Trading Paint (Racing on the Edge) (8 page)

My car was pushing which wasn’t unusual when you’re loaded down with fuel. I hung on hoping the handling would improve once the fuel burned off.

The handling improved but my luck never improved.

With nine laps to go, running in third, a bolt broke in the oil filter adapter base. Usually this wouldn’t have been that big of a deal until oil shot into the header and the goddamn thing went up in flames. Luckily, I wasn’t in it.

So there I was a junked car, a best friend who’d said not more than two words to me since we arrived and a
drunk
brother.

Later that night after loading up the car, we didn’t leave right away. Instead, we stood around talking to Ryder and his team along with a few other regulars on the Northern Sprint Tour and USAC Divisions. I’d become friends with a few like Justin, Ryder, Hunter Briggs and Conner Sheets.

Sway was around but I hadn’t seen her in about an hour when I noticed her sitting on the back of my tailgate staring at her feet as she dangled them over the edge.

I excused myself and sat down next her. “You okay?”

“Not really.” She sniffed rubbing the sleeve of her navy blue sweatshirt across her wet cheeks. “But I’ll be fine.” She choked out.

“Sway, what’s going on with you?” I asked softly as I leaned into her shoulder and then eventually wrapped my arm around her shoulders and pulled her against me.

Melting into my embrace, she was about to answer when a crowd off in the distance of the pits caught our attention.

Dylan frequently traveled around with the Northern Sprint Tour as his cousin, Nick Grady, raced on it as well.

There Dylan stood with his arms around some girl I’d never seen before, kissing her.

Sway sighed and looked down at her feet.

“Should have known,” She muttered hanging her head. I noticed scratches and a bruise along the side of her neck.

“Is that what this is about? Dylan?” I asked, my voice rising with each word. “Did he do that to your neck?”

My jaw clenched as adrenaline began pumping.

“Jameson,” her voice held warning I didn’t appreciate at the time. “
leave
it alone.”

“I won’t leave it alone!” I shouted causing a few crewmembers of Ryder’s to turn and look over at us. “Something is up and for someone who swore to never lie to me, it’s pretty fucking evident you’re lying right now.”

Anger flushed over her features instantly. “You need to mind your own fucking business!” she pushed against my chest. “Just because you’re my best friend doesn’t mean you get to know everything I do or who.”

That right there confirmed my theory. She’d slept with him.

I sighed and hung my head, my gut knotted, as I avoiding her questioning gaze at my reaction.

“Why him?”
My voice was soft and surprisingly calm.

“Why not?” she asked.
“It’s not like anyone else had showed any interest.”

I was also to blame for this. Most men that knew Sway; also knew me and knew we were together more than apart. They steered clear of her, scared that I’d kick the shit out of them or better yet my beast of a brother would. She had no chance of meeting someone who would always be there for her if I didn’t back away.

We didn’t speak of Dylan again, mostly because I didn’t want details. It was bad enough that I knew she was no longer a virgin and she gave it away to a guy like Dylan Grady. He wasn’t gentle with her; that was apparent by the marks on her neck. Sway deserved her first time to be all that romantic shit that girls wanted and it wasn’t.

When Spencer came to find us to leave, Sway was plastered.

Tommy had rounded up a case of beer while Sway sang
Total Eclipse of the Heart
at the top of her lungs four times.

When she began the fifth time, I removed her beer and politely told her she sounded similar to a dying cat and needed to get some sleep.

“I don’t sound good?” she questioned, her eyes drooping.

“No honey, you sound horrible and need to get some sleep.” I told her carrying her to my truck.

Sway spent the remainder of the night with her head in my lap, crying, while I drove the truck home.

I had no idea what to say to comfort her so I was simply there and never let my hand leave her back, hoping I was providing what she needed. I held her tightly. I wanted to lock my arms around her and never let go, never let her be exposed to any kind of hurt like this. She clung to me, her entire body shaking with her sobs.

I gave her everything I could that night by being there and holding her.

That following Monday at school, I had the chance of meeting up with Dylan. I would say this happened by accident but I’d be lying. We didn’t know each other outside of the occasional “Hey” but he knew who I was.

I was pissed that he had the nerve to sleep with Sway and then never talk to her again so I opted for physical terminology. I think he knew exactly what I meant by that one punch to his jaw and never said a word to stop me.

The school had other ideas about this and suspended me for three days. It was fine by me. I had a crispy car to salvage and school was in the way.

This wasn’t the first time I defended Sway’s honor and it wouldn’t be the last. She meant the world to me and I do anything for her. I kept my distance when she showed awareness in other guys at school or at the track in fear I’d hold her back. I did what any best friend would do; I was there when she needed me.

Since moving full time to sprint cars when I turned sixteen, I’d begun racing on the Northern Sprint Tour but I also raced occasionally in USAC races. I was doing anything to get seat time and log laps. I needed all the experience I could get and this once again led me to the Dirt Cup in Skagit the summer I turned seventeen.

It wasn’t hard to make the change between midgets and sprints but there were differences to get used to. The biggest differences were the wings. I preferred running non-winged cars but I raced anything I could and that left me in a 360-Sprint my dad had built over the winter.

The difference between the non-winged and winged cars was the down force. You’d be amazed how much down force those wings produce effectively pushing the car around the track. There was not as much driver ability required once you add the wing. Take it away and you’d better hang on. They slide through corners easily and produce some of the best side-by-side racing around. 

I enjoyed the side-by-side racing in midgets and non-winged cars but I also loved the power the sprint cars provided. They were designed to go fast and that was exactly what they did but they could also cause some violent and brutal crashes.

Much like the one I got into that weekend at the Dirt Cup in Skagit, which is a 3/10 clay oval track outside of Burlington, Washington.

I preferred the clay tracks to dirt for obvious reasons such as the higher levels of grip it provided. The downside to clay though was it was an art to get the surface prepared. Too much water and the track
was
pretty much impossible to race on. Too little water and the track turned into a tire-shredding monster.

That night the track had tons of grip and it would be most in the dirt world would refer to as “
hookey
” meaning the moisture content was just right.

With the surface exactly the way I liked it, I was running fast on the high line but this also meant I was dangerous.

There were a number of ways to get caught up in a wreck in a sprint car but some can be more problematic than others.

I took half the goddamn field out with mine when I was sent into a wheel stand after Cody Bowman moved up the track slightly and made contact with my left rear. My front end lifted and it was over. I tried to correct it with horsepower but it nothing but let the staggered tires end my night.

My car turned hard on the left rear and flipped seven times ending up upside down on the backstretch, only on the
other
side of the fence.

Contact with the wall was never a good thing but it was even worse when you’ve had contact with half the field and then the wall after hooking a rut.

Like I said, sprint car crashes are violent and happen so quickly that you blink of an eye and it’s over.

When my car finally stopped flipping and the safety crew helped me to the pits, my mom, Emma, and Sway were huddling around me repeatedly asking me if I was okay.

“I’m fine.” I announced pushing past them to assess the damage to my car.

I wasn’t fine. My head was spinning and seeing double vision was not normal, at least I didn’t think so. Once the adrenaline wore off, I started to feel the pain. My neck was sore and extremely tender to touch, my head was pounding and I was positive I had at least one broken rib or two.

That night on the way home, Spencer drove and I
laid
in the back seat in Sway’s lap. Times like this, it was easy to pretend we could be more than friends. With my head rested against her thighs, she played with my hair and I began to relax.

“Are you feeling okay?” she asked leaning forward to look at my face.

I flashed a quick smile and wink.

It wasn’t long before I sat up. Not only was my head pounding worse by lying down, but I was also aware of what laying with my head positioned at an area where I desperately wanted a part of me buried in was doing to me. Currently my blood flow was being directed to a part of my body that wasn’t allowed to make decisions when it came to
Sway
.

Gauge – Sway

“You need to stay up,” I told him gauging his unsteady demeanor once we made it into his room. Poor guy got his bell rung out there tonight.

“What are we watching?” I asked when he put a movie in and staggered back to his bed, collapsing against me.

I hadn’t slept yet so why not stay awake all night? We did this a lot.
More times than I cared for.
He usually was so amped after a race that he couldn’t sleep until the wee hours of the morning but now with a head injury he wanted to sleep.

I couldn’t. I was a wreck.

We had just gotten back from Skagit and Jameson was in no condition to sleep with his concussion. He was loopy and the drugs we gave him were beginning to wear off.

Just so you know a race car driver’s idea of pain medication was a beer and three
Excedrin
...
not exactly healthy.

He was about to answer me when Emma came stumbling into his room singing
Take my Breath Away
at the top of her lungs. 

I tackled her against the hardwood floor, “If you know what’s best for you—stop singing that fucking song!” I seethed.

Jameson and I equally hated that song and she fucking knew it.

When I first met Emma, I thought, “
Oh she’s sweet.”

I was wrong and understood why Jameson petitioned to have her adopted by the zoo when he was five. It was where the little weirdo belonged.

I finally got her to leave only after I threatened to dump out all her lotions and burn her favorite pair of jeans.

Relaxing back on the bed, I asked again. “Okay, what movie are we watching?”

“The Exorcist,” he yawned, turning off the light on the nightstand, leaving his room dark.

I panicked and voiced my concerns. I hated scary movies almost as much as I hated the word uterus. “It’s evident that you forgot what happened when you forced me to watch
The Shinning
when we were thirteen so let me remind you, I pissed the bed for a goddamn week. I might add I still can’t look at twins the same way ever again.” I ranted while he rolled his eyes. “Oh and let’s not forget when we watched
Jaws
and I couldn’t so much as take a bath for months convinced a great white would come up through the drain and bite my girly parts off.” This time he chuckled. “Then there was the time you insisted we watch that ghastly movie with the birds in it and I couldn’t walk outside without thinking a fucking crow was going to peck me to death. This,” I pointed at the television, “is a horrible idea!”

His hand flicked the light, leaving the room dark again.

“
You’re
watching it.”

“No, I’m not.” I insisted, turning it back on.

I lost that battle real quick and we ended up watching it despite my attempts to knock him off the bed and burn the tape.

Later that night, securely in my own bed at home, I was spooked. Let’s be real. I was fucking petrified.

I
laid
paralyzed with every light in my entire bedroom blazing with my window wide open.

Why did I leave that open?

I pulled the covers up higher covering my face up to eyes, which were wildly searching around the room.

I absolutely hated Jameson with every fiber of my being in that moment but also wished he was there.

My paranoid self was beginning to hear things that weren’t there and talking to myself.