by Shey Stahl
“Where are the kids?” Rager asked, pulling me into his chest when I spotted him.
I looked back at Rager, smiling when he placed his hands on my shoulders. “I have no clue.”
“Gray is watching them,” Rosa told us, pulling out two juice boxes from her nanny pack. She handed one to Caden. “Congrats. Drinks on me.”
“Is this orange juice?” Caden asked, staring at the carton, and then his newborn baby with what I could only describe as shock.
“Drink it and find out.” Rosa smiled. “We don’t know.”
“What’s her name?” Lily questioned, tears in her eyes as the paramedics rushed in to help us.
“Jameson Grace.” Kinsley smiled, sighing at the man who delivered her.
Dad, though he appeared proud, was more than likely having a panic attack. If you knew my dad, you understood his fear of anything on his skin. And the fact that he had baby juice on him, as Tommy so disgustingly put it, he didn’t look well. In fact, he… yep… threw up just outside the hauler.
Caden held Kinsley close and pressed his lips to her forehead. “She’s beautiful, baby. Just like you.”
I was pretty sure every man said that looking at their daughter, but the way Caden stared down at his baby wrapped in Dad’s driving suit, you would have thought that baby hung the moon in his eyes.
“That was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever witnessed in my life,” Gray stated, her face pale. “I’m never having kids. Ever.”
We all turned when we realized who was watching the little kids, wasn’t. Oh, fuck. I gasped and moved away from the hauler to follow Gray. “I thought you were watching the littles?”
Gray shrugged, flipping her hat around backward and walking back to the motor home. “I paid Jonah fifty bucks to watch them. I think he has them.”
Jonah was ten. At least he was older than Gray, but still. It didn’t make me feel any better to know they were being watched by kids. While they transported Kinsley, Lily and I went to find the kids. They ended up closing the pits so we could safely get Kinsley and the baby out without making a scene or anyone noticing that in the pits of Stockton Speedway, another future member of the JAR Racing Rugrats was born.
We found my four kids, and Jacen, Savannah, Ryder and Rowyn, all snuggled up on Mom and Dad’s bed watching a movie with Jonah. “Oh, thank God.” Lily breathed in relief when she saw all three of her children were safe.
It was by far the cutest thing I’d ever seen. He’d even laid out pillows on the floor to make sure the littlest of them—Hudson and Rowyn—didn’t fall and hurt themselves. I smiled at Jonah as I picked up a sleeping Hudson. My other three were wide awake. “Look at you taking care of your nieces and nephews. You’re gonna make the best dad someday.”
Jonah laughed but rolled his eyes. “After tonight, I don’t think I’m going to have kids. They’re crazy.”
I ruffled his wavy blond hair as he sat on the edge of the bed. “You were too at this age.”
His blue eyes slowly lowered to Hudson in my arms, and then mine again. “He’s only nice when he’s sleeping. I was about ready to tie him up.”
“I know what you mean.”
In no way was it good that a ten-year-old was watching all these kids, but you know that saying it takes a village to raise a child. Try raising eleven of them on the road. You need all the help you could get, and you took it where it came available.
Lily and Hayden helped me get the kids into bed in our motor home and then we left Rosa in charge while I closed up the T-shirt trailer. That was when I found Rager again, beer in hand, cheeks flushed and smiling.
Naturally, the win had put him in a better mood.
After he’d finished signing autographs in the grandstands, Rager said, “Crazy night.” He handed me the keys to the merchandise trailer. “Rosa have the kids?”
I nodded, smiling at him when he leaned into the side of the trailer with his shoulder. “They’re sleeping. Are you hungry?” He never ate before a race, which usually left the poor guy eating at midnight most nights. But when he slept until ten or eleven because he’d been up all night, it made sense.
His eyes moved to the motor home, then around the parking lot. “I’m not hungry for food.”
For some reason, nervousness worked through me. I didn’t want to go inside the motor home and have the kids wake up or Rosa, well, be Rosa. I wanted to pretend for a moment that this was us again. Two people in the pits of a dirt track deciding what the night might bring between them. As lovers, not parents, or team owners, or even husband and wife. Because all that came with responsibility, and that forbidden love I’d had for Rager all my life… I craved that again when he looked at me like that.
Like he wanted to fuck me against the side of this trailer.
Did it make me any less of a mother for wanting that?
No. At least I didn’t think so. It made me a woman who needed her husband to treat her a little dirty for once.
I wasn’t sure if it was the thrill of the win or that it’d been a while, or that he was thinking the same thing I was, but he had his T-shirt trailer opened up and shoved me inside before I had time to protest.
Ripping his shirt off, he unbuttoned his shorts and stalked toward me as I stood in the middle of the trailer, my hands on either side of the counters that lined both sides from one end to the other. It was dark but the battery-operated string lights I’d stuck in the display case last weekend created a glow against Rager’s face.
“This isn’t going to last long,” he warned me, working on the button of my shorts and then my tank top.
“I don’t care,” I said breathily in what was somewhere between a sigh and a moan. “Just fuck me. Like you can’t possibly wait another second. Fuck me like that.”
A predatory smirk ghosted his lips. “Honey, I’m already there.”
Flipping me around so that my chest was against the glass display case, he kicked my feet apart, dropped my shorts and then I heard his zipper lower.
I turned my head to watch and caught a brief glimpse as he reached between us. And then he entered me without warning. I yelped when he slammed me forward and my head hit the wall.
“Give me your hands,” he ordered, and I flopped them back behind me. Gathering them in one of his, he pulled hard and drove me into his thrusts.
For the next minute, the trailer rocked with his need and mine. Though I knew I couldn’t come like this, it was exactly what I needed.
At some point, he dropped my hands and his traveled the path along my spine to the crown of my head. Flattening his palm, he held my head down against the glass. “I watched you walk by so many times today, and all I thought about was this. Fucking you in this trailer.” His words came out in a growl, tormented, needy, and everything this was.
I was about to come when there was a knock on the trailer door. “I know you’re in there.” Casten chuckled. “Can I have my keys?”
“Shit,” Rager groaned, his pace slowing when the handle jiggled.
“Casten, you open that door and you better be ready to see your sister getting fucked doggy style,” I warned, my words strained.
Casten laughed again. “Nah, I’ll wait here until you’re done. Maybe get some pointers.”
Rager’s hand on my head tightened, taking a handful of my hair. “Don’t move,” he whispered. “I’m gonna come.”
“’Bout time. It’s been like two minutes.” Casten laughed. “You’ve got some stamina.”
I wanted to laugh, because clearly he was joking, but the sight of Rager coming, his entire body shaking as the pleasure worked through him subsided every other reaction I might have had. It was the most beautiful sight to see him this way, vulnerable, and, in love. Because that’s all I saw when he looked at me. Absolute adoration for his wife.
Slowly he eased out of me and tucked himself back into his shorts. “Excuse me while I kill your brother.”
Kicking the door open, he hit Casten with it. “Whoa, don’t aim that
thing at me,” Casten told him, his laughter heard throughout the dark parking lot.
While they argued and Rager threw the keys in the gravel next to the trailer, I yanked my shorts up and righted my shirt. Fanning my face, I drew in a deep breath, my smile instant.
Exiting the trailer, I locked it back up and then headed toward our motor home after Rager got it hooked up. Casten eventually found the keys and told everyone in the parking lot waiting on us that Rager and I were in the T-shirt trailer fucking. Rager wasn’t pleased with him, but he wasn’t happy with my brother most nights. At least he and Axel got along.
Before we got inside the motor home to leave, Rager yanked me into his chest. “Thank you. You don’t know how badly I needed that.”
My back met the door, the warm metal soothing. “Probably as much as you needed that win.”
His lips met the curve of my neck and one hand squeezed my ass. “I’m pretty sure I needed this more.”
I had to agree. Though I hadn’t been in victory lane with him and our time in the trailer had been quick, it was amazing what those five minutes did for us. And I was thankful for it because the moment we entered the motor home, Knox was wide awake and ready to party.
Fucking three-year-olds. They could never get their sleep schedules under control.
“Daddy!” He lunged himself at Rager as he sat in the driver seat.
Rager caught him, holding him to his chest, as if he’d been waiting all day for a hug from his son. His eyes closed, a smile ghosting his lips. “Hey, Naughty Knox.”
Knox straddled his lap between his chest and the steering wheel. “Did you win?”
Rager pulled back, winking at our little boy. “I did. You proud of me?”
“I love you” was Knox’s answer. My heart melted. Though he’d certainly got the nick name Naughty Knox for a reason, he had a sweet side that he usually reserved for Rager.
Knox disappeared into the back when we started up the motor home. Rosa surfaced, a bag of chips in one hand and White Claw in the other. She leaned in between the two seats where we were seated and smiled. “Heard you two were fuckin’ in the trailer.”
Rager refused to acknowledge her, his eyes on Casten’s motor home in front of us, the brake lights casting his face in a red glow.
“How do you know about that? You’ve been sleeping the entire time.”
“I have cameras in there.”
Rager’s head snapped her direction. “Are you serious?”
“No. But I think I might now. I didn’t realize there’d be action in there.” And then she made a clawing motion at him. “Ray-grrrrr.”
“Keep it up and I’m going to make you ride with Casten again.”
That shut her up immediately. She couldn’t stomach his driving, or Hayden. They certainly tolerated each other, but I couldn’t say they were good friends.
As we merged onto the highway that night, in between a million trips to check on the kids, I settled into my seat for the two-hour drive to Santa Cruz where we planned on staying for a few days before we needed to be in Watsonville. That was when Rager reached for my hand and held it. It was then I realized I lived for these moments in the dark, much like I had back when our love was forbidden. Because these were where we could really connect. On an open highway in the middle of the night.
Inductance – Measurement of a conductor’s ability to resist a change in current flow; analogous to an objects ability to resist a change in velocity.
DEVILS BOWL SPEEDWAY
MESQUITE, TEXAS
You’d think by now I’d be used to life on the road, but some mornings, it frustrated me that we lived in a forty-foot motor home most of the year and I still couldn’t find anything I was looking for. Every February I told myself I’d be prepared and organized and come May, all that shit went out the window.
Now it was nearly June and I was in “crazy mom” mode and pissed that cracker crumbs were everywhere and Rager wasn’t helping me. He stared at a hysterical Hudson.
“Why are you screaming, dude?”
Hudson didn’t answer him. Or maybe he didn’t hear him over his crying.
Running around the motor home, I looked for Hudson’s pacifier and couldn’t find it. What I did find was that package of apple sauce Knox had been carrying around earlier, half empty, and stepped on it. What was left shot out the side and onto Rager’s leg as he sat on the couch.
My eyes snapped to my foot, and then Rager’s leg. “Whoops.”
He glared, and then shook his head. “That’s sadly not the first thing that’s been squirted at me today.”
“I’m almost scared to ask.”
He stood. “I’d rather you not.” And then he left, apple sauce dripping from his leg.
I still didn’t find the pacifier but settled on a popsicle. I’d literally give him anything but my boob at this point. I stopped breastfeeding Hudson a couple of weeks back and now my right tit was red, angry, and letting me know something was wrong. Given the women in my family’s history with booby issues, immediately I was alarmed. What if I had breast cancer? What then?
I ended up taking Hudson for a walk to calm him down and met up with Hayden.
“How long has it been sore?”
I stared over at Hayden who sat next to me as we watched the kids playing inside the rear tires stacked against the hauler. Shifting in the chair, I rolled my shoulders back to sit up straighter. “I just noticed it this morning when I was putting on my bra
“Maybe you have an inflamed milk duct? I had that with Rowyn.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yep. It was super painful. Felt like my tit was going to burst.”
It definitely felt like that. I wanted to ask my mom, but then again, I didn’t want to worry her. She’d already been nagging me yearly to get an early mammogram even though I wasn’t even thirty yet. I couldn’t blame her. I’d be on Bristol too.
“She’s so stinking cute I want to eat her up!” Hayden said, peeking at the newborn in Kinsley’s hands as we sat outside the haulers.
They hadn’t started with the pre-race activities yet, so we felt safe having the kids in the pits.
“Don’t eat my baby.” Kinsley held Jameson Grace closer. We started referring to her as her full name because it got really confusing when someone would say oh, Jameson is so cute, and my dad would stare at them as if they’d lost their minds.
Texas was fucking hot. No matter what time of the year, in my opinion. Probably wasn’t the case, but whatever. Today was a scorcher. And really hot to have a newborn baby at the track, but that’s the life if you have kids and you’re racing. Kinsley never missed a beat after having Jameson. She went to the hospital that night, checked out the next morning and they were back on the road. Though she claimed she knew nothing about taking care of a baby, Hayden and I prided ourselves in contributing to her readiness for little Jameson by leaving our kids with her so much.
“I think she looks like me,” Rosa noted, a White Claw in hand, and a hot dog in the other.
Smiling, I watched Rager trying to change the gears on his car with a set frown on his face.
I stared at my husband and though I was distracted by the sweat on his arms and the grease on his hands, I thought I’d offer some assistance. Maybe then his mood would improve. Doubtful, but I tried. “Do you need help?”
Rager snorted, his grip slipping for the fourth time. “Yeah, hold my dick.”
Rosa jumped up, spilling her White Claw. “Now’s my chance, bitches.”
Part of me wanted to stop her because I wasn’t sure what he’d do.
To our disappointment, he walked away from her without words. I wouldn’t go as far as to say Rager was in a bad mood since he won at Stockton, but he also wasn’t in a great mood. Since then we’d been to Ocean Speedway. He blew a motor there. Calistoga Speedway he dropped a cylinder. Keller Auto Speedway in Hanford, he finished third. Perris Auto Speedway… not great. Another DNF when he and Ricky Hagen—a lapped car at the time�
�got into him with one lap to go and he was leading the race. USA Raceway, Arizona Speedway… two top five finishes, but no wins.
Caden had been on a winning streak though. He’d figured out something and won the last six straight races on the last lap. He’d earned the nickname “The Closer” from Jerry and the guys in the pits. And though it sucked that Rager was struggling, everyone was excited that JAR Racing now held the top five spots in the WoO standings.
I watched Rager most of the afternoon. He and Caden were deep in conversation about track conditions when Kinsley smiled at me. “He thinks the world of Rager.”
The statement, though it caught me off guard, didn’t surprise me. Rager, much like my dad, had that effect on most drivers. Even my brothers—though you’d never get Casten to admit this—looked up to Rager if not for his ability to wheel a race car, but for his patience with the sport. Sure, he wasn’t having the best year, but that proved right there what a versatile driver he was.
And Caden, he had all the makings to be one of the best as well. “Rager really enjoys having him on the team,” I told her, trying to smell her baby’s head.
She laughed and awkwardly positioned Jameson’s head closer to me. “They smell so good, don’t they?”
I nodded. “Until they turn two and they smell like dirt and farts.” I had three little boys. Everything smelled like poop and you had to actually question whether it was poop or not. Most of the time it wasn’t.
“You ready for the autograph session?” Lily asked, Savannah on her hip and Jacen holding her hand. I had to do a double take at Jacen for a moment though. He looked just like Jack and my breath caught. Blond wavy hair, bright blue eyes and pink cheeks.
Smiling up at me, he handed me a T-shirt. “Auntie Hayden said you need to wear this.”
I made my way around the other side of the hauler to retrieve my phone and the keys to the motor home. “I should?”
“Yeah.” Lily set Savannah on her feet when she noticed Bristol and started to squirm. Bristol and Savannah were best friends. If you saw one, the other was near. “She thought it’d be funny since Rager hates it when you wear his shirts.”
