by Shey Stahl
“I suggest you remove your arm.” I warned grimly, my mood turning for the worst.
Screaming or crying, either one was a good option as I watched woman after woman throw themselves into Jameson’s arms. Trying to analyze his every move, I knew Jameson, and I knew exactly what he did when his interest was piqued. So far, he showed none of those signs; he actually appeared uncomfortable with it all.
“Spencer,” Alley voice brought me back around to reality.
Spencer, who’d been staring at the menu, flinched looking over at her but quickly looked the direction of the door when Alley mouthed something to him.
“What are you guys whispering about?” I asked scanning the room to see if I missed something. My eyes focused on the bar to see Jameson and a guy standing inches from his face.
He was around the same height as Jameson, dirty blonde hair, but I couldn’t see anything beside that with his back to me.
I did notice the tall blonde attached to his hip though that resembled Chelsea.
We watched for a moment but when Spencer rose knocking his chair to the ground, I realized that the conversation between Jameson and this guy was getting heated.
With a familiar cavalierly, Jameson set his beer down and stepped toward the guy. His eyes took on that dark glower I also knew well.
The woman, seeming uninterested, disappeared into the bathroom while the guy continued to talk to Jameson, waving his arms around as if he was explaining something.
Alley and I got up following Spencer over to the bar when we picked up what was being said. By now, the entire bar was listening.
“Just because your dad provided the ride doesn’t mean you’re hot shit, Jameson.” The guy said.
Once closer, I recognized him as Darrin Torres, driver of the number fourteen car that Jameson beat for the win tonight.
Darrin and Jameson had history dating back to their days racing USAC and had frequent run-ins so far this year—including a very public brawl after the Winston just a week ago.
Let’s just say these two were not friends, and never would be.
Jameson leaned back against the bar again creating distance, trying to appear as if he didn’t give a shit. He probably didn’t.
“Darrin,” Jameson spoke slowly shaking his head, his voice surprisingly calm—it sounded all the more threateningly that way. “Just because my dad owns the team I race for, doesn’t mean I can’t drive. Who won tonight?”
“By three tenths of an inch,” Darrin snorted with glib smile. “hardly a win.”
Jameson laughed darkly, the impassiveness remaining imperturbable. “Any way you want to look at it Darrin, I won.” he looked away from Darrin. With a nod, he motioned for the bar tender to get him another beer. “How’s second place feel?”
“How’s that fine of $50,000 feel?”
Jameson laughed. “Oh I don’t know...didn’t you hear?” his hand casually drug along the stubble of his jaw. “They dropped the fine.” His eyes then scanned Darrin. “Said the test came back inconclusive and nothing was found in the post race inspection. Try harder next time.”
I didn’t know Darrin had anything to do with the fuel additive in his car but I wouldn’t put it past him.
Darrin stepped closer and grabbed Jameson by the collar of his shirt causing Jameson’s beer to spill. “Listen you little shit,” Spencer appeared threateningly beside Jameson. “Stay out of my way on the track or you will regret it.” Darrin warned.
Jameson came on like a charging bull shoving Darrin backwards. Before Spencer could react, Jameson delivered a hard left hook to Darrin’s jaw, jerked him forward by the shirt and had a broken beer bottle pressing to his neck.
Spencer, who stood close to me in a protective stance, shook his muttering something along the lines of “South paw” but I couldn’t make out much else.
I’d seen enough of Jameson’s frequent pit brawls over the years to know his left handed pop could get you unexpected like most south paws could. Spencer used to say Jameson had this advantage over most, even him, because lefties came out you backwards. I’d say by the blood pouring for Darrin’s lip he could attest to this theory.
“Don’t you ever threaten me again!” Jameson growled in his ear making no attempt to back away. His voice was sharp enough to cut glass sending warning chills down my spine.
Before Darrin could counter to the anger pulsating from Jameson, Spencer and Kyle were breaking things up and the owner was escorting Darrin from the bar.
Jameson was yelling at Aiden and Spencer as they pinned him forcefully against the wall struggling to control him.
I tried to get over to him, I knew I could calm him down but Emma and Alley were tugging me towards the bathrooms in the other direction.
“I don’t have to pee, let me go.” I groaned as they pushed me through the door.
As if the night couldn’t get any worse, I ran into the person I thought I would never have to see again.
Chelsea Adams.
“Well,” Chelsea said looking directly at me. “It’s been a long time, Sway.”
“I wish I could say it’s nice to see you but it’s not.” I replied glaring at the perfect bitch.
She rolled her stupid pretty blue eyes. “Is that Jameson you’re salivating over out there? He’s looking good these days.”
I pounced on her like a jungle cat, slamming us both to the ground in the middle of the bathroom. I’m not really sure what got into me but I was livid. I hated her in high school and now she thought she could walk into his life again and just pick up where they left off...not if I had anything to say about it. Drawing my fist back, I punched her square in the mouth.
Moments passed, I stayed perched on top of her throwing punches, pulling hair, scratching.
“Get off me you whore!” Chelsea screamed from underneath.
“Who you calling a whore?” Emma lunged for Chelsea as well.
Word got out quickly to the rest of the bar about the gladiator style fight going down in the women’s bathroom. Doors were broken, mirrors were smashed, hair was ripped out, blood, and tears were shed.
It looked like they filmed part of the movie Fight Club in there.
Alley, Emma, and I were unscathed though.
“What the fuck happened in here?” Spencer asked stepping over the broken door. His eyes focused on Chelsea wiping her mouth. “Holy hell...”
Jameson and Aiden stood in the doorway, their questioning eyes scanning.
“Hey boys,” I said as casually as possible. “Just freshening up,”
Jameson was looking at me with an amused expression patiently waiting for an explanation. Tommy stepped inside the bathroom and burst into laughter tossing me a glorified smile.
I grabbed Jameson by the arm and fluffed my hair with the other hand. “Let’s get drunk now.”
Chelsea, while I never saw her again that night but I also think intoxication might have been a key factor in that.
A Hurricane Bucket, a Purple Rain, a Lucille’s Sweet Tea, and one Loose Goose—I was done for.
I couldn’t even form a coherent word even when I tried.
Jameson wasn’t any doing any better with Tommy holding him up as he explained how he thought today’s youth, present company excluded, had no work ethic.
Alley and Spencer had left to go get Lane since Spencer had to drive the motor coach to Pocono tomorrow.
Emma complained she was tired so Aiden conveniently became tired at the same time and they left together, thankfully, Jameson was too drunk to notice.
This left Jameson, Kyle, and Tommy with me at the bar when Jameson decided to duel some guy on the piano. No one knew he had the piano chops too and left the entire bar, still bursting with people, in complete frenzy, me included.
Eventually I was alone with Jameson and he was pulling me towards the dance floor to dance to Purple Rain since we were in fact drinking a Purple Rain drink.
This was his reasoning at least.
Drawing me against hi
s chest tightly, he whispered the lyrics of Purple Rain to me with a low gravelly voice that left me trembling in his arms. What sent me over the edge was when he threw his head back and belted out an utterly raw verse.
It seemed the more I drank, the more my plan was set in stone.
My biggest problem when drinking is that I had all the bad ideas floating around in my head. When alcohol got involved, they turned into bad decisions. Over the years I’d become accustomed to this but don’t think I didn’t want to sue the makers of Tequila a time or two for their persuasive influence.
These bad ideas turned into me thinking I would make him see me for me, perfect for him. The drunker I got, the easier it got to forget that he was a superstar now and just my best friend. He was the boy I grew to love. After a while, I just went with it.
All night it seemed he was giving peculiar looks, his eyes cutting and smiling. It warmed me, he looked as though he was seeing me, the girl that was always there for him, not some pit lizard, and he looked at me as though I was the only woman in the room that mattered to him.
I must have been staring at him because when he snuck a glance at me, he smirked. “What?”
I bit down on my bottom lip then slowly pulled my straw in my mouth and took a drink before saying, “Nothing.” then winked at him.
Slowly and I do mean slowly, he sucked his bottom lip in, bit down and then gradually let it drag against his teeth.
“You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.” He crooned pressing a tender kiss right below my ear.
I was drunk, plain and simple.
Tanked, toasted, spent, hammered, smashed, intoxicated, plastered, sloshed...whatever you wanna call it. Jameson and I could barely put one foot in front of the other when the limo driver dropped us at the hotel around four in the morning.
Somewhere between the dancing and serenading, I decided I was going to do whatever my engine and crankcase wanted—as noted, alcohol played a strong role in this. Since they, my crankcase and engine, were in charge, they decided I’d stood by just watching for far too long now.
I watched as he won the Coca-Cola 600 tonight. I watched as he whispered an entire song in my ear, and let’s face it, he could have been whispering how to change a tire and I would have melted.
And then to top it off, he told me I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. Okay well yes, he was drunk when he said it but still, he said it, to me.
My attention turned back to Jameson fumbling with his room key. He seemed resolutely focused on getting the door open.
Leaning against the wall, I searched for mine in my bag. Reaching down, I slipped my heels off. My feet now resembled hamburger from all the blisters.
Jameson, with some determination and focus, managed to get the key in the door but fell through the door when it opened landing on his ass in the entryway.
We both started laughing as he lied down on the floor. “I think I broke my ass.”
“I’ll let you get some sleep, Jameson. See you in the morning.” I started to walk away but stopped when I felt his hand grasp my ankle.
“Where you going, honey?” I looked down and I was met with the most intense burning stare. Where his eyes were once restless at the bar earlier, they were now focused and alive.
The green, though bloodshot, seemed brighter but in the same sense, they seemed darker with a carnal desire. I knew the look well as I had it plastered upon my face throughout the entire evening.
That burning stare traveled up my body focusing on mine as he waited for me to answer.
“To my room,” I choked out eventually, though I’m not sure he heard me or maybe it was that I couldn’t hear myself over the loud thudding of my heart in my ears.
I should have been concerned with how fast my heart was beating but all I could focus on was the green in his eyes contrasting against the black in his shirt and the way he was looking at me.
His head skewed to the side slightly as though he was waiting for me to do something, anything.
Nervously, I was stood in the doorway hovering over him. He bent at the waist to sit up wrapping his hands around my legs and leaned in to my right leg.
“Stay,” he whispered against my calf.
His lips brushed against the skin in a tender way but the predatory gaze unleashed told otherwise.
Kneeling down beside him, I dropped my shoes and bag to the ground, providing quite the sight with my illegal skirt. “You’re drunk.”
“So are you.” He pointed out. His hand reached up to touch the side of my face. “I don’t care that we’re drunk.”
I intended on helping him up but it didn’t end up that way when I leaned forward. Arms crossed, legs gave way, bodies tangled together and hands went wild. Before I knew what happened, I was lying on top of Jameson with my legs on either side of his hips.
Propped up by one arm, I looked down thinking he was going to tell me to get up but nope, he just stared at me. With chariness, his right hand moved from my leg and touched my cheek again.
What did I do next?
I did what any aptly minded pit lizard would do. I leaned down and pressed my lips to his once. I planned on one kiss—just to remember the feeling. But he surprised me when his mouth opened and his tongue swept over my lower lip.
So while I intended on this one kiss, my crankcase had other plans, as did Jameson.
His mouth pressed to mine urgently, rough with a hard desperate edge. When his tongue entered my mouth, I gasped forgetting how nice that felt. Over the years we had kissed often, to which I always enjoyed, but I failed to remember the giddy high it gave me.
I moved my hips, shifting my weight when my hands found his hair. It didn’t feel strange; it felt right—natural and familiar.
He groaned into my mouth, the want emanating in his voice. “Sway,”
His hands flew to my hips and guided me down on top of him—flush against his pelvis and oh...oh....hold up...caution flags out ladies and gentlemen. We not only had an oil slick down on the track but we had a camshaft searching for a crankcase.
I froze, wondering if he was going to push me away at any moment but he didn’t. We had been here before, but he always stopped quickly before anything escalated, collecting himself. Only now he wasn’t stopping.
Instead, he pushed his hips up to meet mine. “Jesus Christ Sway,”
Still kissing me desperately, his inpatient hands began working my shirt over my head. The pit lizard in me shined and just ripped the motherfucker away letting it fall beside Jameson’s face.
He grinned, a lopsided grin, against my lips, chuckling at my sudden onset of rage against the poor fabric that used to be a shirt. Like an engine exceeding its maximum rev limiter, was my willpower and need for him, damage couldn’t be prevented.
I realized right about then that the door was still wide open so I tried to maneuver my legs to kick the door shut but didn’t succeed.
“Just a second,” I whispered and with one last kiss—I got off Jameson and pushed the door closed.
Once I was away from his warm embrace, I began to comprehend what was really happening.
Did I want this? Did he? Would we regret it in the morning?
Before I had time to regret anything we’d already done, I felt him approach me from behind. A strange electric pulse sang between us causing my breathing to become ragged.
Placing both hands against the door to stabilize myself—my body anticipated the contact. I could smell him—feel him getting closer.
The nervous energy pulsing throughout my body, the nerves felt primed for it, waiting. The silence between us was heavy and tense. My body felt like it was being pulled towards him just by the energy between us.
Jameson leaned in—his chest pressed against my back and covered my hands against the door with his own, his fingers interlocked with mine.
I could feel the rise and fall of each strained breath in his body. His lips pressed to my bare shoulder once and then he made slow and wet k
isses over until his lips pressed against my neck, the fire in me burning. He stopped there and then grazed his tongue back down the path he’d just made sending a shudder through me.
“I want you so bad, honey.” He whispered, echoing my exact thoughts, his voice and body trembling.
I couldn’t respond, I wasn’t aware a voice could sound so pleading and with so much urgency. Over the course of our friendship, I’d never seen him like this before.
I maneuvered myself turning around in his arms.
We stood there facing each other; me without a shirt, his jeans intact with his shirt was open in the front.
The muscles in his stomach flexed and contracted with each labored breath he took. I could tell his resolve was crumbling when he swept his shaking hand across the back of his neck.
It felt as though each of us was daring the other to make the next move.
My eyes met his and I thought I would see love or something resembling the emotions I felt for him but all I saw was the hooded lust burning deep with hunger.
His breathing remained heavy, shit, he was nearly panting as he watched me like I was his prey. And it was impossible to miss the way his hands trembled as they reached for me again.
Letting go of any hesitation I may have had, I lunged for him. Jumping in his arms, his hands immediately flew to my ass as he attacked me, my kiss silencing his guttural moan. We stumbled back against the wall with an animalistic grunt, the drywall cracked against my back but that didn’t stop us.
Driven with want, we seemed to be eagerly searching for the unknown. We weren’t necessarily searching for the same want but we were searching for it with each other.
I kept asking myself what I was doing but I was doing what felt natural to me. It was instinct and adrenaline coming together but there was the familiarity there, assuring me, I was safe with him and he wanted this.
We wanted this.
My body was on fire, the haze lingering in my head was anchoring me. It was like running blindly through fog, hoping nothing was standing in my way.
Throughout our entire friendship, it was easy to see there was a sexual attraction between the two of us. I always wondered if it was just me. Judging by the camshaft rubbing against me, it wasn’t just my imagination. Happy hour had begun and eventually our clothes were all over the place and in pieces, with the exception of his jeans.
