The Fast Lane [gxg]

Out Of State, Out Of Mind

chapter summary: That feel when you go to the grocery store with your mom in another state and she recognizes someone and ends up chatting with them for over an hour in the pasta aisle.

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 "My dad hasn't been using the Corvette—he was having issues with it before we took it out. He's waiting to get it checked out again," Bryan said when Maze inquired about it. "He's taking the Chevelle down to Indy this weekend for some show, though. Why? You wanna race it again?"

Maze had already decided how she'd go about this. She shook her head and said, "I was just wondering. So he doesn't know Kass fixed it?"

Bryan shook his head, and Maze hummed, intrigued. So Vincent never did end up finding out that she and Bryan took the Corvette for a spin. Maze leant back on the stoop steps outside of Aunt Rae's house. She sighed wistfully, feeling a helluva lot like Declan when she said, "It'd be fun to take it with the gang up north, though..."

Bryan slurped up the last of his icy pop and said, "I don't see why we couldn't."

Thus was how they snuck Sub Zero under the Corvette's canvas sheet and drove off with Scorpion on the heels of the Corvette's exhaust. They were strategic about it—Maze couldn't very well drive up and down the county with Vincent's Corvette without calling attention—so Maze parked in the empty lot of a river park on the edge of town while Bryan delivered Scorpion to his mother's place and hitched a ride with Felix.

Their group met on the border of Michigan—Maze, Bryan, and Felix were the first of the group to arrive and were followed in kind by Declan and the girls in Brielle's Rolls-Royce convertible with its rich red interior and crisp white exterior. And, as expected, Amelia was sitting on the back ledge with her feet on the cushion, holding her snapback to her windswept hair.

She waved to them when Maze jokingly catcalled them. "Woohoo, boys!" Amelia teased. 

"Holy shit, Brielle," Felix said, letting out a stunned laugh as Brielle tipped her sunglasses forward to catch his eye and wink.

Bryan whistled low. "That your daddy's car? And I'm not talking about Mr. Chandler," he said.

"Christ," Declan laughed, shaking his head. 

Brielle rolled her eyes. "Wouldn't you like to know?" she said, and Bryan threw his head back and laughed.

"Who else are we waiting on?" Maze asked, and after a second, followed up with, "Well, aside from Willa."

Secretly, she had held out hope that Kass would join them. Not only that, but she had founded a significant amount of her personal enjoyment for the trip on whether or not Kass showed up. She had thought to ask Bryan before, but any time she considered it, a foreboding sensation reminded her of the future when she would ultimately regret bringing Kass up in conversation. She always did, as if people didn't give her enough of their pity about her father, now they pitied her for fucking up her friendship with Kass.

She caught the light glance Amelia cast in Declan's direction.

"Well... Grace's definitely coming..." Shelby started, and was promptly finished by Declan saying, "Yeah, and I invited a buddy from Chicago, but he'll probably be a no-show."

Maze folded her arms over the roof of the Corvette and nodded, lips pursed. The girls changed the topic, and judging the look Bryan gave her from where he was standing with his hip against the hood of the Corvette, it was for Maze's sake.

Am I really that easy to read? she wondered. It didn't take a college graduate to figure out what she was really asking, and luckily for her, that meant she could put two-and-two together.