Happy Hour (Racing on the Edge) (56 page)

Who wouldn’t want their crankcase to sparkle?

“Yes you do,” Her eyes bright with excitement; she knew she was wearing me down. She now had a leg over my line. “It’ll be fun.”

“How does it sparkle?” Now I was avoiding eye contact.

Why have I never heard of this?

In my head, I was thinking of flashing lights or some shit like that. The thought of anything electric down there wasn’t comforting—unless of course I had control over it.

Emma smiled triumphantly. “You’ll see.” Her in expression was something similar to
...
well
...
someone who’d just gotten their way.

Am I going to regret this?

Yes
...
it was Emma’s idea, it couldn’t be good.

“Look at that girls tattoo
...
” someone snickered behind us as we gathered our bags. “Jesus.”

Since Jimi and Nancy found out about Emma’s tattoo, she stopped hiding it and rebelled against everyone by showing it proudly.

In a blink of an eye, Emma grabbed my mocha and chucked it at the teenage girl who snickered at her Trash-R-Us token. She had horrible aim so the cup only went a few feet and fell to the ground, spilling my five-dollar mocha all over the marble floor of the Tacoma Mall.

“Can you believe the nerve of her?” Emma shouted, not attempting to keep her voice down. “Some people!”

“Um—” I was about to say something when my phone vibrated.

It was a text from Jameson that read:
Hey
beautiful. Missing you right now. Axle says hello and I quote: She’s hot! Chachi

I laughed and sent one back.

Hello handsome. Missing you too. Tell Axle thanks, I think. Joanie

Seemed a little strange that a five-year old would say: “she’s hot”. I had a feeling Jameson may have taught him that, he was never a good influence on children. His idea of helping Spencer potty train Lane at the tracks was allowing him to pee on bushes instead of making it to the bathroom.

A few minutes later, my phone buzzed again with a media message of the cutest picture ever. Jameson kneeling beside Axle, they both had helmets on but what caught my eye was they both had the biggest grins on their faces. Jameson appeared relaxed and content there with him. Little Axle, with his huge brown eyes, was looking over at him with such veneration it made me start crying, again.

Thanks for making me cry!

Soon he replied with:
Sorry honey, I didn’t mean to. Axle wanted you to see a picture of him. Gotta go race now, he thinks he can beat me. Love you.

My curiosity for vajazzeling got the better of me. An hour later Emma and I were laying on table, in separate rooms, getting vajazzled.

The entire process was strange and rather uncomfortable. Especially when the tiny Asian woman ripped out my beaver pelt and began adhering diamonds on it. When she was finished, vajazzled dazzle lady handed me a mirror to observe her meticulous handy work.

I wasn’t sure what freaked me out more during the entire process, her wide grin when I’d scream or the fact that my legs were now spread with a mirror between them.

Instead of worrying about that, I focused on the situation at hand.

Wow.

Examining my crankcase, she looked sparkly. She’d been turned into a shiny sparkly smooth vajazzled crankcase, complete with a checkered flag and a number nine.

Hot damn if I didn’t look good.

I was tempted to click a picture and text Jameson, but I refrained, he was with children today. Then I thought, I need to reveal this Holy Grail extravagant masterpiece in person, maybe even with fireworks.

When the tiny Asian left, carefully I put my clothes on. I didn’t want any diamonds to fall out in fear they would
...
get misplaced. The thought made me cringe of having anything sharp making its way inside my crankcase.

Emma was standing in the lobby waiting for me. Just as I was about to ask her what she got, she pulled me into the bathroom, dropped her pants and bared her goods to me.

“Christ almighty Emma—I didn’t need to see that!” I wailed diverting my eyes away from her horseshoe she had designed on her girly pad. “You could have
told
me what you got. This isn’t show and tell.”

Pulling her jeans up, she reached for the button of my jeans. “Hey, I showed you, now you show me.”

“No way.
Not happening
.” Slapping at her, I backed away. “Never, no,” I shook my head violently. “Not in this life time,” It was becoming pretty obvious Emma was not concerned with my lack of show-n-tell.

“
Sway
, I showed you. That’s not fair.” she whined crossing her arms in front of her.

I wanted to back away further but I was now straddling the toilet in my attempts to escape.

“I do not care.” I shouted sprinting from the bathroom with her trailing. “I never said this was an all skate.”

“At least tell me what you got,” she insisted catching me once I made it to the lobby doors.

I couldn’t help the smile that grazed my lips when I thought about my checkered flag crankcase. Fortunately, she couldn’t see it since I was running away from her. “A checkered flag with the number nine,” I answered quickly making my way through the parking lot.

My running didn’t last long; I was completely out of shape. Soon I was panting, wheezing and holding my side in pain.

“Oh, that’s sweet. You should send him a picture.” Emma held up her phone. “I already sent one to Aiden.”

“I’m not sending him a picture.” I chided helping Emma put the bags in the back of the red dragon. “He’s at St. Jude Children’s Hospital today. I’m not sending him a picture of my crankcase while he’s entertaining children. That’s gross.”

“What’s he doing at St. Jude’s?”

“There’s a five-year old boy, Axle, whose wish was to meet Jameson.”

“Oh,” I could tell it bothered her as well. “Jameson donates a lot of money to that particular hospital. I can see why he’d want to spend some time there.”

Making my way through Tacoma traffic wasn’t the highlight of my day. When we got to Olympia, I headed for caffeine.

“Where are we going?” Emma asked.

“You threw my coffee away, so you’re buying me more.” I smiled. “You should think of getting some too.” I hedged. She had no idea what she was in for with the Lucifer twins.

Rolling with my advice, Emma did get coffee and then we were cruising down 101 towards Elma country and cow shit.

With Emma’s dancing rocking the truck from side-to-side, I turned down the music once we were back on the freeway. “What do you think Chelsea, Darrin and Mariah are up to?” I asked.

Emma was all keyed-up after that. She wanted to be a lawyer at one time so solving a mystery was right up her alley. That and she watched entirely too much CSI. “Well,” she began with much exaggeration. “I think Darrin used Chelsea in attempt to get Jameson in trouble. You know, trying to prove he’s like some sort of bad guy who goes around assaulting woman.” Emma paused taking a drink of her mocha. “Darrin’s just pissed that Jameson is one of the best drivers out there—he’s competition for Darrin. I
really
think all this is Darrin’s doing. It has to be. He’s hated Jameson from day one. I mean, you remember their USAC days together.”

“Do you think Tate is involved?”

“No, I don’t. I think Tate is just in denial. He would never do that to Jameson purposely, he’s being fed lies by Chelsea—I’m sure of it.”

I was quiet for a few minutes merging onto Highway 8. Then it hit me
...
if we found someone who was close to them maybe we could see what they’re up to. “Do you know anyone that’s friends with them?”

“The only person I know who hangs around them is Dana. I don’t know that she’s friends with them though.” Emma took another drink of her mocha. “Dana doesn’t go to every race; she’s just an obsessed fan. I don’t even think she has any family on the series.”

“I wonder if we could get her to, you know
...
help us.”

Emma giggled. “Jameson would
kill
us.”

“What he doesn’t know
...
won’t hurt him.” I waggled my eyebrows at her.

The last thing I wanted to do was cause additional stress for Jameson. He had enough already. If there was some way I could help him resolve this whole Darrin issue that would mean less stress for him and less stress for me.

When we arrived back at Charlie’s house, I was in the middle of putting my bag in my room when Emma came in with a grime expression on her face. We’d only been there for five minutes so I assumed this expression had
something
to do with the Lucifer twins.

I watched as she pulled the red boots she bought from a Nordstrom bag, only they weren’t red anymore. They were now charcoal, burnt.

My thoughts were confirmed in regards to the satins spawn. Unless Aiden’s fantasy involved a fire fighter, those wouldn’t get him going.

“Aw, yes.” I grinned. “I see you met the Lucifer twins.”

“
Met them
?” her eyes bugged out. “They set my boots on fire!”

“They’ve done worse
...
look at Mr. Jangles.” I pointed to his shaved ass. “He will never be the same.”

“I was wearing the boots when they set them on fire, Sway.” Emma tossed the boots on the floor. “Who the fuck are those hoodlums?”

“They’re Andrea’s twin boys.” I gave her a wide smile. “They
live
here.”

“You’re shitting me, right?”

“Nope not shitting you,”

“I’m not staying here with them.” she placed her hand on her hip giving me a pointed glare. “I refuse.”

“Yes you are.” I demanded. “If I have to stay here, you sure as shit have to.”

Mr. Jangles walked over to Emma and started rubbing himself up against her legs. She glanced down and then took a double take before jumping on my bed. “What the fuck is that?” She squealed in horror.

You’d think she just saw the devil or something.

I looked around for the devil—I wanted to have a discussion with him about his children and their behavior.

“What is wrong with you guys?” I shouted a few octane’s louder than necessary. I felt bad for poor Mr. Jangles—it’s not his fault he was overweight. “He’s a fucking cat!”

“What do you feed him, McDonalds?”

I shook my head and laughed. “You are so much like Jameson.”

Having Emma and the Lucifer twins around all under the same roof, there was
never
a dull moment. On Wednesday, they shaved Mr. Jangles the rest of the way and made him look like a lion, keeping a ball of fur on his tail, fur on his feet and then the long fur around his face. He looked like an overly obese lion.