Status: active af

Fallacies of Fidelity

Truth About Africa

Julia's POV

I had really missed racing. I missed the roar of the wind with my windows down. I especially loved when I got to take that stupid hat off and let my hair dance angrily in the wind; all the while with my music volume at it's highest level. It was a special kind of adrenaline rush that couldn't be beat.

“Did you sign enough autographs?” I looked over at Rex who was counting bills as he sat in the grass. He looked sort of silly. This 6'7, hulking man scrunched over with a pair of glasses on. It made me smile a little. We had returned to the shop after I signed some autographs and continuously refused pictures. Sure, I had a disguise, but if someone were searching for my face in Haley Winters, they would find it. I didn't particularly like the thought of being caught. We'd driven my Camaro to the hidden area that served as a street racing car garage. I covered my girl with her tarp and was now laying on the hood, watching the stars.

“I don't think I filled my daily quota, do you want me to sign one for you as well?” I replied.

He chuckled. “No, I think you signed me a big enough IOU to last me a lifetime's worth of autographs, Winters.”

I cringed, “You know I hate that name, Rex.”

“I do indeed, that's why I used it. So when are you paying me back, Julia?” He was now recounting and putting the money in 3 separate piles.

“Keep my portion. I'll keep racing until I pay you back. Are you sure you don't want me to sign my autograph for you? I hear I'm kind of a big deal.” I tried to divert the conversation away from the tension filled subject.

“The IOU has me covered.” Rex repeated. He didn't even protest when he mixed my pile with his. That was another thing I liked about Rex. He never questioned my choices; he understood that I knew what I wanted. In the same way, I never questioned Rex in his choices. “Maybe you should ask your boyfriend if he wants an autograph, he seemed pretty starstruck.”

I sucked in a breath. “He's not my boyfriend.”

Rex simply looked up at me then went back to counting money.

“I mean I like him, yeah. I liked the Alec that took me on a date--” I tripped over my words and Rex stilled. “I mean it wasn't a date, not at all a date.” He raised an eyebrow. “You impossible bastard. Anyways, he took me out to this small pizzeria and we went to Central Park. It was the most fun I'd had with a singular person in a long time. He just surprised me. I thought he was going to be your predictable rich boy who took me out to a expensive restaurant but he wasn't. I really appreciated that.”

“Have you guys had sex?” Rex asked.

I coughed loudly, “No, no we haven't. We haven't really done anything.”

He paused then stated, “You haven't even kissed him yet, you little shit head.” My silence was answer enough for him. “Wow Julia, this is the slowest I've ever seen you work.”

“Shut the hell up. I'm not the 16 year old smooth talking slicker I used to be.”

“Yes you are.” He was stood up, stuffing a wad of cash in his back pocket and took off his glasses. “You just don't want to be her anymore. I get it. You used to talk your way in and out of any situation. You'd make men get on their knees begging that they'd do anything for you. I should know, I was one of them once upon a time. Being away from that life changes you.” Rex gave me a stack of money and told me to give it to Alec who was working in the shop “We both know you weren't that far from that life when you were gone.” He messed up my hair with one hand. “You lost your confidence, Haddock. I don't know how. You beat 'Mad Dog' Williams for Christ sake.”

I smoothed my hair down. “He drives like he's drunk. It's a disgrace to racing. Also, he's a cocksucker.”

“Hey there ain't nothing wrong with being a cocksucker.”

I threw my head back and laughed, “Then he's a douche canoe.”

“That's better. Now, go talk to Alec. You're stalling.” He started to walk away but stood up and I grabbed his arm.

“The Alec tonight reminds me of when we were first dating.”

“Ah shit, really?” Rex scratched the back of his neck and took a long time before he continued. “Look, I said it before and I'll say it again. Alec is a good kid. You both are. He doesn't know you as well as I do, Julia. He'll understand you with time.” Rex gave me a smile, said goodnight, then went into his house.

A banging and then a grunting sound is what finally pulled me from the spot I was in. I open the garage door and saw Alec crawling out from under an SUV. “Shit.” He hissed out as he cleaned off his hands with a rag.

“What you working on?” I asked when I took a seat on a stool. He didn't bother looking at me when he crawled back under the vehicle and started clanging. “It didn't exactly come up in conversation.” I said. “Alec, you can't blame me. You have no right to judge me. We haven't known each other that long. You can't expect me to share every aspect of my life with you so early on in... whatever we are, jeez.”

He sighed from under the car. I could no longer hear him tinkering. “I know. That's what makes me so angry. I want to get to know you more.” He crawled out and leaned against the car. “I wasn't supposed to like you this much.” Alec barely whispered. I opened my mouth to question him but he continued with blatant questions. “What is up with you and Rex and where were you for seven years?”

I sighed and started to rub my temple. “I was going to tell you at some point. It might as well be now. My parents didn't exactly like me being in Africa. They hated it. Did you think I asked my parents if I could move to a different country at 16 and they agreed to pay for all expenses?” His eyebrows scrunched together. “They refused to pay for anything. I just wanted to get the hell out of Dodge.” I let out a quick laugh. “I was suffocating and I needed out. I started racing as soon as I got my license so I didn't have to rely on my parents anymore. It was probably six months later when I decided to leave; but I still didn't have enough money to support me for any sort of long period of time. Rex had booked my flight and I had the money for that but not much else.” I paused and took a breath. “The day I left, I cleaned Rex out. I took all the cash from this safe he used to have. I wrote a note to him and all it said was 'Sorry. Thank you.' So I owe him money. I owe him a lot of money. I know he'd brush it off if I asked him to but I want to pay him back.”

“You stole from Rex?” Alec pulled up one knee as he stared at me.

“Yeah, I did. I never contacted him. I hadn't talked to him in all that time until today.” I paused. “I was backpacking around Africa when I found this little village not that far from a town. That village became my home. After about a four months, my parents were so freaked out that I wasn't calling home crying. They hired agents to find me. I was a country over in Togo, helping move supplies, when they found me.” I yanked my vest closer to me and shivered. “They tried to take me back but I used to have a way with words. I could convince anyone to do anything I wanted them to. I was such a con artist.” I laughed without humor. “I told them to tell my parents that I would come home when I wanted to. They didn't come back looking for me but they left me $1,000 a month. I never used that money for myself. I always used it to help others. I hate my parents money and I refuse to use it on myself.”

“Why? Is it dirty money? Did they not come upon it honestly?” he asked. I cocked my head and stared at him.

“Of course they came upon it honestly. My parents aren't criminals.” I shook my head. “I learned to provide for myself. I don't like to lean on anyone for help. About a year after I got in Africa, I was asked to head all the way down to Botswana to bargain for vaccines. I had made the deal but I was told I'd have to wait a few days then we could take them. So, I waited around a few hours before I got bored. There was talk of a street race happening in South Africa. I knew I could get there and back in time, so I went. A racer was about to get in his car when he was shot in the leg. I know, he had terrible luck. Apparently he owed this guy money and he was behind on payment. His sponsor was having a cow when the driver got shot.”

“Sponsor?” Alec raised an eyebrow.

“It's a big thing over there. Crime gets shrugged off most of the time. So, the race was about to begin and I guess the sponsor had a shit ton of money on the race. He was asking people in the crowd if they could race and I didn't even think. I volunteered. He asked my name and I told him Haley Winters because Rex had picked out the alias when I first started racing. The sponsor told me his name was Mack and I got in the car. I won by a landslide. Racing always came easy to me; returning was like riding a bike. Mack was so thrilled that he offered me a job to race for him. Once a month, I would travel wherever he wanted me to and he would get 60% of the profit. I didn't care how much I was making, I just wanted to race and he was paying for all travel expenses. I got to travel all over the world.”

“Wait, how did your parents not get informed when you were using your passport that much? Also how did you afford a race car?”

“Fake passports was God's gift to man, I swear. I have several fake passports." I waved him off. "Mack sold the old racer's car and had enough money on the side to buy me the race car of my choice. So, I got the SLS AMG.” I leaned back against the work table behind me as he stared at me. “It was on sale! The guy who owned it did work on it to make it race worthy but he really didn't like the Mercedes-Benz, so we took it off his hands. Everything was great. I got to visit places I didn't even know I wanted to go to. It wasn't only Africa. I went to China, Thailand, Scotland, Greece, Portugal, Ukraine, and so many more.”

“Tokyo?”

“Yeah, I went to Japan.” I shifted in my stool until I couldn't get comfortable anymore so I stood up. “Mack didn't normally let me know who I was racing until I got there. He had too much faith in me. I needed to talk to a racer before each race to understand what kind of racer they were going to be. In the year that I was working with him, I had only lost one race and that was because my opponent shot my tire. Guns are really popular on that side of the world. That story's for another day.” I said when he looked like he was about to interrogate me. “Williams is an asshole. I knew who he was. I mean, I always try to find out who won the Prix each time. He didn't know who I was, though. I hope he didn't ever kiss his mother with that mouth because it was so dirty I wanted to crawl out of my skin talking to him. Sexual harassment didn't even cover what he said to me and that was before he knew were were racing each other. I had gotten my read on him. He was arrogant as fuck. Arrogant drivers never pay attention to the other racers. It makes their blind spots wider. When I got ahead of him near the end of the race, he clipped the back end of my car. If I wasn't anticipating foul play or if I was any other racer, he could have flipped my car into the crowd. It was so fucking reckless. I was dripping in rage when I had gotten in front of him. I was hoping he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol so that it could slightly excuse his behavior, but no. He was completely sober and clean. He just didn't give a fuck about anyone else.” I was shaking just thinking about it now.

“Are you cold?”

“No, just pissed. Then he made that comment about me being a girl and I broke his nose. It's still crooked.” I grinned, proud of myself, but it fell away quickly. “What the video didn't show afterwords was when he tried to kiss me. The sick fuck got off on it.” I spit out.

“Jules...”

“That's enough sharing for today, don't you think? Now, what's wrong under the car?” I refused to look at him.

“Nothing's wrong under the car. I was hiding from you.” Well, I already knew that. I nodded and ignored him when he got on his feet and he was making his way to me.

“So, what's wrong with it?”

“Transmission,” he breathed right behind me. “Jules...”

“Transmission, eh?” I started to walk towards the front of the SUV and Alec followed.

“Yeah, Transmission. Julia?”

“What do you want?” I turned and had to crane my neck up to meet his gaze.

I choked on the fast intake of air when Alec hand cupped my face and his thumb started to brush over my lips. “These distract me.” Then his mouth was on mine. It wasn't soft or sweet. It was hard and raw. I gasped and he took that opportunity to slip his tongue inside. This was savage. Our teeth were gnashing together as our tongues danced and slid around each other. His other hand gripped my waist and pulled me tightly against him. I didn't even notice my hands had made their way into his hair until they were tugging on the short strands.

Alec's growl reverberated through my body which brought up my own noise of approval. He pressed me against the hood of the car behind me as he trailed his hand from my waist, over my ass, to my thigh where he wrapped it around his hip. Then he leaned all his weight on me. It was my kind of breathless. I broke our mouths apart so I could travel my kisses across his jaw. “Oh fuck.” Alec stuttered when I bit hard on his earlobe. One of his hands was now on my neck and the other was gripping my thigh so hard I thought it would bruise. My body arched into his. He desperately connected our lips again. Just when my fingers dug into Alec's shoulder, his fingers made their way under my shirt.

“Hey sorry, I forgot my cell-- oh well damn, it's about time.”

Alec was off of me so quick you would have thought I was on fire.

“You ruin everything.” I said breathlessly. I was still laying back on the hood of the car but now my head was facing Rex.

“Yup, just call me 'Rex 'fucks everything up' Foley.'”

I laughed and shook my head at him. I looked over at Alec who was still breathing hard but now he was looking between Rex and I. “You never really answered what's happening between you two.”

“Us?” Rex now had his phone but he had stopped moving.

“Yeah, what the hell is happening? Are you guys looking to get back together or...? I don't know what to do, man. I'm so confused.” He looked so confused that he might spontaneously combust.

I sat up, “Oh honey.” My hand went to my mouth. Alec looked over at me. I could tell he wanted to finish what we started but he wasn't moving until he got answers. “Rex is gay.”

Alec stopped breathing and his eyes turned wide when he stared at Rex.

“Why else do you think I made you work for me? I needed something to look at to get me through the day.” Rex winked at him, then he left.

And I don't think I've ever laughed harder in my entire life.
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