Unplugged Summer: A special edition of Summer Unplugged Read online

  Unplugged Summer

  A Summer Unplugged Series Special edition

  Amy Sparling

  Copyright © 2017 Amy Sparling

  All rights reserved.

  First Edition February 14, 2017

  Cover image from BigStockPhoto

  Typography from FontSquirrel.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems -except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews-without permission in writing from the author at [email protected].

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Table of Contents

  Unplugged Summer

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Summer Unplugged

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  About the Author

  Unplugged Summer

  Jace’s point of view

  Chapter 1

  It’s been twenty four hours. One entire day has passed since my dad picked me up from the county jail, patted me on the back and said, “Son, let’s not have this happen again.”

  The first thing I’ve noticed about civilian life? Twenty four hours sure pass a hell of a lot faster when you’re at home than it does when you’re locked in a jail cell. It still feels like I just got out. My chest is tight and my mind keeps falling back to old habits, like expecting to be freezing my ass off at night because I only have one shitty wool blanket. I’m up at the crack of dawn, six a.m. according to my cell phone which is also weird and foreign to me because I went so long without the damn thing.

  But I am no longer in jail. I have to keep reminding myself of this fact. I was arrested, slapped with a four month sentence by a judge who can’t stand young guys with promising careers in anything other than bookish college stuff, and I served my time. I’m out. I’m done. I can’t keep dwelling on it.

  Luckily, county jail wasn’t anything like how it’s portrayed on TV. There are gangs and the food is shitty and people get their ass beat on a daily basis, but if you stay low and keep to yourself, you’ll be okay. At least that’s what I was told on my first day by Joshua, the head guard of the C block where I was kept. He was in his mid-twenties and was a huge fan of motocross. He recognized me immediately. I can’t even pretend to deny it—he respected me as a local dirt bike racer and therefore he gave me preferential treatment while in jail. I’m grateful for it, that’s for damn sure.

  I’m lying in my bed, my real bed, at my parent’s house in Los Angeles. It’s just after six in the morning and I’m wide awake because I’m used to the jail lights being flipped on at six every day. Here, the lights are off and my parents are asleep and the only sound is the gentle hum of the air conditioning.

  It is so very refreshing to be back in the real world again.

  I make a vow to myself that I won’t fuck up to that magnitude ever again.

  I don’t regret what I did. Luke Brady was asking for an ass whooping, so I gave it to him. I just kind of regret the timing. Had this happened a few months earlier, when I was still seventeen, I probably could have gotten off easier. But now I’m a legal adult, and I get to go to big boy legal adult jail when I screw up.

  Never again.

  I breathe in deeply, then exhale slowly, counting to ten. I only make it to seven before I’m out of air, so I do it again. It’s part of the anger management training they had me take in jail, and while it’s relaxing to breathe like this, it doesn’t really help me much because I don’t have an anger problem. I’m actually a pretty cool guy—at least I think so—and I’ve never lost my temper in all of my life until that stupid day last winter.

  God, what was I thinking?

  I’m stuck here in bed, too early to do anything, too alone to distract myself, and these thoughts roll back to me. The day that I screwed it all up. I was at a regional race in Anaheim, at one of the best amateur motocross tracks in the country. We’d all just finished taking a few practice laps before the race would begin and I was feeling good. My bike had new suspension and it ran like a dream. The dirt was perfect and the sun was shining. It was the perfect California day.

  I had a girlfriend and I thought things were great.

  For the record, this is pretty much exactly where I screwed up. I trusted her. Now I can’t even think of her stupid name without thinking of everything she did to screw me over. I call her The Ex in my head now. It gives her less power that way. I even changed her name in my phone to The Ex, and believe me, it’s not because I’m still talking to her. It’s almost like she had some kind of psychic connection to my jail cell because the moment I got into my dad’s truck to drive home yesterday morning, she called me. I didn’t get the call until I was back home and charged my phone, but still.

  My jaw tightens as I look over at my phone on the nightstand. She’s called me five times in the last twenty four hours. I’ve ignored every one. I’m not sure if I hate her or if I hate myself for trusting her. Maybe it’s a little bit of both. The Ex and I have known each other for years. She’s a track bunny, the derogatory term for girls who hang out at motocross tracks trying to snag a motocross guy. We’d been friends for a long time and it was never anything more than that because racing is my life and it takes up all of my time. I’d seen her hop from guy to guy (as track bunnies do) but she never dated them very long. She’d always come whining to me, saying guys were stupid.

  And I guess she was right about that part because I ended up dating her, which makes me the stupidest one of all.

  But when I started dating The Ex a few months before the incident that landed me in jail, I thought it would work out okay. We were friends, so we knew each other’s quirks and personalities. It was late one night after a particularly awesome day of racing in which I’d won every moto I entered, and I was high on the win. She’d ambled up to me in her short ass shorts and threw her arms around my neck and said she was so proud of how well I raced that day. Then she kissed me.

  I remember thinking it was weird because we were just friends but then there she was, groping me and shoving her tongue in my mouth, and like I said, it was a good day, so I just went with it. Next thing I knew, we were dating.

  Things were fine. I liked her, and she liked me. She was always at the track so we saw each other a lot, and she knew everyone there so she didn’t whine and complain when I was busy with the races. My other friends always had trouble dating girls who weren’t into motocross because they’d get upset when their boyfriend had to go to races every weekend. The Ex was cool with it.

  And then the incident happe
ned.

  There I was, at the track, on the day of the regional races. Practice was awesome, everything was awesome. Then I rounded the corner and walked by Luke Brady’s arrogantly huge motorhome that he drove out to all the races so he could relax in style. And there she was. The Ex. Sucking face with Luke himself, the guy who tried every single weekend to beat me in a race but never could.

  “What the fuck?” That’s really all I remember saying, even though I’ve relived this event in my head about a million times over the last four months.

  The Ex turned around slowly, untangling herself from Luke’s arms, like she wasn’t in a hurry. Almost as if she’d planned this. She said something about how I was being a terrible boyfriend who only cared about racing. Luke said something about how he was a better lover than I was and how he was about to be a better racer.

  I saw red.

  Luke threw the first punch, but I threw the next two dozen. The cops said if I hadn’t kept wailing on him after he’d been knocked unconscious, I might not have been punished as severely. I don’t know what took over me. Betrayal does that to a guy, I guess. I’ve been over it in anger management classes multiple times now and it still blows my mind. I am not an angry person. Not usually. Sure, dickhead drivers on the road piss me off, and I’ll get upset with myself if I screw up while racing, but I never get that mad. I never assault someone.

  But I did, and I have to own it. And now I’ve paid my debt to society and life goes on while I try to put my own back together. I’ve often wondered if what The Ex and Luke did to me was done on purpose. Word is, they’re still dating, but who knows if that’s true because I refuse to get online and check it out.

  All I know is that I was barred from racing that day and for the rest of the season due to unacceptable behavior as outlined in the race rules. And Luke got to race that day without me, which means he won. It was almost as if he planned it.

  The guys in jail all say that the best revenge is to live a better life than the ones who wronged you. And that’s the problem. I can’t figure out how to do that if I’m not back to racing. I’ve been banned from racing at all the local tracks, and the ban will stay in effect unless my agent can talk them into giving me a second chance.

  If that doesn’t work out, I’m not sure what the hell I’ll do, but my life won’t be better in any way, shape, or form, unless I’m on a dirt bike.

  Chapter 2

  By the next day, things haven’t changed. It’s been forty-eight hours since I became a free man again and I’m still lying in bed, awake early. Yesterday was a complete waste. I’d wanted to go for a run or hit the gym, but all I did was sit around. I even let my mother cook me lunch and dinner like I’m some kind of lazy asshole. She didn’t mind and she said I should take a few days to recover from something as traumatizing as jail time.

  But now that it’s day two, I don’t think that’s a great idea. I need to get back to my life. I need to sleep later because I used to love sleeping, and then I need to hit the gym and work until my cardio levels are back to where they used to be. I need my dirt bike. I need the track. I need my old life back.

  So I force myself to stay in bed another hour, wishing I could fall back asleep. By 7:15, I realize it won’t happen, so I climb out of my bed that somehow feels a little too soft now and I put on some track shorts and a pair of running shoes. It’s warm enough to go shirtless, and my tan has totally disappeared as of late, so I that’s what I do.

  I head outside and hit the road and run. Music blasts through my earbuds as I jog, the upbeat rhythm motivating me to run faster and longer than my muscles want me to. There’s plenty of weight training in jail, and I did a lot of it, but cardio is harder to come by when you’re stuck in a cell the size of a walk in closet. But now I am free. My shoes smack against the pavement while I run, the early summer air is clear in my lungs.

  I close my eyes and jog for a while, wishing I could stop but knowing I can’t. And then the song stops suddenly, making me open my eyes again. My phone is ringing loudly in my earbuds. I pull it out of my pocket and look at the screen.

  The Ex.

  Ignoring the call, I start jogging again and I try to get back into the groove of running. I quickly realize that shit won’t happen. She has called and she has ruined my morning by making me remember her, and Luke, and the incident. It’s as if all of my ambition to get back into shape has just whooshed out of me like a deflated balloon at the end of a kid’s birthday party.

  I slow to a walk and turn around on the sidewalk, heading back in the direction of home. All I want more than anything is to get back to my old life, the way things used to be before the incident. Before The Ex fucked it all up by being a massive slut.

  After I’ve caught my breath, I call my agent, who answers on the forth ring. “Adams? You out of the slammer?”

  He always calls me by my last name. “Yeah,” I say, gazing around at the neighborhood street that’s lined with nice homes and palm trees. “I’m out jogging, getting back in shape for my next race.”

  He snorts. “Ain’t happening anytime soon, Adams.”

  “Why the hell not?” I say without using my anger management techniques.

  “You fucked up bad,” he says, and I can tell he’s a little sorry for me by the tone of his voice. “I mean, I’m trying, don’t get me wrong. I get fifteen percent commission from your sponsorships so I care about you man, but you lost all of those when you assaulted a fellow racer.”

  “I beat up the guy who was sleeping with my girlfriend,” I say. “It had nothing to do with motocross.”

  “Except he was also a motocross racer, Adams. You know this. I’m trying to get you back, okay? Just give me some time.”

  “Good,” I say. I’m moving slower than a freaking snail right now. “Let me know when you hear back from the racing commission.”

  “I will,” he says. “But you might want to start looking at other career choices. You know…just in case.”

  It takes everything I have not to snap right here and now. Other career choices? There is nothing else for me! I am the fastest racer on the continent and everyone knows it. I’m finally old enough to go pro and all I need is the freaking permission to do it. Motocross is first and foremost about racing dirt bikes, but it’s also classified as a family sport so there are conduct rules to follow. The Ex made sure I broke the biggest one.

  How the hell is my life ever going to get back to normal now? Either I give up completely and go to college for some bullshit degree for some bullshit job that will never make me happy, or I work harder than I’ve ever worked. I train and I ride and I prove my worth to the commission. They’ll put me back in the races and I’ll become the pro racer I’ve been dreaming I’d be since I was a little kid.

  I see our house in the distance and I consider jogging another lap around the block, even though my chest aches and my muscles are exhausted. Maybe this isn’t what I’m supposed to do. Maybe I can’t just come back home and train like I used to and hope that everything works out. Home is part of the problem. California is where I got arrested. Where I served my time. Where my girlfriend cheated on me, because she made sure to tell me in explicit detail while I was being loaded into the back of a police car that she fucked Luke for weeks before that day when I caught them.

  California is where it all went wrong. I need to get away. I’ve got money saved up from all the years I’ve been winning races, so theoretically I could go anywhere. But I’ve only ever lived here in LA. Where the hell else is there to go?

  Exotic and beautiful places come to mind. Backpacking through Thailand, jogging on the beach in Maui. But I’m not exactly sure I could bring a bike with me to those places. No, I need somewhere basic. Some place I can train and be alone and get away from all the bullshit of real life here in LA. Preferably a place with no girls fawning over me because their main goal in life is to bang a motocross racer. I need somewhere where no one knows my name. Where I can start fresh and figure out where the hell my l
ife is going to go from here.

  And then it hits me.

  I don’t even remember the name of the town, that’s how small and insignificant it is. Five years ago my grandfather died and left everything he had to me because he hated my dad for reasons my dad has never shared with me. He had a house on a few acres and about three thousand dollars in his bank account. It all went into a trust because I was under age at the time but now that I’m eighteen, the property is all mine.

  It's a house to live in and land to build a dirt bike track on. And it’s in the middle of nowhere. There won’t be girls there to distract me, and there won’t be camera crews or motocross magazines asking me questions like they would if I went to one of the local dirt bike tracks here. No, it will be perfect.

  I can be alone. I can train and get back in shape. I can wait out however long it’ll take before I’m allowed to race again. And the best part is that no girls like The Ex will be there trying to distract me. Girls only lead to trouble, as I’ve recently discovered. I need to be alone. I need to recharge and start over. This is going to be absolutely perfect.

  Chapter 3

  The flight to Houston is quick, and I have an aisle seat all to myself. I spend the trip looking out the window, trying like hell to forget all the bad things in my life and focus on just the good things, however few of them are left. My parents thought it was weird that I’m choosing to banish myself to the middle-of-nowhere Texas for the summer, but they didn’t try to stop me. I have a suitcase of clothes and my dirt bike and gear are being shipped over in a few days. If I can’t find some land at this new house to ride, there’s a few tracks close by.

  I try not to feel like it’s a bad omen when I get to the car rental place and the only thing they have available to rent all summer is a shiny red Chevrolet Malibu. Otherwise known as a soccer mom car. It’s about as un-manly of a car as you can get, besides one of those smart things that’s the size of a dog crate, and now it’s mine for the time being. I spend about two seconds considering buying a truck while I’m here, but I have one at home and it’d be a huge waste of money.