Hot Laps

by Shey Stahl

  Camber – The angle in which tires are angled in, or out.

  We didn’t end up going to breakfast but instead ate some cereal and then went back to his room.

  This was also extremely different from anything I’d done before. Usually after sex, I passed out, hell, sometimes I passed out during the process but now, I was wide awake, eating cereal and pillow talking with Casten.

  What does pillow talk consist of?

  Well, for Casten and me, that consisted of him telling me what press forging was again, because I asked. Turns out, press forging is exactly the kind of machine work my body needed.

  This time, Casten didn’t last nearly as long. To be fair, neither of us did. Not when he talks about engines the way he does.

  The casual bedroom talk continued when we ended up in the shower after the third time Saturday morning. This time I wasn’t impressed with the shower talk.

  “So you’ve been with a lot of people?” he asked softly, his expression surprisingly controlled but I could hear the curiosity burning behind his words. He lathered some soap in his hand before rubbing down my shoulders.

  “I’m gonna be honest with you, buddy, I really have no clue. I’m sure the number would frighten even myself. What about you?”

  Casten looked over at me briefly before titling his head slightly as though he was considering the number, drops of water beaded in his hair. “Actually had sex with?”

  “Yeah, insertion only,” I wasn’t about to count blow jobs because frankly, at that point, my number would have been something similar to a population of a small city rather than your partner count.

  “I don’t know … probably a lot. I haven’t exactly kept a running tally.”

  I considered this for a moment and then said, “Well, let’s just say, hypothetically … well okay … um … my number might be a little higher … considerably higher.”

  His brow pulled together in that confused manner that scared the floppy side in me again.

  I tried to reason with myself and then said, “It’s not like they were all in there together,” as if that comment would make it better or less trashy.

  Here’s where I was thinking, “Really, if you had any dignity left, you’d shut up by now.”

  To my complete surprise, Casten let out a soft chuckle and pulled me closer. “Good point. I like a girl who can see the good side in any situation.”

  Seemingly disappointed in my slutty vagina and her lack of crowd control, I was quiet after that and continued washing off the rest of my dignity in the shower.

  Casten noticed my mood change and ruffled my hair. “Hey,” he pulled me back toward his chest grasping the sides of my face with his hands. “That doesn’t mean anything … well, it means something, but just that I need to up my game so you stick around.”

  “You don’t think I’m some sort of … slut?”

  “No, and don’t ever say that again,” he replied immediately. “I hate that word.”

  Again, the quiet side, though she’d be absent most of the night and early morning, returned.

  Casten seemed to understand where my mood went and let it go as we finished the shower but before I left to get back to my apartment, he caught me in his arms.

  Rosa was there now, in the kitchen so he kept his voice low, meant only for me.

  “Hey,” he had my wrists wrapped delicately in his long fingers. “I’ll take good care of you, if you want me to.”

  What did that even mean?

  This was one of those strange moments that had my stomach doing that scary awkward floppy thing that it did when I watched scary movies or peed in the street or, now apparently, had sex with Casten.

  We kissed goodbye, I said I’d text him later and then left to see Anna after stopping by my apartment to change. It was the only option at that point. She’d know what to do.

  When I arrived at her house, Anna was standing in her parent’s kitchen at noon on Saturday afternoon making little smokies with barbeque sauce while wearing a bra, underwear and her black Uggs and nothing else.

  “Hey, slut, what’s up?” she greeted me, stirring her boiling pot.

  “Nothing. And you got the name right. I am a slut.” I threw myself into the large beanbag shaped like a man’s ball-sack she made when we were sixteen in sewing class. She also made a body pillow in the shape of a penis—talented little shit, she was. Though the body pillow stayed in her bedroom for good reason, it was strangely lifelike. But the ball-sack, it was allowed in the living room of her parent’s house. Don’t ask, her parents are hippies which if you knew Anna at all, explains so much.

  “Why are you crying?” she finally asked when I blew my nose in her blanket. She pulled me up to wrap her arms around me.

  “Because Casten and I had sex this morning,” I mumbled into pretty ginger hair.

  Brown eyes blinked slowly back at me. “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “Will you focus? Yes, that’s a bad thing! It wasn’t just fucking … he fucked me good! Like really good.”

  “Come on, honey, let’s chat.” She tossed her tiny arm around me squeezing. “Do you want some jungle juice?” she slurped her mix through swirly princess straw she got out a Happy Meal three years ago while balancing her plate of smokies on her lap.

  “That has grape Kool-Aid, 151 and Absinthe in it. I’m amazed you’re still alive at times.”

  “It’s good shit.” Another slurp, “And it’s strawberry Kool-Aid today.”

  “Casten took my thong off with his teeth. I don’t know how much more in love I can get.”

  “Wow, that’s … intense.”

  “He asked about the red mark too.”

  “Yeah, Cole did too. He must have said something to Casten about it because he asked me the other night if you were still seeing any of the hockey team.”

  “And you said …?”

  “Don’t worry, I told him you slept with half the hockey team but there was no relationships formed.”

  “I really wanted that shared. Thank you, and for the record, I didn’t sleep with the goalie.”

  “Hey, just because those hockey boys branded our asses doesn’t mean we need to be ashamed of ourselves.” She shoved a handful of Tums into her mouth. “They were some talented boys.”

  “You’re not kidding … but I think Casten is better.”

  Anna handed me a little Smokey that she stuck on the end of a pink plastic straw.

  “What’s with the straw? Don’t you have forks?”

  “I don’t have any clean utensils but I stole some straws from the diner the other night along with a shit load of napkins. I was out of toilet paper.”

  I laughed. “What do you do when you’re out of condoms?”

  “Plastic wrap, extra clingy.”

  “That’s …” I couldn’t help but laugh, “really disgusting, Anna.”

  “It works though, messy afterwards but effective nonetheless.”

  “I hate to see what happens when you’re out of tampons…” my voice faded as I shuddered.

  Anna quirked an eyebrow, “I just—”

  “I don’t want to know.” I interrupted waving my arms around. “You’re disgusting.”

  “I’m real. There is a difference.”

  “So what’s with you and Cole then?” My tears were nearly gone at this point. Anna always had a way with positive distraction.

  “Well, he’s one hot engine builder, that’s for sure,” she replied taking another drink of her jungle juice. “He’s also, besides the hockey team, the first guy I slept with more than once. But I think he has a drug problem.”

  “Who on the hockey team did you sleep with more than once?”

  “How the hell am I supposed to know?” she looked up at me as though I was stupid. “I thought I was fucking Jacob all along and clearly I wasn’t. I just know I showed up at a few games after that and then left with a group of them.”

  “And Cole has a drug problem? Since when?”

  Anna looked a
little nervous. “I didn’t say he did … I’m just getting the impression that he does.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe because he snorted a line before we had sex last night?”

  I sighed not wanting to concern myself with Cole. I had my own problems. “Can we just get drunk so I have an excuse for being such a mess?”

  “Like you have to ask …”

  You realize what your life has become when you’re drinking jungle juice at noon on a Saturday curled up in a ball-sack bean bag with your best friend because you had the best sex of your life and cried afterwards.

  That was me. An epic failure of epic proportions sitting in a ball-sack beanbag drinking jungle juice.

  Methanol – A fuel used in sprint cars. It’s a liquid that’s light, volatile, colorless, flammable and smells sweeter than ethanol.

  “Do you want to watch re-runs of Sex in the City?”

  “No.” For some inexplicable reason, I was moody. Like girl moody.

  “Well, why the fuck not?” Rosa threw a pillow across the living room at me.

  I groaned and curled into the cushions putting one over my head.

  “What’s your problem today?” Rosa reached over and rubbed my back. “You’re acting like Arie when she gets her period, all moody and shit.”

  “I had sex with Hayden this morning.”

  In fact, at that very moment, that was all I could think about.

  “I thought you had sex with her the night of the party?”

  “No. I didn’t. We were drunk.”

  “Noble of you,” Rosa nudged me playfully.

  “Thanks.” Cracking a smile, I removed the pillow from my head and sat up next to her. “I thought so, too.”

  “Let’s order Chinese.”

  “Okay.” And then my gaze caught Cole in our backyard lying on the patio, flat on his back wearing nothing but boxer shorts, sleeping.

  “Do you think he’s gonna be okay?” Rosa asked, holding the phone to her ear and pointing to Cole.

  “I don’t know.” I turned my palms up shrugging. I didn’t have the energy to deal with his shit today.

  I took in a deep breath, as if I was trying to muster up every last ounce of manly strength to act normal today. I knew eventually I would need to talk about his cocaine problem. Shit was getting out of hand.

  But not today.

  Today, I was confused. I was overwhelmed. Yeah, that’s a good word for it. I was overwhelmed by Hayden. I even called my mom after she left this morning to see what I should do.

  Mama laughed at me. Laughed.

  From the moment I met Hayden, there was something very honest about her that I enjoyed. She didn’t deal with bullshit and she didn’t give you bullshit.

  I’ve always been a guy who sees everything for what it was in any situation.

  Right now, I didn’t see this situation.

  Honestly, I think I scared her a little. I was trying to be a good guy. Give her something she’d never had.

  I’m sure guys say it, but honestly, it was by far some of the best sex I had ever had in my life.

  It might have been because I’d been dying to have sex with her all week and couldn’t.

  I wasn’t about to have sex with her when she was drunk. Usually I had no problems working. None. Even if the night before I was with three girls at once. Which has happened. But Hayden, she was fucking with my head a lot.

  Her reactions in the shower threw me and had me worried she thought I thought she was some kind of slut. I despised that word. Hated it.

  When I was in high school, some thought I was some sort of player since I had a few regular girls but never any committed relationships. But if you actually asked those girls I was with, they wouldn’t say that. I treated them all with the respect they deserved.

  I lost my virginity in Knoxville when I was fourteen to a girl Willie hooked me up with. It may seem young but I was very eager to experience the whole sex thing after hearing my cousins and brother talk about how enjoyable it was.

  Jenny, the girl I was with, was sixteen and experienced. I was not. But she was patient and taught me a lot about women in general.

  I never told my parents about Jenny as I only saw her if we were in Knoxville but any time I was there, she was the first person I called.

  When I got into high school, that’s when the girls congregated to me. I never had to tell them who my dad was, or use my family name, and I never would have anyway.

  If a girl was into me simply because my dad was Jameson Riley, then she wasn’t worth it. She wasn’t in it for me and, in turn, that wasn’t a good deal for me.

  I’m sure all of them knew who I was but I didn’t need the name to get their attention. I like to think I knew what girls wanted since I was so close with my sister growing up. It also helped that anytime my aunts were together I was usually around as well. I liked hanging out with the women in our family; they provided just as much entertainment as the men.

  All of the women in my family also would have kicked my ass if I disrespected the girls I was with. They weren’t my property or even a possession to me. They were women, and deserved to be treated as the beautiful mesmerizing creatures they were.

  Surprisingly, I learned the most about how a woman should be treated from my dad. He held my mom up on a pedestal and looked at her as if she was his very reason for breathing. If you knew either one of them, you understood the love they had and that they were each other’s center of the universe. When the world wasn’t looking, they had something closely resembling a fairytale.

  I may not have been tied to just one girl but I did give them what they deserved and wanted. I was always honest up front and some didn’t like that. I also never touched them until they understood what it was that we shared, this was something I learned from Ryder. And I also never talked about what I did with these girls, even with my cousins, it was always kept private because that was disrespectful to the girl I was with. If she talked about it, that was her deal but no one would get it out of me. No one.

  I hadn’t told anyone what was going on with me and Hayden. Rosa knew a little now but other than that, I kept it to myself.

  Not that we talked about my sex life or anything, but still, if I was into a girl I talked about it with her on occasion.

  Right now, I didn’t feel like talking. It was that overwhelmed side again because for the first time I was having some mixed feelings about a girl. A guy like me, one who lived for the moment, wasn’t used to something like this.

  Hayden was different from most girls I’d been with. She was feisty like me, carefree and didn’t have bullshit in her life. She didn’t ask me every five minutes if she looked good, or if I thought about her that day.

  Nothing.

  I could see myself hanging out with Hayden just to hang out, which I did all week. It was as if I was hanging out with the boys.

  She’s prettier for sure.

  As you could tell, I had a lot on my mind that night until my Grandma come over and had dinner with me and Rosa. We ordered Chinese food and then sat around the kitchen island eating.

  Cole came inside from the patio, sweating, and looking like shit and asked if he could borrow my truck. Not wanting Grandma to see him like this, I pulled him away into the foyer where I could ask him what his fucking problem was.

  “Let me borrow your truck,” he demanded, standing in front of me, barefoot and only wearing a pair of shorts and sunglasses at eight o’clock at night.

  “No. You’re high. You’re not taking my truck man.” I stepped back and leaned against the wall with my arms crossed over my chest, annoyed he was doing this shit.

  Cole’s jittery demeanor confirmed he really was high.

  “Come on man, I just need it for like an hour. Just an hour,” he pleaded, never looking directly at me, his head down. “Then I’ll come right back.”

  “No.” unfolding my arms, I leaned forward and knocked his sunglasses away grabbing his face in my palms. “What a
re you doing?”

  There was literally no blue left in his eyes, only the black of his dilated pupils. “You’re dad finds out you’re doing that shit and he’s gonna kick your ass.”

  We exchanged a look and he backed away from me holding his palms up as if to say he didn’t care. And then he left.

  Growling, I shook my fists at the door he slammed in my face. “Stupid fuck!”

  I couldn’t understand how he got wrapped up in that shit in the first place.

  Occasionally we smoked weed but cocaine, no, no fucking way.

  Cole was different when it came to this kind of shit. He constantly thought he had to live up to the expectation he should have been more like Lane…his parents never acted as if they felt that way.

  Whatever was going on with him was who he was hanging out with when he wasn’t with me. I had a feeling it was Nathan’s older brother… the one who taught him a great deal about filming, which Cole was great at. If he wasn’t careful, I had a feeling he was going to fuck it all up.

  He worked for my dad and he never tolerated this kind of thing. He was vehemently against drugs and, for the most part, actually had mandatory drug testing at both his shops.

  Not sure how Cole was getting around that.

  Sunday morning I was in my room with Cole, who seemed normal today, and Noah deciding on how we were going to fix the pool before Dad got home. It looked disgusting. I was tempted to hire someone to clean it.

  We’d gotten most of the house clean but it was a little hard to fix the carpet in the living room since we had to replace all of it. And then there was the matter of putting away all my mom’s clothes again. Still hadn’t done that either.

  Outside there was the issue of the pool and the mud caked on the side of the house.

  Fuck, we had a mess.

  I blamed Hayden for this. All week I was with her getting drunk and thinking with my dick.

  Now look at me.

  My phone started ringing on my nightstand. Jumping slightly, the sound scared us since it was quiet in my room after Noah went downstairs.