“Wait,” Kona says, stopping Ransom with a wave of his hand. “You drive a GSXR? How? You’re a kid.”
From the kitchen, Keira clears her throat, eyes narrowed as she glares at Ransom, motioning with her chin for their son to explain himself.
“Well, technically, I’m not allowed.” A quick shrug and the boy leans back in his chair, gaze moving around the table as he ignores Kona’s expression. “Mom didn’t know about it last year. Bobby, she, well, I guess you could say she’s my adoptive grandmother, she let me keep it at her house and Mom…”
“Neither one of them told me,” Keira says, leaning against the kitchen island. “And I gave them both hell for it too.”
Ransom glares at his mother, but the expression is quick, easily leaves his face when Kona clears his throat. “So this guy?”
“Right. Well, I tried walking away, but this asshole keeps talking smack, him and his boys following me out to the mall parking lot and man, I hate a bully. Especially one that only starts shit when his boys are around.” He looks up at Kona as though he needed his approval; as though Kona’s small nod would make his actions seem reasonable. So Kona gives his boy that nod, urging him with one gesture to continue.
“So I tell this Barney Fife jackass to ease off me and that there was no point arguing over a 900 racing a 950. ‘It’s not the engine, dumbass, it’s the rider,’ I tell him and he and his boys just start laughing at me.” Ransom looks down, voice lowering. “No one laughs at me.” Leann gets up from the table and the boy watches her leave, leaning lower over the table, voice almost at a whisper. “That asshole also bet me two large that he could beat me and there was no way I was gonna pass that up.”
Kona laughs, understanding the logic, remembering what it was like when his mother was tight with her cash and he and Luka would fight with punks eager to prove themselves. He’d made some nice bank in high school teaching a lesson to guys half his size.
“So we go to the West End, out to Centennial. It’s late, no one is around and we take the two miles twice and this idiot is all over the place. He had nothing on me, but he keeps on running his mouth the whole time we’re racing, calling me a punk, telling me I’m a stupid jock, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘shit man, whip it out and measure.’”
“Ransom!” Keira shouts from the kitchen and the boy flinches at the sound.
“Sorry, Mom. Anyway, so we take the curve, the redneck flips, wrecks that sweet little Ninja and I beat him by at least two hundred yards. I run to check up on him and the dude is crying. Literally crying like a freakin’ kid.”
Head in a shake, Kona can’t help smiling at his boy, a mix of approval and annoyance makes him wonder if he’s a bad father for feeling proud. “You won the bet.”
“Lot of good it did him.” Tristan says.
Ransom again jabs his cousin in the ribs. “Hey. My story, asshole.”
“Luka Ransom Riley watch your mouth.” Kona doesn’t buy Keira’s frown or the way she stomps into the dining room with a stack of bowls in her hands. “Marcus is eight years old and he repeats everything you and Tristan say.”
“Hey, his foul mouth isn’t our fault. You’ve heard Leann yell, Mom.”
From the kitchen, Leann throws a dishrag at Ransom’s head and he catches it.
“What happened with the bet?” Kona asks him, sliding his beer out of the way when Keira places a bowl in front of him.
She stands at his side, hands on her hips and Kona gets that she hates this story, that she’s not amused by how animated Ransom is retelling it. “There were two State Troopers tailing them the whole time. Our son spent the night in jail.”
“What?”
Keira nods.
“You didn’t bail him out?”
“Hell no. When the cops called me I agreed with them that our son needed to be taught a lesson.” Ransom looks like he might correct her language, but one lifted eyebrow from his mother shuts the boy up immediately. “He was being stupid and he needed to learn consequences.”
“But a whole night in jail?” Kona asks her, looking up at her surprised face. He knows he has no right to question her decision to leave him in jail overnight, but he’d been there himself at sixteen. He hates to think that his boy had repeated Kona’s behavior.
“Kona, Nashville isn’t New Orleans and yeah, a whole night. He got landed with a priest who was pulled over for DWI. The man quoted scripture to him for sixteen hours straight.”
Keira walks off and Kona watches her, then quickly moves his gaze back to his son when Ransom again lowers his voice. “I went the next day and got my damn money though.”