Chapter One

Some people are born fearless, but most of us think if we keep running fast enough, we'll stay ahead of whatever scares us.

Maybe that's not really true, but it's what my mom, a professional race car driver, used to tell me whenever I'd ask if she was scared before a race.

Her words echo through my mind as I swipe my forehead with the only clean stretch of my forearm available. It's a boiling Saturday afternoon in early June and I'm standing in front of an ancient rotating fan, which does exactly nothing to cool the swamp in my Grandma Jolene's garage. Sweat soaks my tank top and the upper part of the mechanic's jumpsuit tied around my waist. The syrupy air ambling out of the fan dries my upper lip, but after being in the garage for most of the day, what I need is an ice bath, or a properly working AC unit—even a dip in the local river would do.

Somehow, after all this time away, I'd forgotten how hot North Carolina gets this time of year. It was hot in Charleston, yes, but at least we had breezes off the ocean to cool things down sometimes. Here, in the garage, even with all the doors open, it's at least a million degrees.

More like ninety, the thermometer on the wall beside the fan tells me. But still. Who can work or think in these conditions? I ease the fan up a notch—it rattles angrily at me—and pull a bottle of water from the cooler. Condensation beads on the bottle as I rest it against my forehead. I'm tempted to order an air conditioner from Amazon myself, just so I'm not cooked alive this summer. But it's not like I'm sticking around long. I can survive a little heat. Especially if I'm ever going to make it as an F1 driver, where the cockpit temperature can reach as high as 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

As I gulp down half the bottle of water, I consider the wall beside the thermometer. There's a framed picture of Mom, standing in the middle of a NASCAR winner's podium, clutching a huge bottle of champagne, a ridiculously-pleased-with-herself smile splitting her face. Beside it hang checkered flags, banners from her team, and a few pictures from my early racing days. My favorite picture is of me when I was eight, squished between Mom and Dad, taken moments after my first win, my tiny fists in the air. Mom beams down at me. Dad's smile matches my own.

Mom wouldn't like to know how worry coils in my belly every time I look at this picture. Or think of racing again. Or wonder if I'm even good at it after all these months away from the track …

Which is why I have to keep moving. Maybe I'm not fearless, but I can keep ahead of whatever scares me. Which is a lot of things these days, not that anyone needs to know that.

Lifting my long hair from my neck, I turn my back to the fan. Warm air caresses my bare shoulders, and I close my eyes, inhaling the smell of grease, dust, and something metal- and car-related that reminds me of my family.

My parents met in this very same garage. Dad was a mechanic, Mom was an up-and-coming NASCAR champion, and they fell in love over a gearshift. Which is about the cheesiest thing ever if you ask me. When they used to tell me the story, Mom would tease me, saying, "Maybe you'll meet your true love at Grandma's garage, too, JoJo."

"No way," I'd say. "I've got no time for that. It's all cars for me."

"We'll see about that when you're seventeen," Mom would say with one of her big laughs. (A laugh like a porch swing on a southern house, Dad says. Meaning it invited you to stay awhile and get comfy.)

Now that I'm seventeen, I'd give anything to hear that laugh again.

But that's silly, of course. I could pull out my phone right now, go to YouTube, and hear Mom's laugh in one of several documentaries about her life. DeeDee Emerson, world-famous race car driver. First woman to, blah blah blah. Died in a fiery crash four months ago. Still can't forget her laugh.

Especially when I'm working on her car.

Ignoring the stomach-wringing grief that grips me at the thought of my mom's death, I leave the fan and pick up a wrench. I hold the tool so tightly I can feel the raised letters on its handle digging into my palm. Slowly, I walk across the garage, each step taking me closer to the electric blue AMC Hornet SC/360 that sits in the center of the room. It's a muscle car and has the curves and racing stripes to prove it, but it's far less famous than something like the 1964 Shelby GT350 Mustang, which has become a collector's item for millionaires. The Hornet is a machine true car geeks adore, and it was Mom's first baby and her greatest love (well, second only to Dad and me, she swore, but it's a close second). Mom named the car Betty and hung a tiny pink plastic cat-shaped toy from the rearview mirror. When I was little, my favorite thing to do was watch that pink plastic cat bob around when we'd take Sunday family drives to the beach.

"I'm going to try real hard not to fuck you up, Betty," I murmur. The Hornet hasn't been run in months, not since the last time Mom visited the garage, and Grandma says it needs some work.

That falls on me, since Dad is now officially done with cars. Not even kidding—he rides a bicycle everywhere, living his life a quarter mile at a time on two wheels. With a helmet on. And fingerless gloves. And all other appropriate bicycle safety gear.

Which, fine. Grieve as you will, but don't take me with you.

I scowl at my own bike, a blue-pink-purple thing—the perfect bi-girl bicycle, my best friend CJ cheerfully told me over the phone when I told them about it—that rests in the corner of the garage. Much as I love to be a bi-on-a-bike, this one has a basket for God's sake, like I'm twelve. Dad wouldn't even get me a racing bike when we moved from Charleston back to teeny tiny Dell's Hollow, North Carolina. Now, I'm stuck with this dorky thing. At least until I get my license.

Which is happening never, since I'm not eighteen for six more months, and Dad won't take me to get my license before then unless I do a bunch of volunteer work for the sake of the college applications I don't even want to fill out—

"JoJo Emerson-Boyd, I swear, I can see the gears in your head turning from here," says a loud voice with a southern accent thick and sweet as raspberry jam.

My Grandma Jolene—don't even ask about the Dolly Parton song, which she most certainly inspired, at least according to her—strides into the garage, her bottle-red hair twisted into a bun and her fleet of wildly impractical gold bangles clacking.

Like me, she wears a bright green mechanic's jumpsuit with a name patch on the chest, but, always glamorous, she's paired hers with red heels.

"I'm just looking at Mom's car," I say, dropping the wrench into a toolbox at my feet. "Promise."

Grandma raises one perfectly tweezed brow. "Uh-huh. You wouldn't dream of taking this thing out for a spin, would you now?" Grandma walks around the car, running a hand lightly over it. "Because your daddy told me you've not got a license yet."

"Grandma. I've been driving race cars since I was seven."

"Go-karts."

"Same difference. I was moving up the junior ranks and you know it. I was winning!"

"Girl, I believe as much as you that you're going to drive for F1 someday, but you're not taking the Hornet out until you get your license."

"But it's not even about the driving!" I let out a frustrated breath. "Dad knows I'm a good driver! He's just stalling. He's trying to get me to be a part of this local summer volunteer program. Then we're going to maybe—maybe—talk about getting me my license."

Grandma's forehead wrinkles as she considers me, and a heaviness crosses her features, as if all her sadness had landed on her shoulders at once. "He just cares about you, JoJo, you know that."

"He's too overprotective."

"He doesn't want to lose you," she says softly. "DeeDee's death cracked him wide open, and he's clinging to all he has left."

The frustration that's been simmering since we moved back to Dell's Hollow two weeks ago, in the middle of May, finally comes spewing out of me. "But I don't have anything left, either! No friends here. No races to compete in. Nothing!" I slap one hand against the side of Mom's car and then immediately regret it.

Grandma eyes the car and hands me a clean rag from a nearby metal table. Apologetically, I rub off the greasy fingerprints I left on the side of the Hornet.

"You have your family," Grandma says. "And this job—which I see you've not been doing too much of today." She looks pointedly at the old Pontiac Fiero someone's brought in for a tune-up.

Because she runs the only garage in a small town at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, Grandma and her mechanics work on a lot of cars that have been sitting in mountainside outbuildings for decades. It gives her whole place a retro feel that she plays up with tin racing signs, pinup girl calendars, neon lights, and a continuous soundtrack that's a mix of ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s music. It's a weirdly wonderful place to work, and, since I grew up helping my dad fix cars, it feels the closest to home since we moved here. Back when Dad worked in this garage, it was also a custom shop where cars were fitted out for the street races near Raleigh, but that's all gone now. Mom's car is the last fast thing in the shop, and it's pretty much not moved in ages.

"Oh please, I was done with that Pontiac an hour ago," I say, waving toward the Fiero. "It's all cleaned up, and ready to go to space."

Grandma snickers at that, sounding far younger than her sixty-eight years. Like me, she's a super fan of the Fast Furious franchise, and neither of us has recovered from that scene in F9 where a Pontiac Fiero gets launched into space.

"Well, orbit-ready or not, that's not our only car today. And since Willa is out with her sick kids and Mabel Rae isn't in until Tuesday, I need you to look at that Subaru that's parked out front." She tosses me a set of keys on a fluffy rabbit's foot keychain.

I catch them and let a wicked smile curve my lips. "Are you saying you want me to drive the Subaru?"

Grandma rolls her eyes affectionately. "I'm saying pull it into the garage and get its hood open, not take it out racing. I don't think that's breaking your daddy's rules. When you're done with it, you can have the rest of the day off. But I'll pay you for a full day."

I grin at that. "You're the best, Grandma. No wonder Dolly wrote a song about you."

She pats me on the shoulder. "Just use some of that time off today to investigate this volunteer program stuff. I want you to fit in here, Jo, and make a good life for yourself. Figuring out how to live by your daddy's rules while still being yourself is a big step in the right direction. Plus, you might actually meet some kids your own age to hang around with."

"Are you saying you're tired of me?" I try not to sound wounded. Dad is between jobs right now and always on his computer looking for work, so since we moved into Grandma Jolene's big farmhouse two weeks ago, I've hung out with her pretty much every night. Which is clearly not her idea of a great time.

"I'm saying I'm a vibrant older woman with a life of her own, who loves watching movies with her granddaughter but who has a vacation coming up soon. Didn't I tell you we're celebrating Florence's seventieth birthday in Florence this year?"

Florence is Grandma's oldest friend and long-term love interest. Flo lives in California where her grandkids are and visits Dell's Hollow every few months. Twenty years ago, after Florence's wife left her and Grandma's second husband died, they'd fallen in love, but neither one of them ever wanted to get married again, so now they just spend as much time as possible seeing the world together. Selfies of them zip-lining in the Amazon, surfing in Australia, and eating cake in Paris cover the walls of Grandma's living room, mixed in among pictures of Mom and Dad's wedding, my early years, me in front of the Karts I've won with, and many other family photos. Family is everything to Grandma, and the evidence of that is all over her house and the garage.

"We leave in a few weeks," Grandma continues. "We'll have a barbecue before we go so you can say hello to Flo. Invite all your friends."

"I have exactly zero friends here."

"Invite the ones from Charleston! Florence will love to meet them. She's always asking about you. Wants to know when you'll start racing again, but I told her that's not her business or mine."

My stomach clenches. How am I ever supposed to race again when the mere thought of it makes me want to hurl my lunch?

I exhale slowly, keeping my voice steady, something only possible after all my years of training. "Are you sure I can't come with you to Italy?"

That sounds better than hanging around Dell's Hollow, friendless and car-less.

"Absolutely not. Who else will run the garage for me these next few weeks?"

"Willa? Mabel Rae? Dad? Literally any adult with more experience than me?"

Grandma waves a hand, making her bangles dance again. "Of course they'll be in charge, technically, but I'm counting on you to make sure all the cars are fixed and drivable. I'm heading out for lunch now, but get that Subaru into the garage, get the tires off, and then you can take off, too."

She winks at me and walks away, leaving me to puzzle out her meaning.

Make sure all the cars are fixed and drivable? As in Mom's Hornet, too? The keys are locked in Grandma's safe, but that wouldn't be the hardest thing to open. It's a hardware-store bought-on-clearance safe, not some top-of-the-line bank vault I'd need a crew to crack.

To be thought on later, once Grandma is safely several time zones away.

Jingling the Subaru's keys, I head out front to pull it into the garage. As I'm getting into the car (which is slime green and looks like a giant rusting booger), my phone beeps with a text from CJ, who lives back in Charleston. They still aren't over me moving, and I miss them dearly. Which is why I haven't been returning their texts this last week. Because I'm afraid if I tell them how lonely it is here, then I won't be able to stand living in Dell's Hollow. Still, though, I click the most recent text open, pointedly ignoring all the videos and messages CJ has sent over the last few days.

CJ:Hello, Sunshine. I know you're probably doing that thing where you pretend you don't have feelings, so you don't have to feel anything, which I'm going to say is cool. Because, ewww, feelings

I laugh at that. CJ wants to be a therapist like their mom, and feelings are literally their favorite thing to talk about.

CJ:But, I'm warning you, if you don't text me back, I'm going to show up in that tiny town and do something like take out a bill-board and plaster it with your third-grade school picture

CJ:Don't test me JoJo

CJ:You know I'm capable of this

CJ:Seriously. I have so many pictures of us in third grade

They include a picture of me in third grade standing on the beach in the worst two-piece bathing suit ever, holding up a jellyfish on a stick. My hair is cut into this weird permed mullet I somehow thought was cool. I'm gap-toothed and beaming at the camera. My grade school picture from that year is far, far worse than this one.

I can't help but text back.

JoJo:You wouldn't dare

CJ:Ahhhh, there you are. Hello friend

JoJo:Swear I'm not ignoring you. Things are just … weird

CJ:I get it. It's okay. Just miss your face

JoJo:Here's my face

I take a picture of myself inside the old Subaru, overwhelmed suddenly by how much my life has changed in the short time since we moved. I should be spending this summer with CJ, playing at the beach and racing at our local track. Instead I'm here, working in my grandma's garage. I force a smile while trying not to cry.

CJ:Cutie. Why are you in a car? Are you driving? Did your dad finally let you get your license?!!

JoJo:Not even a little bit. Call me tonight and I'll tell you all about it?

CJ:Done. And seriously, just say the word, and I'll drive up there to come see you

JoJo:That's such a long drive. I know how you feel about cars. And highways

CJ's anxiety leaves them unable to drive on highways, forcing them to navigate the wild, twisting southern backroads between Charleston and Dell's Hollow. Which is not a great option.

CJ: For you I'd manage. Or get James to drive me

James is CJ's boyfriend, and we both like him tremendously. Far better than some of the other dirtbags CJ has dated.

JoJo:I'm okay for now, promise. Though Grandma Jolene has a BBQ coming up soon, and she's requested your presence so she can "introduce Florence to all my friends"

CJ:You know I love the Flo-Jo love story. I'll be there

A honk makes me look up. From the driver's seat of her nearly new purple Dodge Charger, Grandma waves at me to get moving. Then she pulls away to go get lunch.

Signing off with CJ, I slip my phone into my pocket and take out the folded picture of Jamie Chadwick—the amazing female British driver who won all three seasons of the W Series (a women's-only circuit that was meant to help women break into F1 racing)—I always keep handy. Jamie Chadwick is my idol, and, although the W Series was shut down because of COVID and the F1 Academy took its place, I put her on the dashboard of any car when I drive, as a reminder of what I hope to accomplish. The F1 Academy is a way to get noticed in the ridiculously competitive and expensive world of F1 driving.

I'm planning on applying to the F1 Academy this year—I even have an application in my bag, all filled out and ready to send by August 1; it's just waiting on my dad's signature—and if I get in, it could change everything. That is, if I can still drive a race car at all. But, of course, that's half a world away and far outside my grasp at the moment. Before I can even think about F1 or the academy, I have to get my license. And before I do that, I have to find a way out of this volunteer program Dad's so smitten with. But even before any of that, I have to get this Subaru into the garage and get working on the tires.

Right, time to get moving.