Crush Panels – Metal panels that are inserted around the bottom of the driver’s compartment and wheel wells to keep fumes and intense heat away from the driver.
It was early, too early for my liking, to be leaving for the airport, but I was. It took me a good hour to actually get out of bed this morning because Sway was giving me pouty lips and showing me her boobs, which is why I was running late to pick up Justin in Martinsville. Wes, on my time clock, was late as well when we landed to pick him up.
Justin and I were racing in the World of Outlaws race at Skagit Speedway on Friday night, and then I would fly back to Richmond in the morning for the Cup race. Tyler and my other driver, Cody Bowman, were already in Washington.
“Jameson, I need to drop you off here,” Wes told me when we landed in Martinsville Indiana, where I met Justin. “I need to get to Jacksonville to get Jimi. He needs to be in Alger tonight, as well.”
I gave him my best “What the fuck!” expression, without voicing it.
Instead, I said, “You mean I have to fly with other people?”
“Yes, your no fly order was lifted,” Wes chuckled. “I think you can handle it.”
“So Jimi is more important?” I scoffed, annoyed. I was already late because of Sway and her magic crankcase.
“He pays the fuel for this thing. So, yeah, I think he’s more important, kid.”
“That’s bullshit, Wes.” I slammed my bag down and pointed at him. “If I get arrested, I’m blaming this entirely on you!”
My threat just washed right off him, as I’m sure he laughed all the way to Jacksonville.
An hour later, I missed the flight Alley booked for Justin and me.
“What took you so long this morning—we could have been there by now?” Justin asked as we walked through the airport.
I smiled and went to say something when he shook his head and held his hand up. “Never mind—I don’t want to know.”
We finally found the ticket booth and got new tickets for the next flight only to discover it was departing right now. In our mad rush back to the gate, Justin dropped his ticket so we had to back track. Once we found the ticket, we made it to the gate to see the door closing on us.
“Fix this, asshole,” Justin said virtuously.
Once again, I hardly thought this was entirely my fault. “You lost your goddamn ticket.”
He pushed me toward the ticket booth in front of the closed door. “And you were late this morning.”
Looking from an angry Justin to the woman at the counter, I knew my option.
It was time to unleash some charm. Taking in a deep breath, I stepped forward.
“Excuse me, Miss ...” she immediately turned to face me, her cheeks flushed. She was young—nineteen or twenty maybe.
That’s right, you still got it.
“I’m Jameson Riley and my friend ...” I motioned behind me to Justin—he flashed a charming smile of his own. “Well, we really need on that plane.”
“Oh, sir... I’m sorry I can’t. They are securing the cabin,” she said hesitantly.
Her eyes glanced furtively around the airport, avoiding mine.
C’mon, just look at me. I knew if she looked at me, it was over. I knew that sounded cocky, but I was well aware of the effect I had on women these days and knew the ways to get them going.
I smiled my most seductive smile and leaned against the counter. My forearm gently brushed against her fingers clinging to a clipboard. At the contact, she inhaled sharply.
“The problem with that is …” My eyes met hers. “I need to be in Alger later this afternoon for a race.”
She looked confused for a moment and then comprehension flashed across her face when her eyes finally met mine. “Are you Jameson Riley, the NASCAR driver?”
I winked for good measure. “That would be me.”
She then laughed and started rambling on about racing and getting the doors to the plane open. Justin and I both gave her autographs and took a couple pictures with her before they finally allowed us to board the plane.
Yet another reason I preferred to fly with Wes. I didn’t have to flirt with him.
“You’re lucky your charm worked.”
“It always does.”
Maintaining eye contact, Justin shook his head and stared at me as I took a drink of his coffee.
“Sway was right,” he said sourly, “your head can get bigger.”
WE MADE IT to Skagit without any more problems. That was until we got inside the cars.
It was hard to believe that three years ago my little girl was brought into the world at this very track. Those thoughts made me think of my family who was at home this weekend.
With the Cup schedule, I could only make one night of the racing, and then it was on to Richmond Saturday morning for the race and then back to Mooresville to celebrate Arie’s third birthday on Tuesday with our family.
It was one destructive night of racing, and by the time the main events rolled around, I was wondering why in the hell I even came up here. All I could think about was how much money this was going to cost me this week to get these three cars ready for Cottage Grove Monday night.
I never went very long without racing on dirt. If I did, I went through withdrawals, which was exactly why I was out here for one day.
So there we were, sometime after the hot laps looking over our cars lined up beside each other in the pits.
Justin leaned back on his rear tire, pushing his fingers against the rubber. With the lower psi the rubber flexed under his touch. “It’s crazy out there tonight.”
And it was. The track was slick with only one groove, making it hard to pass anyone. Tyler’s car was flying, but Justin and me were far from flying.
We were hanging on for dear life, hoping like hell we didn’t wad it up in each turn. I loved racing Skagit, a relatively flat track made for the good slide jobs in the corners, but with only one groove working tonight, it was pretty much impossible unless you hung it out there and prayed to fucking God you didn’t end up in the wall. With a wife and three kids now, that wasn’t an option for me any longer.
As it turned out, none of us had a good night, including Tyler, who broke the track record during qualifying.
“How’d ya do?” I asked Justin, pulling my suit to my waist.
Justin frowned. “Broke a lower control arm.”
“Hell, my right front tire could be in Seattle by now.” I flipped the car six times on the backstretch when I got tangled with a local guy halfway through the A-feature.
“I broke a torsion bar, too.” He kicked it. “Actually, make that two ...” Justin got on his hands and knees and scraped a few large chunks of mud from the front right wheel. “And an axle.”
I laughed.
“My rear end is in turn four... well, kind of. Most of it is in turn four, my shock mount is in turn one. My rear axle is...” I glanced over my shoulder toward the track. “In turn two.”
Hell, together we broke every piece on the cars. It was carnage out there.
Tyler came rolling by on the back of my dad’s four-wheeler holding a shock mount in one hand and his helmet in the other. He held it up when he walked past. “This was the only salvageable part on the car.”
I really didn’t want to see this parts bill tomorrow. With these cars leaving Sunday morning for Cottage Grove, we used the back-up cars brought with each team, but it didn’t matter, I still had to pay to have these three fixed.
That was racing. You could easily dump a hundred thousand in a motor alone, just to have it blow up on you in hot laps.
Speaking of engines, they seemed to be our biggest problem this year. With Grandpa Casten passing away last year, the future of CST Engines was unknown. CST Engines was what almost every team on the Outlaw Tour used for engines, along with most of the national sprint tours.
When Grandpa died, his partner, Rick Denton, had no clue what to do and neither did we. Grandpa built the engines while Rick merely acted as the sales associate. Old Casten had no business conversing with the public.
Uncle Randy and my dad ended up taking over ownership of the business, but had to hire Harry, my engine specialist on the Cup team to build the engines until they found someone. Harry tried, he really did, but Grandpa knew sprint cars. They were his specialty. In turn, he could build us an engine that would usually last the entire season.
After a few months, Dad and Randy ended up having to hire another engine specialist, Kerry Andrews, and let Harry just concentrate on the Cup cars. I think it was more that Harry actually told him he’d quit if they didn’t.
Eventually things got better, and the engines were close to what Grandpa was providing, but it took nearly a year of trial and error before we found a design that worked best for us. As you could see, this put a lot of stress upon every team.
It was always something in racing, no matter what form. If you weren’t fighting with the engine, the shock package needed attention.
But, hey, that was racing.
ON SATURDAY NIGHT, I found myself in Richmond for the last race before the chase.
“You have about four more laps until we stop,” Kyle told me around lap one eighty of the Chevy Rock & Roll 400 race.
I loved Richmond, but not tonight.
It seemed like my luck for breaking cars wasn’t going any better than it had Friday night at Skagit.
“We have to get this packer out of the right front,” I told him, knowing he’d make the adjustments.
Instead of relying solely on the spring rubbers to adjust the suspension and handling of the car, we added shock packers, which allowed the shock to absorb a fair amount. Instead of a shock compressing, let’s say, seventy-five percent of its potential—we would put in a packer to decrease the shock travels. This allowed it to only half-way. Shock packers, combined with spring rubbers could make the car react differently and give us more room to experiment with setups. We either used one or the other, or together, depending on how the car was handling and the track we were at.
With Richmond, you started in the daylight and finished under the lights. Those races were always tricky because of how temperature sensitive it became. One minute you were loose and about to kiss the wall and then next you were so tight the car wouldn’t turn.
“What’s your water temp?”
“210 - 215.”
“We’ll put a piece of tape on it this next stop. Three laps.”
“Pit road is open,” Aiden told us when it was time to pit. “Four thousand second gear. The six will pit in front of you, you’ll need to come around him to get into your pit.”
We made our green flag stop along with most of the field, which took us from our sixth place spot to fourth. It wasn’t good enough—I needed to win tonight.
Currently, Paul, Colin, and I were right on the bubble to make the chase. For the first time in my five-year Cup career, I might’ve not made the chase. I’d spare you my thoughts on the chase format; I was not a fan of it. Other sports could keep their playoff format. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it because if I was running strong all season and running in the top five with a comfortable lead and did shitty those last few races, I still had a chance. In the chase, that wasn’t always the case.
“Where am I at in points?”
The format had been modified from the previous years and now included the top twelve in points. Even though I hated this whole “chase” shit, this new rule was in my favor this weekend.
“You’re eleventh if the race ended right now. Paul is struggling mid-pack right now, something about a vibration.”
This helped my chances tremendously.
After another fifty laps, nothing improved. The car still felt like it was lifting when I entered the corner, not something I enjoyed.
“It’s not helping. What did you change, anything?”
“What’s it feel like now?” Kyle asked.
“Forty-two at your door... clear.” Aiden guided me through a pack of lapped cars.
“The same. It feels like it’s dragging, and my right front is way too high.”
“On entry, middle, or exit?”
“Entry and exit.”
“Your last lap time was a 32.30. Bobby is running a fifty in front of you.”
Another twenty laps went by, and the car got worse, if that was possible at this point. “I’ve never felt anything like this before,” I complained.
“Just hang in there, bud, we’ll put some air in the right front.”
“That’s not the problem. The right rear actually feels like it’s coming off the ground. We have to get the front end down more.”
Kyle was quiet for a few moments, probably contemplating what the hell that meant and what would fix it. The hardest part of his job, aside from my frequent mood swings, was trying to decipher my explanations of the way my car was handling.
“Let’s go with a thirty-second round out of the right front and a sixteenth out of the left. Do you think we should change the splitter?”
“I wouldn’t just yet.”
Before we had the chance to make the changes, Colin tried to make a pass on Bobby for the lead and pegged the outside wall hard, sending debris flying everywhere, bringing out the caution.
“Cautions out—stay high.”
The twenty-four of Andy Crocket checked up and sent the rest of the field fishtailing to avoid hitting him, and the debris slung out over the backstretch. This would have worked in my favor having Colin out of the mix. Only problem was that when Andy checked up, the seventeen of Nathan Weise was not paying attention and clipped the back of my car sending me into Andy’s bumper.
“Damage to the front end,” Aiden announced.
Assessing the steaming situation, it was apparent the radiator was shot, along with my hopes of the chase this year. This was not good. I was never satisfied with anything other than a win and neither were my sponsors.
“Son of a bitch!” I yelled, flashing a hand gesture at Nathan. He flashed the same gesture combined with a few words that I couldn’t hear. Whatever they were, it pissed me off even more.
“It blew the radiator out,” I told the crew. “Where’s the garage?”
Pulling the car past the pit wall I realized that I had no idea where to turn.
“You can get there from where you’re at,” Aiden told me from his position on top of the tower in turn one.
“Tell me where to go. I can’t see shit, and there are no signs pointing toward the garage.”
“Down the hill. Turn right after the gate.”
“Was that so hard?”
“Listen!” Aiden snapped. “I’m up here with God knows what kind of bugs crawling on me. I’m sweating like a fucking pig and you want directions to the garage. Don’t be an—”
I had no choice but to laugh when Aiden started coughing, apparently from swallowing bugs.
My crew did what they did best and got me back on the track, but the damage to the points was already done. I missed the chase by twelve points, yes, twelve fucking points.
I was unbelievably dejected. Since I started racing, I had never finished outside of the top ten in points for any series I ran in, ever.
After the race, I made my way toward the motor coaches to change and get my bag before heading home to Mooresville. Colin and Nathan were walking the same direction. Colin Shuman and I tolerated each other. I wouldn’t, by any means, say we were friends, but it was easier than fighting with him. On occasion, we would have a beer. Hell, he even came camping with us once.
So there I was, walking behind them when Nathan, a rookie driver this year and the same guy who cost me that chase, popped off, “Did you see Riley out there? He was driving like an asshole.”
“Yeah, I saw,” Colin mumbled. “That’s what he does best.”
My anger for the night soared.
“You know,” I said darkly. They both spun on their heels to face me. We were in between the motor coaches now, out of sight of everyone. “If you two want to question my reasoning on the track... ask me. Don’t smart off behind my back.”
“It was nothing, Riley, just relax.” Colin snorted and leaned against the side of my motor coach.
Ignoring Nathan’s wide eyes, I stepped closer to Colin. “I race you the same as I race any other guy out there. You don’t like it, tell me to my face.”
Colin smiled. “I don’t like the way you race.”
I laughed one hard laugh. “And I don’t like the way you race. You don’t think out there.”
Colin knew this was a battle he wasn’t going to win. We didn’t agree on the track, never had, and probably never would. But we both knew that was as far as it went. Off the track, I could tolerate him. At times he reminded me of Darrin, but Colin was just a hotheaded kid.
Neither one of them said any more, but just gaped at me in silence.
As you could imagine, my mood when I arrived home that night was not good. Colin and Nathan had pissed me off. I missed the chase, I knew Simplex wouldn’t be happy, and, on top of that, I missed my family.
Sway had stayed home with the kids because Casten was sick with a cold.
Around two in the morning when I walked in the house, I was greeted with Sway and all three of the kids sleeping in the living room in a makeshift fort of blankets, chairs, and pillows from all over the house.
My mood improved significantly as I sat down on the floor next to Arie and watched them sleep. My sleeping little girl looked nearly identical to Sway.
Axel had stirred slightly when I set my bag down and eventually opened his eyes, rubbing them once he realized I was sitting there. Placing my index finger to my lips for him to be quiet, he grabbed his blanket and came to sit on my lap next to the couch I had leaned against.
“I missed you, Daddy,” he whispered, snuggling into my arms.
“Mmm... I missed you, too, little buddy.”
“Sorry you didn’t win.”
“It’s all right. You can’t win them all.” Axel had seen me win a lot, but I wanted him to understand it wasn’t always like that, not with the competition these days.
I SPENT THE rest of the night out there in the fort they had made and woke up to eight-month-old Casten drooling on my face and giggling. The kid never stopped laughing.
Rolling over, I began tickling his chubby little rolls. He belly laughed, squirming for me to stop. Arie got in on the tickle-fest as did Axel.
Soon we woke up Sway.
“You’re home,” she said, blinking as though I wasn’t real.
“Yes, I am.” I winked as our little flailing spaz children bounced around the room.
Sway crawled over to me from her place inside the fort, her crawling distracting me.
“Don’t do that,” I groaned, averting my eyes.
“Do what?”
“Crawl. I miss you, and crawling is not helping.”
“Oh—sorry.” She wasn’t sorry. She knew damn well what she was doing.
The rest of the morning was spent making blueberry waffles and playing with the kids in the fort. Arie’s birthday was Tuesday with the party planned for that night. Today, we planned to do whatever she wanted.
“What would you like to do today, sweetie?” I asked her as she climbed down from my lap at the breakfast island to steal her Barbie from Casten who was using it as a chew toy.
Axel laughed at him. “He’s like a dog.”
I laughed as Sway picked him up. “Come here, you little puppy.”
Casten loved Sway—thought she was the greatest thing ever. He was still breastfeeding at eight-months old and Sway did not like this, by the way. She was never a fan of breastfeeding to begin with, but we both knew it was better for them so she did it anyway.
“We can do anything you want today,” Sway told Arie.
Arie always looked to Axel for advice and now was no different.
After what appeared to be an intense conversation with Arie, they turned back to us.
“Can we go to the zoo?” Axel asked.
“I need to discuss this with your dad,” Sway said, teasingly, as she pulled me aside. “We can go to the zoo, if they want,” she whispered. “Just make sure they don’t talk me into anything. The last thing we need to do is come home with a pet cougar or something.”
I rolled my eyes. “Very funny.”
“I thought it was.”
“Arie, honey, will you please tell your brother that if he succeeds in catching that fish, I’m taking the fish home and leaving him here.”
“Okay,” she said before running over to say something to Axel. I saw him turn toward me and smile sheepishly.
Jameson came walking up after staring at the tank of sharks for the last ten minutes, paying no mind to the fact that his almost five-year-old son was trying to catch one. “This is lame. I’ve always hated the zoo.”
I replied, “Why, because you belong in one?”
His only answer was to arch his eyebrow at me as his phone rang for the hundredth time this morning. The entire hour and a half drive to Asheboro was spent with him on the phone talking with Marcus and his dad about their plans for the rest of the season. I felt bad for him, and for the first time in his career he would finish outside the top ten in points. For a man like Jameson, that was a hard pill to swallow.
“Let’s go get me a pet,” Axel said with bright eyes, pushing Casten in his stroller.
I ruffled his hair and smiled. “Nice try, kid, but no.”
I had to let him down easy, but I hated to tell him that I was not buying a pet. I was lucky that I was able to keep three kids alive as long as I had. There was no way I could take care of another pet, too. I needed to stand my ground on this one. Mr. Jangles did not need a friend as far as I was concerned.
Most of the day Arie wanted to watch the lions and cougars. Jameson did not, for obvious reasons, and took the boys to see more manly animals, which he said were the apes. How they were manlier was beyond me, but I had a feeling it was only because the apes hadn’t tried to eat him yet.
We were walking toward them when Arie looked up at me. “Mama?” she asked.
“Yes?” I knelt down to her level.
“Daddy mad?”
Arie was very perceptive to Jameson’s mood swings and sensed his attitude this morning. “No, sweetheart. Daddy is just a little stressed out from the race last night.”
She seemed to consider this for a moment before asking, “He need ice cream!”
“You know...” I picked her up. “I think that is exactly what Daddy needs.”
I hated to think our kids ever thought their dad’s temperamental personality had anything to do with them, but it wasn’t something I could change. Jameson needed to. There were times when his temper got the best of him, but he always guarded it around the kids.
While the kids ate their ice cream, Jameson was once again on his cell phone with Jimi. Axel watched him carefully, the concern present in his features. He worried about Jameson all the time and constantly tried to make him proud.
Slightly irritated that this day was supposed to be for Arie, and Jameson had spent the majority of the day on the phone, I sent him a text knowing he’d read it.
Look at your kids right now. Get off the goddamn phone.
As I expected, when his phone beeped at him, he looked over at them staring at him.
Jameson hung his head dejectedly. He knew. “I gotta go, Dad. I’ll call you later tonight.” He hung up quickly, turning toward Axel and Arie. “So what’s next on the agenda today?”
Once again, they talked amongst themselves before Arie nodded and Axel spoke. “Water park—definitely the water park.”
Jameson looked toward me slowly. “Oh, great, honey... the water park,” he repeated sarcastically with an upbeat twist he knew the kids wouldn’t pick up on. Jameson didn’t like water parks for a number of reasons. The biggest one: people.
Today wasn’t bad at the zoo, but usually anytime we went anywhere, people followed us. Jameson Riley was a household name around these parts. Anytime someone mentioned NASCAR, they associated that with Jameson Riley. All this resulted in Van tagging along everywhere. He kept his distance, though, never letting on we had security around.
“Who thought water parks were a good idea?” Jameson asked as Casten took a nap on his chest while Axel and Arie waded around the sandbar.
“Disney.”
“That’s Disneyland, not water parks.”
“So, I’m sure they had something to do with it.”
Jameson shook his head and glanced down at his vibrating phone. “I’m not going to answer it,” he assured me.
“I didn’t say anything.”
I laughed when a small wave from the wave pool knocked Arie over and Axel helped her up.
“I know, but you were thinking it.”
“I just want you to see how they look at you. Axel hangs on your every word.”
“I know he does,” he nodded, watching them play. “He wants to race the Dirt Nationals at the end of the month.”
So far, Axel had raced in all the USAC Quarter Midget races and was running third in their championship point battle. I knew my little boy was ready, but it was still nerve-wracking. He was so tiny and to see him racing around with other kids scared me sometimes.
“I know... do you think he’s ready?”
Jameson seemed to contemplate this for a moment before replying, “Yeah, I do.” He glanced over at me. “Are you nervous?”
“Yes and no. I’ve watched him at home... he seems confident enough.” I shrugged, sipping my water. “I worry about the other kids wrecking him.”
“That’s part of racing, honey. We can’t control it.”
I knew we couldn’t. Hell, if we could, none of what happened with Darrin would have happened. Not a day went by that I didn’t think about what happened in Loudon. It was hard not to.
I looked at what I gained in return. Life. I pulled through. Axel pulled through. Jameson pulled through, not completely, but he did move on.
Together, we all pulled through. You couldn’t control everything. All you could do was go with the flow and hope like hell you caught a break every now and then.
PREPARING FOR ARIE’S party left me a little on edge. I felt the need to drink at any kid’s party because I couldn’t handle all the commotion and children in one place. I loved my kids, but when people were over at our house and sugar was involved, I no longer liked them. So I drank.
Shortly before I had finished the cupcakes, Axel came in with blood pouring out of his nose.
“Mama, I did somethin’ bad.”
I looked at him and knew exactly what he’d done. “How far up there is it?”
“A little.” He shrugged and looked at his feet.
“Jameson?”
Axel bolted the other direction afraid to let his dad see him in such a compromising situation. I mean, he very nearly shoved the fucking thing into his brain. It wasn’t coming out without some help. Help I was in no condition to provide after my second long island iced tea that I’d been pretending was regular iced tea.
“What do you mean he stuck a Lego in his nose?” Jameson asked when I explained.
“That’s exactly what I mean.” I giggled, feeling the alcohol in my system a little more. “He’s four and a half, nothing they do makes sense. Now go, he needs help.”
Jameson groaned and walked toward Axel huddled in the corner of our kitchen holding his hand to his bloody nose.
“Why did you stick it up there?” I heard Jameson ask him.
Axel didn’t answer, just shrugged as a tear slipped down his cheek. Poor kid.
Jameson went to work retrieving the Lego from his nose. I had to laugh when Lane, who did this when he was three, and remembered this well because it had to be surgically removed, patted him on the back and said, “It happens to the best of us.”
Arie’s third birthday was already turning into a clusterfuck, and we hadn’t even served the cake. I, for one, couldn’t wait to eat cake. Emma had whipped it up and frankly, it looked like heaven with frosting that could give even the healthiest of us a heart attack.
Jameson had to leave tomorrow for Loudon, New Hampshire, so me getting drunk and bathing myself in frosting wasn’t exactly a good idea. Besides, it was my daughter’s birthday.
I put down the long island iced tea and stuck to water after that.
Arie, who was still going through her terrible twos and progressing nicely into the horrible threes, was running around telling everyone she was a princess and her Daddy was her prince.
Axel never went through this phase and the temper tantrums. Sure, he had his moments, but with Arie, wow, I wasn’t prepared for her. That wasn’t to say she was as bad as the Lucifer twins or the Gomez boys, but she was... wicked at times, and Jameson refused to admit this. He thought she was perfect. So perfect that for her third birthday, he had her bedroom in our home in Mooresville transformed into a Disney fairytale, complete with a carriage for her bed.
“So she’s not spoiled or anything,” Alley piped in when I showed them the room prior to cutting the cake.
“You’re telling me.” I sighed. “It’s getting out of hand.”
Jameson really was creating a problem. Anything she ever asked for, he got for her. So far, we’d kept Arie from seeing it. This wasn’t very hard because she still insisted on sleeping in Axel’s room with him at night. He didn’t enjoy this, by the way.
“What are you going to do when the boys start to realize how spoiled she is by him?”
“Axel knows, but he could care less; he’s too into racing to care about that. And Casten…” I looked down at him laughing at Cole, who was punching himself in the face and then falling down laughing. “I don’t think anything could make him upset.”
It was true. My little one was all smiles, all the time.
Casten was a very active little boy. He wouldn’t sit still for anything, but at nearly a year old, it was to be expected. Unlike Axel, Casten was spontaneous and up for anything. You could literally wake him up from a nap, and he was ready to go do whatever you wanted and smiling while doing so. He smiled in the morning and never stopped until he fell asleep.
Jameson came up to me with wide, excited eyes and Arie latched on to his back in her princess dress she insisted on wearing while Emma constantly fretted with her crown.
“Is it time to show her?”
He showed way more enthusiasm than Arie. “Yeah, go ahead.”
“Show me what?” Arie peeked her head up.
“Your birthday present,” Jameson said, climbing the stairs toward her room.
“Maybe she sleep in her room now,” Axel grumbled as we all climbed the steps.
He knew what we were doing and was more than willing to help, even at four, to get her out of his room.
It took a lot to surprise Arie. I blamed Jameson and all his extravagant gestures toward her. So when we opened the door to her new, ornately magical fairytale room, I was surprised by the squeal of delight she let out. It made me a tad jealous I never had a room like that.
“Oh wow, Daddy!” Her eyes squinted as they always did when she was so excited she couldn’t control herself. It was the same face Emma often made. “It so pretty.”
She danced around the room from one thing to the next, squealing louder than Emma, who was just as taken by the room. I was sure she was already planning a sleepover for her and Lexi. Emma had boys, and when Aiden put his foot down about them playing with dolls, she turned to her two nieces.
We didn’t see the girls the rest of the night, and for the first time in months, Arie slept in her own room... with Axel on the floor. He refused to sleep in the carriage.
Jameson and I watched our two little sleeping monsters with their cousins, who slept over that night as well.
“It’s hard to believe she’s three already,” Jameson whispered, placing a kiss on my forehead.
“Mmm ...” I smiled, hugging him tighter. I laughed when Arie sat up in bed and made sure her princess crown was intact and then laid back down, snuggling closer to Lexi.
After a few moments, we made our way down the hall to our room. Jameson had me pressed against our king sized bed within seconds and was working on removing my clothes.
“I’ve waited all fucking day to do this to you.”
“Shame on you, Mr. Riley, it was our child’s birthday.” I giggled, pulling at his jeans.
He got them past his hips before he smiled wickedly and looked down at me, naked and spread across our bed. “That doesn’t stop me from wanting my wife.”
I never grew tired of hearing him say the words, “my wife.” It sounded territorial in a sense, but I didn’t care; I loved it. It made me feel like I belonged to him, and that was all I’d ever wanted.
“Now, honey, I only have tonight with you before I head to Loudon. We need some align boring done. These bearings ...” His strong hand slipped in between us, his fingers dancing over my ignition switch. “They need to be properly aligned.”
It didn’t matter that we only had one night. We made the best of any amount of time we had with each other, remembering. Before he positioned himself between my legs, he glanced around the room.
“Where’s that goddamn cat of yours?”
I giggled. “I had his tubes tied. Don’t worry.”
Jameson’s brow furrowed. “Was he a she after all?”
“No, he was a he.”
He seemed to contemplate this for a moment. “So how did he have—”
“Jameson,” my lips silenced his words. “I think my compression ratio is about to explode.”
His eyes darkened as he spread my legs apart with his knees.
“Well then, we wouldn’t want that, would we?”
“No, we wouldn’t.” I giggled.
We tested out some align boring, piston stroking, reciprocating motions, deburring, porting of the heads, and micro polishing. The dirty heathen and the mama wizard were back and setting fast time for the night.
It didn’t matter that we now had three little adorable spaz children. We still knew how to revert back to those pornographic days we once had. Now we were just polished and knew all the dyno testing results. We had it down.
The problem with being apart for the last few weeks was that our testing was over fairly quickly. As soon as I arched into him, he threw his head back and groaned this loud, growling, needy sound. And though I didn’t reach my rev limit, seeing him like that was enough for me.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, panting above me. “Jesus, I’m really sorry.”
I giggled. “Don’t worry, it was fun to watch.”
“You always amaze me,” he chuckled, rolling to the side. “I can’t last more than a few minutes, and you say it was fun.”
“It was.”
LATER THAT NIGHT before we went to bed, we checked on the kids.
“It’s hard to believe how much they’ve grown,” Jameson spoke into my hair. His arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me against his chest. “They’re little people now.”
My eyes caught the papers scattered across the bedroom floor from where the kids had been coloring earlier in the night.
“Someone is their hero,” I whispered in his ear and pointed to the dozens of pictures of Jameson and his race car.
Jameson chuckled softly.
“They’re young. They don’t know any better.”
Turning in his arms, I pulled back to look at him, running my hand down his jaw and saw the same worry I always saw when it came to our children. He was constantly afraid he wouldn’t live up to the image they had of him. But he already had. They didn’t care if he didn’t win the championship every year. All they cared about was that he was there for them. And he was.
“You mean everything to them. All they want in return is your love.”
As your children grew, you did, too... in a sense. We wanted to see what they would become, but in the same sense, they were looking to us to see how we grew. You couldn’t tell them to be the best they could be, all you could do is try to be that yourself.
“Is that all you want from me?”
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” pulling his lips to mine, I whispered, “What you are to the world means nothing to me. What you are to me means everything.”
He leaned against the wall motioning with a nod of his head toward our sleeping children. “I just don’t want them to know. I want them to stay innocent in all this.”
I knew exactly what he was implying. He didn’t want the weight of our world on them. They needed protection from it. Eventually, we wouldn’t be able to do that, but for now, while they were young, we wanted that.