Trading Paint (Racing on the Edge) (24 page)

Sway didn’t mean anything by it, I’m sure, but her hand rested against my upper thigh as she curled her arm under her head for a more comfortable position. Inadvertently she had just caused a rather intense reaction between my legs which was starting to throb painfully. I’d just had sex not more than a few hours ago but with Sway, all she had to do was touch me innocently and I was hard.

She must have noticed, she had to of noticed, because she sat up, pulled her jacket from the floorboard, curled it up in a ball and placed it on my lap.

I couldn’t take it.

“I need to get up Sway. I’m not feeling good.” I lied pushing her away gently.

She sighed and curled up on the seat.

I got out and walked it off. I couldn’t believe the reaction she had on me. One simple touch and I was aching with need for her. Knowing exactly how men think, I just chalked this up to wanting her because I knew I couldn’t, right?

Isn’t that how it worked? The problem with that was letting go, I couldn’t. I couldn’t let go because of the possibility that it might not work. I needed my support system now more than ever. What’s the most important part of your car? The chassis
...
without it, you’d be dead. It supports you when pressure is put upon the car when you wreck. That was Sway. She was the steel cage protecting me from the blunt force of myself.

Chassis – Sway

By the time the Triple Crown Nationals rolled around, we’d all been on the road for fifteen weeks. I wouldn’t say I was tired because I’d had a lot of fun on this trip so far but I was confused. In those fifteen weeks, everything I thought I knew about Jameson and myself had changed on me, over the course of 107 days, that night in Eldora changed things for me.

I saw the warning signs.

I got jealous when the pit lizards lingered too long. I got jealous when he glanced at women. I got jealous when he left discreetly with some and downright angry when anyone said anything derogatory about him. I had no idea what all that jealously meant until the last night of the Triple Crown Nationals.

Sitting in the stands, much like the night I met him for the first time, I watched as the announced his name over the loud speaker. Doing their salute to the fans he messed around, revving his engine and throwing the car sideways in the turns to rouse the fans. He knew how to put on a show. He had recently gotten the name Mr. Excitement in the USAC divisions by the fans because he’d wait until the last few laps and either let another car catch him or make his move on another to kick up the crowd.

Watching closely as he waved to the crowd, my thoughts swirled around wanting those very same hands touching me. Just the same as any other night, the same thrill shot through me when he revved his engine and the same erratic beating of my heart was there when he took the green flag.

One would think someone who was only eighteen years old would show some sort of rookie mistake but he didn’t. He rocked the house that night. His agile movements, his alertness, his adroitness shined.

Even Tyler and Justin, the only two that could stop him this season couldn’t touch him that night. He was in a league of his own.

I stayed in the stands until he took the checkered flag. Even when he did, I stayed back and simply just watched his unpretentious but confident side emerge in victory lane.

He glanced around when Tommy and Spencer darted down to the track. I thought maybe he was looking for me but I couldn’t be sure. He took his picture with the trophy girls and received his check for winning before making his way into the pits. I decided to catch him at the trailer to congratulate him when the trophy girl made her way there as well.

Lately this would have infuriated me but seeing Jameson smile the way he did when he saw me, I realized at the moment, what I felt for my best friend was way more than friends now.

When he kissed me, it shook me to my core. I was weak and I’d never been weak. I was independent but when he kissed me, I was reliant and helpless.

Pit lizards surrounded us when Jameson hoisted himself from the car, his face flushed and his eyes glowing.

“Come here.” He mouthed.

Naturally, I pushed forward and approached his car.

I smiled, probably a sappy puppy smile but I tried to fight any emotion that would give away that I was most likely in love with my best friend.

“Good job.” I reached up to wipe some dirt from his cheek.

He leaned into my hand covering it with his own. He didn’t say anything but he stared into my eyes for a long moment before chuckling. “I can’t believe I won Nationals.”

“I can.”

The party in our pit that night was insane as it should have been. He had just won a national event and that was huge. Even though I felt my feelings shifting, I knew Jameson’s weren’t. When we kissed later that night, the uncertainty was clear. Even when we ended up falling on top of each other sitting by the fire we camped out next to, he tried to get up many times but came back again.

Once again, we slept in the same sleeping bag. We seemed to do this when we were drunk and trying to avoid my own internal deliberation, I got so drunk I blacked out.

All I remember was making out with Jameson and when I woke up my bra was off, though my pants were still on and intact. My shirt was another story, as was Jameson’s.

Both of us were confused as to what happened but I was relieved to know that I didn’t have sex with him, at least we didn’t think so considering our pants were on. I later got a laugh out of Jameson when he admitted he needed to change because it was apparent he had gotten pleasure out of whatever we did in that sleeping bag. This entertained me. Poor boy had been so sexually deprived he probably came just from making out. Not to say I didn’t because I probably did too.

As usual, we never talked about what happened in the sleeping bag and by the next weekend at the Williams Grove National Open, we were back to being our usual selves.

I think that’s what I was beginning to love most about him. We had a good relationship and didn’t even need to try. We could get drunk, fool around, and we didn’t need to explain. It was just friends being comfortable. I knew we needed to have boundaries to it and I was certain we would never have sex but we were sexually comfortable with one another as well as being able to not have to try. We were just friends in his eyes but I saw more to the fazing mystique that everyone else saw.

I saw Jameson Antony Riley, my best friend who inadvertently and unbeknownst to him, I had just fallen in love with. I think.

Being in Williams Grove that weekend meant Jimi and Nancy were around. I thought I’d hidden my newfound knowledge of loving my best friend fairly well. I told him to fuck off on more than one occasion this weekend but
apparently
...
I didn’t slip this past Nancy. How could I? She herself loved a racer.

“I’ve seen that look before sweetie.” She said to me as we watched Jameson and Jimi during hot laps.

I hid my face in my hands. “I’m so stupid.”

Gently she rubbed my back. “You’re not stupid. I’ve been there before.”

I had heard from Emma how Nancy and Jimi fell in love but I didn’t know everything. By her expression, I was about to find out. I loved Nancy. I felt at ease in her presence and now wasn’t any different. She had a way of calming your nerves and you didn’t even know it until you sighed happily. She was literally like a breath of fresh air.

Tucking a loose strand of her rusty waves behind her ear, she smiled. “Do you want to hear how we fell in love?”

I nodded and positioned myself so I could hear her better. With the cars on the track, their roar could be deafening at times.

“My childhood wasn’t the greatest. After my parents died my aunt Mae moved us to Elma where she met Terry, the owner of Grays Harbor raceway before Charlie bought it. So like you, I grew up around Elma.” I knew this already as she’d told me once before as did Jameson. “So when I was seventeen I was running the back ticket booth when the sprint car guys of the mid-west were in town. This was before the World of Outlaw series was formed. There I was, working the booth when a handsome driver approached. I’d seen my share of roughed up drivers so to see a handsome one, I was looking.” She smiled again, her eyes lighting up when she looked over at Jimi sliding past Shey in turn three. “I watched him race in the heats and then made my way to the pit concessions. Jimi came over for a beer. I wasn’t sure he was twenty-one so of course I carded him. I handed him back his ID and beer to have him keep a hold on my hand and say: “Does this mean I get to take you out later.” We went out later that night and I was sure when he left town the next day that he would forget my name. I didn’t see him again for four months and by then I was eighteen. He came to town again for the track championship night but he wasn’t racing. I couldn’t figure out why he drove across the United States to not even race.”

I smiled warmly. “He came for you?”

“Yes, he said he knew what he wanted and that was me.” Nancy put her hand on my back again. “Once the Riley men figure out what they want, they’re persistent and relentless.”

 I knew this well. This season couldn’t have begun any worse for him when he started USAC and now look at him: two points out of the lead in the Triple Crown heading into Pontoon Beach with six weeks to go. I had no doubt in my mind he’d pull this off. When he wanted something Nancy was right, he was just like any other Riley, he persevered against all odds.

“I won’t say anything.” Nancy offered observing me watching Jameson sign some autographs in front of the pit gate. “But once he figures out what it is that he wants, I get to say I told you so.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t feel that way.” I responded disheartened.

Nancy laughed quietly. “I know my son. Of all my children, I can read him the best.”

I was about to tell her she was wrong when Emma dropped down beside us in the bleachers. “I swear to god, the longer we are around each other the more I want to kill him. He’s such a jerk these days.”

“He’s not that bad.” I replied gazing at him like a goddamn idiot. A few pit lizards had surrounded him when he got out of the car.

“Bullshit he’s not that bad. That asshole punched Trace!” Trace was another midget driver that Emma had been hanging around with. She apparently didn’t get the memo when he told her she wasn’t allowed to date other racers.

“Why do you think we intended to stop having kids after Jameson? He’s been that way since he was a baby. You should have seen the fit he threw when we took his bottle away.”

“What do you mean intended to stop having kids?” Emma asked skeptically.

“Emma,” Nancy sighed but had a wide grin as if she’d just won the lottery. “You were an accident.”

“I was?” she balked.

I laughed, scratch that, I fucking fell over laughing hysterically. Not because Emma was an accident but because of her expression of pure mortification.

Emma leaned over and pushed me off the bench. I landed on my ass, still laughing next to the bleachers. “You bitch.”

“Emma, watch your language.”

“What’s up
asshats
?” Was Spencer’s greeting to us.

Nancy shook her head. There was no hope for us. You’d think truckers raised us all but when you grow up at dirt tracks, cussing is part of the game. “He’s is a mood tonight.” Spencer said nodding to Jameson who was still signing autographs and glaring at another driver, Alex Reed.

“Isn’t that the kid that wrecked him in Dodge City back in June?”

“Yeah,” said Spencer before standing. “Come on Sway, he wants us to get him away from them.”

“When did he say that?”

“Five minutes after they surrounded him
...
I thought I’d take my time though.” Spencer found it funny when the women mauled him.

I shook my head. “And you two wonder why he’s such an asshole all the time.”

Later that night prior to the B-Feature Jameson found me inside his hauler avoiding the pit lizard convention outside. “Where have you been all night?” his voice was laced with tetchiness.

“I
...
was with your mom.”

“Oh, I didn’t know she was here.”

I wasn’t surprised he didn’t know. He’d barely been able to leave the hauler tonight and when he did there was a crowd surrounding him.

My eyes found his. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he let out an enervated sigh. This season had done a number on him. “Only six more weeks,”

“Yeah
...
then what?”

“Home for a few weeks and then off to California for Turkey Night and then back to Eldora in February.”

“Have you thought about Australia?”

Bucky had been pressuring him to go to Australia right after Turkey Night to race in their sprint car series for the winter. Sprint car and midget racing was huge down there.

“I don’t think I’m going to.
Maybe next year.
I just need to regroup.” He stepped closer and threw his arm around my shoulder. “You know,” he smirked. “I always race better when my good luck charm gives me a kiss.”