Happy Hour (Racing on the Edge)

by Shey Stahl

  “Wake up you intoxicated whores!” Alley shouted as loud as possible, deliberately and then slammed the door behind her.

  Both Emma and I groaned covering our ears.

  She stepped inside the bedroom, dressed in a cream-colored business suit. “Nice to see you two among the living today,”

  “Why do you look so nice today?” I asked still petting Emma who was cradled to my chest like a baby kangaroo, still crying.

  “Bitch please—I always look nice.” Alley chided. “What’s the matter with her?” she motioned to Emma.

  I gave Emma a comforting squeeze and kissed her Porky pine head. “She’s upset about her tattoo.” I whispered because talking at a normal volume even hurt my head.

  “Well she should have thought about that before she drank four long island ice teas and helped you finish off a fifth of Tequila, now shouldn’t she?”

  “Jesus Alley,” I balked. “Harsh much? She was only having a good time.”

  “I don’t feel sorry any of you. She,” Alley pointed to Emma who was now staring at the two of us in our heated conversation. “should have said no when Spencer told her what to write,”

  Emma snapped into action. “First of all, she is still in the goddamn room and she would like to be referred to in the first person. And second,” her gaze narrowed at Alley. “Spencer did what?”

  At that point, I was actually worried about Emma. The vein in her forehead was bright blue and looked like it was about to burst at any moment. Just to be sure, I poked it with my index finger. The vein squished under my touch.

  “Where is Spencer?” Emma glared slapping my hand away. “I’m gonna kill him.”

  I sat back on the bed tossing the pillow over my face again.

  Unfortunately, for me, my surprises for the morning were not over once I was lying there. It felt awfully breezy down below.

  Reaching south, I checked out the situation and sure enough, I had no underwear on.

  “Damn it.” I mumbled to myself.

  Now what am I going to do for underwear?

  Maybe Jameson had some in here, or I could just go commando because he’s apparently not here to realize that I’m not wearing any.

  At least I had someone’s shirt on and a bra.

  Then I thought, where in the hell is Jameson?

  Emma, planning Spencer’s execution, was scrambling around the room trying to find clothes to wear because she was only in Jaspers button down shirt and cowboy boots. Why she wore cowboy boots to sleep in is beyond me but clearly, we weren’t thinking last night judging by the tattoos.

  “Where is Spencer?” Emma asked again pulling on her jeans she found near the door.

  “I have no idea.” Alley answered, not looking up from her Blackberry. “The last time I saw them they were puking behind the hotel.”

  “How do you not know where they are?” I asked confused. “Didn’t you stay here last night?”

  What in the hell happened last night?

  “No,” finally Alley looked up with an amused expression. “After Jameson puked in the Expedition for the second time, I booked this hotel room for you guys and I stayed at the Hilton down the street. I needed sleep and you guys...well I have no idea what went on after you came back here. Obviously sleep didn’t occur.” she looked over at the wall and took a double take, her mouth falling open.

  Both Emma and I followed her gaze to the wall and gasped as well.

  And there, on the very white wall was a very large...dick, spray-painted from floor to ceiling, complete with hairy balls and veins.

  Hairy balls and veins wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was how real it actually looked. It was disturbing that someone could draw something that well with spray paint.

  Eventually we averted our gaze from the monstrous dick on the wall and finally looked around the rest of the room, for the first time. It seemed in our discovery of the tattoos; we never noticed the pure insanity throughout the room.

  There were probably a hundred beer bottles scattered throughout the room. Pillows were everywhere along with sheets, blankets, and the curtains from the windows.

  You’d think a toga party was thrown in here or something. In the corner was a bouncy house blown up with what looked to be an entire grocery stores supply of toilet paper stuffed into it, unrolled.

  Next to it was an actual kiddy swimming pool with god knows what in it but judging by the abundance of pudding cups throughout the room, I presumed it was pudding. At that point, I hoped it was pudding.

  “I’m so glad I used Jameson’s credit card and not mine for this.” Alley replied stepping over some beer bottles and pudding cups.

  “So you have no idea where any of the boys are?” Emma asked wrapping toilet paper from the bouncy house around her neck like a scarf.

  “No, I said I didn’t know where Spencer and Aiden were.” Alley clarified. “Jameson is meeting with his team and Phillip to decide if they are appealing the fines NASCAR issued this morning.” She threw the newspaper at me.

  On the front page of the Pocono Record was a picture of Darrin’s car upside down with a headline of:

  Rowdy Riley fined $25,000 for Aggressive Driving

  NASCAR penalized Jameson Riley, driver of the No. 9 Ford Simplex car 60 points, fined him $25,000 and put him on probation through the end of the season for aggressive driving in the Winston Cup Series race Sunday afternoon at Pocono International Raceway.

  Darrin Torres, driver of the No. 14 Wyle Products Chevy, who was involved in the incident with Riley, was placed on probation though the end of the year for aggressive driving as well.

  The penalties issued Monday stem from the lap 194 of the Gillette Fusion ProGlide 500, where Torres and Riley were racing for third place. Torres went up the track for a block on the second stretch when Riley hit Torres, wrecking him.

  Torres’s car hit both the outside and inside walls before becoming air born in the infield. The accident collected at least seven cars.

  “Both of them are on probation through the end of the year. We needed to do that to help protect other drivers from being caught up in an incident not of their making,” NASCAR Vice President of Competition Gordon Reynolds said.

  Earlier this season, Torres was placed on three-week probation for retaliating against Riley in the Winston Cup race at Dover. In that race, the retaliation resulted in Riley being hit by Torres after the checkered flag had been thrown on pit road.

  Then we all know what happened in the Winston with the backyard brawl on the finish line where these two spared like Ali and Holyfield.

  “These two drivers have a history with each other dating back to their USAC days,” Reynolds told us. “We had talked to both drivers after the Dover incident. And even though Darrin was put on probation, we had conversations with Riley about their relationship and explained to them that there will be a boundary.

  “You fast forward to Pocono and you look at what we feel like was Darrin misjudging his corner and pit road space and then you look at the retaliation by Jameson coming out of turn two, we felt this had escalated beyond what we should tolerate on the race track. The penalty is to put these guys on notice. They have affected many of the other teams in the garage area and we felt they stepped over the line with their aggressive driving. It was time to penalize.”

  Reynolds said the penalties are designed to keep the two drivers from retaliating in the future and affecting the other drivers, should there be any.

  “We wanted to do the right thing for the competitors and the right thing for the garage area as far as maintaining law and order,” Reynolds said. “It takes two people to pull this stuff off.”

  By losing 60 points, Riley is now 228 behind Torres with 23 races left in the championship.

  The Riley Simplex Racing No. 9 team was also docked 60 points in the owner standings. Riley Simplex Racing has not decided whether to appeal and declined to comment on the penalties at this time but did have this to say.

  “As with all
NASCAR actions of this nature, we will internally evaluate the penalties, and the underlying explanations, prior to making any decision about next steps,” Riley Simplex Racing President Randy Riley, said in a statement. “We look forward to watching Jameson and Darrin as they continue to compete on a weekly basis for the championship in the Winston Cup Series.”

  When asked if Jameson would be commenting on the penalties, Riley Simplex Racing declined to comment.

  Maggie Summers, a reporter with ESPN, caught up with Jameson last night in downtown Pocono, the aggressive driving penalty was the least of his worries.

  When asked about his thoughts on the race, his response was, “What race?” as he took another shot of Tequila.

  Gibson Racing will not appeal Torres’s penalty, according to a statement released by the team earlier this morning.

  “The incident at the end of Sunday’s race at Pocono was unfortunate not just for Gibson Racing and the No. 14 Wyle Products Chevy team, but for all of the teams that were caught up in the aftermath,” Torres said in the statement early Monday morning. “There was unnecessary damage done to a lot of race cars as a result of the incident, including one of our best cars. We support NASCAR’s decision and we look forward to putting this behind us.”

  This was just disgusting. This was...I had no words.

  How could they make it out to just be his fault?

  “Can you believe the nerve of them?” Emma asked.

  “What did he think was going to happen?” Alley reproached. “I mean...he’s not a child. Well...that’s debatable, but he knew what would happen when he hit Darrin.”

  She did have a point, but the way NASCAR painted the picture in this article, it made it seem that Jameson was doing all the retaliation and Darrin had no part of it.

  “Was Darrin fined or just put on probation?” I asked wrapping a sheet from the floor around my waist so I could use the bathroom and maybe find underwear.

  If I couldn’t, I was making a pair like the one Emma did with the scarf. They did that in the stone-aged, right?

  “Nope,” Alley replied. “They’re not going to fine NASCAR’s golden boy.”

  “Unbelievable.” I stepped over the kiddy pool to get to the bathroom while Emma looked in the bouncy house for her cell phone. “See if my underwear are in there.” I yelled over my shoulder.

  Taking in a deep breath, I closed the bathroom door behind me, letting the sheet fall to the floor. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see this but I might as well get it over with.

  It’d been a while since I examined my own ass. Not exactly expecting the size, it’d grown since the last time that’s for sure.

  Carefully, balancing myself on the counter, I surveyed my new artwork.

  My god.

  There, on my left ass cheek, was a square box with the words, “Property of Riley” imprinted in it.

  The goddamn thing even had red along the outside edges as if it was meant to look like an actual branding with an iron. It wasn’t tiny either; the tattoo almost covered the entire side of the cheek.

  There goes my modeling career as an ass model.

  I took a quick shower because god knows I needed it. I smelled as if I just came from a distillery in Guadalajara and my hair felt as though whatever was in the bouncy house; was in my hair.

  When I finished, wrapping my sheet around myself again, I walked back into the war zone hoping to find some clothing and underwear.

  Emma and Alley were staring at the dick on the wall once again. It was as if they had some kind of obsession with it.

  “Did you guys find the boys?” I asked joining them in staring the wall.

  It’s sick how fucking real that looks.

  Imagine the poor cleaning lady that has to clean this disaster. I bet she gets a good laugh out of it though.

  “Yeah, they are getting some coffee up the street.” Alley replied. “They’re on their way back now, with Jameson.”

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I asked hesitantly. “How bad of a mood is he in?”

  “What do you think?” her tone mocking. “When is it ever a good thing with him?”

  Today was going to suck.

  Alley left after a few minutes to fly back to Mooresville with Jimi to get Lane, which would leave Spencer traveling back with us.

  Though this was a major concern for me, I was more concerned with Jameson’s mood as it could either make or break the entire day and maybe even the rest of my time on this vacation from reality.

  Still staring at the dick, I had a feeling Spencer was behind it.

  It was something he would do, although I wouldn’t put it past Jameson or even Aiden.

  Aiden may seem like this polite reserved southern boy from Pickard Alabama but he was far from that when you got a few beers in him, which was why he mixed well with all of us.

  Thankfully, before the boys arrived, I found my jeans from last night but I was still wearing Jameson’s t-shirt. I had no idea where mine was or the underwear.

  “Do you need these?” Emma asked holding up Jameson’s underwear I wore last night.

  “Where were those?” I stepped over a beer tower that had been made.

  “They were in the closet, along with...part of your shirt.” She shook her head. “I don’t even want to know what happened in this closet last night.”

  “What do you mean part of my shirt?”

  She held up half of the black tank top I’d been wearing last night.

  “What the hell?” I shouted ripping it from her hand. “What is wrong with your brother? He has some kind of obsession with ripping my clothes off.”

  “He’s got anger issues.” She shrugged.

  “And he bites me.” The teeth marks from his latest bite visible on the inside of my thigh.

  “He was a biter in kindergarten.” She told me. “He got sent home for school for it and spent a good part of first grade in timeouts too. I see he hasn’t grown out of it.”

  “What went wrong between you three kids? I mean, Jimi and Nancy are completely normal. Then you have Spencer who is just...insane. Jameson is borderline psychotic, and then there is you...the little pixie sister that tattoos license plate frames on her neck.”

  Emma shoved me inside the closet. “You’re not any better. You can’t even find your underwear.” She sounded like a damn child. I was waiting for her to stick her tongue out.

  “Because your psychotic brother ripped them off like he was the hulk.” I pointed out and stuck my tongue out for good measure.

  “We should go shopping.”

  I was amazed out how quickly her mood changed. A moment ago she looked like she was going to kill me for saying her family was strange, and now she was cuddled beside me in a closet with her head on my shoulder.

  “Yeah, we should go shopping. I need underwear.” I agreed. “Is he always like this?”

  “Is who always like this?”

  “Jameson, was he like this with all the other girls?”

  “What other girls?”

  “The ones he would sleep with. Did they have to go shopping all the time for clothing too?”

  Emma looked over at me and raised her eyebrows. “Jameson never has other girls around.”

  “Huh?”

  “He doesn’t bring anyone else around.” She repeated. “Besides Chelsea in high school, you’re the only other girl any of us have ever officially met.”

  “Really?” I played with my ripped shirt in my hands hoping I didn’t appear too transparent. “I thought...I mean he used to be such a slut.”

  “Maybe the first year after you left for college but we never met any of them and then when he started racing in the Busch series, it slowly trickled off and we never saw him with anyone. If he was with anyone, he kept it discrete.”

  I just nodded. He wasn’t lying when he said he stopped sleeping around. Not that I thought he would lie to me about it but it made me feel better coming from Emma who spent nearly every day with him.

&nb
sp; “Don’t tell him this,” she whispered and I don’t know why she was whispering. We were only sitting inches from each other and there is no one else in the room. “I think he’s falling in love with you.”

  “I wish.” I stated sarcastically.

  “No, I think he is. You should have seen his face when he saw Darrin talking to you the other day. He looked...jealous, like boyfriend jealous. I don’t know, I’ve just always thought he felt more for you then friends. Now his actions are the same.”

  “I’m not getting my hopes up.”

  Before Emma could say any more, the boys came barreling through the door.

  And if I thought we looked bad I was wrong...we looked like cover models compared to them.

  Aiden’s blonde curly hair was just as bad as Emma’s was. You could tell he tried to tame it but it was still everywhere. He had no shoes or socks on and he was wearing Emma’s shirt from last night. But what really caught my attention was because he was wearing Emma’s shirt, and it was revealing about two inches of the curve of his hips, was the tattoo plastered across his lower abdomen that said: Mount Up.

  I giggled.

  Then I looked towards Spencer who came in behind Aiden. Again with no shoes or socks on and a mow hawk. He looked sick, his face was pale, he had dark circles under his eyes and his hands were full of Rock Star energy drinks.

  And then came in Jameson. Besides the fact that his hair appeared to have the same pudding as mine once had in it, it didn’t look as bad as Aiden’s. He was just as pale as Spencer but was dressed a whole hell of a lot better in his black suit, the tie loosened from his neck with the top few buttons of his white button down shirt undone.

  Holy Mississippi leg hound.

  I don’t think Spencer ever saw her coming as Emma all but flew through the air at him. “You motherfucker!” she screamed jumping on his back like some kind of wild chimp. His Rock Star drinks crashed to the ground.