Redemption's A Bitch - 11. Start Me Up, I'm Breaking Down

Kieran blinked, and then the fact that he’s lusted over the boy for weeks kicked sharply into play, and he gathered Robin up in his arms and kissed him the way he wanted to. Robin’s fingers were in his hair, brushing through the yard long silk, wrapping them both up in it, tying them together. Kieran relished the feel of Robin’s body against his own, light but strong, the boy’s chest firm with his heart beating like a bird in a cage. He tasted of chocolate and citrus: rich, complex, and interesting, and Kieran couldn’t get enough of his lips until Robin opened his mouth. Kieran practically purred under the onslaught of the boy’s tongue, and he was more than happy to cede control of the kiss to the boy. Kieran couldn’t think of anywhere else he’d rather be than under Robin’s tongue. Kieran ran his hand up under the back of Robin’s shirt, the only part of his mind currently able to think beyond the kiss eager to find more skin to explore, when the sound of the back door sliding open distracted them.

“Oh god…”

“ROBIN!” Rebecca’s voice pierced the air, and the two of them jumped apart as though shocked with a cattle prod. “You selfish bastard!” Kieran blinked as he realised that Rebecca’s anger was still turned towards him. “Get away from my brother!”

“Becca, wait-” Robin stared at his sister in horrified embarrassment.

“This whole time, everything you’ve done has just been to get to my brother.” She rounded on Shastan. “I told you this would happen! He’s such a manipulative pig!”

“Hey-!” Kieran felt his anger, which had been much dissolved by Robin, begin to harden again.

“No! You keep away from my brother, and my husband, and my wedding!”

“Becs! Will you lay off him? It’s not like that.” Robin went to touch his sister’s shoulder, but she flinched away from him.

“It’s not your fault Rob, he’s a jerk and he doesn’t care about anyone apart from himself.”

“Rebecca…” Shastan’s tone was full of warning, and Kieran had learnt to respect that voice, but she paid him no mind.

“You’ve said it yourself: he’s dangerous to be around! I know you go after every guy you can and then dump them, roll back up here like its normal. It’s not. Your cousin is good to look after you the way he does, and look how you repay us?”

“Becs!”

But there was no stopping her now.

“You don’t care about anyone but yourself and your precious reputation as the easiest lay in town! If you had any family who cared about you then you’d be living with them rather than mooching off the good life your cousin has made for himself!”

Kieran lost it.

He grabbed her by the wrist, gripped tighter when she tried to pull away, and dragged her into the house. Kieran was strong and quick when he needed to be, so he passed through the rec room and into the garage before Robin, Shastan and the dogs could catch up and dropped Rebecca in front of the sheet at the back of the garage. He pulled the fabric back, exposing the pieces which were all that was left of MARS.

“Do you know what that is!?” Kieran shouted. “That is the bike I nearly died on, and that,” he pointed to Shastan, looking panicked and angry in the doorway, “-is the man who saved my life. I almost died, doing the only thing I really loved, and I quit because he asked me to. He is all I have, and I am the only family he has too. Don’t you dare question how much I love my cousin, because I love him far more than you do!”

Rebecca glared at him, and Kieran stared down at her, tension visible in the set of his shoulders.

“I know exactly how much my life is worth. If I didn’t care about anyone, I would have gotten back on another bike and ridden hard until I landed myself in a pine fucking box!” He took a deep breath. “Get out.”

Rebecca stood, not meeting Kieran’s fire-green gaze, and brushed dust off her knees to avoid looking at anyone.

“Shas-?”

“Not right now Rebecca.” Shastan was staring at his cousin with an unreadable expression, and he stepped aside to let her past.

“I’ll um…” Robin shifted from foot to foot, looking nervous, but Kieran didn’t want him to go.

“Kier…”

“Shas, I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

Kieran exhaled hard.

“No. I’m not.”

Shastan stepped up to him, standing by the wreckage of the bike, and he wrapped his arms around his taller, younger cousin in one swift movement.

“I was never more scared than when Hayley called me from the ambulance. I didn’t realise what you meant until the moment I thought I might lose you.” He drew back, holding the back of Kieran’s neck, looking at him dead on. “If it comes down to a choice between you and-”

“It won’t.” Kieran said quickly.

“I’d choose you.” Shastan shook his cousin gently. “I know what you gave up for me, you didn’t have to. I love you Kier.”

“I know.” Kieran smiled softly. “You’d best go rescue your bride before she tries to scupper the whole wedding.”

Shastan rolled his eyes.

“Wouldn’t that be a tragedy?” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “Breakfast tomorrow?”

“Yes please.” Kieran watched his cousin go, feeling his heart ache in an old and complicated way. He knew what love was, the love for family, and even though he would never, ever, make Shastan choose between him and his future, the promise that Shastan stood by him made Kieran weirdly happy.

After what seemed like an age, he turned to see Robin. The boy stood looking at the wreckage of MARS, then knelt to touch the metal of the carcass, carefully, in the same way he had first greeted the dogs, wary of the strange and dangerous. Kieran’s stomach tightened painfully as Robin’s narrow fingers traced the letters, the metal scarred by its contact with the asphalt at an hundred miles an hour.

“You really used to ride this thing?” Robin asked the question as though not expecting an answer. “It’s not like any bike I’ve seen.”

“I built it,” Kieran spoke softly, remembering in his mind the image of the bike in all its glory, “MARS was the most beautiful machine, completely custom and fast. But he was unruly, like trying to ride a dragon. We had one too many fights, and eventually we both lost.”

“Was it true what Shastan said; that you nearly died?”

“Yes.” Kieran touched unconsciously at his collarbone, the first scar MARS had ever given him when the machine had still only been part-built. “Four trips to hospitals, and one time that I was technically dead for just under a minute.”

Robin took the sheet from where it had fallen and draped it reverentially over the bits of MARS before turning back to Kieran.

“About that kiss…”

“It was a good kiss.” Kieran smiled to himself.

Robin grinned back, biting his lower lip softly.

“Yeah, it was.” Robin put his hand on Kieran’s chest, roughly over his heart. “I’d like to do that again sometime.”

“But not now?” Kieran wasn’t surprised, the intense excitement, the heady rush of exploration, had been somewhat dampened by the anger which had followed. “Soon?”

“Let’s not rush OK? Wednesday for bowling, yeah?”

Kieran sighed softly. He didn’t want to wait that long, but at the same time he recognised that pushing the boundaries of the soft and wonderful place they had found in the garden was potentially dangerous and upsetting.

“OK.” Kieran smiled lopsidedly. “I’ll come pick you up? We’ll take the car out to the marina.”

“You can’t fit five people in the Audi,” Robin stepped a little closer, his eyes hooded and full of promise, “even five small people.”

“We’ll take the Ferrari, it’s more practical.” Kieran smiled down at him, his fingers itching to wrap back around Robin’s narrow waist.

“That’s not a sentence I thought I’d ever hear, Kieran.” Robin stood on his tip toes, balanced on Kieran’s shoulders.

“I promise you it’s true, Sparrow.”

“Did I tell you I liked that nickname?” Robin’s lips were practically touching his own, close enough to make Kieran’s heart hammer almost painfully, but deliberately not kissing. “I’ll see you Wednesday then.”

And he was gone, leaving Kieran standing in the garage, trying to slow his heartbeat to something like a normal level whilst being fully distracted by the heat and hardness of his crotch. He’d never been so turned on in his life. As Kieran began to put the dogs to bed in a daze, he realised that somewhere in the middle of their evening, he’d given Robin the upper hand, and now the little Sparrow was teasing him. Surprisingly, he couldn’t have been happier about it.

*

“Morning Kier.”

“Morning.” Kieran yawned as he padded downstairs in jeans and a gossamer thin black t-shirt. “No Becca?”

“She took Robin home.”

“Wedding still on?” Kieran didn’t much believe in tip toeing around the issue.

“Yes.” Shastan was not visibly surprised by the question. “She was not particularly happy when she left. Toast?”

“Nutella.” Kieran began to slice a peach from the fruit bowl into perfectly even segments. “Dare I ask what you two talked about?”

“Best not.” Shastan sighed. “But she apologised for what she said about you, about the family.” He began to assemble more breakfast items. “She didn’t have a lot of choice.”

“She’s not happy about me being best man either, is she?” Kieran poured two glasses of milk from the fridge automatically. “You should just pick someone else Shas.”

“And who else am I going to choose?” Shastan shook his head softly, handing over a stack of toast halves. “You’re my best man Kier. You’re the greatest guy I know.”

“Soppy.”

“True.” Shastan smiled at his cousin over the kitchen island. “So what are your plans for the day?”

“Track day. You?”

“I have to remake a bunch of the wedding favours.”

“Sorry.”

“You’re taking the dogs to the track, right?” Shastan looked slightly desperate, so Kieran nodded. “Thank god. Have a good day, be safe.”

“I’m taking the Honda, she’s always safe.” Kieran grinned. “Thanks for breakfast Cus.”

It seemed like a lot of effort to ship just one bike to the track, so Kieran put the Suzuki in the trailer as well while the dogs ran madly around the garden for a while. Kieran was early to the raceway. He left the bikes in their cage and took the dogs for a long walk over the surrounding countryside. There were a couple of race tracks where Kieran had sunk a fair chunk of money, and much of it had been used to buy up land around the actual circuits, preserving wildlife habitats and the sanity of the neighbours. In his usual style, nobody he actually rode with knew about his donations, but that wasn’t why Kieran made them. The luxury to give the dogs a decent walk, and ride his bikes as fast as he liked in the same vicinity, was well worth the price of the deeds.

The mood of a track day was pretty much decided by the first four or five people who showed up, and by the time Kieran returned, other pits had been occupied by Ray and Neil, and a pro low-league racer having a day off from serious training. When Kieran saw Hayley coming towards him carrying little Harry, Brian wheeling ahead of them, he knew today was going to be a much more serious sort ok race day.

“Hey Kieran.” Brian clasped his hand as he braked the wheelchair. “It’s been too long.”

Kieran grinned.

“Well, if you’d just get back on the bike…” he joked, “It’s good to see you. How’s the new team?”

“They have potential.” After Brian’s accident, working as a coach and trainer had kept him sane, but after Kieran had quit, he’d been snapped up by one of the Italian satellite teams. It had been good for him, and had helped Hayley make her decision to quit permanently. “None of them are you though Kieran.”

“Brian…” Hayley warned. She knew how much her husband loved to talk about his favourite star, and how much it made Kieran ache to hear it. The only thing keeping him off the track was the promise he’d made to Shastan, he was still plenty young enough to get back into serious racing.

“You were always the best.”

“Thanks.” Kieran smiled tightly. “You guys gonna watch from the box?”

“Thought I might stay down here and help you tune up that Fireblade of yours, see if we can’t whip these others into shape.”

“It’s not a competitive meet Brian,” Kieran complained.

“Really?” His tone forced Kieran to look at his old friend. Despite being in the chair, Brian still projected the strong, confident and knowledgeable man Kieran had first met when he was just a scrawny teenager. Brian smiled. “Then why are you wearing your game face?”

None of them lining up on the grid said it was a race. No one mentioned the words. But every rider was geared up as best they could, and Kieran had braided his hair, taken the tuned up bike and his pro racing leathers and put himself in the second box under the chequered flag. Brian had talked him through the laps, just like he’d always used to. It didn’t matter that Kieran knew the track inside and out.

“First lap you’ll all be warming up your tires, but stay ahead of the pack, don’t go in for any massive weaves, ‘cause you’ll end up on the wrong side the first corner.” Kieran had nodded quickly. “Don’t gun the engine through the third or you’ll spin out, ramp up along the straight and hold the speed through The Wishbone as best as you can. After that, watch for The Riverbend, and lean in nice and low when you go round. You’ve got to pass anyone in front of you on The Incline if you want to come in first. It’s gonna be three laps, so you’ve got time.”

Sitting astride his bike, one toe on the ground, balancing the huge metal beast of the bike between his thighs, all Kieran could see was the track in front of him. He could picture each corner as clear as a photograph held in front of his face, and he was ready.

It happened just like it should have. The engines started up with a cacophony of roars, and the track organisers seemed to realise too that the riders on the grid were taking the race seriously. When the flag went, they lifted off, and proceeded around the track at a good pace, each weaving subtly, warming the rubber of their tyres and the brake discs. The weather had been fine for a long time, and Kieran, along with Ray and some of his other competitors, had fitted low profile racing tyres to their bikes to add speed. Kieran lined himself up for crossing the start line, and as the final corner came they all reeved their engines and took off for the race.

Kieran let Ray and four others go past him. It was Brian’s least favourite habit of his, and one which had caused arguments with the sponsors back in the day, but Kieran loved to play catch up. He raced the track as though the twists and turns were designed for him, gunned every moment he could, building speed, flashing past each of the other racers. He swung around The Riverbend, a corner named because of its large looped shape, so flat his knee almost brushed the ground, passing Ray as the blond man tried to sneak in around the inside of the corner. He was fast, but Kieran was faster. He pulled up The Incline with the Honda growling under him like a lion with a grudge, and so began the game of cat and mouse as he and the pro racer began to pull away from the rest of the pack.

Kieran got right up on his tail and stayed there, pushing on every single bend to make the other man work for his position. It was no easy ride. The Wishbone was half way round the track, and Kieran’s favourite switchback bend. As they approached it, the pro rider braked, just a little, to control the corner, and Kieran went for his chance. Their tyres passed within inches of each other, and Kieran pulled up the bike and popped a wheelie in order to make the turn at such a speed. As he gunned down towards the next corner, the tail of the Honda slid out from under him but Kieran growled and argued with the throttle, forcing the bike forwards and into a better position. He passed under the waving chequered flag with the lighted score board flashing him up in first place.

Brian was grinning like a fool when he rolled into the pit.

“What a race! That’s my boy!”

Kieran pulled off his helmet and grabbed his friend’s hand.

“Thanks coach.”

“Kieran!” Hayley jogged down the stairs from the box as fast as she could manange without jogging Harry. “What were you thinking?”

“I won,” Kieran shrugged.

“You could have been killed! Throwing around stunts like that at such a speed!” Hayley handed her son to his father and pushed at Kieran’s chest before hugging him tightly. “I was so worried.”

“Hayley, don’t…” Kieran embraced her quickly, then stepped back to unzip his leathers. He was always super-hot after a race. “I’m fine. See?”

“You’re insane, that’s what you are.” Kieran turned to see the pro racer striding towards him. “You want to endanger everyone’s life when you go out like that? You fuck up and it won’t just be you going down in flames.”

“Well then, isn’t it good you’re not hurt?” Kieran watched the other man look him up and down, and turned himself so that the contrast leather on his leg could be read.

“Tristan Toyne?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you’d retired.”

“I have,” Kieran nodded to Hayley, “it’s just for fun.”

“Are you sure about that? I’ve not seen anyone want to win so badly in a long time.”

“Like I said, just fun.” Kieran smiled to him. “Have a nice track day.”

“Yeah, you too.”

Kieran watched him walk away, and then turned to where Hayley and Brian were staring at him.

“What?”

“You know what your cousin is gonna say when he hears about this.”

“He won’t hear about it.”

“Sure,” Hayley sighed, “even you don’t believe that.”

She was right, as she always was, because by the time Kieran had arrived home with empty bike tanks and exhausted dogs, there was an article from the online version of a major motor racing magazine with a photograph of him, taken at the raceway, under the blaring headline:

Tristan Toyne to Stage a Comeback

It was almost all supposition, but there was the famous photograph of him on MARS before the big crash, and a smaller, slightly blurry snapshot of the wheelie he’d pulled on The Wishbone with a caption ‘Tristan Toyne: Up to his old tricks already?’ Kieran knew that Shastan kept rather close tabs on the family name, and this article was sure to pop his search. In a few hours, the news would have travelled half way around the globe and back, and people would have started to write articles based on this one. By the time Shastan read it, Kieran’s return to professional racing might have already been taken from assumption to certainty. Kieran wasn’t proud of the article, but he saved the pictures, walking into the main house to feed the dogs. He sent the best one as an attachment to Robin.

What did you do with your weekend, Sparrow?