Carpe Diem - Jesse 3 (13 page)

All I heard was, “That's never going to work...” and then the voices dropped so low I couldn't hear anymore.

What's never going to work? Suspicious thoughts began flying through my mind.
Those mother fuckers had better not be messing with my bike.

I picked up my pace and jogged over to my mechanic, Jamie. “Has Ice been near my bike?”

“No, why?”

“Start it up, let's hear how it sounds.”

Jamie's brow furrowed. He didn't understand. He was trustworthy, but he wasn't jaded enough to even imagine what those other fuckers might do.

Jamie obliged and started the engine for me.

“It sounds fine, but don't let any other mechanics touch it. Only you. I don't know who to trust, anymore. Just watch out for it, will you?”

He cut the engine. “Sure, man. You got it.” His answer came with a look of bewilderment, just as Coach approached us.

Scratching a pencil on a tablet of paper attached to his clipboard, Coach didn't even look up at me when he barked out, “Jesse, I want you and Santini up against each other.”

“Why? He's not even in the 450 division.”

“I'm just covering all the bases, Jesse. And don't throw a fit every time I make an executive decision.”

“But whose bike is he going to ride? Not mine, I don't want him touching any of mine.”

“Jesse.” His voice was short and curt. “I'll have him ride one of Ice's bikes.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“Shut it, Jesse. Be on the starting line in fifteen minutes.”

Coach shoved his pencil behind his ear and stomped off.

*~*~*

C
overed in mud that had been kicked up from the track, I throttled hard coming out of the turns. It had rained earlier in the morning and the turns were treacherous. I could handle it. I hoped Santini couldn't, that little fucker. No one was going to take my number one rank away from me. I took the lead using all my skills and my special affinity for wet tracks, along with my cunning and guile, as Santini and I battled it out, lap after lap. I pulled strong in the end and laid down my fastest lap of the day. Then a chaotic chain of events unfolded and I made one slight miscalculation. My bike went down on its side. I let go to set it free, and it continued sliding out from under me until it hit the rails of hay on the perimeter of the track and came to a sputtering stop. Instinctively, I tucked and rolled away from the bike and managed to avoid any serious injury, though I hit the ground pretty hard. In the final moments, Santini crossed the finish line, a virtual streak of colors as he flew over the finish marker.

Fuck. He won.

Coach, Jamie, and even Ice, came running over to see if I was injured and to help me up, but Coach told me to stay down until the doctor could examine me in case of a neck or spinal injury. The doctor came rushing up a few steps behind the others as he had to be summoned from his trailer.

“I'm okay, really, I'm fine. I can get up.”

“Just wait, Jesse.”

Once the doctor arrived and he gave the nod of approval to Coach, he launched into a barrage of words, launching them at me like bullets from a rapid fire machine gun.

“Are you fucking crazy? What the hell were you doing? You were taking too many risks. You could've ruined the bike.”

“Thanks, Coach.” I said sarcastically. “I love you, too.”

“You have to protect yourself. We need a winning season. Taking risks like that might win a race but you'll never win the World Championship if you are injured. Safety always come first. We can't win anything if you're laid up in a hospital with a broken back. I've had it up to
here
with you, Jesse.”

His face was practically turning purple and the veins were bulging on his forehead when he turned his back to me and stormed off. Coach was pissed.

This is so fucked up
.

Why the hell is Coach blaming me? It was Santini's fault. He had to act like a big shot and...and...

Fuck!

It was my own fault. I was so threatened by that weasel Santini that I pushed too hard. And I wasn't on my best game today either, after last night. Coach was right. Too many risks would only jeopardize our chances of having a winning season and going on to the FIM World Championship race. Just like dominoes falling in a row, one thing affects the other and I had to get control of the beast within me—my inner rage—before it ruined everything.

Jesse

“A
re you okay?” Niki peered at me intently over her plate of spaghetti.

I shrugged my shoulders and aimlessly pushed a meatball around on my plate with my fork. “I had a bad day. I crashed my bike.”

“Oh my god, are you okay? What happened?”

“I'm okay.” I mumbled as I slumped over the table. “Just sore from hitting the ground so hard. It'll go away in a couple of days.”

“But how did it happen?”

“Coach wanted me and Santini to go up against each other. I wiped out and Santini won. Made me feel like a fool. Mostly my ego that got bruised.” There was no way I wanted Santini to be better than me, not even in a practice race.

“What about your bike? Did you ruin it?”

I dropped my fork onto the plate with a clatter and sat back in my chair.

“I’m okay,” I knew the edge in my voice was a little too much the minute the words came out of my mouth, but it was too late to take them back. “I told you I just got bruised. The bike is okay. Coach isn’t happy about it.”

“I'm not happy about it, either. Look what happened last time you were injured. You were out for six months.”

“What? Did Coach call you and tell you to be on my ass, too?” Why was everybody on my case today? All I wanted to do was to have a nice meal, relax and get back on the track tomorrow. But I could see that I had just stepped in a bucket of shit.

“Now hold on, buddy. Don't take your crap out on me. I'm thinking of
you
. I was just trying to be supportive, but hey, if you don't want me around I can go back to the room.”

She picked up her napkin from her lap like she was ready to leave. I dropped my chin to my chest. I was such a heel. “I'm sorry, Niki.” I looked up into her eyes, searching for understanding. “I'm really in a bad mood, tonight. Guys on the team are gunning for my position and if I show the slightest bit of weakness, it feeds their appetite. It's like throwing blood into the shark infested waters. They’re after me with their fangs out. At least I was ahead in the race when I wiped out.”

“Well, then, why are you worried? You're the best on that team and you know it. You're working yourself up for nothing. Everything will be fine.”

“Yeah, you're right.”

Niki, once again, came to my rescue and pulled me back into the light from my dark mood. At least for a while, anyway. Today it was harder for me to push my anger aside and not let it affect my relationships with people. But soon it would be over and there would be another tomorrow. I considered myself lucky to just be here in Milan with a beautiful girl like Niki.

“What did you do today? Were you with, ‘what's his face’?”

Niki made a disapproving face. “You can’t even say his name?”

“I'm a guy. I get territorial when someone is coming on to my girl.” Oh shit. She made that face again. If I didn’t watch out, my sorry ass would be sleeping on the couch, tonight. Good thing we didn’t have one in our hotel room.

“If we're going to have this fight again, I'm just going to walk away before you start.”

“Now it's your turn to hold your horses. I'm just joking. I'm sure, years from now when we have four kids, we'll look back on this and laugh.”

“Four kids? Who do you think I am? Jimmy's wife?” Ah, finally, I got a smile out of her.

“My brother's wife? Those two are already on their way to a litter of six.”

“No way am I popping four kids out of this.” She laughed incredulously, and pointed to her crotch. Her laugh mirrored mine and I began to feel lighter, relieved of some of the God damn stress I had been under lately.

Niki set her fork down on the table in a definitive gesture and said, “You know what? I'm sick of fighting. We only have two weeks left in Milan, let's not fight anymore.”

A broad smile crossed my face as I leaned forward to put my elbows on the table. “That's the best damn thing I've heard all day.” I planted a kiss on her delicious lips. “What would you like to do tonight? Go to a movie?”

“Okay, as long as it's in English.”

Jesse

T
he trailer door rattled shut behind me after I took the steps to my camper one at a time. I had just finished a grueling training session with Ice and my roommate, Johnny. I was alone and wondered why Johnny hadn’t come to the camper for the lunch break. I tossed my riding gloves onto the small kitchen table.

The manufacturers of these campers tried to fit all the comforts of a house into these small spaces, meaning everything was compact and slightly smaller than regular sized furniture. Since the living area and kitchen were all one space, the table had to function as a catch all for all of our junk. And Johnny and I were typical guys; we were slobs. Most of our stuff just landed wherever we dropped it. Good thing Niki didn’t get out to the training camp often, seeing this mess.

A half-eaten bag of potato chips was lying open on the countertop. It made a sharp crunching sound as I shoved my hand inside. I was starving. I tossed my head back and shoveled a handful of chips into my mouth, wondering again why the hell Johnny hadn’t finished his morning training session yet. How the hell did that skinny bastard even have enough flesh on him to handle a 250cc? Didn’t he need to eat lunch?

The fridge was stocked with cans of energy drink, our team sponsor’s logo emblazoned on the side, and I was planning on popping open a can as soon as I finished off this bag of chips. I tipped my head back to shake the last few crumbs into my mouth, then froze with the bag midair. My crunching stopped as I slowly turned and lowered my head. Something on the table had caught my eye. The empty bag fell to the floor as I stepped closer to the kitchen table. There, underneath my cell phone and amongst the other mess on the table, was a large, black and white, photograph. I blinked, not sure who the people were in the photograph. I stood next to the table, leaned over and shoved aside my phone and the other junk which hid only the corners of the photograph. My eyebrows drew together in confusion. Had I put my cell phone on top of this photograph earlier when I left the trailer?

Hell no.

Someone had been in here. As I picked up the photograph to take a closer look, a second one fell out from underneath. This couldn’t be. What my eyes were seeing was too crazy to fathom. My stomach clenched and I squeezed my eyes shut tightly. When I opened them again it was still there. I had foolishly hoped that my eyes were playing tricks on me. It looked like this was a photograph of Niki. And she was locked in a passionate embrace with Gio. And they were kissing. Like lovers.

What the fucking hell was this?

Rage rumbled in my gut, rising up inside of me like a volcano, ready to erupt. I knew it. I knew something like this shit was going to happen with that dick-wad, Gio, hanging around my Niki. My girl, Niki. My one and only. My angel. How could she
do
this to me? I couldn’t breathe. I dropped the pictures back onto the table, too disgusted to even touch them. A faint buzzing rang in my ears and my vision seemed slightly blurred. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know what to do. Niki had my heart and now she was tearing it apart.
How could she do this to me?
I stumbled around, as if I were drunk, though I hadn’t had a drink for days. I was fuming mad, so fucking pissed, my heart felt like it was shredding into pieces with every second that passed, with every searing painful thought that filled my head. She had betrayed me. And for what? A chance to be with that fucking low life photographer, Gio?

Without thinking, I reached for the energy drink can, filled to the top, and I threw it blindly at the wall. A growling howl ripped from my throat as I pitched it as hard as I could. A spray of sticky fluid canvassed the entire area, covering the walls and all the furniture in the trailer. My projectile finally stopped when it hit the window over the couch, and it busted clean through the thin layer of glass. The shatter was like cold water had been thrown in my face and it brought my senses back into sharp focus again.

I’m gonna kill that mother fucker.

I changed into some shoes I could drive in and snatched the photos off the table, along with my car keys. When I reached for the door I nearly fell into Johnny, who was finally coming in for lunch.

“What the hell, dude? You almost ran me over.”

“Get the fuck out of my way.” I barked, as he pressed his slender frame up against the door to let me pass. I was seeing red and I didn’t give a damn who I’d hurt along the way. I had to find this little Italian fucker and... and... how could she do this to me?

“What the hell is wrong with you, dude? You look like you’re possessed, man.”

I left Johnny standing at the door with his mouth hanging open. At that moment the devil did own me, but I didn’t give a damn. I would burn in hell if I had to, just to keep that worthless piece of shit away from my girl.

I jumped in my car and peeled out of the parking area, the back wheels and my tires spitting small rocks and clouds of dust as I took off. I don’t know how I managed to drive into Milan without crashing my car. I can’t even remember the details of driving to Gio’s studio. It was kind of all a blur but Niki had given me his business card so that, in case of an emergency, I would be able to find her, so I had his address. And this was an emergency. Somebody was going to need an ambulance and it wasn’t going to be me.

At the first red light, I wrestled my wallet out of my pants pocket, nearly standing on the gas pedal to straighten my leg enough to get the damn thing out. I pulled out Gio’s business card and read the address. It was in the city, on a street with a name that I remembered seeing not far from our hotel. I tossed it on the passenger seat, on top of the photographs. Every time I looked over at those photographs on the seat next to me, I wanted to puke.