by Shey Stahl
MOST OF THE afternoon at Pevely I spent in the pits with Rager and the rest of the team getting caught up on everything I missed. We had a press release coming out to announce the co-ownership and new sponsorships.
I would love to go as far to say Rager relaxed, but he hadn’t. In fact, after motor heat and packing the track, he shoved Casten.
I got between them, my hands on his chest but noticed there was some humor in his eyes. “Why are you smiling but look like you want to kill my brother?”
Reaching around me, he threw his helmet at Casten. “This fucker drew a dick on all my tear-offs. Every single one of them. It was like watching a cartoon book of a dick’s life from start to finish.”
Willie suddenly became interested in the conversation. “Like finish, finish? Or the end of the dick story?”
Rager’s frown deepened. “Like… finish. I thought it was water on my visor. But no, glue.” His glare snapped to Casten who, at this point, couldn’t stand up straight he was laughing so hard. “At least I hope it was fucking glue.”
Casten straightened his posture, smiling proudly. “I spent a lot of time on it.”
If you knew Casten, you knew this wasn’t anything new. Caden, who’d heard the entire interaction, grinned. “He did that to me last week. Made for an interesting main event.”
We all laughed. Hayden high-fived her highly inappropriate husband. That was when I noticed a kid I hadn’t seen before in the pits beside Tommy. They were bent over Axel’s car, and Tommy looked to be showing him something on the gears.
“Who is he?” I asked Hayden as I juggled my phone and the handwritten lineup for the dash I had in my other.
“Oh, girl.” Hayden took a long drink from her Jack Daniels mixture she was keeping hidden in her Yeti. “You missed so much. That little ray of attitude is Tommy’s son.”
I stared at her with wide eyes. “What? You can’t be serious?”
“Dead serious. He has a kid. He’s fifteen and his name is Paxton. He lives in Terre Haute and basically followed us from Eldon to Pevely.”
Oh, shit. Yep. Tommy spent a lot of time there with Axel when he was younger racing USAC. Made sense. But what didn’t make sense was what he was doing here.
Tommy said something, Willie laughed, and then the kid Paxton leveled his dad a serious expression of what the fuck is wrong with you? “I think you’re all fucked in the head.”
Tommy rolled his head in Willie’s direction. “Clearly he takes after his mother.”
Gray surfaced from the hauler and stood next to me. “Do you know where your daughter is?”
“My daughter? With my mom in the grandstands. Why?”
“Nope.” Gray glared at me, her skin super shiny for some reason. It was like she had oil on her or something. “Try again.”
Shit. My heart jumped up into my throat. “Where? And what’s all over you?”
Gray’s lips pressed together as she stared up at me in anger. “Go do something about her.” And then she shoved her finger in the direction of Caden’s car where my daughter was literally spraying everything and anything with the Sure Shot.
Mom was next to her trying to get it away from her but no such luck. Thankfully Rager got it from her by tickling her. She dropped it immediately, her laughter rolling through the dirt fog in the air.
I watched the two of them, so thankful that I had this time with them. I’d been so stressed out over Rager becoming co-owner that I forgot to realize how this lifestyle, no matter how hectic, was what I loved. Everything about it from our relationships we’d made to the different city every night. Dad was right. It wasn’t even the sport. It was what being dirt driven had provided us. A family.
Kinsley, Hayden, and I went up and watched the main event in the grandstands. We took Bristol, Pace, Ryder, and Gray with us. Mom watched the other kids and baby Jameson. Pace wouldn’t sit still on my lap and moved to sit next to Gray, but poor Bristol was out after the four-wide salute. While the opening laps were filled with early cautions, the race stayed green most of the way. Casten ended up blowing a left rear and tagged the wall on the front stretch.
“Fuck,” Hayden groaned. “He’s going to be a fucking peach to ride with tonight.”
Gray looked dejected but kept her eyes on Caden’s number nineteen cherry-red car holding that number one spot in front of my husband. Rager blipped the throttle on the back stretch and up into the cushion into three and four. Caden did the same.
Hayden smiled when Gray yanked her hood up over her head and put her sunglasses on. “She has the biggest crush on him.”
With Pace on her lap, Gray whipped her head around to her mom. “I do not!”
Hayden nodded at her feisty eight-year-old. “Okay.” And when Gray turned around to watch the cars, we grinned. She totally had a crush on him, but you couldn’t blame her. Caden had bright green eyes, golden hair, and only stood about five foot seven. He was so adorable you wanted to pinch his cheeks.
The air had a coolness to it, rain having held off most of the day. I curled into my blanket I’d brought up with me, wrapping it around Bristol as she slept in my arms.
When the green flag waved, there were three laps to go. Rager was all over Caden into one and two around the third mile track. With twenty thousand to win on the line tonight, I knew he wanted this win just as bad as Rager did. Caden held his own while Rager had the most speed up high on the closing laps. Caden worked any line he could find. My heart was beating so hard in my chest that I nearly dropped Bristol. The two of them trading the lead with slide jobs four different times. In turns three and four, Rager stayed up high and Caden shot down on the apron. Kinsley reached for my hand as the checkered flag waved in the air and Caden worked up high, neck and neck with Rager, but it was Caden who’d inched forward and kept his nickname he’d earned for The Closer. Axel finished third while Dad had managed to work his way through the field from a twenty-second starting spot to fifth.
Kinsley screamed, jumping up from beside me. Though I was disappointed Rager didn’t win, and I knew he’d be upset, he was the first to pull up beside Caden and congratulate him.
Caden, Rager, and Axel peeled off the track to weigh in, and Kinsley smiled down at me. “I should get the baby so we can take a picture.”
“I’ll text Mom and have her bring her down.”
While they did the victory lane pictures, I took a sleeping Bristol back to the pits with Pace. Hayden, Ryder, and Gray walked back with me.
“I wish Daddy won,” Pace said, his eyes on the ground as we filed out of the stands with everyone else.
I squeezed his hand, mist falling on my face. “It’s okay, buddy. He got second. That’s still a podium finish.”
He didn’t say anything more. Back in the pits, the guys were starting to load everything up, a line of fans already waiting for the guys to return. Casten stared at his car, Willie standing next to him.
“Maybe if you’d stop grinding against the cushion you wouldn’t tear up the fucking tires.”
“Kiss my piss hole,” Casten grumbled, staring down at his tires.
“Gross.” Willie appeared offended. “That’s unsanitary.”
Casten laughed. “This coming from the asshole who licked a goddamn urinal.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Still. You did it.”
Paxton smiled at me and I realized I hadn’t introduced myself. “Hey, I’m Arie. Rager’s wife.” Fuck, it still felt good to say those words. Hell, even my cheeks warmed at the idea. Dad took Bristol from my arms and I reached out to shake Paxton’s hand.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, a sudden shyness to his eyes. “I’m Paxton.” I didn’t see the resemblance to Tommy. I mean, Tommy had bright orange hair and brown eyes. This kid had blue eyes and dark hair.
“His mother named him,” Tommy noted, passing by us as he pushed the mule back into Axel’s hauler.
Rager and Axel’s cars returned to the pits. And though I expected him to be upset,
Rager smiled when he saw Pace rush toward him. “Daddy!”
Rager pulled himself from the car and lifted Pace into the air with his arms extended. As the rain picked up, it was my husband, holding our firstborn son in the air and smiling up at him, that made me realize how much I appreciated this. And I think Rager was on the same page. Regardless of his second-place finish, it meant everything to be here with one another.
Rager approached me with Pace in his arms, his black hair fell into his face. He smiled, wrapping one arm around my shoulders and setting Pace down at his feet. Sighing, I turned into him and he held me closer, his lips at my ear. “I didn’t realize how much I anticipate seeing you in the pits after a race, until you weren’t here for a couple days.”
I smiled and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. “All the more reason for me to make sure I do everything possible to stay here.”
His jaw tightened, working through emotions he wasn’t going to go into here. “Why put yourself in that position?”
“You do.”
His brow furrowed, a raucous of fans waiting through the rain to get a peek at him and the other drivers drawing my attention over his shoulder. “What?”
I shifted my eyes to his. “Every time you sit in that car, you’re risking your life. You’re doing what you love to feel alive and I’m doing this because I can’t imagine leaving you alone in all this.”
He stared at me for longer than I imagined he would have before he leaned in, our chests connecting. He smelled like dirt and sweet methanol. And then he whispered, “Go big or go home?”
Of course he’d say that, but at least he’d come around to the idea of it. Or rather, my decision.
Chapter 12 – Arie
Crossed Flags – The race had reached the halfway point.
You never knew what you were going to encounter on the road. Sometimes the drive from one track to the next goes smoothly. Other times you zip-tie your motor home back together to get to the next track.
And then there were the times when you became a family with the ones sharing the experience. It happened for us between Perris and Tucson when Caden and Kinsley needed to stop to change the baby and refused to do it going down the road any longer after a very unfortunate poop incident. Let’s just say they had to get a new comforter for their bed and learned how to install new carpet in their motor home.
When you’re traveling, just because your home’s on wheels didn’t mean your home wouldn’t need maintenance. For us it was filling up with water every couple days because of showering and a little girl who constantly left the water running in the bathroom after she washed her hands.
That being said, we decided to stop with Caden and Kinsley at a shady truck stop off I-10. Let me start out by saying, google gas stations. Look at the reviews. If the first ten start out with “This place is where hell starts,” you should probably steer clear of it. Just my general opinion after this particular stop.
“Oh, look. That’s a cute dinosaur,” Kinsley noted as we stood outside the motor homes while the guys went inside with Pace and Bristol.
Hudson and Knox were beside me and bolted the minute they saw the dinosaur statue outside the gas station. I didn’t think much of it. There was literally no one in the parking lot at nearly midnight, and yeah, our kids were wide awake.
I kept one eye on them, and one on a bright orange bus parked outside. I smiled thinking of Grand Forks and the buses they had parked outside the pits.
“There’s a bus over there.” Rager gave a nod to the shadows and the row of buses that lined the pits. “Come with me.”
“You’re carrying me. Pretty sure I don’t have a choice.”
“You never had a choice anyway.”
I’d seen the buses before, and they freaked me out. The guys raced them on occasions, even my dad had, but no way did I want to get in one myself.
They looked haunted if you asked me. Painted bright red, yellow, blue, purple, you name it, and they had it along with spray painted names on the side. Apparently they were named after the high school that donated the bus to the track.
There was about ten of them out there, some hidden, and others not so much.
“Which one?”
“Blue?” he teased, twisting his head to bite my hip where my tank top had revealed bare skin; his teeth sank in lightly, but enough that it made me jump in his arms. “It’s the color of my balls right now.”
I laughed to myself, but then my attention was on Rager exiting the store, without Caden.
“Where’s Caden?” Kinsley asked, rocking the baby from side to side.
“Bathroom,” Rager told us, holding Pace and Bristol’s hands as they clung to candy.
“You’re not opening that until morning,” I informed both of them, fearing they’d never get to bed.
“Daddy said we have them now,” Pace whined, trying to keep his package of Skittles away from Hudson, who suddenly wanted to be best friends with his siblings. He only tolerated people if you had what he wanted. Boobs, candy….
Standing beside me, Rager wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Sorry, hon. It was either that or beer. I got them to go for the candy.”
Sadly, my kids were obsessed with beer. No, they hadn’t drank it yet, that I knew of, but growing up in the pits of a dirt track they knew exactly what it was, and they wanted it.
Rager filled up the water in the motor home and I gave each kid two Skittles, hoping they’d be okay with that. After ten minutes and no Caden, Kinsley started to become worried. “What the hell is he doing in there?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Another ten minutes and he came out, his face red, and practically running to the motor homes. “Never again will I use a public restroom.”
Rager grinned. “What happened?”
“You didn’t tell me that chick in the leopard tights was a fucking lot lizard.” He shoved Rager back away from him.
“What’s a lot lizard?” Kinsley asked.
Last year, Caden had a very unfortunate and unforgettable experience at a truck stop in Minnesota. He swore off them for an entire year after a woman, who was old enough to be his grandma, followed him into the bathroom and locked him in there wanting a piece of the candy cane, as she put it. Luckily he was rescued by Tommy and Lane, but it stuck with him.
Now apparently he’d met his breaking point. Standing outside his motor home, he stripped down to his underwear, tossed his clothes in a trash can and refused to talk about it.
Back inside, Rager stared at the gas station and then laughed. “What are you laughing at?”
He pointed toward the row of trucks on the other side of the parking lot. It was Willie and Tommy in their van talking to the chick in the leopard pants. “I bet you twenty bucks they paid that chick to go into the bathroom at the same time.”
Knowing Tommy and Willie, I certainly wouldn’t put it past them.
ELDORA SPEEDWAY
NEW WESTON, OHIO
“WHEN IS THE surgery scheduled for?”
“August eighteenth,” I told Kinsley, who sat with me as the morning at Eldora moved slowly. I’d just finished making the kids’ breakfast; Rager was still asleep inside. “I wanted to wait until after Knoxville Nationals and then I figured I’d just stay home for the final West Coast swing.”
“That’s good timing.” Kinsley was feeding Jameson Grace, who she had cradled in a plush pink blanket. “Are you nervous?”
I nodded. “A little, but I think in a weird way, I’m excited to have perky tits again. Babies drain them.”
She laughed as she ran her fingertips over her baby’s cheek. “Can’t wait for that to happen,” she teased, winking at me.
With my coffee in hand, I watched my kids eating off paper plates in front of the motor home. Knox’s sausage link rolled off his plate and into the grass, but he ate it anyway. Didn’t matter to him. He ate fucking sticks like they were candy. Yes, I asked his pediatrician about this. It’s… normal. Kind of.
The camping lot we were in was starting to come to life. Caden eventually joined Kinsley outside with coffee in one hand and a donut in the other. “Hey, Closer.”
He grinned, chocolate on his lips and leaned to the side in the camp chair. “I still haven’t come close to the Sweet Spots two-hundred wins.”
It was true, he hadn’t, but no one had touched Jimi’s record of over five hundred and thirteen outlaw wins. Or my dad’s three hundred and thirty-nine. “He’s been racing since you were a baby though,” I pointed out.
“Someday I’ll get there.” He took the baby from Kinsley as she adjusted her shirt. “Hey, baby,” he cooed, holding his daughter close to him and rubbing her back. She made the cutest baby noises and curled her legs up.
“I miss when they were that age.”
“I miss being young enough that when I woke up, my back didn’t hurt,” Rager added, stumbling out of the motor home in a pair of shorts and no shirt, and coffee in hand.
I gawked at him, knowing that with every year he got older, the better looking he got to me. I couldn’t wait to be old and gray with him. “Oh, please, you’re in better shape than most of the kids around here.”
Caden coughed, handed the baby over to Kinsley and lifted his shirt. “Aside from me.”
I glanced at his stomach and snorted. Dude had a twenty-pack, if that was a thing. “Okay, maybe aside from him.”
That earned me a glare from my husband. “Really? Did you just check him out right in front of me?”
“Oh, c’mon. I only looked. It’s not like I’m trying to seal the deal with the Closer,” I teased, winking at Caden.
Caden grinned. “Or maybe I’m trying to push the cushion with her.” He raised his hands up. “I do have a thing for brunettes.”
It was all in good fun. Caden never flirted with other women at the track. He was one hundred percent in love with Kinsley. But, my husband didn’t see it that way. Rager growled out a breath and before Caden knew it, he was flat on his back in the grass, but both of them were at least laughing.