Happy Hour (Racing on the Edge) (77 page)

I made a firm rule that he needed to be discharged from the hospital before we had sex. To say I was horny as well was a fucking understatement. My surplus hormones were out of control, I had an oil leak that needed a new filter, desperately.

Don’t think I wasn’t ready to ask nurse pussycat for a shot of valium, because I was.

I was moments away from climbing on top of him and riding the shit out of him, despite the broken ribs and punctured lung.

I was satisfied immensely when Jameson showed absolutely no interest in the pussycat doll or any other nurse that snuck in to try their luck with him.

Tommy however, was madly in love with the pussycat doll and asked her to marry him on more than on occasional. She thought he was adorable and actually gave him her number.

She must have liked orange heads.

Jameson was one cranky jerk by the time Sunday rolled around and he was forced to watch the race on television—something he’d never done
until
now.

I actually had to leave the room a couple times and beg the nurses to sedate him, or me, when he was yelling so profusely at the reporters that I honestly thought he was going to give himself a heart attack.

Everyone in the NASCAR garage knew exactly what happened and that Darrin intended on killing Jameson that day but the media painted a very different picture.

They went through every possible scenario from maybe he was testing something out on his car, maybe he didn’t realize Jameson was on the track, to maybe Jameson shouldn’t have still been on the track.

Bullshit
...
all of it bullshit.

Darrin Torres knew exactly what he was doing when he pulled off pit lane and hit Jameson’s car at approximately one hundred and seventy miles per hour.

That was not a goddamn fluke. It was intentional.

What shut Jameson up completely that afternoon was when they replayed the accident and he watched it for the first time.

He was quiet for a good hour and I think the only reason he spoke after that was because I threw up beside his bed after watching it.

It was sickening to see, the video footage they had didn’t show Darrin coming but instead showed Jameson doing his burnout with his arm out the window, and then you saw a glimpse of Darrin’s car in the smoke
...
then this horrible metal-to-metal thunderous noise.

When the smoke cleared, Jameson’s car rested demolished against the outside wall, the camera focusing on his body slumped against his steering wheel.

It was one of those horrific accidents you see in movies where you can’t believe they walked away from it, it was gut wrenching is what it was.

Jameson never did make any remarks towards the accident.

By Monday morning, Emma was prohibited from his room after she brought in a fluffy stuffed cougar that was practically the size of Jameson.

His response, after making me set the cougar outside his door, “You have to be shitting me?”

Nancy was dangerously close to being banned as well when she brought me
Burger King
.

Jameson had to sit and watch as I wolfed down two
Whoppers
and a milk shake.

He was not so amiable after that since his doctor said he wasn’t allowed any greasy food while he was in the hospital. He actually contemplated kicking me out but I suborned him with another sponge bath—worked like a charm.

The week in the hospital flew by.

Jameson was
...
driven. He pushed himself right to the edge and balanced precariously along it, determined to recover in time for Bristol. But the thing was, that’s what Jameson was good at, balancing on the edge of control, determination, anything really.

He wasn’t able to do much at first but as the days passed, he grew more confident and it was evident that he body was responding. He had been in excellent physical condition before the crash, his body honed to a point most people never saw in their lifetime, and that made it possible for him to recover at a phenomenal rate.

I knew that soon he’d be getting back behind the wheel of a racecar. I was happy for him but the other part of me
...
the part that wanted the father of our child around for his or hers birth, was scared shitless to have him behind the wheel again.

I don’t think anyone can ever understand the feeling you get when you watch someone you love almost die, right before your eyes.

It was indescribable and something I never want to experience again but I know it
will
happen.

Besides last Sundays crash, the worst crash I ever saw him get into was one at Indy when he flipped a USAC midget seven times and landed on the guardrail. He walked away from that one and even laughed about it when he saw the video—he was the only one laughing.

With all of this, I came to the determination that none of it was in my control. I could hover over him like his mother to the point of driving him insane
...
or
I could support him and let him know every day how much I loved him.

Though I knew he was risking his life every time he got inside that car, it was something he loved to do and was passionate about.

How could I ever ask him to give that up just because I didn’t want to lose him?

To me that was the most selfish thing I could do.

So instead, I told him every chance I got that I loved him and supported the career he chose, even if he was out of his mind for wanting to go two hundred miles per hour into a corner with concrete walls surrounding him.