Trading Paint

by Shey Stahl

  Catching up to me, he slowed his jog to a fast walk. “Hey dude, is Sway really coming?”

  “Yeah, she’ll be here later this afternoon.”

  “Are you going to talk to her?”

  This was not a conversation I wanted to have right now or ever for that matter.

  Glaring his direction, he grinned. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  My fist rose to punch his shoulder but he ducked away and bounced on the balls of his feet.

  “Good luck little brother!”

  Before I reached the hospitality tent, Alley caught me again with Kyle trailing behind her.

  “What now?”

  “NASCAR wants to see you, Kyle, and Jimi in the hauler...”

  “I have the...” I motioned toward the tent as my voice faded.

  She pushed me back the other direction. “That’s going to have to wait...I’ll talk to them, you go see Gordon.”

  So there I sat, in the principal’s office again. Alley sent me a text when I was sitting there waiting for Gordon.

  Whatever you do, don’t answer their questions. It’s exactly what they expect you to do. Be selective.

  I typed my response while Gordon entered the hauler. He didn’t look at us, just carried a manila folder inside his office and slammed the door behind him. The water pitcher on the desk outside his office shook from the force.

  It’s too late for me, they know everything. Get out! Save yourself!

  Fucking idiot. She sent back.

  I was surprised I was joking around but I had to or else at that point, I was going to kill someone. Turning to Kyle who was sitting next to me, I asked, “Is there something I should know?”

  “What are you talking about?” His eyes scanned mine.

  “With the fuel...did you guys add something?”

  Kyle looked offended. “Do you honestly think I’d allow something like that?”

  “No, but I’m just checking.” I flopped back in the chair wondering how I could get us out of this mess. “I don’t want to go in there defending us and then find out it’s something we did.”

  “Our team would never jeopardize something like this.” Kyle snapped. “They could impound this car...you know that right?”

  “Why do you think I’m asking?”

  Gordon came out of his office after that, looking thwarted. “Riley, can you come in?”

  Standing, I tilted my head toward Kyle. “You better be right.”

  Gordon was silent for a moment before he paced around his office, the room appearing even smaller by his constant movement.

  “The officials said they found something in your fuel. They’ve drained the tank and you will be allowed to race that car with the fuel we tested clean.” He paused, his eyes focusing on a stack of papers on his cherry wood desk.

  “I’m not sure what’s in there Jameson...but if it’s illegal, you better believe this will be expensive.”

  Oh Jesus...was he serious? This was just my fucking luck. Where’s Fortuna?

  Alley was not amused by the time I got back to my hauler. I refused to let this bother me and smiled at her despite my temper boiling under the surface.

  She had no reaction at all, other than slowly raising a single finger to me hiding it from Lane. You can guess which one.

  Spencer returned right about then from god knows where with more food in his mouth. “Why did we have to change gas tanks this morning?”

  “Are you fucking stupid? Or have you not been paying attention?” Alley asked him handing Lane over to me once again.

  Aiden walked with a cocky gait, he smiled wide tucking in his shirt. “Jimi’s looking for you. He looks crazy.”

  Even better.

  “Why the fuck are you smiling?” I asked heading inside.

  Aiden’s grin widened. “Nothin...” his expression turned panicked as though I just caught him. Emma, straightening out her skirt, walked past as well but didn’t stop. Race days were just as crazy for her as they were for me since she and Alley attended every media event I attended.

  I couldn’t understand why everyone was acting so strange today. You have Spencer who is in his own world. Aiden who just smiles, and then Emma, who apparently needs to check her attire before she leaves as her shirt was on backward.

  Jimi was crazy when I walked inside, that much was evident by his distraught pacing. He reminded me of Gordon. “How’d it get in there?” he asked.

  I looked behind me—I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me, someone else, or if it was a rhetorical question.

  “Marcus asked that we meet with him this morning so we should get going. Gordon just informed me they found a mixture of methanol and ethanol in the fuel.”

  My jaw clenched as I started my own pacing, my luck just got a whole hell of a lot shittier. Like I said, NASCAR is very specific on fuel and tires and adding additives like methanol and ethanol into the fuel they provided was not allowed. It added increased the oxygen content and in turn could make you go faster.

  The problem was, how did it get in there if we didn’t add it? As I’ve said before, the car is inspected numerous times throughout the weekend. Not one of those inspections detected anything wrong with the car. Why now? We had been using the same fuel.

  “What does this mean?” I asked leaning against the stainless counter in the hauler. Kyle opened the door just then.

  Dad looked up at him and then down at his phone he was flipping obsessively in his hand.

  “They’re fining us $50,000 but we get to keep the starting position since the additive wasn’t detected prior to qualifying.”

  “Fifty thousand dollars for a fucking additive?” I yelled. “How the hell did it get in there?”

  Dad and I both glanced at Kyle who held up his hands in defense. “We have no idea.” His glare was evidence he really didn’t know. “Mason and Gentry were with the car all morning.”

  “What about last night?” Dad asked his face scrunched as he contemplated all the ways something like this could have happened.

  “Mason was the last to leave the garage area He said a couple other teams were in there but left right after him.”

  We had no answers, just that we were being fined $50,000.

  I’ll let you in on a little secret here, or not really a secret but what most outside of this tight knit circle of NASCAR racing don’t know. These rules are bullshit at times, everyone in the garage area will tell you that. Today was proof of that.

  Don’t get me wrong, I understood the need for them and respected NASCAR for what they did but, really?

  This seemed a little steep for something we didn’t do.

  My other problem was explaining this to Simplex.

  This was not the sort of thing your sponsor wanted to see. When you think about it, without corporate sponsors and fans, we wouldn’t have this sport. The money provided pays for us to be competitive, such as buying parts, building these cars and paying the salaries for the team members and myself, oh and according to NASCAR, buying additives for our fuel tanks.

  In turn for this money, the primary sponsor has final say in team colors, uniforms, paint schemes and other team appearances.

  What we do for the sponsor is present ourselves in a positive way and advertise for them.

  How do you think we looked now?

  Certainly not positive...and when the media catches wind of the fines...not positive at all.

  After a few minutes of silence from everyone, I asked, “Appeal?”

  “It was a kneejerk reaction by Gordon.” Alley offered. “I think we have a chance with the appeal board on this one.”

  The NASCAR penalty system is black and white. It just is. They allow you to appeal their decisions and be heard in front of board members of the commission but sometimes this doesn’t work in your favor and the fines are increased. If you still aren’t happy, you can appeal to the national commissioner for a final appeal but his word is the last say.

  My point is, these penalties don’t
make cheating impossible, just stricter if you get caught. It’s just like speeding. The ticket isn’t going to stop you from, let’s say, getting to work twenty minutes faster because you do eighty instead of sixty, but the ticket for reckless driving might make you think twice.

  That’s what NASCAR was trying to do, I get that. What I didn’t was the severity for something we didn’t do.

  I didn’t break the rules and neither would our team like that. We had no reason to.

  “We’re appealing the fine.” Jimi said and walked out of the hauler.

  Alley let out a whoosh of breath before turning toward me. “Is Sway flying into Charlotte Douglas?”

  “Yeah, she should be landing soon.” Though I was still excited as hell to see her, my thoughts were focused on this turn of events with the fuel.

  “Marcus is waiting for you. Just...be careful what you say.”

  “Are you sure I should be talking to anyone right now?”

  “No, I’m almost positive you shouldn’t be talking to anyone, especially Simplex. But you’re the driver—they want to hear from you.” Moving past her she reached out to grab my shoulder, wadding a fist full of my t-shirt in her hand. “Do not, under any circumstances speak to the media about this...I mean it Jameson, decline to comment.”

  “Yes Ma’am.” Waggling my eyebrows, I asked trying to remain modestly coy. “When will you be back?”

  “Oh for Christ sakes—control yourself!”

  Lane pointed his tiny finger at my nose, touching the tip of it. “Comtrool youself,”

  “I’m not so sure I know what comtrooling is?”

  “That not what I said.”

  “Yes it was.”

  “Was not,” He argued, his brow scrunched as he glared.

  Ruffling his hair, I threw him over my shoulder. “You’re definitely a Riley.”

  Two hours, a meeting with Simplex, and around a hundred autographs later, I was standing next to my car in the garage before they pulled it out to line-up along the grid.

  “Did we get it filled up again?” I asked Mason and Trace who were going over their pre-race checklist on the car. Everyone had checklists. The Car Chief, Mason had one. The Team Manager, Trace had one. And the crew, directed by Mason and Kyle, had one. If you’re wondering how the Car chief, Crew Chief, and Team Manager had different roles, they all had very different roles.

  The Team Manager is in essence, the owner’s right-hand man. He will oversee the day-to-day administrative duties that keep the team running. Originally, we had Alley doing this but as you can guess her double duty of being my publicist as well, she had a hard time balancing the two. Now we had Trace doing this, which worked out well because Trace had previously worked for Leddy Racing the past six years and he had the experience our team needed.

  The Crew Chief, Kyle, who worked closely with the Team Manager, oversaw all the hands-on activities related to building and adjusting the car that will race on the track. As you can imagine, the Crew Chief needed to not only know a lot about racing and the set-ups of these cars but he also had to work well with the driver’s personality.

  Now the Car Chief, he had the worst job in my mind because he not only took orders from the Crew Chief but also the Team Manager, and me when I felt the need to tell him a thing or two I thought he needed to know. I can be an asshole, but that’s nothing new. Mason was good people though, and took it all with thick skin. He handed down the orders during the race that the Crew Chief decided. So if I said, “I’m tight coming out of four.” Kyle would then say, “How about we make a wedge adjustment?” I then say, “10-4.” or something similar. Kyle will then send those orders to Mason who directs the crewmembers on what to do.

  Some may think that’s a lot of passing of orders.

  Yes it is, but if Kyle had to concentrate on not only deciphering my cryptic assumption of what my car was doing and worry about the crew doing their job as well, plus try to anticipate what could go wrong on the track and calculate fuel mileage, that’s a lot to ask of one person on race day. Hence the need for all these guys.

  Gentry gestured toward the official standing next to the car. “He watched us add the drums this time and hasn’t moved since.”

  Mason’s voice was harsh and low when he spoke. “Where was he when the additive was placed in there?”

  Since the impromptu team meeting we had an hour ago; most of us felt it was added by another team, I had a pretty good fucking idea whose team that was by the way.

  “How was the car running in happy hour?” Tony asked approaching us.

  Tony, as the tire specialist, kept logs of tire wear, air pressures and temperatures throughout all practices to calculate any changes we may need to make during a run. A run was the distance between each pit stop.

  The car was running so I had to speak over the idling.

  “I was tight coming out of three but the more laps I made—the more the car came to me.” I told them.

  Kyle stepped inside the garage motioning behind him. “Looks like someone’s here for you.” He smiled.

  You would have thought I had been shot with the pain that hit my chest when I turned around to see Sway standing there talking to Spencer and Aiden. Her long mahogany waves fell midway down her back and her creamy ivory skin reflected the day’s sun like a mass of energy.

  For a moment, I couldn’t think, couldn’t speak as I just stared at her. It was if I’d never seen her before. When really, I had never seen her like this before. Over time, she had matured into a woman right before my eyes, but now, the emotions I felt for her only amplified anything I thought I felt for her or saw in her.

  When Aiden smiled at me, she spun on her heel, her eager eyes focused on my smiling eyes and ran for me.

  Tension built in my chest, stomach and groin when she wrapped her legs around my waist. I wasn’t complaining, hell no, I wasn’t complaining but it was somewhat awkward having to adjust myself in the middle of the paddock discretely. My arms instinctively pulled her closer.

  “I missed you Sway, so much.”

  I felt her shiver at my touch when my fingertips brush against the sliver of skin peeking out under her tank top. Turning my head, the stubble of my jaw brushed against her bare shoulder, I kissed her flushed cheek.

  There were people everywhere around us, but I couldn’t stop staring at her, until Alley cleared her throat. Setting her securely on her feet, I kept my arm around her, drinking in her beauty.

  “Do you two need a room?” Alley snapped.

  I wanted to say, “Nope, she’ll be with me.” but I didn’t, instead I laughed.

  “I can’t believe my best friend is a superstar.” Sway nudged my shoulder pretending to bounce around like a boxer and then held her forearm to my face. “Will you sign my arm?” she stopped jumping and stood in front of me, waiting.

  All I could think about was seeing that delectable skin that I so badly wanted to taste, tempting me. So I licked her arm. “There’s your autograph.” Rolling my eyes, I turned toward Alley. “What’s the plan tonight?”

  She was busy tending to Spencer’s eye that was bleeding. “You have the drivers meeting in an hour.”

  “What happened to you?” I asked Spencer.

  He glared when I chuckled. “You’re best friend there decided to try and take my head off with your spring.”

  “That’s my girl.” I nodded appreciatively smiling down at Sway tucked under my arm.

  “Listen,” Alley smacked my shoulder. “You have the drivers meeting and then introductions start at four. After the race you have to make an appearance at the Howl at the Moon club in downtown Charlotte.”

  I turned to Sway. “Did you get a hotel room or do you need to stay with me tonight?”

  She seemed to hesitate for a moment before whispering, “Alley got me my own room.”

  “Well, I guess that means I have to return you to your room tonight.” I lied.

  There was no way I was returning her to her room tonight, not unless
I was with her.

  “I’m not getting drunk tonight, Jameson.” She warned as we walked toward the garage.

  “So you say,” I pulled her against my side securely before whispering in her ear, my lips grazed her ear. “I bet I can convince you otherwise.” I paused before smirking. “Besides, I have another ass cheek that needs branding and so do you.” Reaching behind her, I slapped her ass once.

  “Is that so?”

  “Without a doubt,” I replied confidently with a smug lewd smile and then winked to add to the fire (hers and mine). We stopped beside my car, her eyes lighting up. Sway wasn’t just your ordinary girl around cars, she got the same glazed over expression I got when she heard an engine rumbling, quietude.

  As I walked her around the garage, introducing her to the new team members there was a sense of familiarity between us that was comforting. She was still my girl, the same girl who would blush and punch you at the same time. The same girl whose eyes told a story, but you had to listen to understand them, if you didn’t, you would never know the real her. She was the girl who loved ice cream more than breathing, who hated clowns like they were the devil and couldn’t walk into a room at night without every light being on. She was my girl.

  I watched her closely, inquisitively examining her every movement. It was if my mind was trying to find a way out of the decision it already made but she wasn’t giving me any reason to go back it.

  She was responsive to my touch, leaned into my embrace and when I kissed her cheek every so often, she returned the gesture, wrapping her arms around me.

  Could it be she wanted something more just as much as I did?

  The night was passing with a blur and soon I was heading to the motor coach to get ready. It was funny to me that everything I’d been feeling throughout the day with the penalty, was overshadowed by Sway being here. She had the power to completely pivot everything hurled onto my shoulders just by being here.

  I had a plan for tonight and nothing was going to change that. My mom asked me where that boy was that was so tenaciously determined. Well, I found him. More tenacious and more determined than ever.