Racing Outside the Line: A Love Story at 190 Mph (26 page)

"Okay," I said as I felt Seth’s hands grip my knees more tightly at the mention of Ace’s name, "I’m almost ready." Chelsea left the door open, but walked away, leaving me to reassure Seth. "He knows I’ve been in love with you practically since birth, he’s the only one to figure that out, and you’d better be nice to him because it might be a bit tough for him to see me with you."

"Because he still wants you."

"No, I don’t think so, but I’m so different now that we’re really and truly together, it might be hard for him to know he couldn’t do that for me. I have heard that he is really happy with Susanna, though, so I’m hoping I’m wrong."

I felt him hook his fingers around my panties and my heartbeat increased exponentially. To make matters worse, the doorbell rang, which meant Ace was there.

"Seth," I breathlessly tried to push his arms away, but he wouldn’t budge. Finally, he unhooked his fingers and pulled me closer to him.

"I’ll let go if you kiss me." He really didn’t have to go to such extremes to get me to kiss him. Bending over, I placed a quick kiss on his lips.

"You call that a kiss?" He wrapped his fingers back around the top of my panties.

I leaned down again and kissed him with even more passion. He pulled his hands out from underneath my skirt and placed them on my waist, holding me close to him. Knowing that we were now, more or less, appropriate made it possible for me to let go and get lost in the kiss. As his hand shifted to my cheek (the one on my face) and pulled my mouth harder into his, the kiss turned more aggressive.

Just when my willpower was starting to dwindle, and I was seriously contemplating shoving him back against the bed and pouncing on him, he slowed our kiss and pulled away. It took me a moment to realize that we had an audience. I turned my startled eyes to the doorway where Chelsea stood laughing next to Ace. I tried to step back, but kissing Seth made me off-balance, and I stumbled a bit. Seth stood up quickly and grabbed me around the waist to save me from falling backward. I could feel him chuckling as I regained my composure.

After pulling away from Seth and shooting him a look of utter disapproval, I grabbed his hand and walked toward the doorway. "Ace, it’s good to see you again, I’m glad you could make it on such short notice. Seth, this is Ace."

"The infamous racecar driver, himself, huh?" Ace smiled sarcastically as he stepped away from the door to extend his hand. Seth shook it and Ace raised his eyebrow appraisingly. "Good to finally meet you, heard a lot about you over the years."

Seth’s voice was tough, not necessarily mean, but very firm, "I suppose I could say the same about you."

"Oh, Lexie’s talked about me? Isn’t that interesting?" He turned to wink at me, "Hope it was all good, babe?" Clearly, he was trying to goad Seth into some sort of reaction, but I was not pleased about it. I scowled at him.

Seth put his arm around me possessively, and since I was upset with Ace’s behavior, I decided to give into Seth’s possessive response and wrapped my arms around his waist. I looked up at him affectionately as he replied, "I wish I could say it was, Ace, but it certainly wasn’t an impressive tone in her voice when she referred to you screwing her two sorority sisters at once."

The pissing contest was thankfully interrupted by Susanna’s sudden presence. She walked into the room and over to stand next to Ace "Are we playing nice?"

I smiled at my friend who I hadn't seen in several months, "Susanna, this is my Seth."

"Seth, good to meet you," she shook his hand. "Well, now I know what all the fuss was about. You know, you’ve made quite an impression on Mel and Jamie. I was really surprised to hear how much support Mel is giving you since she is our skeptic. You must have really done something good for Alexis."

"Don’t be, baby, I expected him to lash out at me at least a little. I would have been surprised if he didn’t. I’ll be fine as long as you stick by my side and keep me from punching the twit." He looked down at his watch. "Right now, I’m more worried about the time. We have to get going, and you still haven’t finished packing."

"And that’s
my
fault?
You’re
the distraction!"

He sat down on the bed and folded his arms across his chest. "Okay, I’ll be good. I’ll sit here on the bed and behave myself."

"I didn’t think you were capable of such a thing," I loved to tease him. It wound up only taking me an additional ten minutes to finish packing. Seth carried my suitcase to the door, and as we walked into the room, I saw Ace having what looked like a pleasant conversation with Desmond.

"Finally ready?" Chelsea asked as she got up from the couch. I nodded in response and walked toward the front door following Seth who was carrying my suitcase out to the limo.

At the limo, Ace stood by the door offering the girls assistance. When he took my hand to help me in, he squeezed it tightly, getting my attention. He was looking down at my ring, "Geez, is he a drug dealer, too? Shit, I’m gonna have to get into race car driving too if it pays this much."

I jerked my hand from his and scowled at him again. "You
used
to be charming," I scolded.

He stared at me for a moment before saying, "Okay, point well taken, I’ll be good."

I looked at him skeptically, "It would make me much happier if you were."

After a pleasant plane ride and a short drive in a limo, I expected we were pulling up to a hotel. Much to my surprise, we wound up on a small boat headed out to open seas. Everyone else seemed to be in on the surprise except me, which was vastly annoying. I finally gave into my curiosity and pestered Seth, "So we’re going to an island? It must be a small island if we couldn’t fly to it."

"Yes, it’s a small island, private, in fact. We’ll be the only ones there."

"A whole island just for us? That must have cost you a fortune."

"You’re worth it," he said so matter-of-factly that I had to smile as he leaned back and draped his arm on the seat behind me.

When the boat finally pulled up to the lush tropical island, a beautiful young woman came forward dressed in a khaki-colored skirt and an aqua dress shirt.

"Mr. Keller," she said, "welcome to Isla Chispear. I am Esperanza, your personal concierge. Please come this way, and I will give you the tour. We’ll handle the bags for you and your guests if you’ll just follow me."

As we walked down the dock, I could see three large golf cart type vehicles with drivers dressed in khaki pants and light aqua polo shirts. We climbed aboard the vehicles and pulled off down a concrete pathway into the jungle. Esperanza was turned around in the front seat speaking to Seth quietly about arrangements. The only thing I understood was that the others (Gary, Wyatt, Brad, Greg, and Christina) had already arrived this morning and were comfortably awaiting us. I looked around at the landscape.

The vibrant tropical colors and lush green foliage drew my eyes in a hundred directions at once. Beautiful pink flowers, and yellow flowers, and large white flowers surrounded us everywhere. I didn’t know any of their names, but they were exquisite. I couldn’t see the beach anymore since we had turned inland, but I could still smell the saltwater and feel the breeze through the trees. It was more humid than North Carolina and hotter, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Just as I started to worry whether we were going to be camping in the jungle, we pulled up to a huge villa that sprang up from amidst the jungle. Surrounded by palm trees of varying sizes, ferns, and a multitude of other lush tropical foliage, the solid wall of glass windows was the first noticeable indication of a building being present. As we drove closer, the building began to stand out more against the natural backdrop. It reminded me of the very open feeling the Shadow Creek Restaurant had given me. It had strong, clean lines of dark wood with tall windows and a modern feel to it. It was quite impressive in the way that it blended into the surroundings. Around the entire building was a moat of sorts. The moat was really about twenty-feet wide with crystal clear blue water that was clearly a pool. Beyond the large pillars that distinguished the front of the building from the rest of it, there were open patios that ended at the edge of the swimming moat. This certainly wasn’t your everyday hotel.

As we walked inside, my eyes were drawn to the high ceilings and luxurious lobby area. Caramel colored whicker chairs were scattered around the large room with soft white cushions. Esperanza pulled Seth forward to a large desk and sat down, pulling out some paperwork. I started to follow, but was pulled away by a familiar voice.

"Is that you, darlin’?"

"Gene!" I rushed over to throw myself into his arms. "I’m so happy to see you again. I never got to thank you for being such a good friend to me." I kissed him on the cheek.

"Now, now, don’t be goin’ crazy here, I did nothin’ but look out for ma girl, but you’re sure lookin’ better."

I smiled widely and nodded, "One hundred percent better."

"Ahh, that’s good. So, looks like you’ll be hangin out with me a bunch more now won’t cha?" he said picking up my left hand to look at my ring. "Well, he done good, I have to say that much for ‘im."

"Yes, he has redeemed himself." Chelsea came up beside me and looped her arm through mine. "Gene, this is my best friend Chelsea, she’ll be coming to the race with us this weekend. Chelsea, this is my good friend Gene."

Chelsea put her hand out to Gene, "I’m so glad to meet you, and I wanted to thank you for taking such good care of her when she needed it. She told me how supportive you were."

"Oh now," he was blushing, "It was nothing.’ She’s a good girl; I hated to see her hurtin.’ But that’s all righted now ain’t it? I hear there’s a weddin’ tomorrow, huh?" he said putting his arm around my shoulders. The rest of the gang came up around us, and I introduced them all as Gene kept his arm around me. With anyone else, even Wyatt, it would have felt odd and a little uncomfortable, but Gene was like the grandpa I’d never had—not quite as old as mine would have been, but a caretaker, nonetheless.

"Hey now, old man," came Seth’s voice from behind us, "get your arm off my woman."

"Well, now, as I see it, you forfeited rights to her last time we was together, so she’s mine now." I smiled back at Seth who was scowling at Gene as he shoved his way in between Chelsea and me to wrap his arm around my waist.

Chelsea laughed at him, "Jealous much, Seth?"

Esperanza reappeared in front of us, "If you’ll follow me, I’ll give you a brief tour of the resort before I show you to your rooms."

Gene leaned close to me and kissed my cheek, "I’ll see ya later Roses, gotta see a man ‘bout a tree."

I laughed as Seth looked down at me, "What do you think the chances are of getting you alone for a few hours."

Before I could answer, Chelsea nudged Seth in the arm and said, "Slim to none" as she walked forward to follow Esperanza. Seth rolled his eyes. I grabbed his hand and pulled him forward.

The hotel was completely amazing. Outside, the large moat-like circle was a sparkling aqua pool that jutted up to each room. To one side of the hotel, the trees opened up, and you could see a private beach about a hundred feet away. Esperanza mentioned the swim-up bars that occupied opposite sides of the hotel and gave us a quick run-down of the snorkeling and boating excursions set up for us. She finished our tour and handed each of us card keys for the three-bedroom suites we would be staying in.

"If you would like to join them," Esperanza offered, "your friends have already set up a tour with one of our experienced guides to snorkel along the edge of the island. They’ll be meeting on the beach in an hour, if you’re interested."

"That would be great," Desmond's booming voice and personality seemed right at home in the vibrant tropical environment, "let’s go grab a drink and get changed."

"Des!" I looked up to see the outrageous and sometimes obnoxious Greg walking toward us, "it’s about time you chose to show up!"

They did a manly hand slap kind of hand shake, and I noticed Brad and Christina walking up behind Greg. Brad did a similar hand slap thing, but Christina slapped a bit of a slutty kiss on Desmond’s lips. I remembered they had been dating, and it wasn’t a shock to me anyhow since Desmond was always a bit of a ladies’ man, but what surprised me was the uncomfortable look on Chelsea’s face.
Interesting
, I thought to myself,
very interesting
. Could I have been so wrapped up in my own drama to have missed this happening right in front of me? Yes, I suppose I could. I would have to file that information away until later. Christina came over to Seth and hugged him before turning to congratulate me sincerely and gawk at my ring.