by Shey Stahl
My brain felt sluggish. Like everything was catching up with me. Then again, I was bitten by a coral snake the other day. Of course I didn’t feel well.
Based on the jelly feel of my body, I gathered it might have something to do with all the sex I’ve had over the last week. Not that I regretted it at all.
In fact, I was happy to be having sex with one guy.
On the other hand, as I thought about maybe rolling over and attacking him, for the first time in the last two weeks, I didn’t want to have sex this morning so I wasn’t all that pleased with him sucking on me. Maybe it was my snake bite or maybe it was the soreness from yesterday and that damn announcer’s booth.
Either way, I didn’t want to be having sucking of any kind occurring. My breathing was shallow but my mind was racing.
Trying to kick Casten away from my foot, I groaned. “Stop. I don’t like my feet messed with.”
I felt wetness all around us. This wasn’t my first tent camping trip so I understood waking up and feeling wet. Granted, this seemed a little much.
Casten groaned, his arm flopping over my chest and taking the wind from my lungs. “I’m not messing with your feet.”
“Well then, who is?” I opened my eyes, brightness assaulted me immediately. “Tommy that better not be you.”
Sunlight was everywhere. Rubbing my eyes, bugs scattered and there was a faint mist around us. In the distance, that sounded much closer than I remembered the lake being, was near our campsite. I could hear the rumblings of jet boats and the slap as they sped through the water.
I blinked as water sprayed my face. It felt like there must have been condensation inside the tent. Probably from all our heavy breathing once we were inside.
Ah, the memories.
As I looked around, it was awfully bright. Like really bright. I know I said that already but it was as if we weren’t even inside a tent.
Had we opened the vent flap of the tent last night?
I didn’t recall doing that. Maybe Casten had to let some air in.
Just as I was about to ask him I sat up to see what was on my toe and wanting desperately for it to actually be Tommy so I could kick the orange headed fucker in the face.
When I sat up, I was shocked as shit to see where I was.
After the last few weeks, hell, after the last two days, you would think nothing with the Riley family would have surprised me. I was wrong.
Last night we’d fallen asleep in the tent.
Well, this morning, were we in that tent?
No. Fuck no.
We were floating in the middle of the goddamn lake on our inflatable mattress. My foot, not the one with the snake bit, had fallen over the side of the mattress and into the water. As I lifted my foot a fucking fish was attached to it sucking for all it was worth.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” I flung my leg over the side back on the mattress. The fish let go mid-air, landed on Casten’s chest and then flopped in his face for a second and then fell back in the water.
Casten, who screamed a sound similar to Abigale, jumped, rolled just an inch and landed in the lake with the fish.
Legs and arms flailed around as he fought to keep himself from going under. Didn’t help. His legs were tangled around a sheet that had gone under with him. When he disappeared under the water, I thought about helping.
Did I offer to help?
No. He let that goddamn snake chew on my toe. Fuck him. Drown for all I care.
That’s a dipshit thing to say Hayden.
Alright, I didn’t want him to drown. With a heavy sigh and rolling eyes, I reached over the mattress and extended my hand to him.
He didn’t take it but instead threw the wet sheet on me soaking me.
Now we were both soaked.
“Will you just calm down,” I said, glaring. Pushing the sheet away I helped him get back on the mattress and we assessed the situation calmly.
Bullshit.
With all his flopping around he flipped the mattress over and I went head first into the water.
“What the fuck happened?” Casten looked to me for an answer, as if I had something to do with it. “How’d we get in the lake?”
“How do you think, asshole?” I dunked his head under water and then grabbed for the mattress. “Your stupid family probably, whose mission in life is fucking with people!”
He ran his hands through his hair, tiny droplets ran down his forehead. Raising his right hand he swept it over his face to push the water from his eyes.
As he treaded water, we both looked around the lake trying to place exactly where we were. Two boats were about a half-mile away, pointing at us. I’m sure if we were closer we could have heard their laughter.
With a little push from Casten, I got back on the mattress.
“Jesus, we’re like a mile down the lake.” Casten squinted to the East where our campsite was. “I’m gonna kick Tommy’s ass for this one.”
With one hand on the raft and the other keeping himself afloat, Casten guided the mattress toward the shore and heading for the thick red clay that was about two hundred feet away. “Tommy is a dick and crossed the line this time.”
“I would say he crossed the line with the snake.” I gestured to my bandaged toe. “Don’t you think?”
He shrugged taking a mouth full of water when his hand slipped off the raft. He then spit it at me.
“Use your arms, Hayden.” I tried. I was trying. “No,” he said, complaining that my arms were not performing as well as oars would. “Not like that. You’re not helping.”
“Fine. I won’t help at all.” And then I sat back and relaxed and let him do all the work.
Once we were on land there was the dilemma of how exactly we were going to get back to the campsite.
Leaving the pillows and blankets on the shore, Casten let the air out of the mattress and made me carry it, and then he carried me. Why we couldn’t just leave it with the blankets didn’t make much sense to me until he informed me that mattress was his mom’s and he wasn’t about to leave it.
We had to climb up an embankment, and it took a lot longer than necessary because Casten was giving me a piggyback ride and kept stopping because he would feel things crawling across his feet.
Part of me hoped one of those water snakes would have bitten him. Not that I wanted him to die or anything, or have to get that horrible shot in the ass. I just wanted him to stop complaining.
When he set me down and started wiggling around as we reached the road, it made me laugh harder than what I was before. I was laughing hysterically and then began laughing even harder that this was that funny to me.
Hunched over clutching my stomach, I did my best to stand up on my two feet but the fact that animals scared him so much was highly entertaining. He was a pussy when it came to nature.
“Why is this so humorous to you?” he asked, grunting and fumbling around with the mattress as he carried the deflated mess with us over his shoulders.
“Sorry,” I said, biting down on my lip to keep from laughing again. “How are we going to get back?”
“We walk,” he said, and looked at me limping. “Or, I guess I walk.”
After a half-mile, we realized that on the lake we may have been a mile away. On the roads, it was like five miles.
Casten wasn’t willing to give me a piggyback ride for five miles so we stopped and assessed the situation.
We had no other choice but to hitch hike back to the camp.
I wasn’t exactly that heavy but the air mattress tagging along was a little difficult.
“Why don’t you just leave it and we’ll come back for it later.”
He almost went for it but then we saw a car coming. “Just our luck, pretty girl.”
An older woman in a beat-up late 80’s Ford truck stopped. More than likely because of Casten in his underwear standing alongside the road carrying a deflated air mattress.
Then she saw me, limping, wearing nothing but my bra and
underwear and a pit pass bracelet from the night before.
Anybody in his or her right mind would have kept on driving. Just two minutes into the drive we quickly realized she was crazy. Let’s go ahead and overlook the fact that she had two English bull dogs in there with us and Casten, well, he wasn’t a snake man nor was he a dog man. In all actuality, I’d discovered that just like his dad, he didn’t care for animals at all.
So what did he do when we got in the truck and both her bull dogs befriended him and decided to take up residence on Casten’s lap?
He pushed them off and onto my lap.
“What the fuck? I’m allergic,” I whispered trying not to let this woman with smoker’s breath and snake skin hear me.
“They’re trying to suck the water out of my underwear.” He pointed out, as if this meant anything to me. He said this as if it was some kind of torture chamber where he was forced to eat spinach. Which he told me last night would have been worse than having his eyes ripped out.
I gestured to the dogs licking my chest, particularly my nipples because they were in fact trying to suck the water from it. “And this is better?”
Casten was looking ahead, avoiding any interaction with me or the woman, when he finally looked over to see the dogs trying to breastfeed. I thought for sure he was going to say something dirty, or even inappropriate, but he surprised me and reached for the dogs putting them back on his lap without saying anything.
His scowl said a lot. He wasn’t pleased and didn’t see the humor in this situation.
The sun was beating down on my already burnt legs and made the smell of dog piss and dog in general rather revolting.
Dog hair was literally floating in the air around us.
When I noticed, I started sneezing.
That’s about the time the woman decided to talk to us. “Where you kids from?”
She swerved to miss what looked to be a dead animal in the road. One of the dogs in Casten’s lap slipped off and clawed the shit out of his legs trying to get back.
He gritted against the pain. “We’re from Mooresville.”
“What brought you out here then?”
“Racing.”
“Oh, yeah? Me, too.”
“Yeah.” Casten smiled at her. I turned and looked out the window and tried to roll it down. It wouldn’t budge.
“I love watching them at Devil’s Bowl. Especially the Outlaws.”
Casten nodded, not seeming all that interested in sparking a conversation with her, but still, being polite.
“So you’re here to watch the Outlaws?” She kept looking at him and me out of the corner of her eye.
Casten hesitated, measuring her for a moment. “Yes.”
That’s when the dog on Casten’s chest farted. Loudly.
He leaned into my bare shoulder. “I don’t understand why these little fuckers couldn’t have ridden in the back.”
All was quiet, aside from mine and Casten’s gagging. I tried to roll down the window but the knob broke in my hand about the time this woman swerved past a dead animal that was in the other lane. She had no reason to swerve.
Then, without warning, she slammed on her brakes and the smaller dog that was clinging helplessly to Casten’s legs hit the dashboard like a crash test dummy.
“Oh, Jesus.” Casten reached for the dog rubbing the side of its head. For not being a dog person, he seemed rather attentive.
We weren’t wearing seatbelts either. I doubted this piece of shit even had them. Naturally, when she swerved, I smacked against the dash.
The woman looked at the dog then, and rubbed the same place on his head Casten had just rubbed. “Sorry, Riley.” Then she paused, touching the other dog’s head. “Jameson, scoot over so your brother has room.”
Taking both hands off the wheel, she grabbed the dog on Casten’s chest and moved him so he was practically on Casten’s shoulders. Then patted his bare thigh for the other dog to climb back up.
Did I mention she was patting his upper thigh?
Casten smiled, holding back laughter. At that point, I wasn’t sure what was so funny to him.
What was also interesting was the dog’s names. That didn’t seem to go unnoticed by Casten and maybe that’s why he was smiling.
While the dog wouldn’t get back up on Casten’s lap, I assumed he might have had some brain damage because he just kind of looked at her. Adjusting the wheel and trying to drive with her knees, she picked the dog up and put him back on Casten’s lap as if sitting on the floor wasn’t acceptable for a dog. When she did her second swipe of his lap she grabbed his junk.
His eyes went wide but laughed.
“Easy there,” Casten said, playing it off with more laughter.
The woman then righted the truck on the pavement as we were heading straight for a tree. For the fourth time in our ten minute tortured truck ride my head slammed against the window.
Nobody rubbed my forehead.
“Those are some interesting names for dogs,” he said, keeping the laughter from his voice, with a steady calmness. “You a fan of Rowdy Riley?”
Casten looked at me, I was still sneezing, and then back to the woman. She finally kept both hands on the wheel but offered a shrug of her snakeskin shoulders.
I wasn’t sure what was happening and I was just about to say something when Casten elbowed my ribs indicating, in a rather asshole way, to keep quiet.
“Oh, yeah,” the woman went onto say. “I actually went to high school with him. We dated,” she remarked, sounding excited as her voice raised. “We dated for years before he was a huge star. Back when he was racing his first season in Cup.”
“You dated?” Casten asked, his mouth quirked with humor. “Wow. Fancy.”
“Yeah, he was a great guy. We dated for years and I’m still such a big fan of his. I’ve tried to meet him since but it never works out.”
I knew a little about Jameson and Sway and their legendary love story to know that statement was complete bullshit. So I said that.
“Bullshit,” I added, softly to my window.
Casten elbowed me again.
At that particular moment, her dog Riley, I think, farted and climbed on my lap. He started in with his licking again and I let him. I’m not exactly sure why.
By now we were nearly back to the campsite. I could see Casten’s truck and the array of vehicles from the team lined up outside the motor homes.
Shaking my head in disgust at this whole situation, I pushed the dog on the floor board when we pulled into the campsite.
Craning my neck to look out the back window, I was looking for Tommy but couldn’t see him.
“Are you going to the race tonight?”
The woman blushed at her own excitement. “Oh yes! I’ve been to all the races on the west coast. I’m from Washington but anytime the Outlaws make this side of the states I go…even quit my job to make it this time.”
“Have you ever been in the pits? That’s the best way to get to the drivers and interact with them. Jameson loves that sort of thing. Loves the fans,” Casten said.
I’ve only been around Jameson a few times now and I wanted to look at this woman and say, “He’s full of shit, sweetheart.”
But I didn’t.
I wasn’t sure what was happening but this woman was staring at him now, hanging on his every word. I had to get out. The smell was just unbearable.
By the look in Casten’s eyes when I opened the door, he was full of shit but this woman didn’t know that. No one knew when Casten was pulling their leg because he was the most convincing person when he wanted to be.
Apparently that was right now.
I got out of the truck and they talked for a few minutes before Casten got out and leaned inside the truck. “Meet me at the pit gate at four?”
The woman nodded eagerly.
Seeming pleased with himself, Casten walked over to me sitting on the picnic table by myself. No one was around, or maybe they were sleeping.
The r
ising smoke from last night’s fire was still smoldering with canvas folding chairs positioned around it. Beer cans littered the ground and picnic table around us.
“Who the hell was that woman?”
Jameson walked out of the motor coach right then, smiling.
“Shut up,” Casten said to me.
“Don’t be a dick. What were you talking—”
I didn’t question his logic but I could give him a little attitude.
There are times when I don’t have the capacity to deal with bullshit. Today was one of them.
With my good foot, I pushed Casten off the bench we were sitting on and into the dirt.
He smiled, standing to brush off his underwear that were now dusty. “Was that necessary?”
“Yes. Very much so.”
I probably should have been concerned that here I was sitting in my bra and underwear and Jameson was now standing there looking at us.
He wasn’t looking at us though. Cocking his head to the side with a look of confusion, he watched the woman’s truck pull away. “Who was that?”
“No one. Where’s Tommy?”
“Oh, Tommy?” Jameson called out, turning around to Tommy’s tent and laughing. “Casten’s looking for you.”
“It wasn’t me!” Tommy yelled from inside his tent.
Jameson smiled wider. “How was your swim?”
I was so confused.
With a smile, Casten walked past his dad and over to Tommy’s tent and jumped on top of it collapsing it.
Jameson looked at me, eyes bloodshot and cheeks red from his sunburn yesterday. “How’s that snake bite?”
Was he trying to be nice or mocking me? I wasn’t inclined to give a fuck since I wasn’t exactly sure whose idea it was to put our mattress in the lake. I settled on, “Fuck off.”
When Jameson started laughing, I knew he was part of it. I tried to rack my brain for any prank I could think to pull on Jameson but I was no good at this sort of thing.
“We could have drowned!”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Jameson gasped between his laughter trying to catch his breath. “You would have woke up when you hit the water.”
When we got to the track, I began to understand Casten’s plan a little more.
After gathering the woman from the pit gate, Casten walked up to his dad with a sure walk. “Oh, hey, Dad,” Jameson, who was dressed in his race suit now, helmet in hand, turned when he heard Casten. “This is the woman who gave us a ride back to the campsite. She’s a big race fan. BIG. And she wanted to meet you.”