by Shey Stahl
“We have a family lawyer and Tommy is not your uncle.”
“Might as well be,” Casten shrugged scooping a few more plates in his hands. I could hear Sway laughing in the kitchen at something Emma told her. It made me smile too, just hearing her soft laughter ring throughout our home.
“All right,” my dad stood. “It’s been fun but I have things to do. Let’s go honey,” he said reaching for my mom’s hand. Mom looked up at him resting her hand in his. They both exchanged a look of adoration and then looked at the rest of us still gathered around the table fighting over the last piece of pie.
“You don’t have shit to do, Jimi,” Aiden laughed leaning back in his chair when Spencer stuck his hand in the pie claiming it as his own. No one wanted it after that. “What could you have to do? You’re retired.”
“Oh I have things to do,” he slapped my mom on the ass as they moved toward the kitchen and then out the back door.
I leaned into Sway with my shoulder, “speaking of things to do.”
I didn’t have to say much more than that and she was rushing through dishes and telling the kids to behave for the night.
Once inside our new bedroom, I leaned back against the door. My head tipped to the side watching the clothes disappear. Soft green eyes watched me with a hunger I knew well.
Slowly she approached and looked up at me with emerald eyes. “Let’s go over align boring again. I think I may have forgotten the process.”
Those words seemed to be my breaking point and everything else slipped away besides us. I cradled her face in my hands kissing her softly as she worked on my belt buckle shaking my jeans down.
“Let’s get to the bed at least,” I chuckled when she wrapped her hands around my neck and then her legs around my hips positioning for some machine work.
She pressed more firmly against me, “No, let’s do this quick and dirty. I like quick and dirty.”
Oh well hell, if that’s what she wanted, I would certainly provide for my wife.
Our kisses soon became needy and urgent. The two of us knew the dance very well from our first time, eighteen-years ago, in that Charlotte hotel room.
Her tongue swept across my lower lip and I couldn’t fight the groan that escaped. Her back hit the door when I spun her around. She was getting it dirty if she wanted. My hands fisted her white shirt. I balanced her against my thighs and the door and yanked it over her head tossing it aside.
“I think you get hotter every day.”
She laughed. “I’m a sure thing. You don’t have to sweeten me.”
“Sweeten you?” I laughed, “You’re sweet all right honey.”
“Shut up. Where are the dirty engine terms you promised?” her hands gripped my shoulders tugging at my t-shirt.
Once it was removed, I slammed her back against the door. “Hold on tight then. Align boring requires a specialized motion. A motion,” I swiveled my hips forward, and then paused my body shook as I tried not to move at the sensations, “...that can re-align long term mechanical stress.”
“Oh yeah, I got stress baby,” Sway moaned bucking her hips into me.
I stopped when I heard a thump at the door. We were now sprawled on our bedroom floor kicking the remainder of our clothes aside and pushing boxes out of our way. “You better have locked that fucking door,” I told Sway harshly not willing to stop. Whoever, and I prayed it wasn’t our kids, was on the other side of that door would get one hell of a show.
Between our breathing and my grunting, we didn’t hear any more noises.
With increased movements, our bearings were carrying equal loads.
“Jesus,” Sway panted resting her head against my chest as my breathing slowed, “you’d think after eighteen years it wouldn’t feel so amazing.”
“Oh please, I’m the champ, remember?”
She slapped my chest and sat up, my hand trailed down her back over the tattoo she had on her spine. Smiling, I read the scripture silently as if a reminder to what we’d been through over the years.
“I do remember,” she kissed my arm before standing to slip on my t-shirt; “You’re practically a legend.”
Just before we moved a pile of clothes from the bed and onto the floor, Sway’s cell phone that she had found in the bathroom, chirped with a text message.
“That little shit,” she smiled shaking her head.
“What?” I set the alarm knowing I had to be at the sprint car shop in the morning to meet Grady, our new fabrication specialist with JAR Racing.
“Casten is suspended for a week for that stunt today.”
I said nothing. Damn kids.
2. Back it In – Jameson
Back it In – Term used to describe a non-winged sprint cars’ entry into a corner. The car enters the turn in a slide with the rear of the car leading the front of the car.
Every morning that I woke in bed with my wife was a good morning. So many times, with the crazy schedule we had, I was waking up alone and I didn’t like it. Now that the kids were getting older, it was nice, on days like today, where there were just a few things on our schedule and we didn’t have to worry about them today. Next week I had to leave for Daytona and Sway was needed in Elma at Grays Harbor Raceway track that we co-owned.
“You ready for this season?” Sway asked rolling onto my chest. Her light breathing evened out as I drew the sheets higher.
I kissed along her collarbone, my mouth lingering in all the places I loved to pay extra attention to. Like right behind her ear, or that spot where her hip bone met the softer less prominent subtle skin of her stomach. I loved every inch of my wife but did find pleasure in a few areas I knew could send her body into overdrive.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she spoke again when I didn’t answer and kept pace with my kisses. Eventually she sprawled against my chest again and listened to my breathing. My fingertips traced the outline of her ribs.
I shrugged with indifference and a lazy smile. Her fingertips brushed over my chest tattoo, the one that matched the scripture on her spine; that I had gotten over the winter. “I’m always ready for racing.”
As racers, we didn’t live our lives by the calendar year but by the racing season, which started in February and ended in late November. Our lives, as well as the lives around us, all lived the life created by the adrenaline and speed. I guarantee you; none of us would argue that. It was our way of life. The life we wanted.
“You leave on Tuesday, right?”
“Yeah,” I focused on her eyes when she looked at me. Beautiful, emerald, understanding and loving green gazed back. “Tuesday I’m flying to Barberville and then I’ll be with the boys celebrating Van’s birthday on Wednesday. I should be back late Thursday sometime.”
Sway smiled when I changed positions. She looked up at me hovering over her again, “and then your mom’s birthday next week...”
“And testing,”
“...then Speedweeks,” Sway finished for me, her hands found my shoulders as her index finger ran over the scar from my shoulder surgery.
“And so it begins...” My breath blew across her face. A loose strand of her hair fell to the side.
Leaning forward, I kissed her lips wondering when she’d want to leave this racing on the edge lifestyle behind. Would she want this forever?
Knowing Sway, I knew the answer before I even asked.
“You ready?”
“I’m always ready for racing, winters feel...strange.”
It was true. Come December, we were all itching to get to the tracks and back to the life, we knew.
We made use of our time alone again before Sway slipped from the bed and into our bathroom for a quick shower. I stayed in bed for a few more minutes when the television caught my attention.
SPEED was doing a special on Tate and this being his last full time season. It was crazy to me that guys I had started racing with in the series eighteen years ago were now retiring.
This question was asked of me a lot now. Was I rea
dy to retire?
No. Not even close. I was only forty-one. For me, I felt like I still had a lot of years left in this sport.
Sway caught me still in bed when she came out of the bathroom. She opened the door, steam rolling behind her, “Seriously dude! Get out of bed.”
“Sorry,” I got up without another word. I always felt lazy when I was at home, like I should be doing more. If Sway was up running around, I felt even lazier. It seemed like the longer we lived this lifestyle, the more I felt like I didn’t do enough around the house for her.
“If you get up,” her voice raised slightly, “I’ll make you pancakes.”
“I’m up!” I said jumping from bed and heading into the bathroom. No way was I passing up Sway’s pancakes.
Before I closed the door, I could hear Sway and Casten in the hallway. “Can I go to a party tonight?” he asked her.
“No. You’re grounded.”
“That’s hardly fair,” he argued, “Cole isn’t grounded. Why should I be? I mean, it was hardly my fault. I feel like I was involuntarily persuaded by my uncle and his poor decisions.”
He had a good point. I could almost hear my wife thinking the same thing.
“Fine, be back by midnight.”
We really needed to set better rules. Sway was the biggest pushover when it came to Casten and I had yet to tell Arie no to almost anything. At least it was a good thing that Axel was at least level headed. The other two were enough to handle.
Our bathroom was entirely too large but it was nice. Heated slate tile floors met warm gray walls and were surrounded by polished nickel accents and dark wood framed windows overlooked the woods behind the house.
Not knowing where anything was, it took me awhile to find what I needed to take a shower. Having just moved in last week, I was still getting used to the shower and the way the jets came at me from every angle. A few felt a little invasive so I had to adjust those.
When I stepped out of the bathroom with a towel around my waist and water still dripping from me, I was not met with my wife in our room.
Instead, I found my sister with her head buried in my closet.
“Em,” I barked holding the towel with both hands so it wouldn’t fall, “What the fuck are you doing in here?”
She acted as though this was no big deal and dismissed me with a roll of her eyes.
“I’m organizing your closet for you,” she turned back around and began to rummage through my jeans and collection of hooded sweatshirts. “You’re getting too old to wear these,” she said to me as I stood there staring at her in disbelief.
“Am not,” I argued starting to feel uncomfortable with her being in my room. Not that I wasn’t already but the fact that she was now staring at me, had me uncomfortable. “I’m forty-one. I can still wear hooded sweatshirts if I want. Now get out!”
I made a slight mistake here but it turned out to be the best decision. I let go of the towel.
“OH MY GOD!” Emma screamed scrambling out of the room. I could hear her scream all the way down the stairs.
“Mission accomplished,” I said to myself and continued to get dressed. I purposely put on a hooded sweatshirt after that.
Making my way downstairs, it was evident my sister was still there to aggravate me a little more this morning. After all, this was her mission in life as far as I was concerned.
“You alphabetized my recipes again?” I heard Sway ask Emma.
“Yeah, so? I was working on your closet too, but your husband decided to flash me.”
“You should probably join the witness protection program for a while Aunt Emma,” I heard Arie tell her, “When dad finds out you organized his motor coach he’s gonna go apeshit.”
“Don’t tell him,” Emma said, “it’s not like he has to know. I’ll just say that Sway did it.”
“Oh, yeah,” Sway laughed when she saw me standing in the doorway, my arms crossed over my chest, listening to them at the kitchen island, “I usually organize his motor coach.”
Sway didn’t organize anything. She could cook a mean fried spaghetti dinner but when it came to organization. Nope, not a clue. That’s what Emma was for as far as Sway was concerned. Usually she knew to stay out of my motor coach. Apparently, this year it’d slipped her mind.
“Don’t tell—”
I cleared my throat, “don’t tell me what?”
Arie and Emma looked at each other as Sway continued to laugh, her hand clamped over her mouth trying to suppress her giggles.
“He’s been standing there the whole time, hasn’t he?” Emma asked Sway.
My wife couldn’t take it and burst into laughter nodding her head, Shit like this made her day.
Emma looked behind her. “Jameson,” I knew she was going to change subjects, “next time you dump bleach on my lawn, remember to put the bottle away.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
We went about our morning, arguing, laughing and trying to decide on what we were doing for mom’s birthday. None of us agreed on anything and in turn, we left it up to Emma since she’d get her way anyway.
Before heading to the shop for the morning, Sway asked that I find a few boxes she thought she forgot at the other house. We recently sold it to another driver in the Nationwide Series, Travis Gurd. He seemed like a nice kid and recently started a family so I knew the house would be perfect for him.
Sway didn’t like moving and actually was against it but we needed more room. The house on Lake Norman was only around ten acres and with three kids and their cousins, we needed more land and less nosy neighbors.
I gathered the boxes that were left, loaded them into my truck and then took a walk out to the dock where we used to spend a lot of time. Sometimes, like now, when Sway had some mixed emotions about moving, I wondered if it was the right thing to do. Our kids grew up here. We spent nearly every Monday night on this very dock watching them grow, swimming, barbeques, throwing them by their legs into the water. Sway told me she was pregnant with Casten on this dock. I shot my brother in the ass with a potato gun from this dock. Arie broke her arm when she was ten on this dock.
Taking a deep breath, I turned and walked up the dock looking over the markings that made this place a home for us for so long. Burn marks from where the boys tried to water ski threw a fire strip. Chipped wood from where I tried to carve our names and ended up slicing my hand. It’s like changes made to your car during the race, what once worked earlier in the race doesn’t always work half way through. We’d outgrown this place and there was nothing wrong with that.
I took off to the shop and found my sister’s twin boys, Noah and Charlie, cleaning. After they drove our parts van into Lake Norman, they owed me some free labor so I had them cleaning engine parts, toilets and anything else I thought was a shit job. Emma and Aiden’s twins were assholes and had been since the day they were born. Every set of twins I’d ever known were jerks. Even Sway’s half-brothers were assholes. Even though they were grown up now, they were still a pain in my ass at times.
“Hey Jameson, are you in here?” Grady called out pushing open the door to the shop and carrying two coffees in his hand. I knew I liked him right then.
“Yeah, I’m in here.”
His dark eyes met mine and he smiled as he drew closer. Grady Andrews was a hungry twenty-one year old racer out of Kannapolis looking for a start. He’d grown up around the short tracks of North Carolina and came to me a couple months back looking for a job during the week. With the way the sprint tour was heating up, we needed all the help we could get with JAR Racing so I offered him a job in fabrication. Usually I never hired anyone without personally knowing them for years or from a family recommendation, but I took a chance on Grady.
“I need you to get those two cars ready go this morning.” With a nod over my shoulder, I gestured to the two bodies next to the bay doors. Both cars were stripped down to bars.
“All right,” Grady nodded and looked over the cars for a moment, “Any
thing else?”
Usually my interactions with the guys around the shop were kept professional. That was unless it was with Tommy and Willie, two people who were not by any means professional. I didn’t know Grady all that well so I kept it professional.
“I think that’ll do it for today. I need them ready before you leave.”
“Will do,” he replied quickly and that was the last I saw of him. He went to work and never asked questions. Something I appreciated these days.
I didn’t spend much time at the shop that morning. I mainly went there to make sure the boys had everything loaded and ready for the start of the season along with the engines for sprint car team and cup teams.
When my dad arrived, I left. Since he had retired, we couldn’t be around each other for too long before an argument broke out.
He did ask about Grady which I thought was strange. “Who’s the kid?”
“He’s a racer who needed a job. That’s all.”
Jimi watched him through the large windows that overlooked the twenty four thousand square foot shop, “How well do you know him?”
Everyone was leery of me hiring Grady for the simple reason that our business, whether it was JAR Racing or Riley-Simplex Racing, was family only with the exception of close friends and people we knew. Dad and the rest of our family weren’t sold on Grady after the mess we had when we caught Kerry stealing money from us last fall.
“I don’t know him but I’m giving him a shot. That’s all he’s looking for.”
Dad grumbled something else and I had to leave. We didn’t need an argument today.
When I arrived home, I found Sway in the kitchen making dinner with Rosa, our housekeeper, if you could even call her that. She was forty something woman who loved to piss me off.
Sound familiar?
Yeah, pretty much like everyone else in my family so she was perfect. Rosa wasn’t Mexican and didn’t speak Spanish but she liked to make people think she could. She was always rambling off something she said was Spanish but I knew a little Spanish and she wasn’t speaking that language. She was speaking bullshit. And it’s not like her Caucasian appearance didn’t give her away but she still acted like she was Mexican. The thing with Rosa was that she did absolutely nothing around our house but I still found myself writing her checks each week. Who in the hell knew why. It mostly had to do with the fact that everyone in our family loved her, aside from me of course.