Hot Laps

by Shey Stahl

  I’ve never seen Casten’s smile bigger than it was right then.

  I’ve also never seen Jameson’s so white. Even with his sunburn.

  “Dana, meet my Dad, Jameson,” He gave Dana a light push into his dad and stepped back with his arms crossed over his chest admiring his handiwork.

  Sway, who was seated next to me near the hauler burst out laughing. She slapped her hand over her mouth but it didn’t do any good.

  Dana paid no mind to anyone and wrapped her arms around Jameson. “I’ve missed you!” As if they were long lost buddies.

  I had a feeling Jameson was going to kill Casten.

  “Paybacks are a motherfucker, Dad.” Casten said to his dad as he walked past him, bumped his shoulder and then took a seat next to me and his mom. I high-fived him.

  It took Jameson thirty-nine minutes to get Dana to leave him alone. And I think the only reason he did was because he put his helmet on and got inside his car.

  The guys around the pit were laughing so hard they couldn’t even stand up straight. Willie, who tried like hell to keep a straight face, broke down in bellowing cackles and proceeded to beat his fist against the side of the camper.

  In the meantime, Sway gave me the complete story on Dana Sloan, Jameson’s biggest fan, and how she used to steal his underwear and even broke into their house one time.

  I couldn’t stop laughing.

  When Jameson came back from his heat race, he grabbed Casten by his shirt. “You better sleep with one eye open, you little fucker.”

  “Keep fucking with me, Dad. I dare you. I’m younger and can outrun your old ass.”

  His words to his father resulted in some eye rolling and even more head shaking as Jameson let go of his shirt as Sway reached for Casten, separating them and laughing hysterically.

  Being in the pits was unreal. There were cars and people everywhere and they didn’t seem to watch out for you. It was basically an awareness thing. You had to be aware at all times. I don’t know how many times Axel or Sway had to pull me out of the way. Rager almost hit me three different times because I wasn’t paying attention when he pulled into his pit.

  Casten was all smiles that night, having finally pulled one over on his dad but we didn’t make use of any more announcer’s booths. Probably because I was still getting whistles from last night.

  As I understood from Jameson, them putting us in the lake was partly payback for the party. I almost shit my pants when he found out I was there. In my defense, and I voiced this, I had to point out I wasn’t part of the jelly, or any of that. I was too busy shot gunning Monster energy drinks and vodka with a funnel.

  Given everything that happened that night, I wasn’t sure how to act around Jameson. He was my boss and I was having sex with his son in announcer booths.

  Sway was easier to be around. I think we were meant to be friends. I felt like she loved me instantly.

  That night I was sitting in what they told me were the pit bleachers with Abigale on my lap, she loved me too, and talking with Sway and Lily.

  Lily was shy and kept to herself but she also had two very active little boys to look after. Every five minutes you heard, “Jack, no!” or, “Jonah, don’t put that in your mouth!”

  It reminded me of dog sitting.

  “How do you like working at the shop?” Sway asked drinking from her water bottle and then placing it back on the bench in front of her where she had her perfectly manicured feet relaxing.

  “I love it,” was all I said at first but I knew by Sway’s expression she was looking for a little more than that.

  I caved.

  “I do love it but …” I let it all out after that. I missed Anna, who I told everything to and not having that was killing me. My phone was dead and I forgot to grab my charger in our rush to leave. In turn, my phone had been dead for two days. Part of me wondered if Anna called the police yet looking for me.

  “Olivia hates me,” was the statement I started with and went on to explain about Charlie. “And Charlie hates me, and now Casten, only because I wouldn’t have sex with him but I did have sex with Noah,” I paused, took and drink of my water and was met with two stares.

  Right about then was when I gathered that maybe this wasn’t an appropriate conversation to have.

  Lily looked at me with surprise while Sway was amused.

  “Well, I can tell you from experience,” Lily paused and moved up to the row of seats in front of me. “Olivia is like that with everyone.”

  “She seemed so sweet the first week I was there.” I looked from Lily to Sway.

  Sway rolled her eyes, nodding. “Jameson said he was thinking of getting rid of her. Bailey told him last week she noticed a lot of tension around there.”

  “With Olivia?”

  “With Charlie, too.”

  “I feel bad,” I said, because I did. “He got me the job and then it creates a war between him and Casten.”

  Lily laughed. “Uh, there was a war before that,” she looked to Sway to confirm, she nodded. “Fourth of July in Dodge City last year they got into a fight in the pits.”

  For some reason, Sway was barely able to keep the laughter from her voice. “The first person Casten ever punched was Charlie.”

  “Wow.”

  “They used to get along great,” Sway went on to say. “But they sorta drifted apart. He’s closer with Cole out of all his cousins.”

  “So it’s not all about me?” I teased. Abigale moved off my lap and took off running toward the pits. She was barely over a year old but just ran around the pits like she owned the place. It was the weirdest thing. How she didn’t manage to practically get hit like I did was unbelievable.

  “Nope,” Sway laughed squeezing my shoulder. “Lately though, my son has been all about you.”

  “Casten makes an impact on every one,” Lily laughed playfully tipping her head toward the pits where Casten was standing on top of the hauler with the boys. And there was Abigale holding onto Casten’s legs.

  A pack of cars made their way on the track and I noticed Jameson and Axel were part of them.

  So far I hadn’t had many interactions with Axel but occasionally he’d smile. He was very different from Casten. I’d yet to meet Arie but from what everyone told me, she was nothing like her brothers and more like Jameson.

  As you might guess, I was very nervous to meet her.

  Jack took notice of his dad on the track, holding onto the chain link fence separating the grandstands from the track.

  Lily looked back at Sway tucking her rich golden hair up into a ponytail. “What’s wrong with Jameson’s car?”

  “This has been a bad west coast tour. Everything keeps breaking,” Sway wrapped her hand around a handheld camera when the cars got a wave from the flagman.

  One by one they made a thunderous roar as they started flying by.

  With my head turned, I noticed Casten again. At first glance you would have thought there’s another crew member or maybe just another team but these guys were family. Whether they were at the shop, track or camping, it was clear these guys had a bond that was even thicker than blood.

  Jameson ended up winning that night and back at the campsite that night confirmed despite them constantly fucking with each other, I hoped to forever know this family. DOESN’T MAKE SENSE…

  I got to know Lily better and my previous assessment of her being shy went out the window when her boys went to bed. She could drink more than Axel.

  Sway and Jameson were full of witty humor and comebacks that no one but Casten could compete with. If someone was a bystander to this family, like me, it was easy to see who Casten’s parents were.

  With a few beers in him, Axel became engaging and joked around asking me if I enjoyed cutting my way into my car.

  “Why you shy little fucker. That was you?”

  He smiled rubbing his hand down his rusty scruff, and never directly answering the question.

  I made a mental note to find out as much as I could a
bout every member of this family. Much like the Dana incident today, you never know when you’ll need to pull one over on one of them.

  Home Track – A track where a driver either lives near, or is the only one near him.

  I’ll admit I was a little nervous having Hayden meet everyone in my family. For good reason. A girl happened and I wasn’t sure how to deal with that. Maybe that’s why I asked her to come to Texas with me. Part of me knew if she fit in with my family then I had nothing to worry about.

  As we left Tuesday morning from Texas, Dad pulled me aside.

  “What’s with you two? You dating now?”

  “Kinda,” I said. “Maybe, or maybe just exclusively having sex.”

  He didn’t say much about that and moved on to ask about Cole. He was arrested last night with cocaine on him and called Dad, as opposed to Spencer.

  “You into that shit, too?”

  “No,” I answered immediately. “I … uh … tried it once but never again.”

  “Okay.” Dad loaded his bags into the back of the car they were taking to the airport. “Mom and I are flying back and Spencer and Alley are heading to Salina. I’m gonna talk with Cole and Charlie.”

  Damn. I‘d forgotten about Charlie up until then.

  Dad knew a little about the shit going on, he always did, but I don’t think he realized how close Charlie was to quitting now.

  My relationship with Charlie had completely soured these days and that was unfortunate. Ever since we were younger, Charlie always thought he could tell me what to do.

  If you knew me at all, you would understand that didn’t work for me.

  I usually didn’t listen to anyone but my mother.

  Sometimes, if he made sense, I would listen to my Dad. Sometimes.

  Charlie thought because he was older, wiser, and could build an engine at ten that he should have been the lead engine builder.

  How do you think he felt when my dad gave the lead engine builder position to his eighteen-year-old son?

  Probably not well.

  The reason my dad made that decision had nothing to do with me being his son. As he stated, I had the negotiation skills Charlie lacked. I could not only build the engines but I could talk to the reps and work with others at the tracks.

  You took Charlie, or even Noah, to the track and it ended in a fight with someone.

  I know Tommy and the boys got in their fair share of trouble and half the tracks in the midwest Willie wasn’t allowed any longer for that very reason but at least they knew when to cut the shit and work. Charlie didn’t.

  Our problems started there, at the time I was given the position in December, well before Hayden arrived.

  Hayden was a girl Charlie had talked about often. I knew they were friends but that’s all they ever were.

  It wasn’t like I planned on what happened with Hayden in the beginning but after that party and the days following when we hung out every night, I decided to see where it went.

  In some ways, I suppose you could say that wasn’t very noble of me. Maybe it wasn’t.

  If you spent any amount of time with Hayden you would know how easy it was to be around her. The girl was like a magnet for me after that.

  I heard Axel say it, and then Arie, that eventually one person comes along that you’re drawn to. I didn’t completely understand it until my mom explained it.

  She compared it to my dad and his love for a certain track and then again to me this weekend after getting to know Hayden.

  Every racer out there has their favorite track. A track where, on any given night, they know the fastest line. More often than not, that track holds a deeper meaning than just finding that line.

  They know this track so well they could probably race it with their eyes closed and still get fast time.

  The deeper meaning here, I believe, was great memories were made there. In the beginning it was because they initially ran well there. They fell in love with the track. Then, only after falling in love, they learned the track. Maybe it was flat and wide and you could run wide open through one and two and pass on the apex of three when you did that. Sooner or later you get dialed in, had pit notes and each and every time you went back there it was like you never left.

  When I first heard that speech, I didn’t appreciate it.

  I wouldn’t go so far as to say I completely understood it now, but it made more sense the older I got.

  Then my mom said to me, “Hayden is a dirt track. She’s feisty, rocky and has good bite.”

  I understood that.

  When we got back from Texas, Hayden spent some time with Anna, who apparently missed her so much she called the police and alarmed everyone.

  We hadn’t seen each other in a few days and I was getting ready to call her Saturday morning to see if she wanted to hang out today, when Zoey, a girl I saw quite often before Hayden, asked me to meet her for coffee.

  I did and afterwards, I could have went back to her place but I didn’t. I took that shit seriously when Hayden asked that I only have sex with her. That confirmed my feelings for Hayden were more than I initially thought.

  Zoey seemed confused when I told her I couldn’t but when I explained about Hayden, she seemed to understand, in part. Or at least she said she did. Knowing girls these days I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was on Facebook either bad mouthing me to her friends or stalking Hayden’s page. Girls were like that.

  I wasn’t sure if Hayden even had a Facebook page, and frankly I didn’t care. I didn’t have one for the simple fact that it complicated things in a relationship. It was a nightmare.

  After lunch with Zoey, I called Hayden and asked if she wanted to go to dinner.

  She said yes but would meet me there. She didn’t want the possibility of Tommy fucking with her car. I assured her Tommy was in Oklahoma.

  She still wasn’t convinced and I couldn’t blame her on that one.

  There was a two-night show coming up in Eldora this week and I’d already made plans to go. I talked to Dad and asked if Hayden could come and he gave me the speech of I hired her for the shop, not to be your traveling fuck buddy.

  He had a point but I convinced him to let me take her anyway.

  I wasn’t entirely convinced Hayden would even go with me again though. When I thought about that announcer’s booth and the blow job I got on the way home through Louisiana, I prayed she wanted to go on another trip.

  We went to dinner, then back to my parent’s house where thankfully everyone was gone.

  Cuddled up on the leather couch in the movie room, we watched one of Hayden’s favorite movies, Pretty Woman.

  Suddenly, just about the time I was going to attack her, she jumped up and said she was thirsty and wanted ice cream.

  She was gone ten minutes and I started to get concerned and went down the hall to the kitchen to check on her.

  Part of me hoped I’d find her waiting in the fuck fort for me.

  She did one better when I found her standing in the kitchen, naked, with chocolate syrup in one hand and ice cream in the other.

  Seeming pleased with herself, she gave a tiny shrug. “I got the ice cream but you’re out of bowls.”

  I gave every inch of her naked body the attention it deserved. Walking toward her, I flipped the switch on the wall to leave only the lights over the island on. When just those lights were on, it made the dark wood in the kitchen reflect them in ways that created a softer candle light appearance.

  When I got close enough, my gaze dropped from her chocolate kiss eyes to her full breasts. Then lower, to her hips and shapely thighs that got me every time.

  Slender with dark hair, Hayden knew damn well how beautiful she was. No one needed to tell her that. The look she gave me and that soft apricot skin made me tell her. “Pretty girl,” I whispered, bringing my hand up and placing it over her heart that hammered under my touch.

  She looked around the room nervously before her eyes fell back to mine.

  “Hi,” she said,
caressing my back.

  “Hi,” I laughed, bringing myself against her and pressing her body against the stainless steel fridge.

  Shocked from the cold, her body tensed in my arms. Bending slightly, I lifted her up by the waist wrapping her legs around me. Securing my hold on her, I turned and set her on the counter to my left, bare ass and all.

  Pausing for a moment, I waited to see if there would be any objections to this.

  None. There’s never any from her.

  Grinning, I pulled my shirt over my head letting it fall away and then my shorts went next.

  Molded together in frantic kisses, I moved to kiss down her neck and then saw the ice cream had fallen to the floor. I had plans for that so I reached down and placed the container back on the counter.

  Laying her back over the island, I took the chocolate syrup in one hand, the other laid over her lower stomach. “Do you know why an engine is lubricated?”

  She smiled, knowing where I was going with this. “No … why?”

  “Well, to keep it running smoothly,” turning the chocolate bottle over, I let the dark syrup pour out onto her stomach. “Imagine pistons moving up and down inside of an engine without lubrication.”

  Her hands moved from my arms to prop herself up slightly for a better view, squirming slightly as the coldness from the syrup shocked her. Just as I wanted, her nipples hardened with the sensation. Leaning forward, I took a swipe of the syrup with my tongue and then licked up her stomach until I reached the pebbled skin of her breast, slowly sucking her nipple between my lips.

  She fucking moaned so loud I almost came right then.

  “It also provides less wear and tear on engine parts …”

  Hayden pushed me back slightly. “I love these dirty engine terms but right now, it’s been two days since we’ve had sex. I want you. Right now.”

  Who was I to deny?