Happy Hour (Racing on the Edge) (25 page)

“Humping, really? Are you like twelve-years old?” I teased attempting to lighten the situation with humor. After all, he was doing the same.

“Whatever,” he pulled me up from the couch against his chest. “Wish me luck.”

“For what?” I wrapped my arms around his waist, savoring the content feeling I got when I was wrapped around him.

“Practice,” he smiled kissing me. “My car is shit.”

“Eh, you’ll do fine. Besides, what we did last night gave it good luck.”

“If I win, you may need to repeat that
every
weekend. You sure you can handle that?” he gave me a wicked grin, his eyes watching mine intently.

“That would
suck
for me.” I replied with lewdness.

Jameson leaned forward; his lips finding my neck, then my jaw and then back to my lips. “
Suck
indeed.” He mumbled drawing my bottom lip inside his mouth, sucking gently.

After a few more kisses and inappropriate groping, Jameson left for practice so I sent Emma a text to find out where she was.

Emma sent me back a text saying she was at Jameson’s merchandise hauler near the grandstands unloading shirts so I decided to make my way over there.

Just as I stood to leave, Spencer came crashing through the door. “Oh, hey, I didn’t think anyone was in here.” He grinned looking around. “What are
you
doing in here?” he asked suspiciously, his blue eyes full of amusement.

“None of your business,” I snapped pulling a sweatshirt from my bag on the floor.

“What are you two doing?” Spencer stepped closer to nudge my shoulder playfully. “I know something is going on. He smiles now.’

“Nothing is going on—we’re friends.”

“Naked friends,”

“Shut up.” I told him annoyed that I was even talking to him about this.

He shook his head, smirking. “Denial,” His eyes focused on the bedroom. “What in the hell happened in here? It looks like a pack of wild animals were let loose in here.”

Wild animals
...
it didn’t look that bad here.

Spencer reached for my bra that was still on the ceiling fan. “Do you need this?” he spun it around on his finger.

Jesus Christ, how many mortifying experiences can one person have in the span of a week?

I snatched it away from him while he smirked like Jameson.

“Fuck off!” I shouted and locked myself in the bathroom again.

“You’re not fooling anyone.” Spencer yelled after me.

Thankfully, the shit head left so I finally came out of the bathroom.

Before I even made it twenty feet outside the motor coach, I saw Chelsea with a tall red headed woman approaching me.

Don’t look at them, don’t look, pretend you don’t see them.

“Sway,” Chelsea chided in that nasally obnoxious voice that I despised so deeply. “You’re still around
...
I thought for sure Jameson would have sent you home by now.”

They both stopped directly in front of me, looking taller than ever in their heels. I looked like a midget next to them in my worn out gray flip-flops.

Who wears heels to a racetrack anyways?

To me personally, with the way everything is spread-out, heels are the worse choice possible. And after Charlotte, the blisters on my feet could attest to that.

 “Chelsea,” I greeted and turned toward the red haired woman. “I don’t think we’ve met.” I reached for the red heads hand. She raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow at me. “I’m Sway.”

“Sway?” her brow furrowed. “That’s a
...
strange name.”

“Yeah well, my parents had a thing for the Rolling Stones back in the day. Too much reefer maybe,”

“Rolling Stones? How does that have anything to do with your name?”

“It’s a song,” I told her still holding my hand at bay. “And you are?”

Reluctantly she reached my hand. “Mariah.” She answered through pursed plump lips.

Oh great, another beautiful woman, wait a second…Mariah?

“Oh,” I said loudly, my eyes widening. “You’re Chelsea’s lover.
Wow
, you two make such a cute couple.” I stood there amused with myself. “I’ve heard so much about you, Mariah. It’s nice that you two could find each other.”

“Jesus,” Chelsea sighed dramatically. “We’re not a couple, Sway.”

“No, no, no.” I waived my hand around dismissively. “It’s okay—you don’t have it hide it.” I smiled because by both their livid expressions that I implied they were lesbians had them pissed and me happy.

Job well done Sway.

“Well, I need to be going, Jameson needs me.” I smiled again clapping my hands together in front of my face. “You two look
so
happy together.” I all but skipped away towards the merchandise trailers.

That was so worth it.

Once at Jameson’s merchandise trailer, I was conveniently greeted by Alley of all people.

Regrettably, for me, I couldn’t help the way I was walking and it didn’t go unnoticed. My ass hurt so bad from the sticker burn and my crankcase
...
well that was another story all together. Her and her goddamn justifications got us into this to begin with.

“Good morning sunshine.” I chimed as cheerfully as possible.

Alley glanced over her shoulder at the way I was walking towards them, her eyes probing as she examined me. “I’m surprised you can even walk after the way that motor coach looked.” Her tone was sour.

“Actually,” I tugged on the back of my shorts. “It wasn’t the motor coach that was the worst. It’s the sticker burn I got from the hood of his race car.”

“Wow,” Alley rolled her eyes. “I warned you once and I won’t say it again. If you get hurt, don’t come crying to me.” she handed Emma a box though her eyes remained focused on me.

Emma just stood there looking in between us both wondering what the hell was going on.

“Why is it such a big deal to everyone what we do with each other?” I asked getting annoyed that everyone cared so much if we were, using Jameson’s term, humping.

Alley threw her arms up in the air. “Because Sway,” her expression changed, softened. “You’re
our
friend too. I’ve known you just as long as I’ve known him. If this doesn’t, and I doubt it will, not only does Jameson lose his best friend, we do too.”

I felt my face crumble at her words. “I wouldn’t do that to you guys.”

“I warned you because Jameson has no clue what’s going on, he can’t see it. And at this point, I’m not sure you can’t either.”

Why does everyone keep saying that?

Before I could ask her, Alley’s phone rang.

She glared down at the screen. “
Great
, Gordon’s calling. After a moment of silence and more listening, she hung up without so much as a goodbye.

“See,” she held out her phone. “That little stunt you guys pulled last night has Jameson being called to the principal’s office.”

I just rolled my eyes.

Jameson wouldn’t care and neither did I. That was one hell of a ride and worth it to me. After his reaction to the micro polishing, I’m sure he felt the same way.

Jameson was still on the track when I made it down to pit lane and stepped on the pit box next to Kyle. Mason sat on the other side of him focused on the laptop in front of him as he entered data.

Kyle looked furious obsessively clicking a pen in his hand, his knuckles white.

“What’s up?” I asked, almost scared to know.

Kyle pulled his head set aside handing me the spare set next to him. “Darrin is all over him out there.” He hollered over the rumble of the cars and then positioned the headset back against his ears. “I know. There’s not much I can do. Hang in there.”

Once I adjusted my own headset, immediately I heard a fuming Jameson coming through the scanner.

“What the fuck? I mean
...
Christ almighty
this is practice, not the goddamn race. Why is he crowding me?”

“Middle two, middle one, clear low
...
four car high, fourteen low on the inside
...
at your door
...
at your rear
...
clear.” Aiden announced as Jameson passed Darrin again coming out of turn one.

We couldn’t see but we could follow him on the laptop Kyle had open watching ESPN.

They were all over this with the media. The series point leader and the second place car battling in practice was a headliner for sure.

Probably just as good as the headlines after the Winston.

Just the few laps I’d been watching of this, they seemed to be playing this cat and mouse game with each other.

One would lead, then the other before Darrin would slide up the track on him and purposely take his line forcing him to run another. Which would have been fine, it’s practice after all, but as soon as Jameson found another line and gave Darrin room, Darrin would hang back and find him again.

“Kyle,” Jameson’s voice was less than thrilled. “go talk to Frank. I wanna see what his goddamn problem is. If he bumps me one more time, I’m slamming his ass in the wall.” Jameson warned. “I’m not gonna take this shit much longer.”

“Calm down.” Kyle told him trying to ease his frustrations but really, there was no use now.

Once Jameson got riled up, it was pretty much impossible to calm him down. You just had to wait for the storm to pass.

“Don’t tell me to calm down, Kyle!” Jameson snapped back. “It’s bad enough I’m fishtailing all over the fucking place and now I got him all over me. I can’t keep the car straight. We’re lucky I haven’t wadded it up already.”

“Mason went to talk to Frank.” Kyle replied and then threw the clipboard across the pit box. It smashed against a pile of tires on the ground beside us.

“That bad?” I asked Kyle as he busied himself looking over the lap times and the last adjustments they made to the car, tugging at his hair in frustration.

Everything was kept electronically in the teams laptop so they could immediately decipher lap times, fuel mileage, and adjustments they made to the car. That way, if they made an adjustment that didn’t work; they could document it and know the result the adjustment had to the lap times or even fuel mileage.

Kyle sighed shaking his head. His eyes rose to meet mine as he pointed towards the screen in front of him. “Jameson’s right.” I watched the screen closely with him. “The car is all over the place. We made a spring adjustment but it’s still off.” Kyle motioned with his hand gesturing how the car would move up the track on Jameson. “When he drives into the corner, it wants to come around on him. That’s
exactly
when Darrin gets on him.” He flicked his hand in disgust towards the screen. “He’s trying to make him crash.”

“Cole, you copy?” Jameson asked.