by Shey Stahl
In a haze of clouded emotions, we showed up in Stockton around two that afternoon. At the track, Rager went straight to the pits to help the guys with the car. He junked another one last night and needed to get the kit car together. The haulers they used to get the car from one track to the next were basically shops on wheels. They had everything from tires to spare engines and complete rear ends ready to go in case a car broke. We started the season with three complete cars and when we left for the West Coast, we had what they called a kit car. Basically a roll cage with brake lines already attached and from there they built it from the ground up with everything they kept in the hauler. But that took about four to six hours, which meant the crew had their work to do.
I left the kids with my mom in the camping area and wandered to the line of merchandise trailers near the admission gates. That was when I ran into Ricky Hagen for the first time this season. He was standing near the Outlaw trailer talking to Jerry and noticed me right away.
“Hey, Arie. How have you been?” Ricky asked, placing his hand on my lower back as I rounded the corner and handed Jerry the entry list.
Snorting, I subtly avoided his touch by spinning around in a circle. I didn’t understand the need for men in the racing world to constantly touch me. Or any other woman they saw. It seemed they were constantly grabby whenever they saw tits and ass.
“Hey, babe, is my helmet in the trailer?” Rager asked, coming around the corner behind me and immediately noticing Ricky’s touch on my back. “I think Bristol left it in there….” His words faded, his eyes dropping to the hand on me.
Ricky’s posture stiffened and turned courteous, stepping back away from me.
When he walked away, Rager’s eyes locked on mine. “What was that?”
I blinked, knowing where this was going and curious to see if my hot-head husband would react differently as a team owner, than just a driver. “What was what?”
“That. His hands on you.”
“I don’t know. Why do any of these fools think they can touch anything with tits and ass?”
Rager looped his arms around my waist and pressed me up against the hauler, in the middle of a crowd of people. His mouth dropped to my neck and his voice filled my ear. “Do I need to remind you who owns this pussy?”
I snorted, rolling my eyes. “Maybe.”
He laughed, the tension easing from his voice. “Actually, I can’t. But later?”
“Uh-huh.” I tried to walk away, but he grasped my wrist tightly.
“Tonight?”
“We’ve been saying that for a week.”
Shifting his stance, his hand met my hip and held me securely in place against the hauler. The warm metal radiated through me, much like his possessive touch. “You know it’s not because I haven’t wanted to.”
“I know,” I admitted, and then gave him a bit of truth I never thought I would. Or at least, hadn’t planned on. “But sometimes it feels like our intimacy gets pushed aside for all this.”
And it’s only going to get worse now.
He stared at me, as if he either couldn’t believe I said that, or he wasn’t happy. I couldn’t tell.
“Arie?” Hayden yelled from Casten’s trailer. “Where’d you put the JAR Racing hats?”
When I glanced over at her hanging out the side of the trailer, Rager’s fingers danced across my collarbone and then cheek. He forced me to look at him. “You think that?”
“Think what?” Relaxing my expression, I sighed, knowing I had a million things to do tonight, but understanding what I said to him wouldn’t go unnoticed.
His weight shifted again, his hand that wasn’t holding me in place planted firmly beside me against the hauler. “That all this gets in the way of us?”
“Sometimes, yes.”
His expression softened. “I didn’t intend for that to happen.”
My resolve crumbled and my shoulders rolled forward. “Rager, it’s just that there’s always something that needs our attention. Kids, racing, life… but if we don’t start making time for us, what are we?”
“We’re husband and wife.” His chest pressed to mine, his tongue darting out to sweep across his bottom lip. “That’s all that matters. This is what being married is like, honey. It’s not always easy.”
“I never thought it’d be easy.”
With a sigh, he stepped back. “We’re talking about this again. Later.”
I nodded and turned to find Hayden standing there waiting for me. “Hey, bitch.” She kicked my ankle. “Where are the hats?”
Rager drew in a deep breath and then turned his head when Caden called his name. “Hey, Rager? Boss man’s looking for ya.”
Nodding, Rager took one last look at me and then frowned. I couldn’t offer him much, so I forced a smile and faced Hayden. “They’re in the box marked, JAR Racing hats.”
Hayden grabbed my hand and yanked me with her. “I don’t see no fucking box marked hats.”
“Really?” I stumbled, trying to right my footing and not fall face first on the pavement. “Is this like the time you couldn’t find the stickers and then discovered you had been using the box as a coaster for your Pepsi and Crown?”
“What? No.” She stopped walking, making me run into the back of her. She scratched her mess of hair she had knotted haphazardly around a hair tie. “Maybe, but I don’t think so. I don’t see it.”
Inside Caden’s hauler where I had put at least one box of the JAR Racing hat’s Lily ordered last week, I scanned the black carpet. Hundreds of stickers lined the floor and in the middle of the mess was Ryder, Casten and Hayden’s rowdy, but extremely happy three-year-old.
“Auntie Re!” He stood, stickers stuck to his knees and most of his upper body that was shirtless but wearing a JAR Racing hat.
“Found the box,” Hayden noted, hauling up Ryder into her arms. “Ry, we needed those stickers.”
Ryder glanced down at his chest, the hat falling into his eyes. “Sorry.”
Hayden and I got to work organizing the stickers or what was left of them, then I locked them up in the cabinet. “Don’t leave this unlocked.”
“I’m telling you, they’re fucking,” Hayden said, watching Caden and Kinsley near his car in the pits.
Standing, I stared at her. “She’s pregnant with his baby. Did you forget?” For a moment I watched Caden and Kinsley, smiling at how cute they are. Their interactions with one another, the way he casually kissed her neck and held his hand to her stomach reminded me of Rager and me in the beginning stages of parenting. Now we looked nothing close to that. More like stressed the fuck out.
“No, I didn’t.” Leaning forward, her arms rested on the counter of Casten’s merchandise trailer. With a puzzled expression, she cocked her head to the side as if she was trying hard to analyze their sex life, something I preferred to stay out of, but Hayden loved to get right in the middle of. “She’s just sweet and innocent. I can’t picture her having sex.”
“Lily’s sweet and innocent,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but she—” Her lips pursed together tightly. “Never mind.”
I knew exactly what she was going to say and was thankful she chose not to. No need to start an argument or talk badly about our sister-in-law. Truth was, Lily and Axel had come a long way since Jack’s death and the unforgiving slide job their marriage took following it. And Hayden didn’t have a filter. What she thought, she said and it had gotten her in trouble a lot around the track.
“I’m hungry. Think the hot dogs are good here?”
“Probably not.”
“I’m gonna try them anyways. I like dick-shaped foods.”
I laughed and continued stacking hats in the display case. “Of course you do.”
The lady browsing through shirts on the rack outside the merchandise trailer stopped and stared at Hayden with her mouth open in what I could only assume was shock. Hayden shifted her eyes to the lady, then to me. “Why can’t people mind their business when I’m talking?”
Lily opene
d the door to the trailer and walked inside with Savannah on her hip. “Because you talk too loud. I can hear you down at the Outlaw trailer.”
Hayden shrugged. “It’s not my fault I have a good set of lungs.” She winked at me and bumped her hip into mine. “Just ask your brother.”
“I’d rather not.”
Fifteen minutes later, Hayden returned with two hot dogs and was halfway through one of them. “I’d think for Sin City they’d have better wieners.”
“We’re not in Vegas anymore.”
“Right.” She took a large bite from her hot dog. “I don’t even know what day of the week it is.”
“Me either.” When you’re on the road as much as we are, you easily forgot if it was Wednesday, Tuesday, or maybe even Sunday. Who knew?
Kinsley approached the trailer with Hudson on her hip and Rowyn on the other. “Look who I found trying to escape.”
“Fucking Rosa,” Hayden and I both grumbled together.
I took Hudson from Kinsley’s arms.
“That’s not even the best part,” Kinsley noted, smiling and turning Rowyn around so we could see her back. Rosa had duct taped notes to their backs that said: IF LOST RETURN TO JAR RACING.
“Nice.” Rolling my eyes, I frowned at Kinsley. “You didn’t happen to see the rest of my hoodlums, did you?”
“No, but they can’t be far.”
My eyes widened as I scanned the area between the concessions stands and the row of merchandise trailers.
“I’m kidding.” Kinsley adjusted her maternity jean shorts around her swollen belly. “They’re with Sway in the stands watching time trials.” She winked at Hudson and Rowyn, who were now playing hide and seek in the T-shirt racks in front of the trailer. “I kidnapped these two.”
“So…” Lily leaned toward me. “I hear you’re sleeping with your boss now.”
Hayden whipped her head around, eyes wide, face disgusted. “You’re sleeping with your dad?” Naturally her tone was not hushed and about three fans browsing through shirts heard her.
“No,” I gasped, slapping my hand over her mouth. “Rager is co-owner of JAR Racing.”
“Oh.” Hayden clasped her hand over her chest. “Thank fuck.”
“Axel seemed surprised,” Lily noted, unscrewing the cap to the water bottle she was holding.
“Surprise good or surprise pissed?”
“Good.” She set the water bottle on the counter and glanced up at me with nothing but sincerity in her eyes. “He didn’t want anything to do with owning a team.”
“Yeah, me either.”
Lily raised an eyebrow. “You guys didn’t talk about it, did you?”
I must have been wearing the same expression I had the night I told them we were remodeling our house. Probably because we stayed with Axel and Lily when Rager decide to tear a hole in the side of our house. Without telling me. Or the time he came home with a million-dollar motor home. Without telling me.
Noticing a trend here?
Exactly. And the fact that my dad hadn’t warned me about the team only pissed me off more.
“Dad still technically owns the team,” I pointed out, keeping one eye on Hudson as he laughed and tried to hide from Rowyn underneath the trailer. “But Rager is now a co-owner.”
“I had a feeling that was coming soon when he signed over CST Engines to Casten this winter,” Hayden added, handing a T-shirt over to a customer.
Lily shook her head, stacking the rack cards she’d brought in with her. “And told Axel he inherits Grays Harbor Raceway.”
Fear worked through me. Why was dad suddenly releasing all this responsibility? I held up my phone. “I need to take care of some things. Can you guys keep an eye out on the trailer and Hudson?”
Kinsley sat down on the ground where Hudson was now trying to catch a lizard he’d found under the trailer. “I’ve got the Hornet… but I might not be able to get up from here.”
I laughed, smiling down at her. “I remember those days.”
I kneeled next to Hudson and made him look at me. He blinked, his precious blue eyes locked on mine, cheeks pink from the afternoon sun. Sweeping his dark hair from his eyes, I kissed his forehead. “You need to be nice to Ms. Kinsley.”
He frowned, as if he couldn’t agree to such a demand.
“He’s fine,” Kinsley assured me. And he was always nice to her, so I shouldn’t be too concerned. He liked two people in his world. Okay, three if you counted my boobs. But Kinsley and my dad, they could do no wrong as far as Hudson was concerned. It was everyone else he had a problem with apparently.
I made my way back into the pits to see if I could find my dad. He was in Rager’s pit, along with Axel and Lane trying to get the engine into the car. They’d at least made progress. When I saw the car this morning, it was still only a roll cage.
A cloud of dust hovered in the air, along with the sounds of tools clanging metal while my husband frowned like his rebel toddler as he sat inside the car. He wasn’t in his racing suit yet, but I assumed he was in the car for a reason. Probably to put it into gear when they were ready.
“No mechanical errors. No fuck ups,” Dad yelled over the front of the car at Tommy and Willie both lying near the rear end changing out the gears.
I, for one, agreed with that. There was no room for error with these cars. My husband’s safety depended on it.
My eyes landed on my dad, his hat on backward, black JAR Racing T-shirt clinging to his biceps as he reached for the handle of the jack beside him. “Coming down.”
“All the way,” Lane told him, rolling out from under the car, his hands covered in grease. He glanced over at Jenson, who stood near the rear tires. “Is the air pressure the same as other night?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Lane stood and wiped dust off the front of his shirt. “Six off the right rear. Hey, bud.” He leaned into the cockpit. “Put it in gear for me.”
Despite Rager looking my direction as he put the car into gear, I kept my eyes on my dad. I stared at him, attempting to find a fault. A reason as to why he’d be giving away everything he worked so hard for over the years. Was he sick?
“What’s up?” Dad finally asked when he noticed me hovering.
Rager smirked. “You’re in trouble,” he told him, sliding out of the car.
I glared at my husband. “So are you.”
“I didn’t do anything.” His shoulder bumped mine as he made his way into the hauler with Lane.
Dad and I stood next to the mule as he rummaged through tools. “I’m taking bets down on whether or not he destroys this car too. You in?” His eyes slide to mine, and I knew this was his way of trying to avoid the conversation I wanted to have.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just did. I got fifty that he wads it up.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Rager grumbled, bumping my shoulder again as he carried his steering wheel from the hauler.
Dad leaned into the mule with his shoulder. “Oh, I have confidence in you.” He smirked, winking at me. “And my cars, but that track is brutal tonight.”
He was right. They hadn’t seen rain here in months and the track showed it. They worked it all morning, but I had a feeling with the winds today, it’d be dried up after the heats.
I shoved my hand into Dad’s stomach. “I’m not talking about the track or betting on my husband. I’m talking about you—” I paused and jammed my finger in his side. “—not telling me you gave him partial ownership.”
“I didn’t give it to him.” Dad’s eyes, void of apprehension for his decision, landed on Rager as he leaned inside the car. “He earned it.”
I couldn’t be mad at his decision, because like it or not, it was my dad’s to make. And two, he was absolutely right. Rager had earned it. Since he was fifteen years old, he’d been working for my dad. For half his life now he’d dedicated everything to making JAR Racing what it was today.
But it still didn’t explain why Dad had c
hosen now to do this. I watched him carefully, trying to decipher if he looked sick. He didn’t. In fact, he appeared relaxed. As though a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
Rager straightened his posture and gave the car one last look before he made his way over to me. Circling his arm around my shoulder, he kissed my temple when Dad disappeared inside the hauler. “Still mad at me?”
“I wasn’t mad.” I shrugged one shoulder and tucked my cell phone in the back pocket of my shorts. “Surprised is more like it.”
A sigh fell from his lips. “Disappointed?”
Twisting in his arms, I faced him, my hands on his hips. “Maybe a little. I just thought this was something we would have talked about.”
“We should have and I’m sorry about that.” His eyes drifted to his car. “And I fully intend to make it up to you tonight. Hopefully I don’t fuck this car up too.”
I wanted to believe his promises, but something told me that while he had the best of intentions, it was out of his control what happened the rest of the night. I knew if he won, his mood would be adrenaline-filled and relieved.
If he lost, he’d be contemplative and borderline obsessed with what he was doing wrong.
Running this grueling schedule was just as much about getting in the right head space as it was being competitive. While Rager could wheel a race car around a track with the best of them, his mental game was off and I had no idea why.
Blistering – Racing tires when they overheat. The top layer of rubber comes off in small chunks.
Before I knew it, the sun was beginning to fall in the sky and time trials had started. Seated in the pit bleachers with Knox, Gray, Jacen and Pace near the fence line, we watched as each car took their shot at trying to set fast time.
“Get back away from that fence,” Dad yelled at them when they kept creeping closer with every car on the track. I knew what would happen if they got closer. The officials would stop qualifying until they backed up.
With his elbows resting on his knees, Dad leaned forward and reached for Hudson before he took a dive on the wooden bleachers he was trying to climb down. He caught him by his shirt just before he slipped. “Boy.” Trapping him, he wrapped his arms around Hudson’s chest from behind and pinned his arms to his sides. Digging his fingers into his sides, he tickled him. “You better stop trying to nose-dive.”