Pace Laps (Racing on the Edge Book 10) (23 page)

Port – The opening in an engine where the valve operates and through which the air-fuel mixture or exhaust passes.

“What are you making?”

Alley looked at the pot of marshmallows and Rice Krispies. “Oh, dumb question.”

“Where’s Spencer?”

Tears formed in Alley’s eyes. “He’s not coming over.”

She didn’t get a chance to say any more before Jameson came in the room holding two bags of wood chips for the smoker. “Why the fuck not?” He appeared offended, which he probably was and set the bags on the counter. “It’s Christmas. He’s just being selfish now.”

She made a face, probably remembering their argument. “Said we needed some time apart.”

“It’s fucking stupid,” Jameson grumbled.

Leaning into the counter, I poured the Rice Krispies mixture into the pan for the kids. “He found out that Jameson paid off Nate, didn’t he?”

Alley nodded.

“I can’t believe he’s not coming over for Christmas,” Jameson interrupted sitting down next to Nancy who was just as shocked that her son wasn’t coming over. For as long as Jameson and I had been married, Christmas day was always spent at our house because no one else wanted to fuss over it. “How childish.”

“You knew how he felt,” I pointed out. “You went behind his back and lied to him about it.”

He shot me a glare. “I never lied to him.”

“Yes you did,” I said, picking up my coffee cup and sitting next to him in the booth next to the kitchen counter. “

“You went behind his back.” By the look on my husband’s face, I should have shut up right then. Should have. “It’s the same thing.”

His eyes opened wide with surprise. “You’re making a big deal out of it.”

“I am not. You’re being dumb about this.” Like any wife telling their husband they were wrong, I avoided all eye contact and settled on the wood table and the patterns.

He waited until I looked at him and then glared, holding my stare as he lifted a cookie from the plate in front of him and shoved it in his mouth deliberately. “How dare you call me dumb!”

Says the man he shoved a cookie in his mouth during an argument. Nancy found it entertaining and began to laugh. “Oh my God, really? Stop it. I’m trying to help you.”

“By calling me dumb?”

“Just listen.”

He groaned, tossing his head back. “That’s hard for me.”

“Everyone knows that by now.”

“Not helping.”

“You should just call Spencer and apologize.”

The mention of his brother’s name brought a hint of his former irritation back. “Nope. I have meat to cook.”

And then he left. When he was outside, Alley dropped her head into her hands. “He’s staying at a motel in town. This is so dumb.”

JAMESON KNEW HE was wrong, even if he didn’t want to admit it. For that reason, he kept to himself, outside with his prime rib with Rager, Axel, Lane and Casten. With his hands buried deep in his pockets, his head bent forward, I knew he was going over the conversation with him and Spencer. He was like that. Unable to let something go until he’d found an answer.

He once lost the Cup series title by one point to Tate. One point.

The entire off-season, he struggled with it because he knew where he’d lost that one point. It was when his temper got the best of him and he made a move on the inside of turn two. He got into the side of Paul’s car and lost two spots. He managed to get one back, but never that second place finish that would have gotten him the championship.

So during the offseason, he couldn’t just let that go.

Now with Spencer not coming to Christmas, the statement was clear. Jameson overstepped.

I’d be the first to tell you my husband could be controlling. Not in the ways you’d think either, but he also had a huge heart and Cole was a weakness for him.

He once had this kid working for him. Remember Grady? He gave that kid a chance when he shouldn’t have, because he thought it was the right thing to do. Sure that backfired on him, but he gave the kid a chance to do right by him.

“What’s going on with him?” Arie asked, carrying a sleeping Knox in her arms as she rubbed his back. When she turned, I noticed his face was covered in frosting, along with Arie’s shoulder.

“Knox is the only kid I know that sugar puts him to sleep,” I told her, reaching out to rub Knox’s back once.

Arie laughed and maneuvered herself to a sitting position, careful of her expanding belly. “I know. I wish it worked for the older two.” Giving a nod to her left, I noticed Bristol and Pace running around the family room jumping from one couch to the other with their shirts off. “Really though, why is dad acting all weird today? Is it because of Uncle Spencer?”

“Yeah, Spencer said he wasn’t coming and it put him in a bad mood.”

Arie thought for a moment, and then shrugged. “He had to know it was going to upset Uncle Spencer when he bailed Cole out again.”

“I know.” My stare found Jameson again, his posture still rigid and uncomfortable, as though he couldn’t let it go. “He knows that too.”

Arie winced beside me, her hand on her stomach. “This damn kid is kicking the shit out of me today.”

“Did you have sugar today?”

She frowned. “No, but I had caffeine. I’m tired of being pregnant. I mean, honestly, since I had sex with Rager thirty months ago, I couldn’t… and I’ve literally been pregnant for twenty-five of those months.” I could tell by her face, she’d given some thought to this. “I’m making him get a vasectomy now.”

Rosa walked in. “Is it because he has outlaw super sperm? Or because you can’t keep your legs closed?”

Arie glared at her. “You shut up. You’re sleeping with Tommy.”

Rosa looked over at me, and then Arie. “You’re a bitch when you’re pregnant, and by your calculation, is all the time, so really, you’re just a bitch all around.”

Laughing, I touched Arie’s shoulder. “At least you’re beautiful when you’re pregnant.”

Wrong thing to say apparently because Arie glared at me. “As opposed to when I’m not?”

“I didn’t say that.” And then I glanced to Rosa who shrugged, as if to say, told you so.

There was no way to end that conversation well and I was thankful when Hayden came in. With Arie and Hayden pregnant at the same time, they actually balanced one another out well.

“I’m starving. When is Jameson gonna be done with that meat?” Hayden asked, sitting next to Arie. They gave each other a miserable sigh and stared at the plate of cookies that were nearly gone by now, and then their husbands who were responsible for their situation.

“I think you’ve had enough meat in your life.” Rosa eyed Hayden up and down. Leave it to her to piss off the pregnant women in the house in one afternoon.

Hayden refused to acknowledge her, mostly because Gray walked into the room and then right outside to where the guys were to hang on her dad. Gray was a daddy’s girl and if Casten wasn’t around, she wanted Jameson. Everyone else she pretty much ignored. Even her mother.

“I really hope this little girl likes me.” Hayden leaned back in the chair to touch her stomach. “You hear that. You better like me damn it.”

As I watched the girls talk about their babies, it reminded me of how Emma, Alley and I used to do this very same thing and now this year, it wasn’t the same, yet again. When Jack died there was a void at Christmas, something none of us wanted to acknowledge let alone speak of, and now it seemed that way again, like an unavoidable engine failure. You knew it happened because someone forgot to put the oil plug back in. But no one wanted to take the blame.

SINCE THE KIDS were little, every Christmas night I sat next to the fire in the living room sipping hot chocolate. It was something my mother did when I was younger and I always thought how peaceful that must have been. Once I spent my first Christmas with three screaming toddlers, I knew then she was on to something. Though my kids weren’t toddlers anymore, theirs were and I still found pleasure in just sitting next to the fire and enjoying the time alone.

“Sway?” Jameson called out.

Craning my neck forward, I noticed him coming into the family room. “In here!”

I glanced up to see Jameson’s eyes were gentle. He’d thought about this a lot today. “I was wrong. Now what?”

I knew what he was referring to. Spencer.

“I’d say call him, but I think you should wait a little while. And you need to apologize in person.”

“He’s not going to listen to me,” Jameson grumbled sitting next to me, the side of his face lit by the flickering of the fireplace.

He might not listen to Jameson, but for him to admit he was wrong was going to take some time and I bet long enough that both of them would have a chance to calm down.

Protest – A complaint filed with officials, generally used to check for illegal components, scoring errors, or inappropriate driving techniques.

“We have a problem,” Alley noted, coming into the back room of the restaurant where I was signing off on Aiden’s order forms he had ready for me.

I’d heard that so many times in my life, I didn’t even react to it anymore. It was probably something stupid, like a prank gone wrong and maybe someone was missing their hair.

“Oh yeah, what’s that?”

Alley’s face paled. “It’s Cole… and Casten.”