. The empty pitcher before him was number three or four. And she’d only drunk enough to be sociable. He’d caught heavy s**t from every driver there, the first one to lose to a woman, ever on this circuit, was a shitty place to be. The fact that all the others had lost to her as well was beside the point. Bobby Joe had been the closest, and he’d been saddled with letting down the honor of malekind.

Usually the winner couldn’t buy a drink on race night if they wanted to. Everyone just hanging on the edge to replay the race with them, and to be the one who paid for their poison. Instead, the only guy decent enough to sit with her was the one that no one else would sit with because he’d lost to a woman. And, she’d had to buy the last two pitchers. Yet another bias in the sport. But she’d known that already when she signed on. It wasn’t worth stressing over, but it was hard to shrug it off on her first winning race day.

They huddled together in the corner of the bar and watched the normal post-race festivities. The bar was extremely comfortable, there was at least one like it at every track on the circuit. And that was a sad comment on the state of the world.

The light bulbs that worked did nothing to light the tables where people had pulled too many chairs around too small a surface crammed with beer and large platters of nachos. The long bar had almost as many different beer taps as it did bottles of the harder alcohol. The traditional mirror was almost totally obscured by autographed pictures of drivers and their cars. From AJ and his first sprint car to Mario and his Formula One, though this track was way too new, and of the wrong type for either machine to have ever run here.

Three TVs glittered in the darkness showing a baseball game that almost no one watched. The sport moved way-the-f**k too slow.

The young buck drivers huddled close and watched the incredibly underdressed women who were trolling for them up and down the dingy room. Several of the married boys were doing a whole lot more than watching the parade. There’d be more of this sport’s interminable marriage problems by the end of the week. Jeffrey couldn’t keep his pants zipped, and was always getting caught. Andy, was, well, just a bit slow about the media and thought nothing of posing for the cameras with that night’s local beauty on his arm while his wife and the baby watched the footage from home.

She’d caused her share of trouble before she got her first ride. Then sweet old Manny had let her take his Pontiac out on the track one day and she’d never looked back. It had been a blast that practically drove her to orgasm, slewing that sweet racing machine around the track.

And luck had kissed her that day. The newly minted daughter-of-the-empire of the “Workouts for Women” gymnasium megalopolis had been in the stands and seen Theresa’s solo run to her first top-ten finish.

Now she drove a candy-red Toyota that sported the logo of the hottest workout system on the market, which was just fine by her. It earned her ride the nickname Lipstick Lady which bugged her at first, but once they started seeing more of her rear bumper than she saw of theirs, she minded less and less. Besides, she had an open ticket all over the country whenever she wanted to go sweat for a bit in a gym that was designed just for women.

It had taken her a long time. Tests and trials. And fighting to stay off the women’s circuits. She’d had to wrestle her way up from the sprints six years before, but she’d finally done it. The only “up” from here was Formula One and she wasn’t so sure that was an “up.” She was pretty happy where she was, her owner was ecstatic with the high finishing ratio, and the rest of the idiots would come around once she’d trounced them all a couple more times.

Driver-athletes, crew chiefs, and pit teams all mingled by the low-lit bar, just looking for a way to blow off the stress of race day before collapsing into their bunks out back in the trailers.

The only group that was “apart” stood as they always did. It didn’t matter which bar. Which city. Which state. These were the guys in the points circle. The high points. Her minor win and assorted top-fives barely got her noticed there, and for sure didn’t actually earn a place around that pool table. If she won four or five of the next dozen…Which wasn’t likely with how small and new her team was, but you never knew. They were pretty damn hot.

Tonight Theresa Peterson was just a blip on the chart. The press had hounded her with questions like: was she just a male-cross-dresser-to-deceive-them-because-there-was-no-way-a-woman-could-win? Every male in the joint, except Bobby Joe, was simply doing their damnedest to ignore her. Bobby Joe’s head had slipped to the table and a deeply adenoidal snore emanated from her companion lying in a shallow pool of sloshed beer.

She scanned the room one more time.

Her buddy-boy just wasn’t here.

That meant his wicked car wouldn’t be on the track either.

No wild s*x that would threaten to wreck the trailer either.

He was a cut above the guys in this room. Class, civility on the outside, a depth of knowledge that all the reading in the world wasn’t going to catch up with. One of those ageless guys it was hard to peg…And a complete raging loon.

Just what her mood needed at the moment.

There wasn’t a single one here she’d want to drag off to some dark corner. Not one. Well, okay. Vincent was gorgeous, single, and great in bed, but she’d been there. Done that. And Henry, ouch, he was looking good for being newly divorced. But for the winner to go begging, s**t, it was just too low.

The only thing that was going to make her feel better was kicking Dana’s butt all over Chraze. Tee was rated in the top fifty in the world and Dana hadn’t even played it yet. Oh, it was going to be so sweet to bring that girl down.

But that was tomorrow night.

Tonight was getting pretty sad.

Where the hell was her man?