The Rookie (Racing On The Edge #7) (10 page)

“Casten, there’s bull shit.”

“You mean it’s bullshit what dad did to the house? I completely agree.”

I started laughing, as did dad. “No, asshole. I mean Bull. Shit. Like actual fucking shit.”

Casten glared at dad. “I’ll be right over.”

Casten left and I knew I needed to leave too but that damn magazine caught my attention again.

“So you didn’t post naked but you posed something like that, Dad?”

“Well, no,” he laughed lightly. “I once posed
half
naked. I don’t think I had a shirt on and the assholes covered me in baby oil. It was awful.”

“Ha. I remember that.”

“I doubt they made Easton do that. They might have but I seriously doubt it. Maybe he was afraid to tell you. Give him the benefit of the doubt and ask him why before you jump to conclusions.” As my dad got older, he became the voice of reason, most of the time, and was starting to remind me of Grandpa Jimi. Years of experience and wisdom behind those racers’ eyes. I already felt a little better just talking to my dad and brother and was grateful that I’d seen the magazine here instead of seeing it for the first time in front of Easton.

Caution – This is a flag waved when there’s debris on the track or a wreck indicating the cars are to slow their speed.

I took my time going back to Charlotte Saturday morning but it was still early. My thoughts were scattered between my mom and Easton and never staying on one or the other for very long.

When I stepped inside the motor coach, I knew something was off when I saw panties on the floor, then a little further, a bra. It threw me because they weren’t mine.

“E?” I called out peeking around the corner to the bedroom.

I heard a woman’s voice next. “E…wake up. Your wife’s here.”

What. The. Fuck?

Next was a thump, and a groan like he jumped up and smacked his head like he always did when he gets out of bed in a hurry.

“What the fuck?” I heard him ask. “What are you doing in here?”

My heart was beating so heavily and I felt the warm gush of adrenaline flood through my face.

Have you ever had that feeling that the next sixty seconds of my life are going to be a defining moment that you will probably not recover from? Yeah, that’s what was rushing through my mind at the moment. My heart and my head knew what I was about to see. My eyes and my limbs didn’t want to function, didn’t want to walk up and push the door open to see what I knew I was going to see but there was no avoiding it. Damn you, Easton, for causing this sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach and for causing this irreparable tear in my heart. Just damn you. I went to where the voices were. My body was moving on its own and my heart was already weeping before I’d even confronted them.

I heard him scramble around back there as I was opening up the door. He was knocking shit over to get to the front of the motor coach where I was standing before I could walk in on him. I watched him shaking and wondering what the fuck happened last night. Amazingly, I was shaking and wondering what the fuck happened last night as well.

There’s something that stopped me when I looked up at him watching me, it’s the confusion on his face and the way he looked. Heartbroken. He looked at Shaylee and then Olivia, both naked and then back to me.

His face was pure white, stone silent. When I turned around, he snapped out of his trance wrapping a sheet around his waist to follow me. “Arie, wait!”

When I got to the door, he grabbed my hand. “I have no idea what happened. I was drinking with Brody in the pits and then I woke up to you standing there.” He shook his head, gasping, as if he was trying to remember. “I don’t know how they got in here. I left the door unlocked for you.”

I looked down and saw the box of condoms, a few empty wrappers, and wanted to puke.

Had I let this happen? Had I pushed him away? Was it me? Why do women always blame themselves for situations like this? It wasn’t me waking up to two naked men in my bed.

So many thoughts were going through my mind, trying to find a justification for this that I couldn’t even focus on what he was saying to me.

I see those girls. I know what they want. They want him. They want Easton. They want my life. They want my walk down the grid holding his hand and my million dollar home. They want my cars, my ring, my clothes, everything about my life.

They want my husband’s hands on them and his dick between their legs.

You know what I say to them now?

Fucking have it.

I didn’t give him a chance to explain. I wouldn’t. There should have been no reason why they were in there. No reason at all. And no explanation was going to right this situation.

“Where are you going?” I could hear the girls in the back, whispered words I wanted to shove down their throats. You can fucking have him, ladies. Enjoy!

“I’m leaving,” I said, shoving clothes in my bag.

“Please, no…” he looked at me right then, eyes panicked, his hands frantically pulling his jeans on and tossing the sheet on the couch.

“You expect me to stay? I can’t stay here and do this every time.”

“This has never happened before,” he defended, yanking a shirt over his head.

“It shouldn’t have happened even once, asshole!” I growled, so angry I couldn’t even see him through the tears forming. “
Ever
. You know that.”

I went home. Only I didn’t go home. I went to my second home…the dirt track.

It hurts when you fall and even harder when there’s no one there to catch you.

I don’t know what’s leading me, but I left. If I was honest, I was looking for a reason and I found it. If I thought about it, there’s sounds in my head even I don’t understand. Thoughts I can’t make sense of and I was blaming it on my surroundings. I was blaming him. Easier to blame him than blame myself.

When you’re in clean air, your engine is cool in clean air. When you’re surrounded by cars, there’s no clean air. It’s full of bumping and banging, dirty, hot air. Your car heats up and sooner or later you need to find clean air so you can get that cool air in the radiator.

If that water temp continues to rise, sooner or later you’re gonna have to release that pressure. If you don’t, your engine will overheat.

I was overheating.

I took a commercial flight to Cincinnati and called Lily for a ride. She came and got me right away without question. Well, kind of.

“I’m assuming because you’re here and not at the 600 that something went wrong?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

She shrugged pulling her thick blonde hair back into a messy ponytail before starting the car. “Fair enough.”

Jacen was screaming in the back seat. It wasn’t like she could hear me if I did tell her what happened. “Where’s Jack and Jonah?”

“With Hayden at the track…” she paused. “We should probably get back soon.”

I laughed, it felt strange after crying the entire flight.

We were at the track about forty-five minutes later and it felt right.

There’s something about dirt track racing that I find comforting. It’s home. It’s that feeling I got that night in Charlotte when I snuck over to the dirt track. Maybe it’s my family, or maybe it’s just the atmosphere. Whatever the magical ingredients were, I was home.

It’s dirt track racing. It’s a legend on the last lap, a champion pushing up the cushion, a rookie riding the rail, won’t settle for second and out of control. It’s an inversion or the last chance showdown. Wide-eyed to the aggressive, pill draws, heats and trophy dashes. It’s all about the A-Feature and 4-Wide. It’s the bullrings to the half mile. Dry slick, tracky or glazed over, slide jobs, hugging the rail, pushing the cushion. It’s full throttle, no lifting, only left. Dirt track racing is the feeling you get sliding into three and four to take the win and doing the wing dance. It’s battling from twenty third to first, feeling racey or roosted and wheel stands. Like I said, it’s dirt racing. Top groove, high groove, reeling in legends and rookies facing fear, fueled by speed, adrenaline and desire. There’s nothing else like it.

I had turned off my phone on the flight but when I got to the track, I turned it back on to see sixteen voicemails from Easton and something like fifty text messages.

I didn’t open a single one. Just tossed my phone in my purse and ignored it. He really didn’t want to talk to me right now because I guarantee if he did, I’d be filing for divorce come Monday. I was that mad over this.

As soon as I stepped foot from Lily’s car, the sound put me at ease.

I loved the sound. That thunder when you’re in the pits and you hear one get on the track. You feel it in your heart and bones, a roar that leaves you breathless, wanting and needing more.

The entire atmosphere here is different. There’s no pressing media hounding you at a dirt track or the day-to-day pressure of all the bullshit that has nothing to do with racing and everything to do with corporate financial obligations. There’s pressure to win, sure, but nothing like what you’re seeing in NASCAR. There’s not as much money on the line. Money makes the world go round and NASCAR knows it.

During the heats I went inside Axel’s hauler where Lily and Hayden were.

Parked side by side, six haulers lined the far left of the pit entrance where the JAR Racing boys were. Always parked together. When I walked inside the hauler Lily and Hayden were both talking about Casten and how inappropriate he is at times. This is nothing new. He’s always been this way but his favorite suspect is Axel, because he’s embarrassed so easily.

“Casten told Jack he got Hayden pregnant with his balls.” Lily said, her cheeks flushed from the heat of the day, and constantly running around after three kids.

“Why’d he say that?” I asked sitting on the counter beside a tire iron. “Way to confuse the kid. He’s five.”

“Yeah, well,” Lily continued to try to change Jacen’s diaper but he wasn’t having it and kicked and screamed. “He told him when he was four. He went through a stage after Jacen was born where he kept asking Axel if his balls were exhausted.”

“And Axel said?”

“You know your brother. He avoided the question like he didn’t ask. He gets really awkward when you talk about anything bodies or anything sexual in nature. Had a hard time even being in the delivery room with all of the boys.”

“Oh I know. When I was fourteen and started my period his face turned red. Mom made him buy me tampons when he wrecked her car as punishment.”

“The fuck you will!” I heard Charlie holler at Casten who was standing beside Shane, another Outlaw driver and Axel’s best friend.

Charlie kicked dirt at Casten and turned around to walk away. Shane shook his head and walked away leaving Casten to walk toward us with my dad following him, laughing.

“What’s the deal between you two?” I asked wondering why Charlie was pissed.

“I don’t know.” Casten shrugged. “We had it worked out but then it all went to shit again.”

Charlie was hard to get along with because he had, as did Noah, his own way of thinking.

If by chance you didn’t agree, which Casten never did, they felt the need to make you see their side of things. I don’t even know where they got that from because Aiden and Emma didn’t seem like that. Maybe Emma did a little.