Read Online Running Wide Open by Lisa Nowak - Free Book Online Page A

draw a cartoon for a little kid, and gave advice to a competitor, even though it might bite him in the ass later. The kind of guy who’d take in his loser nephew, sight unseen.
    I dropped down on the bed, flipped through the phone book to the “k’s,” and spent the next fifteen minutes comparing ads for karate schools. When Race reappeared in the doorway, he was fully dressed and munching a Twinkie.
    “Don’t you ever eat real food for breakfast?” I asked. But this time it was an honest question, not an accusation.
    “Not if I can avoid it. Twinkies are fast energy. Just what I need in the morning.”
    “I thought that’s what coffee was for.”
    “Can’t stand the stuff. That’s Kasey’s poison.” Race licked sugar-infused shortening off his fingers. “I’m gonna be changing the oil in the van if you wanna go in the front room and make some calls.” He turned and left me alone.
    I phoned several karate schools. One had beginner classes starting the first of June and was located in the University neighborhood. I knew that was pretty close to the trailer park, so I jotted down the information and went outside.
    Race was lying under the front of the van. I sat down beside him in the gravel.
    “Find a class?” he asked.
    “Yeah. I guess I need to go check it out.”
    “We can do that.” Race reached up to twist an orange canister. Oil oozed over the sides and trickled down his wrist into the pan below. I gave him one of the rags at my feet. With a look of surprise, he accepted it and wiped his hands.
    “What made you think I’d want karate lessons?” I asked as Race twisted a bolt into a hole on the bottom of the oil pan and snugged it up with a wrench.
    “I dunno. What made you think I’d want a grease rag?” He worked a fresh orange canister out of its cardboard box and screwed it into place.
    A few long moments passed in silence as I arm-wrestled my pride. I hated giving in, hated being wrong, but how could you go on slugging a guy who kept turning the other cheek?
    “Sorry about giving you shit.”
    The apology came out as a mumble, but Race managed to decipher it. “That’s okay. I know it can’t be easy, leaving home and moving in with a stranger.”
    I took a deep breath and blew it out, steadying myself against the emotional ripple his empathy caused. “So . . . did it take you a long time to learn this stuff?”
    “What, changing the oil? Nah, that kind of thing is pretty basic. But I’ve been hanging around racers and working on their cars since I was ten.”
    “Huh.” I stood up and leaned against the driver’s door, running the toe of one of my Converse high tops through the gravel till I’d dug a groove.
    Race wiggled out from under the van and lifted the hood. One by one, he opened several bottles of oil and poured them into the engine. “Kasey’s coming over tonight,” he said as he finished with the last of them. “You wanna go see a movie?”
    “Wouldn’t you two rather go alone?”
    “I would, but Kasey wouldn’t. And I don’t mind you coming along.”
    I pushed the gravel back into place with the side of my sneaker. “You really like her, huh?”
    Race glanced at me a little suspiciously as he stuffed the empty bottles into a plastic bag. “Kid, even if I do it doesn’t matter. She’s not interested. She’s my friend and my sponsor, and that’s it.”
    “You ever ask her out?”
    “Are you kidding? She’d shut me down in a heartbeat.”
    Thinking of the way Kasey had looked at him when she was telling her story the night before, I wasn’t so sure. Not that I was gonna argue. “Well, if she’s coming over, we better clean the place up.”
    “Definitely,” Race agreed.
    * * *
    We spent the afternoon trying to make the trailer a little less rank.
    “I’m not doing this for you, y’know,” I told Race as I washed the dishes. “I’m just embarrassed to have a cool chick like Kasey know I live in a dump like this.”
    “I understand