by Shey Stahl
Smiling, she raised her legs up and crossed them giving me a nice view between her legs. “Make love to me,” she begged, blinking slowly as she watched me undress and crawl into bed with her. “That’s all I want right now.”
With a low groan, I pulled her face to mine, pressing my lips to hers. “I’ll never deny you anything you want.” There was truth in that statement, one she knew very well.
I wanted to be able to let go. I wanted to take her the way I wanted without restraints, but I couldn’t.
Our lovemaking was different that night. Sway and I, we were good at the dirty talking and everything but there was a handful of occasions where nothing was said, only looks exchanged, and love bled between two people, a husband and a wife coming together.
Open mouths, tongues, hands, hips meeting with a desire that couldn’t be broken, twisting to get closer, it was a blur, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
My palm found her jaw, my thumb lazily brushing over her lip as I tilted her face to mine, parting my lips over hers.
Sway once told me, and I believed it, life was never perfect. No matter how hard you fucking tried, even the strongest crumbled and fell to their knees, myself included. Legends fell, heroes became normal fucking people and like that moment, with her, I was normal. I wasn’t anything but Sway Riley’s husband and fucking honored to be. That—right then—the tie that held us together as I moved inside of her was quite possibly the only thing holding us together.
It was different as I moved languidly against her, hips meeting hers with slow ardent movements I knew she needed. I’d like to say my kisses were different, slow, deep, and warm, wanting to show her how much I loved her through them.
Savoring the warmth spreading throughout me, I bent down to kiss her forehead, rocking myself into her as my control slipped and my orgasm threatened.
When I leaned back to look at her, her features held an emotion I couldn’t decipher, or maybe she didn’t want me to. All I know was it was something like love, but more devotion than anything.
My mouth moved from hers, spreading kisses over her jaw and against her neck. Unnerved by the tears forming in my eyes, I buried my head in her neck, hiding away from her. It was then her tears mixing with mine, rolling over her cheeks.
“Sway honey.” My low timbre drew her attention, my nose brushing over her jaw.
Turning to look at me, I took a sharp intake of breath. Without saying the words, her face told me everything. She was scared of what the next month would bring for her, for us.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, my hands trembling as they caressed her. “I’m sorry…. I’m so fucking sorry I can’t make this go away,” I cried against her shoulder, still moving inside her.
She grabbed my face between her hands. “I’m not asking you to. I just want you right now. Only you.”
I couldn’t look away from her right then. Leaning forward, my lips pressed to her neck.
Moaning, she arched against me, her legs wrapping tightly around my waist as she drew me deeper inside, biting softly down on my shoulder.
The release and relief were intense, our bodies melting into one another.
“Sway,” I whispered, lips urgent against hers. “Fuck… you feel so good.” I threw myself into my movements, chasing my orgasm I couldn’t hold back any longer. My entire body jerked in time with my release, my head buried in her shoulder as she held my body tightly against hers.
I tried to be careful, but my body collapsed against hers, my breath hot and rapid on her neck. As she stroked my back tenderly, my own breathing and heart rate returned to a normal pace and reality hit me as I laid my cheek against her breast.
Exhaling heavily, I slid to one side bringing her to my chest.
Lying there quietly staring at each other, listening to the sounds outside our open window, she touched my face; her palm pressed to my cheek. “Don’t be scared, Jameson.”
How could she say that to me? Did she not realize what it meant if I lost her? Did she not realize there was no me without her?
I believed that without a doubt. It was the end of both of us.
Sway was my prayer, my blessing and sometimes curse. Nothing mattered but her. Maybe that was slightly a lie. Racing fucking mattered, but she was part of that. In many ways, she would always hold the checkered flag in our life without even knowing. My race and where I finished depended on her.
The expression I saw on her face took my breath away. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak. I just stared, transfixed looking into her eyes. Mesmerized by the depth of her passion for us I saw there.
I COULDN’T SLEEP that night, so I grabbed a case of beer and headed across the street to our lake. I lounged in a chair, my phone connected to speakers beside me playing on shuffle everything from Eric Church to Zac Brown Band.
“Are you okay?” Twisting my head, I noticed Arie standing on the dock.
Squeezing my burning eyes shut, I shook my head. “I’m fine.”
I once asked myself would racing always be enough, would I eventually say when and give it all up?
Maybe without warning, your life, your body or maybe your mind had a way of saying it for you. This was me, again, saying when. Give me my fucking wife and make her healthy. I’d give up everything else for that.
Arie was quiet for a moment and then noticed my appearance. There was no doubt everyone knew something was wrong. We couldn’t hide any longer, but I also couldn’t tell Arie without Sway.
“Mom’s sick… isn’t she?”
Giving the lake a contemplative stare, I couldn’t say the words to her because, in reality, I couldn’t say them myself. Nodding was my only answer.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t tell her right then; I was honestly afraid if I said the words, I’d break down in front of her, and I was holding so strongly to my courage that I didn’t want to break in front of my daughter. But I couldn’t help it; the tears fell regardless of the tough exterior I’d been holding onto.
Arie stood for a moment and then began to leave. I didn’t want her to leave and handed her a beer. “Stay?”
Our eyes caught in the night. Hers lit by the lanterns around us, misty-eyed and looking for comfort too. “Okay.”
Taking a seat next to me, we sat in silence drinking and watching the lake until the song “Sweet Annie” finished, I looked over at her.
God, she reminded me so much of Sway at her age. Not in her looks—no that was all me— but in the way she carried herself and how she knew if someone needed to talk or just to sit side-by-side and stare at the lake. That was all Sway. She always knew what someone needed, most of the time even before they did.
Sitting, staring at our daughter, all I could think about was how grateful I was for the family Sway had given me. It wasn’t just about the three amazing kids we raised. It was about the home and sense of security she always provided for all of us in a lifestyle full of unknowns. Sway was our foundation, and I would be thankful every damn day that one night in Charlotte I finally had the courage to ask her to stay.
Looking back at Arie, I could see the tension in her posture. She was battling her own demons and even though I told myself I wouldn’t interfere with her life, she was my little girl and when she was hurting, so was I.
“I love you. You know that, right?” All my children knew I loved them, even Casten knew, but I needed to say it aloud as a way of telling her I was there for her no matter what.
Arie turned to me, giving me a soft smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Yeah, Dad, I know. I love you, too.”
“I know we haven’t always agreed on some of the choices you’ve made in life, but I hope you know that your mom and I, we’re really proud of the woman you’ve grown to be.”
It was true. Arie had made some bad decisions when she was young, usually regarding the opposite sex, but she had grown to be a smart and confident woman with a good head on her shoulders.
Staring at the lake, I hoped it gave some sort of answers
to all of life’s questions in the rippling water.
“Thanks,” she finally said, her gaze slipping to her hands and the ring on her finger. “That means a lot to me.”
“So what are you doing here anyway?” I asked, wondering why she showed up in Mooresville of all places tonight. “Shouldn’t you be with your husband in Charlotte?” As soon as I asked the question, I could see that it was the wrong question to ask by the way her body went from calm to rigid. Immediately her back straightened, and her stare moved away from me back to the lake. Almost like she was trying to hide some sort of emotion from me. That I was used to. Arie had always been my secretive child. In order to get anything out of her, you had to pry, and if you pried too much, you’d get nothing. It was a thin line to balance.
“I was, but he was hanging out drinking with Jacob and Brody in the pits, so I decided to come home for the night.” My instincts told me there was more to the story, but I could tell it wasn’t something she wanted to talk about, so I let it go.
I knew the feeling of not wanting to open up just yet.
WHEN I WAS back in the house, I stumbled around the room from having a case of beer in me.
Down on my knees next to the bed, I watched her sleeping that night.
Staring at her, I brushed a stray hair that had fallen over her forehead. I tried to be careful because I didn’t want to wake her and lose the moment to just be beside her. To just sit and admire this beautiful and remarkable woman who deserved to sleep without worries or cares. I prayed that at least in her sleep, Sway could dream of happier times without the fear of what the next month would bring us. Without the fear of the unknown. I prayed I would carry the burden alone, at least until morning.
Naturally, sitting and watching someone else sleep gave me plenty of time to start questioning all of my life choices. The main one being why hadn’t I spent more time at home with my family, with Sway?
Why had I put racing before her for so many years?
It was a stupid question because the thing was, it was hard to rationalize giving up or cutting back on racing because this was a lifestyle Sway wanted as much as I did. If by chance we were rained out at night, she was just as upset as me.
If we broke something on the car or had a bad finish, I saw the look on her face. Disappointment. She was just as competitive as I was.
It was crazy to think she would want me to give up. No, I was sure it was just the opposite. I was convinced she would have fought me every step of the way had I told her I wanted to stop racing to be home more.
We made our life work. I knew that. But I also knew our life worked because of her. Without her, it all fell to shit.
Casing – The tire body beneath the tread and sidewalls.
I told myself when my father died of brain cancer and kept it from me, I would never keep something like this from my children. Unfortunately, I understood why Charlie kept it from me. And I totally understood why my mother did. Jack was the same age I was when my mother died, and I didn’t think he could comprehend what that meant.
Maybe that was why she didn’t tell me. Had she known I wouldn’t have understood?
Probably. My mother was a smart woman. I’d like to think I was a little bit like her, if not just in looks.
“Should we tell them?” I asked Jameson as we lay in bed.
No way did I want to start today out like this, telling my family I had cancer, but in some ways I wanted to get it over with and move on.
“That’s up to you, honey. They should know. Arie knows you’re sick.”
He was right. He always had a way of being my reasoning. I needed to tell them.
The time came to tell them. I couldn’t keep it from them any longer, and I didn’t want to.
It happened before we left for Kokomo Speedway. Arie watched me closely that afternoon and I knew it was coming.
“I know something’s going on,” she noted, leveling me with a serious stare. I’d seen the look a lot from her growing up. Mostly when she was calling me out on being a shitty mother or the time I forgot to feed her all day when she was four. It happened frequently when you had three kids and a crazy life. If they didn’t say anything, how was I to know?
Straightening my posture, I looked her in the eye. I couldn’t keep pretending any longer and honestly, I didn’t want to. If anything, I wanted my daughter to know because I wanted her with me. “There is.”
“You said you would never keep a secret from us,” she reminded me.
I said that, didn’t I?
“It’s not that I’m keeping a secret.” Lie. You were. “It’s that I didn’t know how to tell you kids.” And that’s the honest to God truth. “I always told myself I wouldn’t keep anything from you kids, but it was harder to tell you than I realized it would be.”
Her breath drew out long and slow as if to prepare herself. “What’s wrong?”
Drawing in my own deep breath, I set the bag aside, unable to keep the tears at bay any longer. “I have breast cancer.” I hated the way it sounded saying it out loud, as if it were a death sentence. “Stage two. My doctor found the lump when I went in for my yearly mammogram.”
She blinked twice before asking, “Can you beat it?”
“It’s still contained to the breast tissue.” My emotions had gotten the better of me; my face clouded with unease. “So, the doctors have assured me that it’s the best-case scenario… I’m hopeful.”
Hopeful was right. It was all I could have been at that point.
“How is Dad taking this?”
Horribly. I remembered his face, the way the color drained and the distance in his eyes. Every detail of that morning came crashing back to me including his temper tantrum in the doctor’s office. “He was with me when I found out and you know him, he’s internalizing a lot.”
And sometimes physically displaying his anger.
“How long has this been going on?”
“We found out in December, right before Christmas, and tried some herbal remedies. They didn’t work so we went to see a specialist in Charlotte two months ago.”
“What did dad say about all this?”
I thought back to everything he’d said to me over the last few months and though all of it was encouraging, that first night stood out. “He said he’s in it with me. He said we don’t give up until the engine lets go.” My smile overtook me. “And then we rebuild. Whatever the cost, we rebuild.”
Arie’s tears fell hopelessly down her face as she chuckled at her dad’s words. “Of course he said that.” There was a moment where she remained quiet and then looked at me. “What are they going to do?”
Nonchalantly I replied with, “Cut the funbags off and give me new upgraded ones.” I admitted, getting perky funbags was actually something I wanted. My sweet, bratty children had sucked the life right out of them. They needed some inflation for sure.
“Do you have to have radiation and chemo?”
“No. They think they can get it because it hasn’t spread to the lymph nodes. I had yearly mammograms, so it was an early detection.”
“Then why have you been losing so much weight and disappearing right before our eyes? Everyone’s worried about you, Mom.”
“Arie, it’s just the stress and the not knowing that’s weighing heavily on me,” I told her, hoping she understood I never wanted to keep this from her. “I promise that I’ve told you everything now, and that’s also been part of the problem, keeping it from you kids and the family has been harder on me than you can ever imagine. My mom died of breast cancer, and I didn’t even know she had it until she died. I told myself I would tell you kids but when I found out… I couldn’t do it.”
She hugged me immediately, and I was on the verge of losing it all together. Arie wasn’t a hugger, much like her father, but when she did hug you, it was one you knew meant something, delivered perfectly timed and for a reason.
Jameson came in, assessing our embrace and tears, pushing his hat up with his left hand, he knew
something was up. “What’s wrong?”
Brushing my tears away with the sleeve of her sweatshirt, I watched Jameson carefully. “I told Arie.”
Sighing with what seemed like relief at first, his eyes watered as though it hit him again, another wave of uncertainty.
“We gotta go.” He motioned toward the door with a nod. “Plane’s waiting.”
AFTER THAT WEEKEND in Kokomo Speedway, and telling our entire family, it seemed I constantly remembered things he’d said to me over the years when I found a note Jameson had written to me not long after his crash in Knoxville where Jimi died.
After we told the kids, and the rest of the family, it seemed they were intent on making sure we knew we had their support. Which I appreciated but a sense of fear came with that too because I didn’t want to worry anyone. They wouldn’t stop fussing over me, and I found myself in our closet a lot hiding out.
It was during those times that I was able to sit and think, where I was constantly remembering things Jameson had said to me over the years. And then I found a note he’d written me not long after his accident in Knoxville where Jimi died and Jameson was injured badly.
Sitting back against a pile of shoes I read a note. The one he wrote while I was going through my porn star days. I tried so hard to find the connection I thought we lost that I had missed it all along. Jameson reminded me then, and even now.
Sway,
So many times over the last few months I’ve wanted to ease your pain, tell you that everything was going to be all right, but I didn’t know if it would. I also knew that it wouldn’t change anything if I didn’t feel it.
Watching you sleep now, I’m reminded of what I haven’t considered over that time and what I nearly lost.
You.
I know I’ve been distant and unlike the man you grew to love surrounded by one dream and one lifestyle. Tonight, to feel you, to feel me, and to feel us once again, as one, was like being able to breathe again.
Our love was cultivated in the shadows and at a time that we least expected it. It shines through the darkest of moments, never fading, always triumphing over the heartache we have suffered.
