Open Wheel

by Shey Stahl

  “Rager…” I breathed as though I was trying to squeeze every last breath from my body and not feel what I was feeling right then.

  A regretful sigh ran through Rager when he shook his head. “If I…” His eyes squeezed shut, and he gave up trying to sort through his words and walked away.

  “Rager?” I called after him, but I knew he was done.

  Nothing. He wouldn’t even turn around.

  Rolling Start – The race begins after the pace car leaves the track while the cars are moving. Formula One opts for a standing start where the cars start from a standstill. Both NASCAR and World of Outlaws would be considered a rolling start.

  AFTER THAT NIGHT in the pits with Rager, I wanted to crawl in a hole and emerge when I could face reality. Word spread fast that I was pregnant, and everyone wanted to congratulate me.

  The problem I saw with that, they were thinking it was Easton’s.

  Who knew the baby was Rager’s?

  Bailey and Hayden only.

  They were sworn to secrecy.

  Come August, it was a fury of races. With the majority of the Outlaw schedule running from June to August, I barely had time to eat, let alone be concerned with what was going on around me. I was also suffering from pretty intense morning sickness. I couldn’t look at food before eleven every day and not throw up.

  But I still hadn’t talked to Rager.

  Some would think, he’s right there. Just tell him the baby is his and everything will be fine.

  Would it?

  I wasn’t so convinced. The other problem was, he wasn’t right there. Some nights I didn’t even see Rager. With me working the merchandise hauler or in the booth, my nights were filled and didn’t lend well to sneaking down to the pits. When I was in there, he was either busy himself or ignored me. There were times when the night of racing didn’t wrap up until well after midnight and then it was onto the next city. It wasn’t like I had time to sit down and have a heart-to-heart with him.

  After a while, it was nearing the end of August and I was heading home to Mooresville for a few days.

  I still hadn’t told Easton I was pregnant. He found out when Lexi congratulated him. Surprise, right?

  The Cup guys were on a two-week break before the second string of the chase races began when Easton sent me a text, never mentioned the pregnancy. Just asked where I was.

  I sent him one back telling him I was at the shop and I needed him to sign a few cards for the Children’s Hospital.

  SOMETHING WAS DIFFERENT about Easton the moment he walked through the door. It wasn’t the sunglasses he rarely took off or the designer clothes. It was the attitude he had and the self-assured walk that made him think he was better than everyone else in the room.

  Oh, and he was mad. That much was obvious.

  We walked to the back to the office where all the merchandise was. Wordlessly, I handed him the stack of cards he needed to sign for the Children’s Hospital.

  He signed them and then handed them back.

  “I need to pick some clothes up at the house,” he noted, pulling his sunglasses from his face. “Meet me there?”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t have my key with me.” His eyes dropped to my tiny baby bump I was so proud of. It wasn’t all that noticeable, but then again, I was tiny and looked like I had a beer gut now.

  I was Willie’s twin.

  Bullshit. Why would he come all this way and not bring his keys? Felt like a set-up to me.

  We met at the house, his black Mercedes parked behind my Explorer as we entered the house through the garage and into the kitchen, standing there in an awkward silence.

  Disappearing upstairs, he returned a few minutes later with a suitcase of clothes.

  I didn’t want to tell Easton what happened with Rager, but he knew it already, considering I was pregnant and there was absolutely no chance in hell it was his.

  “I don’t want you to say anything,” he said, leaning into the counter, arms crossed over his chest. “But I need to say some things.” I nodded, the conversation feeling so much like the one where he wanted a divorce. “I know that baby isn’t mine.” He paused and drew in a labored breath.

  “No, it’s not.”

  He nodded, as if that wasn’t even something he would consider. “Tell me though…” He paused, waiting for me to look at him. “How long did you wait to fuck him, or did you even wait?”

  The question asked through his low, labored voice sent my breathing into what felt like impossible torture. But not for him, for this situation I was in.

  “It wasn’t right away.”

  Easton’s expression was pained, and then he nodded and I saw the glistening of his eyes. “Why couldn’t you have waited?”

  Did he…did this actually bother him?

  “That night you were with him here…I was in town. I came by the house to talk to you about the commercial and saw you with him.”

  I shrugged. What else was I going to do? Apologize?

  Hell no. Not after everything he had said to me lately.

  His breathing faltered, the muscles in his shoulders tensing. “Did you fuck him in our bed?”

  “No,” I answered truthfully.

  Don’t ask about the table.

  “What does Rager say?”

  My stomach churned at the thought. I swallowed my irritation for this, and reminded myself that it wouldn’t be like this forever. That feeling of dread would subside when I told Rager. “He doesn’t know the baby is his.”

  “So you don’t talk to him, you just fuck? Got it. You’re good at that.”

  I cleared my throat, but the lump remained. “You’re an asshole.”

  Easton walked in the family room and straight to the bar, reaching inside the liquor cabinet for a bottle. Didn’t even look at what it was before he unscrewed the cap and took a drink straight from the bottle, squinting at the burn. “Yeah…well…you’re a bitch. A spoiled fuckin’ bitch who’s been stringing me along for six goddamn years.”

  I will never forget the look on his face when he said those words to me. It was one of disgust. The meaning behind them, the blazing eyes, made me flinch back at his tone.

  The fury inside him was blinding as he stalked toward me. I’d never been afraid of Easton, until now.

  Did he want to hit me?

  He stopped right in front of me so I could feel his breath on my face.

  I stayed rooted in place, my arms flat at my sides.

  “I’m not going to hit you.” He snorted, bringing the bottle to his lips, and then back down at his side. “Do you really think I’m that much of a piece of shit?”

  There was an eerie calm about the way he was acting. Something seemed off.

  And then came the anger, the cursing…the heavy breathing, all of it.

  “I can’t believe you, Arie! Do you realize what you’ve done?”

  He pushed himself on me, pinning me against the wall. “Have you forgotten you’re still my wife? People are going to start talking when you start showing.” Stepping back, my hands jetted out against his chest. “I can’t fucking believe you. They’re gonna know you were fucking around on me. You’re embarrassing yourself. You’ve embarrassed me and your family!”

  “And you don’t think they think that already after they saw the commercial with you and Giovani?”

  “Her name is Genevieve.”

  He had no right to act this way, and he was about to understand that. “You say that awfully seductively.” My face heated with the words. “Rolls off your tongue pretty well, huh?”

  “You’re just jealous my tongue isn’t on you.” He spit back.

  “Nope. I’m not. But I bet you it’s been on her, hasn’t it?” I shoved him back away from me. “Hasn’t it?”

  He caught himself against the wall, rage racing through his veins at the accusations. “Yeah, it has.”

  Wait…what?

  “Finally some truth.”

  And then he was quiet, staring a
t me in shock that he’d just admitted to me he’d been with her.

  Easton regarded me with uncertainty, my face the focus of his indiscretion. Chewing on the words, his brow scrunched, eyes glazing over with what looked like tears threatening. He was about to admit to me what he’d done. I knew it. “I slept with her.”

  He slept with her.

  Lying sack of shit.

  HE SLEPT WITH HER?

  “When?”

  His lips parted and he heaved in a long-winded breath, then blew it out slowly, gearing up for what he never intended on telling me. “The night Jack died. We were at an event for Atry in Darlington.” His voice sounded gritty, like someone whose knees hit the dirt and was begging for nothing but an opportunity. Only that sound didn’t belong to him, wasn’t his style. “She didn’t even know I was married at the time. I was lonely after the win that night, couldn’t get a hold of you, and it went from there.”

  His answer shattered my heart because of the day.

  Why then? WHY?

  My hand connected with his cheek.

  My palm red, his cheek matching.

  Silence spread throughout…I had his attention, clear to do with it what I wanted, say what I wanted, take back this lie and leave him with reality. I didn’t have to go along with this, and he knew it, right then, the evidence on his blazing cheek.

  His brow furrowed and then his chest heaved in a heavy breath, just as mine did.

  My thoughts felt numb, noises around me too loud to decipher where they were coming from. “Was that the only time?”

  Say yes. Don’t do this to me.

  “No…”

  Who are you? Did you even love me, ever?

  His answer shattered my breathing into gasping, because of the realization. He wasn’t who I thought he was. “When?”

  Setting the bottle down on the counter, he didn’t look at me as he slid his hands into his pockets of his jeans, his head hanging low. His lips parted and I knew it was coming, the answer, the devastation that he wasn’t who I thought he was. “I slept with her again after the win at Homestead.”

  You’ve destroyed any love I had remaining for you.

  “And then you asked for a divorce,” I deduced, closing my eyes as I delivered the words through tight lips.

  He gave me a moment to ask more, accuse, react, and then he nodded, muscles in his jaw locked.

  You son of a bitch. You were cheating on me and made me feel like the one who caused this.

  I didn’t think hearing that he cheated on me would hurt. But it did. I wanted to ask him about it, demand details I deserved to know.

  “How many others have there been?”

  His eyes cut to mine, a sideways glance that was brief. “Just her.”

  Just her?

  So she was special enough that it was just her?

  I held back a sigh, biting back so much. And then I was angry. Fucking pissed. Wanting to scream at him for doing this and making me feel guilty. When the wave of emotion hit me, it nearly knocked me off my feet, utterly unexpected. Kind of like him telling me he wanted a divorce.

  “So she didn’t know you were married?” My voice was blistered, bubbling around the corners, ready to explode in a rush of lies told to me over the last year.

  “Where were you last night?”

  “Caught up with Kyle. I stayed in Darlington.”

  “Where’s your ring?”

  “Left it in the motor coach.”

  Easton blinked, closing his eyes for a fraction of a second. His gaze lingered on my face and I had to bite the inside of my cheek, hold back for the moment. “I took my ring off that night after the race.”

  Gathering a deep breath in my lungs, it was everything I could do not to hit him in the face again. “So while I was crying over the loss of my nephew, you were fucking the model?”

  My eyes focused on his Adam’s apple protruding in his neck, bobbing as he swallowed hard. “It was before you called.”

  “When I called…where were you?” I asked, through a series of hard blinks.

  He paused, taking in my expression. He knew he was hurting me. With every word, he was destroying any love I may have had left for him. “In my hotel room.”

  I shook my head, his words swimming through my boiling veins. “But you stay at your motor coach when you’re in Darlington.”

  “I stayed in a hotel that weekend. Same place as the after party Atry put on.”

  “Did you plan to, or when you saw her, you decided to get a room?” Turning, I held onto the wall, afraid that if I didn’t, with the way my knees felt weak, I would fall to the floor.

  He was staring at me now, tight jaw, pain in his eyes, his hands forming fists. “I don’t want to fucking do this with you right now.” His shook his head back and forth, refusing to argue. “I don’t see how any of this is relevant.”

  “You’re a fucking pussy, you know that? Can’t even admit to your wife that you screwed around on her.”

  “You fucked around on me too!” he yelled, coming right back at me. “Just because he didn’t fuck you, doesn’t mean you didn’t give into him long before I asked for a divorce. How many times did he get you off? Huh?”

  “You know what? How dare you fucking accuse me of shit when you were fucking around!” I yelled, feeling relief from the words delivered harshly, my pain, my anger, filling the room. This was my breaking point, the unavoidable destruction. “I NEVER had sex with Rager while we were married. Never. I may have kissed him and yeah, sure, he got me off once because you couldn’t fucking do it. I asked you, repeatedly if you were sleeping with her…and now you tell me this. Now you tell me that on the night I needed you the most…that’s when you chose to do it. You’re a sorry son of a bitch.”

  There becomes a point in a divorce when you scramble for understanding. You blame. You blame anything and anyone because accepting the fact that you did anything wrong wasn’t possible.

  He said nothing to me. NOTHING. It was as if my words, my demands for answers meant nothing to him. And they probably didn’t at this point. What I did see was acceptance. He knew how much he was to blame for this.

  Turning away from me, his hand pulling through his hair and then hanging loosely on his hips. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Arie. I fucked up.”

  Fucked up? Fucked up would be forgetting to pay the power bill.

  When he faced me again, his thumb and index finger traced his bottom lip, pinching it together in concentration. He saw the hatred in my eyes.

  I wanted to ask so many questions as to how and why, and then again, I didn’t want to ask anything. Easton walked outside, weighted steps and breathing heavy, visibly shaking.

  I walked the other way into the kitchen where the framed wedding photograph on the wall met the tile floor, my relief not ending until I’d broken that, and the crystal vase he gave me on our first wedding anniversary.

  Fuck him and this marriage.

  IT TOOK ME an hour to calm down. Especially after everything he’d been putting me through. “We need to talk about what happens now.”

  Easton paused, waiting, his eyes on the kitchen table we were sitting at. “Can you give me until the end of the season to announce it to the media?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because I’m asking you to.” He swallowed, looking pained, and I heard the vulnerability in his voice. “You and I both know when your dad finds out he’ll fire me.”

  I hope he does, asshole.

  He probably would. Especially now. But then again, if I didn’t say anything, Rager would be made out to be the bad guy. I didn’t want that.

  “I shouldn’t do you any favors.” I wanted to be bitter and cruel and show him anger he’d never seen before. I wanted to blame and accuse, but I didn’t. I took in a deep, calming breath and saw this for what it was, the ugly in our marriage evening out, taking sides, equally.

  Easton’s head tilted, an indication he heard me, nodding in agreement. His lids lowered
and he looked at his feet. “I know that.”

  I wanted to pound my fists into his chest right then, take out all my fury on him, for what he’d done, but then again…

  I was to blame too. He noticed my retreat and reacted, giving me a nod.

  I watched as Easton walked out the door that afternoon, his hands in his hair.

  He didn’t leave though, instead he returned to stand in front of me.

  Is he waiting for me to stop him?

  He stepped forward, his chest pressing to mine, hands on my shoulders. “Get your hands off me. You don’t get to touch me like that anymore.”

  His hands dropped to his sides, stepping back. “When did I ever?”

  “I wanted to make you happy, I did.” I stared down at his hand and the metal wrapped around his finger.

  “You did,” he stated in a rush, or maybe the words just felt rushed to me over the pulsating in my ears.

  I swallowed heavily, hanging onto the emotions. “But not enough.”

  “We both know that’s not true,” he added, warm breath washing over me.

  My head jerked up. “Then why?”

  I felt his chest expand in a deep breath, his eyes flashing with an emotion I didn’t know. I didn’t know him anymore. “We were never meant to be.”

  “Why are you saying this now?”

  He said nothing at first, his eyes darting from mine to the wall and the wedding photograph on the ground. And then he watched me, carefully, as he spoke the next part. “Because you’ve won.”

  Wickerbill - A wickerbill or Gurney Flap is a small strip of metal added to the trailing edge of a wing. The theory behind a wickerbill is that it actually creates a small, low pressure area behind the flap which speeds up the flow of air from under the wing, delaying separation and increasing downforce.

  THE OUTLAWS WERE now in their final West Coast stretch and nearing an end to the season in two months. It’d been a long year and I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue with the job with the Outlaws.