It's a Jungle, Baby

Need for Speed

Duff

I walk down into the kitchen, looking for Taylor. When I woke up she was gone. When I get into the kitchen, I see Ruby sitting at the table drawing. I sit down beside her and she looks up and smiles. Suddenly her body jumps and a hiccup escapes.

"You eat your food too fast or something?" I ask her and she looks at me confused. "Taylor and Axl scarf down their food like its the last they'll ever see, in turn they get the hiccups a lot."

"Well today I ran into a wall while eating cereal." Ruby points at the wall beside me.

"Yeah, I've watched them do that to." I say as Axl walks into the kitchen hiccuping as well. "See what I mean?" Ruby laughs and Axl looks at me. "Either of you seen Taylor."

Axl shakes his head then looks at the calendar, he pas his finger on today's date, it's a Wednesday.

"Yeah, I know where she is." Axl says as Taylor walks in from the door leading to the garage.

Her hands are black from working on something, I didn't know she was mechanically inclined. She turns on the tap and starts washing the grease from her hands. Taylor scrubs her hands clean before reaching for a towel and turning around to face us. The front door opens behind us and Izzy and Chelsea walk in. Izzy looks to my girlfriend.

"Are you running Juliet tonight?" He wonders, sitting down at the table.

"Yeah, planning on it." Taylor smiles tossing the hand towel aside. "She just hasn't ran in a few years."

"Who's Juliet?" Chelsea asks my question, so I don't sound like a dumbass.

"I'll show you, come on." Taylor says motioning for us to follow.

We are lead out to the garage with Ruby in toe, it's a gear head's paradise. Tool boxes line the walls, bottles of fluids sit on work benches, a big Rolling Stones poster hangs on the back wall over a big US flag, in the middle of it all is the mate to Taylor's charger back home. 1969 Dodge Charger, the only differences is the stripe along the back corners in a midnight purple and the roll cage inside, the licence plate reads Juliet. The hood is popped revealing a huge engine with 572 on the blower and Hemi written up the side, this car looks fast as hell. Taylor closes the hood and the blower sticks out. This car's a she, her car in LA is a he, I look at her and smile.

"Romeo is in LA." I say and she nods pointing to the plate on the wall that reads Romeo.

"Why on earth do you have two of the same cars?" Chelsea wonders and Taylor lights up.

"They're not the same." Taylor says.  "Juliet is a race car."

"Like dirt track?" She wonders. "Or NASCAR?" Taylor laughs slightly.

"Not exactly." Taylor says. "Street racing."

"That's illegal in England." Chelsea says.

"It's illegal here as well." Axl says.

"It's very illegal." Izzy adds and Taylor looks at him.

"So you never raced your daddy's Camaro?" She challenges. "And you're not going to race tonight?"

"I never said that, I just said it was illegal." Izzy smiles.  "Every Wednesday there's a bunch of people who get together and race."

"The house hasn't shook yet, is it safe to say she hasn't been running?" Axl wonder and Taylor nods. "Start it up then."

"Are they still asleep?" Taylor wonders.

"Not for long." Axl smirks and Taylor mimes it. Concern washes over her face.