Shift

It takes the man a few seconds to answer, the slow drawl of menacing laughter spilling out before his words.

“You tell him it’s Colt.” He winks before pushing his glasses back up over his eyes. My stomach rolls like I’m going to be sick.

I hold my stare on him to keep up my act, nodding before turning back to retrace my path and hunt down Dustin and Tommy. I don’t walk any faster than I did on my way up the path, but I want to. I want to very much.

“It’s ready, dude. Relax. We’ll pass; we always pass.” My brother is never stressed before a race, but Dustin becomes a ball of nerves. He’s pacing around the kart as I walk up to join them.

“We’re up next, boys,” my dad says, standing back to make room for the race inspector.

There’s a lot of cheating in kart racing, or at least in our region. People like to mess with the speed governors and make small adjustments that will get them one mile per hour over the next driver. My brother has a mechanical brain and he knows how to push everything right up to the line. Dustin always worries that he’s pushed a little too far. What’s fu

A quick glance over my shoulder confirms that the mystery man is still standing on the bar ledge, waiting for me to deliver his message. The glow from a cigarette flares briefly near his head. I turn back to face the kart as the inspector paces around it, then he kneels to measure tire pressure. Dustin’s knees pop in and out, the kind of dance a little kid does when they have a potty emergency. My brother is the exact opposite, his mouth rotating the toothpick he almost constantly chews. Dad is on his phone, probably texting my mom, so used to this process by now that he’s just counting the hours until he has to drive us all back home.

“Start her up.” The inspector glances toward my brother first, but Tommy nods at Dustin, who glides his way into the driver’s seat. Eventually, he gets the kart rumbling.

“You came back fast,” my dad says at my side.

I startle a little because I was deep in my thoughts, worrying about the message I have to deliver. I don’t have a good feeling about it, and I’m not sure telling Dustin before he hits the track is a good idea.

“Yeah, I ran into someone.” My expression probably looks confused, but it also must show my nerves because my dad turns me to face him and inspects me for injuries.

“Not, like . . . literally. I mean, someone is here . . . for Dustin.”

The color leaves my dad’s cheeks at my words, and his calm demeanor is replaced with a tightness in his jaw as his eyes harden their focus on me.

“Is something wrong?” Clearly there is.

“Stay here,” he says, squeezing both of my shoulders as if he’s physically planting me in place.

My dad leaves the boys to handle the rest of the check-in process and moves to the front of his truck, his eyes sca

The boys clear inspection easily, as they always do, and prep the kart for their heat. I want my dad to come back. The uneasy feeling I got from the bearded man has only gotten a stronger chokehold on me since my dad left. It’s a little cool out this morning, but that’s not the reason I feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing. Something isn’t right, and the fact Dustin and Tommy are heading out to the track under this dark cloud kinda feeling has me seriously on edge.

I stand on the hood of my dad’s truck to gain a better view, turning slowly to scan the heads in search of my dad’s dusty orange hat. When I don’t spot it on my second pass over the crowd, I decide to hop down and drag the wagon up the hill to our regular viewing spot, away from the bar.

When I die, I’m sure the coroner will find proof of years of octane-infused air in my lungs. I don’t do much to avoid it. Rather, I like the way it smells—the burn of gas and oil, the pungent scent of tire tread smoked along rough asphalt. Other girls can have their bath bombs and body sprays; racing aroma is my fragrance of choice.

I get my chair set up for the best view and pull the binoculars out of the bag my dad packed with snacks for the day, taking a granola bar for myself while I’m at it. I nibble at the oats and honey while I study my brother and Dustin as they inch up to their starting position. They have a good spot, not near the front but high for the first turn. Dustin will work his way out of the middle by the first two laps, easy.

“I see you found the snacks,” my dad says from behind me.

“Sorry I left. I didn’t want to miss the start.” I hold the binoculars up for him to use. He shakes my offer off, still more interested in studying everybody but Dustin and Tommy.

“Yeah, it’s okay.” He’s not paying attention to me and I can tell. I didn’t even tell my dad what the man looked like. I wonder whether he thinks this is about someone else, or if something is worse than it actually is.

“He had a beard,” I say, giving my dad details he hasn’t bothered to ask for.

“Yeah, I figured.” He nods but his eyes don’t shift to me. He’s still on guard.

“Who is he?” I focus on my dad’s face, looking for a sign as his mouth tightens and his eyes wrinkle at the sides. He hesitates to answer me, but he knows I won’t let up. I’ve never been the kind of kid who accepts what I’m told. I question everything. I’m going to be a lawyer one day.

“Kiddo, Dustin’s family isn’t like ours. You know that much, right?”

I nod because yeah, I know more than he probably thinks I do. Dustin has always gone to the same school as me. He can be a handful in the classroom, and when we were little, he got in fights on the playground all the time. He still throws a lot of punches, but he’s bigger than most of the other kids in junior high, so he doesn’t get hit so much himself. Somehow, though, his arms and sometimes his face, they always look bruised.

“That man you saw. That’s Dustin’s dad, I’m pretty sure.”

My instinct is to respond with Dustin has a dad? It’s just that none of us have ever seen him. When we all hang out, it’s always at our house. I’ve never asked why, but as I got older I assumed he was embarrassed about living in the trailer park. We have a pretty nice house with a pool, so it makes sense that when friends want to do something, we do it there.

“Does Dustin know he’s here?” I glance up to meet my dad’s waiting gaze as he hands the binoculars back to me with a shrug.

“I’m guessing no,” he says.

I suck in my lips and think about all the questions I could ask but don’t really need to—and maybe don’t want to. Thankfully, Dustin is driving in the first heat, and the a

“How are they going to do today?” I ask this question about every race. I grin as I take a sip of my soda, anticipating my dad’s usual answer.