Jace:
The best part of race night was never the race. It was after. When engines finally cooled. When adrenaline turned into laughter. When rivalries took a break long enough for everyone to remember they were just a bunch of idiots obsessed with cars. The quarter-mile had gone quiet. Only the occasional burnout echoed across the old shipping yard now. Floodlights still bathed the cracked concrete in bright white, but most of the racers had drifted into little circles around their cars. Music blasted from someone's truck. Coolers were open. The smell of grilled hot dogs had somehow appeared out of nowhere. A normal Friday night in Riverside. Or… As normal as Riverside ever got.
I leaned against my Camaro, taking another sip of bottled water instead of the beer someone had handed me earli
