Pace Laps (Racing on the Edge Book 10)

by Shey Stahl

  Usually when Cole went silent, we didn’t hear from him for months.

  “All right.” I looked over my shoulder at Alley and Spencer at the other end of the shop, arguing.

  Beside me, Rager shoved Willie into the wall when he pinched his ass. “Knock it off!” he yelled at him.

  Pulling Rager aside once the trucks were loaded, he chewed on his thumb. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize to me. Sometimes Willie needs to be shoved.” And then I caught his worried eyes. “What’s up?”

  “Just… a bad day.” And then he turned to leave, yanking his hood up over his head.

  Jesus, and I thought I was moody these days.

  “Are you mad Arie’s pregnant again?” I asked, following him inside the hauler, refusing to let him get away.

  “No… yes, maybe a little. It’s just we can’t even keep track of the twins and Knox. Now we have another one on the way.”

  I laughed, leaning into the side of the hauler as he stared at me. “You know how that happens, right?”

  “Shut up. Yes, I know how it happens. I just fuck,” he cursed, pacing now.

  “Hey, man. Relax. You guys are great with the kids. It’ll be fine.”

  He snorted, shaking his head as though he didn’t believe me. “Yeah, right.”

  Truth was, I didn’t know they would be fine. Four kids were a lot, especially with their lifestyle, but if anyone could make it work, they could. They had love and a relationship a lot like Sway and me, and we did just fine over the years. We lost the kids on a handful of occasions at the races but eventually everyone turned up unharmed.

  WHENEVER WE RETURNED to the west coast there was a sense of sadness that followed. Though it would always be my hometown, after Jack died in Cottage Grove, I think it was a reminder of how quickly our lives changed.

  It’d been three years since he’d passed and it never, nor would it ever get easier to be in the pits at Cottage Grove, which was where we were tonight surrounded by the majority of our family. That was when Hayden came inside the hauler, pissed at her husband.

  Hayden threw a positive pregnancy test right at Casten’s head. “I’m going to kill you. You said you got a vasectomy.”

  Casten looked like he was sweating bullets and picked it up to stare at it. “Hypothetically, yes.”

  Oh no. This was bad. Sway leaned into my shoulder. “She’s really mad at him.”

  I grinned. “It’s great.”

  She rolled her eyes and continued to watch them argue.

  “No.” Hayden shook her head. “There’s no hypothetical about it.”

  “Okay… I didn’t go through with it.” He turned to Rager for support. “He didn’t do it either.”

  “I wasn’t scheduled for one,” Rager defended from where he sat with Arie on his lap, Bristol sitting on hers. “You were. Though I think I need to go back and get one now.”

  Arie turned around and slapped his shoulder as if she was offended by that remark. “You said nothing while we were making the baby.”

  Rager refused to answer her.

  “Right.” Casten turned back around. “Anyway, I mean, fuck. They were gonna stick a knife near my junk. What was I supposed to do?”

  She glared. No. Actually glared wasn’t the right word. More like scowled with a murderous expression. “You. Asshole.”

  He dropped to his knees kissing her belly. “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t forgive you.”

  “Well, you will at some point.”

  She pushed him away. “Not likely.”

  Casten glanced at us when Hayden was out of sight. “She loves me.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  It was late and the last place I wanted to be tonight was at the shop getting my car ready for World Finals, but I guessed I should have thought about that before I went and tried to make a pass on the outside last night in Salina. I’d rather have been in bed with Sway.

  Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I checked the last message she sent me with a picture of her sitting on the bed waiting for me, proudly displaying her tits. Ever since the surgery, she has been obsessed with them like a fancy new toy five years later. I could understand her excitement. They looked amazing.

  “Jameson!” Spencer shouted, slamming the door. “Are you in here?”

  Fuck. Spencer found me. “Yep.”

  There went my quiet night.

  Taking a deep breath, I prepared myself as my brother approached me. I wasn’t the least bit surprised he showed up. Casten was right, Cole was in trouble when he disappeared. He ended up getting arrested a few months back and me, thinking I could help out when Alley called me in tears, I bailed him out of jail and paid off Nate, his drug dealer. I had my reasoning behind it, but Spencer didn’t always see it the way I did. Which was why he stormed inside the shop looking for me.

  “It’s always about you. You think the fucking world revolves around you, and you can just interfere with everyone. For years I’ve let you take the lead. When you raced, it was always your neck on the line so I stood back and let you do it your way. Well, guess what, Jameson? This is not one of your goddamn races. This is my family. Stay out of it.”

  There we were again, arguing about Cole and his stupid-ass decisions but nobody—not even my brother—got away with talking to me like that. Maybe my mother and Sway would too, but even then, they’d better have a good fucking excuse.

  What Spencer didn’t know was how many times I’d bailed his youngest son out of jail. I wasn’t not about to tell him either. Fuck that.

  “He was in trouble and he came to me,” I felt the need to tell him.

  That was essentially a lie. I hated lying to him, but the truth was Alley was the one who called me and asked me to help, but there was no way in hell I was going to tell Spencer that.

  Spencer may be pissed, but if he knew Alley came to me for help, I had a feeling he would fucking blow a gasket. Mostly because he told both of us to stay out of it.

  Get this, I don’t listen very well. Surprised? Probably not.

  He leveled me a serious look. “I’m not a fucking idiot. I know what’s going on. It’s my kid and you need to back the fuck up. For once, this isn’t about you,” he added. “You can’t control everything. I told you not to help him anymore.”

  Did I deserve that? In some ways, I thought I did.

  “I mean, fuck, Jameson.” Shaking his head, he threw his hands up and began pacing the shop. “When Casten was a kid, he stole cars as a fucking sport.” His brow raised. “Did I ever interfere with that? Did I ever tell you how to deal with him or how to punish him? No. I didn’t. I stayed out of your kids’ lives.”

  Standing, I buried my hands in the pockets of my jeans. “That’s totally different and you know it, Spencer. This wasn’t just about me bailing Cole out of jail. He borrowed money from the wrong people. People with connections. If I let him stay there, shit was going to happen. I mean, fuck, man, what was I supposed to do, let them beat the shit out of him and hope he survived?”

  Spencer hung his head and then looked back up at me through his dark lashes. It made him look more intimidating that way. Mostly because that was what he was trying to achieve. “You should have come to me.”

  “And you would have blown up on him and made it worse, or better yet, maybe even ignored it.” Shaking my head, my heart pounded as my irritation for the situation amplified. “What the fuck does it matter anyway? It’s over and done with, and he’s out of trouble. No harm done.”

  He raised an eyebrow and took a step toward me. I could actually count on one hand the physical arguments Spencer and I had been in. It looked to me like I was about to head on over to the other hand. “No harm done? Are you fucking kidding me? You just can’t fucking stay out of it, can you? You just can’t leave shit alone.”

  “I get that you’re pissed, but back off,” I growled, hoping he understood I wasn’t fucking around.

  “So you bailed him out.” He practically spat the word
s at me. “And what exactly do you see happening now? You think Cole is just gonna see the err of his ways? Fuck, Jameson. Your money can’t fix everything. I get it, you’ve got money, a lot of fucking money and because of that you think you can just buy your way out of everything.”

  My jaw clenched at the accusation. I’d never bought my way out of anything. Sure, I had money, more than the rest of my family, but still, I didn’t throw it around like it was nothing.

  “Don’t you come in here and act like I’m the asshole for trying to help. Fuck that.”

  Naturally, I never backed down to Spencer. I was the younger brother. Older brothers were kind of like meeting a bear on a trail. Don’t make eye contact, but also don’t back down. The moment they sense fear is the moment you’re done for.

  Spencer raised his hands and for a minute, I thought he was actually going to take a swing at me, but instead, he grabbed the back of his head and paced like a caged animal.

  “Jesus Christ, Jameson, how is it that you can be so damn smart but so fucking stupid at the same time? Cole has a big problem. It’s bigger than just getting into trouble and having to be bailed out of jail. Why is it you can’t see that by you being there to clean up his mess every time he fucks up, he’s never going to learn how to fix his own damn life?”

  If you asked me, he was overreacting. How could I turn my back on the kid when I knew exactly what those drug dealers were going to do to him if I didn’t help? I guessed in some ways I did it because I had hope Cole would turn himself around if he knew there was someone willing to help him get on the right track.

  “You know, fuck it! I’m telling you right now, stay out of my business, Jameson. If Cole calls you, tell him no.” He waited for me to look at him, his blue eyes stone cold. “I mean it. I find out you’re helping him again behind my back, and the next conversation we have is going to be a lot more painful for both of us.” Turning around, he took a few steps away from me.

  “You’re overreacting.” Of course I would say that. Would he expect anything different?

  He stopped and turned to face me. He knew I had to have the last word. “Am I? What if this was Casten?”

  His fist clenched at his side, and I was wise enough to know I needed to say something else. Believe it or not, I’d gotten wiser in my years. “Listen, you’ve got my back,” I told him, attempting to diffuse him. “Always. On the track, in my life, you’ve been by my side through everything and I’m just trying to have yours.”

  Spencer snorted, his jaw flexing. “I get it. I’m the comedic relief for this family, but this is where it stops. You don’t go behind my back and take care of it. He’s my kid and my problem. Stay out of it.”

  “Look, Spencer… When I was seventeen, I left home knowing nothing and you were there for me, always. You’re taking this the wrong way. I’m not trying to do this to one up you. I’m doing this to help you. I will never stand by and watch my family be threatened. I’m sorry. I won’t.”

  “It’s not your fucking decision, Jameson.” And then he shoved me back against my toolbox. “Don’t you think I know what’s going on? Alley and I have been dealing with this for the last ten fucking years. It’s been tearing us apart. I’m doing this to teach him a lesson he desperately needs to learn. I’m not asking a lot of you, but I’m asking you to back out on this one.”

  I could see where this was heading. We were about to say something we would regret, and I didn’t want that. So I held my hands up. “Okay, I’m out of it.”

  Did I really believe I was?

  No.

  Port – The opening in an engine where the valve operates and through which the air-fuel mixture or exhaust passes.

  “What are you making?”

  Alley looked at the pot of marshmallows and Rice Krispies. “Oh, dumb question.”

  “Where’s Spencer?”

  Tears formed in Alley’s eyes. “He’s not coming over.”

  She didn’t get a chance to say any more before Jameson came in the room holding two bags of wood chips for the smoker. “Why the fuck not?” He appeared offended, which he probably was and set the bags on the counter. “It’s Christmas. He’s just being selfish now.”

  She made a face, probably remembering their argument. “Said we needed some time apart.”

  “It’s fucking stupid,” Jameson grumbled.

  Leaning into the counter, I poured the Rice Krispies mixture into the pan for the kids. “He found out that Jameson paid off Nate, didn’t he?”

  Alley nodded.

  “I can’t believe he’s not coming over for Christmas,” Jameson interrupted sitting down next to Nancy who was just as shocked that her son wasn’t coming over. For as long as Jameson and I had been married, Christmas day was always spent at our house because no one else wanted to fuss over it. “How childish.”

  “You knew how he felt,” I pointed out. “You went behind his back and lied to him about it.”

  He shot me a glare. “I never lied to him.”

  “Yes you did,” I said, picking up my coffee cup and sitting next to him in the booth next to the kitchen counter. “

  “You went behind his back.” By the look on my husband’s face, I should have shut up right then. Should have. “It’s the same thing.”

  His eyes opened wide with surprise. “You’re making a big deal out of it.”

  “I am not. You’re being dumb about this.” Like any wife telling their husband they were wrong, I avoided all eye contact and settled on the wood table and the patterns.

  He waited until I looked at him and then glared, holding my stare as he lifted a cookie from the plate in front of him and shoved it in his mouth deliberately. “How dare you call me dumb!”

  Says the man he shoved a cookie in his mouth during an argument. Nancy found it entertaining and began to laugh. “Oh my God, really? Stop it. I’m trying to help you.”

  “By calling me dumb?”

  “Just listen.”

  He groaned, tossing his head back. “That’s hard for me.”

  “Everyone knows that by now.”

  “Not helping.”

  “You should just call Spencer and apologize.”

  The mention of his brother’s name brought a hint of his former irritation back. “Nope. I have meat to cook.”

  And then he left. When he was outside, Alley dropped her head into her hands. “He’s staying at a motel in town. This is so dumb.”

  JAMESON KNEW HE was wrong, even if he didn’t want to admit it. For that reason, he kept to himself, outside with his prime rib with Rager, Axel, Lane and Casten. With his hands buried deep in his pockets, his head bent forward, I knew he was going over the conversation with him and Spencer. He was like that. Unable to let something go until he’d found an answer.

  He once lost the Cup series title by one point to Tate. One point.

  The entire off-season, he struggled with it because he knew where he’d lost that one point. It was when his temper got the best of him and he made a move on the inside of turn two. He got into the side of Paul’s car and lost two spots. He managed to get one back, but never that second place finish that would have gotten him the championship.

  So during the offseason, he couldn’t just let that go.

  Now with Spencer not coming to Christmas, the statement was clear. Jameson overstepped.

  I’d be the first to tell you my husband could be controlling. Not in the ways you’d think either, but he also had a huge heart and Cole was a weakness for him.

  He once had this kid working for him. Remember Grady? He gave that kid a chance when he shouldn’t have, because he thought it was the right thing to do. Sure that backfired on him, but he gave the kid a chance to do right by him.

  “What’s going on with him?” Arie asked, carrying a sleeping Knox in her arms as she rubbed his back. When she turned, I noticed his face was covered in frosting, along with Arie’s shoulder.

  “Knox is the only kid I know that sugar puts him to sleep,” I told he
r, reaching out to rub Knox’s back once.

  Arie laughed and maneuvered herself to a sitting position, careful of her expanding belly. “I know. I wish it worked for the older two.” Giving a nod to her left, I noticed Bristol and Pace running around the family room jumping from one couch to the other with their shirts off. “Really though, why is dad acting all weird today? Is it because of Uncle Spencer?”

  “Yeah, Spencer said he wasn’t coming and it put him in a bad mood.”

  Arie thought for a moment, and then shrugged. “He had to know it was going to upset Uncle Spencer when he bailed Cole out again.”

  “I know.” My stare found Jameson again, his posture still rigid and uncomfortable, as though he couldn’t let it go. “He knows that too.”

  Arie winced beside me, her hand on her stomach. “This damn kid is kicking the shit out of me today.”

  “Did you have sugar today?”

  She frowned. “No, but I had caffeine. I’m tired of being pregnant. I mean, honestly, since I had sex with Rager thirty months ago, I couldn’t… and I’ve literally been pregnant for twenty-five of those months.” I could tell by her face, she’d given some thought to this. “I’m making him get a vasectomy now.”

  Rosa walked in. “Is it because he has outlaw super sperm? Or because you can’t keep your legs closed?”

  Arie glared at her. “You shut up. You’re sleeping with Tommy.”

  Rosa looked over at me, and then Arie. “You’re a bitch when you’re pregnant, and by your calculation, is all the time, so really, you’re just a bitch all around.”

  Laughing, I touched Arie’s shoulder. “At least you’re beautiful when you’re pregnant.”

  Wrong thing to say apparently because Arie glared at me. “As opposed to when I’m not?”

  “I didn’t say that.” And then I glanced to Rosa who shrugged, as if to say, told you so.

  There was no way to end that conversation well and I was thankful when Hayden came in. With Arie and Hayden pregnant at the same time, they actually balanced one another out well.