The Champion (Racing on the Edge)

by Stahl, Shey

  If I could have found one, I would have.

  I must have lathered up with an entire bottle of calamine lotion while Jameson washed his skin obsessively like he would actually wash away the bites. It didn’t work and in the end, we itched.

  “I don’t like this.” Jameson said conversationally slapping away a bird-sized mosquito.

  “Me either.” I took a drink of my beer peering down at my speckled itchy skin. “There are so many bugs.”

  “It’s Alabama. What did you expect?”

  “So?”

  “That’s all this state has besides peaches, is bugs.”

  “Peaches are from Georgia.”

  “Sway,” his eyebrow arched toward me. “they have peaches everywhere.”

  “I know that. I’m just saying that the term peaches goes with Georgia,” I scratched my forehead. “not Alabama. Just like apples go with Washington and oranges go with Florida.”

  “Does it really fucking matter?”

  “Yes.”

  He snorted and stood up. With a stretch, his back arched and he yawned running his hand through his hair and then down his jaw. Eyeing the lake, he motioned with his head toward the direction of the lake. “I’m going for a swim.”

  Alley started laughing beside me while lathering up Lexi with sun block.

  “I can’t believe Aiden thought this would be fun.” She said only to me.

  Emma was all about camping and couldn’t stop organizing and making our campsite homey, so god forbid we bad mouth the trip in front of her.

  I never got up from my little throne next to the campfire. Hoping maybe the bugs would leave me alone, I realized by not moving, I attracted them like a florescent light.

  Later that night, after dinner, Spencer and Aiden took all the kids to go watch fireworks and that left Jameson and I alone.

  You can imagine how we made use of the time.

  “You wanna get naked?” he asked wiggling his eyebrows at me.

  “You know...sometimes women like romance.”

  “Oh—sorry,” He moved to sit next to me, the rusty highlights in his hair sparkling from the light of the fire. It was a sweet gesture when his hand rose to cup my cheek and leaned in to kiss my forehead. “Honey, please get naked with me?”

  “You’re such a knob.”

  A few minutes later, we were both naked inside our tent.

  “Can you scratch my ankle?”

  “Yeah—sure,” so I scratched his ankle.

  “Thanks.” he grunted pushing me forward to grasp my ass with his hand. I liked it, a lot.

  To me, there’s nothing better than camping in the middle of nowhere and having hot dirty sex with your dirty heathen while the kids are occupied.

  Speaking of dirty, dirt was literally everywhere in the tent. And in Alabama, the dirt was more like clay and it sticks to you. I was itchy and the dirt kind of felt nice chaffing against my skin.

  “Can you scratch my back since you’re back there?”

  “Yeah—where?”

  “By my ass...oh yeah...right there.” His movements didn’t stop either and I’m not really sure what felt better, the scratching or his movements, so I moaned. “Oh yes!”

  “You like that?” he asked with a hint of arrogance. “Fuck yeah you do.”

  “Yes!”

  Suddenly he stopped. “Wait, what are you liking more, the scratching or the sex?”

  How the fuck do I answer this one? They both felt good but the combination of the two was what was really good.

  “Both.” I squeaked.

  I heard him sigh and fall back on the ground.

  “This isn’t working.” He started itching his arms obsessively like a junkie.

  I scrambled on top of him to straddle his hips. “Yes it is working.”

  “No it’s not. We itch and we look like we have chickenpox. You know how much I hate stuff on my skin and look at it!” His eyes closed. “I want to go home.”

  “So you don’t want to...” I swiveled my hips once, his back arched as his hands stopped itching and flew to my hips.

  No more words were spoken as the dirty heathen took over. It was one of those times when you don’t say anything because you just have a mission: getting done before the kids came back.

  By the time we were done, we were sweating, covered in red clay and a few more bug bites.

  “Ow!” Jameson yelled rubbing his leg. “Something bit me!”

  I grinned.

  “Was it a cougar?” I started laughing uncontrollably on the floor of the tent. “Or maybe in was a shark.”

  Holding his calf, he scowled. “No!”

  “Come here.” I motioned for him to lie against my chest, still laughing. “Let the mama wizard see.”

  He was hesitant but any chance at cuddling the funbags was appealing to the dirty heathen, so he did. Examining his calf, above his shark bite, there was a raised blotchy patch.

  “Oh you poor thing,” I cooed running my fingers through his hair. “Are you going to be okay?” Despite my calmed tone, I was still laughing.

  “Stop laughing,” he pulled back to glare. “This is not funny. What if I was bit by a deadly spider?”

  “Well then—I will apologize when you die.”

  He side-eyed me. “Nice.”

  It wasn’t long and the kids returned all of them popping off their rev limiters as Jameson would put it.

  After that it was the battle of getting the little shits to bed and to stay in bed. It was almost like they smelled the fresh air and once it hit their lungs they acted like fucking brats.

  It took Jameson, me, and Spencer just to get Axel into bed and finally Nancy had to step in.

  Arie was easy. She went out like a light when Jimi captured her in his arms.

  Casten stayed awake, for a while, eyeing everyone curiously, but it seemed okay since he was a baby and couldn’t tell anyone how ridiculous his parents acted when the kids went to bed.

  He did however pass out about the time Tommy, who was suffering from allergies and who took to drinking Benadryl, plopped down in a camping chair next to Jameson and started telling him about how he thought he needed a raise.

  Tommy was joking because Jameson gave willingly to everyone on his team whether it was the Cup team or sprint cars.

  Every year Ford handed Jameson a brand new truck of his choice. And every year, he then handed that truck over to one of his boys. He always went all out on Christmas and birthdays for anyone on his teams. Most thought he was an asshole but he knew everyone’s birthday on his team and surprised them every year with something most could never dream of affording.

  Why did he do that?

  Because to him, he wouldn’t have any of the luxuries he had now if it wasn’t for them.

  Jameson, concerned that his only mechanic on his sprint car team was drinking Benadryl as though it was a juice box, looked at Jimi, who was still holding Arie, for help.

  Jimi shrugged when Jameson tried to take the bottle from him and gave us the same look he’d given Nancy when she made him sit through the Sex in the City movie.

  “He’s drinking Benadryl through a straw.” Jimi reminded us. “I guarantee you that’s the least of your problems tonight.”

  And my god was he right. That night seemed to be something similar to the old pit lizard days. Thank god there wasn’t a tattoo parlor nearby but we did have a branding torch courtesy of Spencer.

  It started when Spencer said, “I bet you can’t swim across this lake.”

  You never say that to these boys and expect them not to react. Ever.

  Jimi stood, shifting Arie to his other arm, and motioned around. “The shit is about to hit the fan and I’m tired. No one kill themselves tonight. It’s supposed to be relaxing and the nearest hospital is miles away.” He looked at Tommy and Spencer. “You two stay away from my fucking tent tonight.”

  Jimi and Nancy put Arie in our tent and then snuck off to theirs.

  So what did happen when the paren
ts went to bed?

  Oh god. Where do I even begin?

  Spencer started in with the ‘I bet you can’t do that’ shit and that resulted in Jameson, Justin, Tommy and Aiden swimming across the lake. About one minute into it, Justin confessed he couldn’t swim very well and ended up coming back when he couldn’t touch anymore.

  That left Jameson, Tommy and Aiden battling it out in their own version of aquatic survivor. I was amazed someone didn’t drown out there with the way they were dunking each other.

  Halfway across the lake, they gave up and decided drinking beer was more entertaining than drowning. It also had something to do with Justin reminding them there were snakes in the lake.

  Spencer convinced they had no balls for not completing his stupid ‘I bet you can’t do that’ task, threw insults at them all night.

  Tommy, wanting to one-up Spencer, decided he was going to fill the water balloons the kids had with piss. Yes, a twenty-eight year old man-child was filling water balloons with urine.

  The worst part, my twenty-eight year old husband joined him.

  Here’s the thing though and what these dumb shits never considered. Spencer has pulled off more pranks than all of them put together. He knows when he’s about to be pranked and usually knows how.

  So there Jameson and Tommy were drinking one beer right after another and then peeing in the balloons. Around one that morning they had enough for their war against Spencer.

  Only problem was Spencer caught onto them peeing into the balloons and decided he was going to one up them and sprayed them with WD-40. If you’ve never seen what this does to balloons, it’s entertaining. The chemicals eat through the balloon in about five seconds.

  Spencer, his intelligence soaring that night, enlisted Logan, who refused to go to sleep, into sitting behind Jameson and Tommy and spraying the balloons with WD-40 before they launched them at Spencer. Needless to say they exploded mid-air all over them.

  “Abort mission!” Tommy hollered in complete horror soaked with his own urine. He looked at Jameson. “I’d be okay if it was my own piss, I do that at least once a month but yours…” he shivered. “I can’t handle that. I can’t.”

  Jameson, who was hiding behind me for cover, looked around, tipped his baseball cap up and grinned. “Oh Tommy, it’s just my urine. I’m clean.”

  Tommy, who had dodged under a canvas camping chair, glared and ran after him.

  “C’mere asshole, I’m gonna piss on you and see how you like it!”

  Jameson shot out into the woods to avoid him with Tommy following.

  After making sure the kids were still sleeping, I sat down next to Ami.

  “I have bets that one of them ends the night with a broken bone or stitches.”

  “For sure,” Ami cracked another beer and handed me one. I took it since I’d pumped enough for Casten the last few days and I figured I could have one free night.

  We could hear the boys in the distance all yelling obscenities at each other; Jameson’s laughter, Spencer’s laughter and then finally Justin and Tommy squealing like little girls quickly followed by Jameson and Spencer screaming.

  Once I started drinking that night, I couldn’t tell you with accuracy what actually happened but it was one of those nights I didn’t care. It was nice to just be a kid again.

  Any time once of us thought we’d woken up the kids, we start giggling like a bunch of girls at a slumber party and saying ‘shhhh’ on repeat.

  Around four, we were still going strong when we heard movement near the tents. Jameson practically jumped onto my lap.

  “Do you think it’s a cougar?” he asked pulling his baseball cap down to hide his panicked expression from the others.

  “No,” I pushed him off. “And if it was I’d feed you to him.”

  He laughed remembering those words from our honeymoon. Everyone else looked at us curiously. Apparently, to Jameson and me, it was the funniest thing we’d ever said to each other and we both laughed uncontrollably. It was probably the alcohol.

  All our laughing woke up Jimi.

  Emerging with a grunt from his tent, Jimi looked around the campsite and shook his head with a smirk. His hand rose to scratch the top of his head. “I don’t even want to know how this happened.”

  Tommy, who’d passed out by the fire, groaned and sat up. After looking around for a moment, he laid back down and asked. “Is the room still spinning?”

  Jimi kicked a few bottles out of the way and made his way back to his tent muttering something about his grandkids being more mature than their parents.

  Ryder stood, brushing aside the crumbs of the two bags of chips he’d eaten and walked over to Tommy and looked closer at his face.

  He stared at him for a moment before turning to all of us. “His eyebrows are gone!”

  “No shit?” Justin perked up. “They just grew back from the incident at Dog Hollow.”

  “Yep.” Ryder looked closer. “They’re gone.”

  “Fuck yeah.” Jameson pumped his fists in there air. “He deserves that.”

  Ami felt the need to remind Jameson that Tommy was the one who was peed on tonight.

  “That’s not really the point.” Jameson said reaching for another beer and a bag of barbeque chips.

  “Not the point my ass. She made a perfectly good point.” I reminded him only to have Jameson glare.

  He stopped when I took his hand and rested it on my bare knee.

  “Now let’s go see about a tree I saw out there.” I winked at him just to get my point across.

  “A tree? Why in the world would you want to see a tree?” Spencer asked and then caught on. “Oh, right.”

  Alley quirked an eyebrow at her husband. “Sometimes I wonder how you get through the day.”

  “That’s rude.” Spencer actually looked offended. “I’m perfectly capable of getting through the day.”

  “Yeah,” Alley rolled her eyes when Jameson and I stood. “sure.”

  On the way into the woods, I asked him if he thought we were getting too old for this sort of thing.

  When he didn’t respond, I turned to see him leaning against a tree, his arms crossed over his chest.

  I was drunk but despite this, I took a moment to look over my husband. His hair was crazy, gray t-shirt soaked with the beer Ryder dumped on him earlier and his brown cargo shorts were weathered and worn from being his favorite pair for the last two years.

  My eyes went lower to see that he wasn’t wearing any shoes.

  I laughed. “Where are your shoes?”

  He shrugged and offered that smirk I loved so much.

  Slowly, he pushed himself from the tree and came to stand within inches of me. His eyes traveled south again and landed on my shorts as he fumbled for a moment with the button. He was trying to remain sexy about this but he was so drunk that every time he tried to keep a sexy mysterious look to him he’d smile and we’d both start laughing.

  Holding back his laughter, he began to drag my panties slowly down my legs.

  Pinned against the tree by his hips, I was determined to make this last longer than I knew it would. Pushing back against him, my hands found his shorts. My fingers got the button undone when I felt his stare again. He watched each movement as I slowly let the camshaft out.

  He smiled. I smiled.

  “He’s missed you.” He breathed bringing my lips back to his.

  Kissing Jameson was like ice cream for me on a hot summer day, hell, any day. I couldn’t get enough of him or ice cream.

  Jameson seemed frustrated he couldn’t get my shirt off fast enough so I once again pushed him back to assist with the pit stop.

  Helping him out, I pulled my shirt over my head instantly regretting the cool night air as it provided quite the reaction to the funbags. It had been a while since they’d been out to play after having kids. So many times I had to keep my bra on just because it wasn’t worth the effort of having to constantly tell Jameson to stop trying to get his mouth around them.

>   I looked up at Jameson watching as his eyes. He only stared, his laughter suppressed, with silent words and it only made me want to scream. I wanted to know what he was thinking and to hear him say dirty engine words to me but no, he just stared with that smirk and warm eyes that spoke for him.

  All laughter aside, he wanted me.

  He reached out tentatively and touched the side of my face holding my jaw in the palm of his hand. Moving closer, his lips rested behind my ear and he whispered.

  “Are you gonna fuck me or just stand there and stare?”

  I attacked him like a cougar and he couldn’t stop laughing at me. We ended up somewhere against a tree and then the ground and then back to the tree. We were both laughing, clinging to each other and making the best of our time alone even though our friends and family were making animal sounds not more than thirty feet away.

  My legs wrapped around his waist using his shoulders as leverage. He moved me the way he wanted.

  While I enjoyed this, the only problem was that, as with Dayton Peak and the pit lizard days, my ass was scrapping against the grain of the bark and giving me splinters. I wasn’t sure if my cries of pleasure were from the bark itching, all my bug bites or from Jameson. Either way, it was kind of nice.

  “Fuck honey,” Jameson growled and pushed me against the tree harder.

  His movements sped as did his hips and we were lost in a world of itching bug bites, sweaty bodies, breathy words, hurried touches and laughs.

  Any time I was with Jameson, it was a flurry of emotions both emotional and physical swirling inside me. He had the power to stir up and turn wild those very same feelings whenever he felt like it. I hated that he could do that to me but I took pride that I could do that same to him if needed.

  Believe me when I say that not every time you have sex with your husband is it going to be this way. Sometimes it’s quick and dirty, other times it’s slow and sensual and then there are the times when you just don’t mix. Something feels off, maybe it’s you, maybe it’s him, but guess what?