Trading Paint (Racing on the Edge) (50 page)

“I know.” I told myself. It was around four in the morning before I finally fell asleep but even then, I dreamt of all the things I wanted to do to him and all the things I wished like hell I had the nerve to tell him.

Chicane – Jameson

My alarm went off a four-thirty that morning, not that I wanted it to, but I wanted to get in a run before all the pre-race activities began. I knew I shouldn’t run before a race, but I had to clear my head and that was the only way I knew to.

Hoisting myself up, I turned off the alarm and sat on the edge of the bed in my motor coach for a moment before getting up.

I tried to remain quiet, though Sway pissed me off last night with her little stunt, I still didn’t want to wake her. It was my own fault anyway. If I would have been able to control myself more often, I wouldn’t have to be dealing with these stalkers. Yeah my family loved to remind me of it nowadays but it was my own fault.

Sway was curled up next to me, her hands next to her face made her almost look angelic, almost. If you knew Sway, you knew that was not possible for her.
Even though she pissed me off, I couldn’t
not
sleep next to her.

Being away from her for nearly a year, I had to be next to her. With the way our schedules
were,
what if I didn’t get to see her for another year? I couldn’t take a chance.

She looked so peaceful, her dark hair fanned out over my pillow. I watched her chest rising and falling with each breath for a moment. Her beauty was remarkable and had me wanting to hold her, so I left for my run.

The sun was beginning to rise over the track creating an array of light cerise across the sky. My favorite time of the day to run was at sunrise because it was the beginning of a new day, usually nothing had gone wrong yet and the possibilities were endless.

My iPod played Metallica loudly in my ears and I was able to tune everything out, tried at least. The scattered motor coaches and camp trailers in the infield passed by me in a blur as I picked up the pace of my run. I chuckled to myself as a few fans waved their hands in the air from where they were perched up on the roofs of their camp trailers. It’s hard to believe people willingly got out of bed this early.

I pushed myself harder, my feet hitting the asphalt faster. I envisioned the race in my head, my lungs burning painfully from the exertion. I tried to keep my thoughts clear, but they shifted back toward last night and the hounding pit lizards. I never thought Sway would instigate them, she knew how I felt about that but then again her words never matched her facial expression. I saw something behind her eyes I never saw before, compunction.

Once I made one lap around the track, I headed back to my motor coach to find Sway and Cal up already making breakfast. Simplex had delivered an array of apparel to us yesterday so I wasn’t surprised to see Sway wearing a black hooded sweatshirt with the logo plastered across the chest with matching sweatpants that appeared to be at least three sizes too large.

She was adorable.

“Are you in a better mood asshole?” Was Sway’s way of greeting me when I walked through the
door.

“Hmm,” I contemplated taking a few strips of bacon, chewing slowly. “That depends.” I grinned looking down at her.

“On what?”
Her brow furrowed as she ate her own bacon from the plate on the counter.

“You apologize for last night. That
was not
funny.”

“I thought it was funny.” Cal said loading a plate for me with his egg white mixture that I loved so much and wheat toast. “Your face was priceless.”

“You don’t have to do all this, Cal.” I chuckled as he poured some orange juice for me. “Driving my motor coach around for me is enough. You don’t have to feed me too.”

“I enjoy cooking Jameson. It’s no problem. And I’ve seen you make toaster waffles before.” His head tipped the direction of the black smudges on the wall where I’d caught the toaster on fire last season.

Ignoring him, I turned to Sway, her mouth full of scrambled eggs. “Are you going to apologize?”

“Oh yes,” she grinned and sat up straighter. “I’m so sorry.” She mocked.

Before I could tell her that the apology needed to be better, Alley was knocking on the door. “Jameson, you got a sponsorship meeting in an hour.”

And so it begins.

On race days, you had a sponsorship meeting where you basically kissed their ass and told them how you were going to win the race for them. Then you usually had about an hour of signing autographs, a team meeting, more autographs, the drivers meeting, more autographs, introductions, more autographs and then the race.

I left after finishing breakfast to meet with Melissa at the Simplex hospitality tent. When I returned I walked toward the hauler to see Sway standing there dressed in a red dress that I wanted to rip off with my goddamn teeth. I hoped like hell she wasn’t wearing that all day.

Kyle was saying something to me but I just gave him a blank expression until he punched my arm.

I was distracted, that was unmistakable but in my defense, she was revealing a lot of skin. Skin I desperately wanted my hands, mouth and any other body part just to feel her against me.

“I’ve got a new rule,” Kyle leaned against the hauler crossing his arms over his burly chest. “No girls in your pit.”

“Why would you do a thing like that?”

He smiled. “To keep you focused.”

“That’s not going to happen.” I watched as Sway strode away with Emma and Alley back to the motor coach.

“She’s something.”

“Yeah?”

“She’s all fast-talking and brusque, wouldn’t want to mess with her.”

“You have no idea. You should have seen what the little shit did to me last night.”

Kyle and I headed for the drivers meeting after that and met dad there. Usually the only ones allowed in the meeting were the driver, crew chief and owner and if you were late, you started at the tail end of the field.

On the way there, I hoped that I placed well in points next year. For one, I wanted to, being the single-minded guy I was and two, it’s a long ass walk anywhere you went. The team haulers were lined up by the previous year’s points, being a new team—guess where are hauler was parked?

Yep, last.

I listened in the drivers meeting but lost interest. NASCAR ran their meetings more formally than your average dirt track but they were still boring to me.

Everything changed each year in NASCAR. Rules change, drivers change, sponsors change, the schedule changes
...
I changed. I was no longer the kid I was when I began racing. I was now a Winston Cup driver with a multimillion-dollar contract backing me.

You know back when I raced USAC and Outlaws and I thought I had stress just trying to become Jameson Riley. That’s laughable now. I had no fucking clue what responsibility was then. I’m not sure I did now but I had constant reminders of how I could easily fuck things up. I still didn’t want to be known as Jimi Riley’s son and with him now being the car owner, I still got that from time to time but it was better. In NASCAR, I was making the name.

I thought about the times racing quarter midgets, telling myself that I’d be happy if I was racing full sized midgets or mini sprints. Once I was in those, I wanted full-sized sprint cars and so on.

Now I was at the top of stock car racing, what did I want? I wanted to win. I wanted to win that Rookie of the Year and I wanted to win the championship. No driver had ever won the championship in their rookie season, I wanted to.

On the way back to the hauler after the drivers meeting, I ran into Darrin.

Apparently, I bumped him in practice and he felt the need to express his distaste for this. It went something along the lines of, “Hit me again and I show you how that wall tastes,”

I never did respond to him as fans began to surround us. I learned to pick my battles with him and it wasn’t worth it right then.

I’d gotten a lot of advice from other drivers on racing in the cup series but they failed to mention what happened when you got out of the car. Suddenly reporters, fans and in my case, other drivers I’d pissed off at some point during the race were in my face.

I couldn’t offer them much, even in interviews I never knew what to say but when other veteran drivers would approach me and ask why I came down on them or took their line
...
I didn’t know what to say to them. I never did it on purpose but I was an aggressive driver, out there, I didn’t think about what happened when I got in the pits until Jimi pulled me aside a few days after the Budweiser Shootout, “Jameson, be careful.” He advised. “You don’t want to piss off the veterans or any driver for that matter. You never know when that guy just may be your boss or teammate.”

That made sense to me, it did, but I also didn’t want to be the driver that was pushed around. Finding a middle ground was hard but I took to guys like Bobby and Tate and watched them closely on how they dealt with it. Bobby was reserved and shied away from the media at all costs but Tate was in their face telling them what he thought about this or that.

Clearly, I was going to need to do some more observing.

During the duel 125’s, I got bumped by Doug Dunham, a veteran driver on the series and ended cutting a tire. I ended up getting my spot back but it still pissed me off that he did that, it’s not like he didn’t know I was there.

I had never been afraid to tell someone exactly what I thought of them but I wasn’t exactly in the place to be telling a veteran driver that he had no right to bump me in the corner. Ordinarily, I had no problem with this but with Dunham, he was a veteran driver in the sport and had a hell of a lot more clout than I did, so I bit my tongue and simply gave him a head nod after the race. I think he knew I wasn’t happy about it.

When I reached the hauler prior to the team meeting Kyle was laughing at me once again as Sway strode past me still wearing that damn dress.

Looking away, I was starting to get irritated with all his laughing at my expense and really, I was having a
hard
time, I didn’t need him laughing at me.

“We’ve made a collective decision: You need to tell that girl how you feel.”

“Well let’s say hypothetically, maybe, let’s say probably that I feel that way
...
it doesn’t change anything.”

“You never know.” I didn’t want to be talking about this with Kyle but over last year, he had become a good friend of mine.

If I couldn’t talk about this with him who could I?

“What will it change? I don’t have time for a relationship.” I sighed. “Do you know when the last day was that I had time for myself?”

“But you had time for pit lizards.”

“That was different.”

“How so?”

“Well for one—they don’t want more. They only want sex and there was no strings attached.”

“Maybe that’s what Sway wants.”

I had no response for him, I’d never thought about that but then again, why would she want something like that?

Or did she? She didn’t have time for a relationship either.

Well that throws a wrench in my thinking, doesn’t it?

22.
        
Diffuser – Jameson

Diffuser - The bodywork at the rear underside of the car that controls the underbody airflow as it exits the back of the car. A good diffuser generates significant down force.

I couldn’t stop thinking about what Kyle suggested and the thought wasn’t absurd to me. What if she didn’t want strings attached? What if all she wanted was what we had and nothing more?

We were friends yes, but what if we could have something more without the complications. It was noticeable the sexual attraction was there between both of us so why not?

I wanted to be alone with her for a few minutes before the race started but when I returned after my interview with SPEED, she was gone.

It didn’t take long to find her though as she still had on the red dress.

Prior to the start of the race, Sway was sitting on the edge of the wall looking over at the steep banking of turn one.

Her eyes were closed as the slight steady Florida breeze blew through her mahogany locks that cascaded down, framing her beautiful face. It was as though she was in a trance. She gripped the concrete barrier with her fingertips and her legs dangled off the side as she slipped her flip-flops on and off.

I stared at her, my gaze locked on her lithe form as she smiled back at me. It was as if a spotlight was stuck directly on her and that’s all I noticed, soft and warm, like an aura. In the raucous of the grid behind me, I could only see her; pure tranquility.

For a moment, I was held rooted to the ground as I felt the immediate draw to her. A magnetic pull drew me toward her, the feeling hot and caustic in my stomach. In a daze, I began to make my way to her, pushing through the mass or reporters.