Page 17 of Scoring Chances
Keelan side-eyes him and cracks open a beer. Not saying anything in rebuttal. Instead he looks at me. “I can take you shopping… if you like.”
“What? No, you don’t have to do th–”
“I’ll take you,” Joshua says. “You don’t mind watching the kids for a few right, Lando?”
Keelan looks between me and Joshua. “Uh… nope. Not at all. Just be back before it’s time to go. You can manage that right, Hicks?”
Joshua glares at him before grabbing his keys off the counter. “Got it, Cap.”
Keelan pulls out the chair on the other side of Parker. “I’ll take it from here. You go ahead, Cassidy. Get something pretty. Make sure it’s expensive and let him pay,” he says, winking.
I look over at Joshua, who is waiting for me in the hallway. “Okay.”
“Can I go too?” Maddie asks.
I can audibly hear the frustrated sigh that comes from Joshua before he says, “Sure. Come on, brat.”
“Jar!” Maddie says, jumping from her chair.
“What?! That’s not jar-worthy.”
“I don’t know… calling your sister a brat is pretty cringey,” she says, following him out.
“Good luck with those two,” Keelan says to me.
“Thanks.” I follow them out the front door and out to Joshua’s car. He opens the door and helps Maddie into the tiny backseat, before sliding the passenger seat back into place and patting it for me. Once I’m inside he shuts the door and slides smoothly into the driver’s seat.
“I couldn’t help but notice you have a pretty sick car,” he says.
I look at my hunk of junk parked off to the side beside Keelan’s yellow Bronco. “That car?”
He nods. “You ever drift it?”
He throws the car into first gear and we weave around the other cars and onto the road. “Uh… no.”
“Seriously, why not?”
“What’s drift?” Maddie asks.
“It’s when you make a car go sideways on the road, like this,” he rounds the corner and pulls the e-brake sending the Mustang sliding just slightly, before counter-steering it back and straightening it out.
Maddie and I both momentarily freak out and start laughing once he’s driving normal again.
“Is that a thing with my car?” I ask, surprised.
His jaw goes slack. “An ‘86 Toyota Corolla? Are you kidding me? That’s the thing to do with that car. Have you never seen Initial D?”
I shake my head.
“Ok, movie night," he says. "After the baby shower. I need all of us to pile into the movie room for an Initial D marathon. You’re going to see just what your car can do.”
He shifts up again as we make our way out of the neighborhood. He handles this car so smoothly. Mine is a stick shift as well but there’s no way I can drive it as smoothly as him. It was my dad’s who passed it down to my older brother who gave it to my older sister and now I’m sibling number three to own it.
“I can barely get it out of first gear. And if I ever get stuck on a hill… it’s game over for me and the car.”
“Do you not know how to drive stick?”
I shrug. “I mean… I can get from point A to point B, so far. But it’s not without it’s share of anxiety the entire time.”