Pitbabe S2, Chapter 17 pg5

 Pitbabe S2, Chapter 17 pg5

   It’ll probably take me a while to understand his heart. Someone like me, who puts myself first, is still a rookie when it comes to selflessness. I think someone who can value others’ bonds and dreams that much must be able to generate love endlessly, someone who loves loving others. Phii Alan is that kind of person. Me? I’m not. I love myself, Charlie, and Phii Alan. For others, I’d say I care, but I wouldn’t dare say I love them. The more I realize how many people I love, the more I feel like my life’s heading into dangerous territory. I’m not ready for that kind of risk right now.

   “But I wants to see you race,” I said with a smile. Phii Alan smiled back, his expression shifting slightly, like some thought was stirring in his head. “Phii Babe said you were super cool when you raced, had girls falling all over you back then.”

   “Obviously,” the former heartthrob puffed out his chest proudly. “Don’t think I’m bragging, but if you’d met me back when I was still hot, I’m telling you, I wouldn’t have slept a wink. All that jealousy chasing me around? Exhausting.”

   “I doesn’t get jealous,” I replied. Just imagining it, I couldn’t picture how I’d react. I don’t really get why people get mad when their partner is close to someone else, why they fear their partner might waver or give their heart to another. If he’s my partner, his job is to treat me with loyalty, right? If one day Phii Alan started wavering or did something disrespectful, I wouldn’t waste time being jealous. I’d let him go to whoever he wants. There’s no reason to chain up a house dog that wants to be a stray, and I sure wouldn’t keep a dog that’s itching to bite me close by. “Jeff doesn’t know how to be jealous.”

   Of course, I didn’t tell Phii Alan about the house dog, stray dog, or biting dog comparisons. He’s too sensitive—he’d get upset if I likened him to a dog.

   “Hmm…” Phii Alan stared at me, brows furrowed, making a thoughtful hum as if recalling a past life. “You’re right. You’ve never been jealous of me.”

   “Told you, I don’t do jealousy.”

   “But I don’t really go anywhere either,” the young captain cleared his throat. He seemed a bit embarrassed that he wasn’t sparking any jealousy. “I’m with you all the time. I don’t get close to anyone else. When would there even be a chance for jealousy?”

   “Even if someone else got close to you, I think he still wouldn’t be jealous.”

   “Seriously?”

   “Yup.”

   Maybe I answered too quickly. My complete lack of hesitation made the old guy’s face fall instantly. I thought it was a good thing we didn’t get jealous. Phii Babe and Charlie were jealous of each other all the time, fighting every day. If someone got near Charlie, Phii Babe would look like he wanted to murder someone, yelling his head off (though he got better later). Even their breakup started with Charlie being jealous of Phii Babe and Willy. Compared to them, Phii Alan and I barely had anything to fight about. At most, we’d argue about work at the garage. With no jealousy, our daily life was so much calmer. But now Phii Alan seemed disappointed that I wasn’t jealous of him.

   Sometimes people just love making things complicated. I don’t get it.

   “But if I saw you being super cool, I might feel a tiny bit possessive or something.”

   “Consoling me?” Phii Alan squinted at me.

   “No way.” Truth is, I was trying to comfort him, but if I admitted it, how would that count as consoling? “If I saw some cool side of you, I might worry about others liking you or something.”

   “Didn’t you say I’m already cool?”

   “Not cool like my boyfriend, but cool like Alan, a side I hasn’t seen.”

   “Hmm…” The cool guy looked deep in thought. Maybe because he’s been acting like an uncle for so long, showing a genuinely cool side might take some extra brainpower. “There’s one thing you haven’t seen.”

   “What’s that?”

   Phii Alan answered with a sly grin instead of words. Then he dashed off behind the garage, leaving me standing there, confused, next to Dean’s unfinished car. About ten minutes later, the cool captain returned, dressed differently. Or, to paint a clearer picture, this was the first time I’d seen Phii Alan in an X-Hunter racing suit.

   “What’s this?”

   “Just wait, I’ll show you. So you can picture that before I became this old geezer, I was the ultra-cool Phii.”

   His words sounded a bit old-fashioned, but he was brimming with pride. I didn’t say anything, just looked at him and laughed. When Alan dragged me by the arm to the pit, a familiar race car was already waiting. I knew it well—it was Phii Alan’s car. Even though he’s no longer a racer, he still takes great care of it, bringing it out to the track regularly to keep it in racing shape. From what I’d seen, he usually drove it casually, just enough to keep the engine running. But today, it seemed our ace captain was fully channeling his inner racer.

   Phii Alan dressed me up like a paper doll—racing suit, helmet, gloves. Everything was prepped for me (actually, it was just spare gear they had lying around). The suit was a bit loose, so were the gloves, but it wasn’t a big deal since I didn’t need to drive. It didn’t have to fit perfectly like a racer’s personal gear; it was just for safety, per the track’s rules.

   At first, sitting in the car with Phii Alan as we pulled onto the track didn’t feel like much. It wasn’t my first time. I’d worked with race cars for years, and my boyfriend’s an ex-racer. Of course I’d experienced the speed of a race car on a track before. But when I heard the engine roar with Phii Alan behind the wheel, a sudden excitement started to spark and spread through my body.

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