Red and Yellow Flag – This flag is displayed to signify debris (oil, sand, water, or other substances) on the track.
On the way home from Costa Rica we spent more time looking over the news of our street set on fire by our kids than remembering the horrible vacation we had just experienced.
The video didn’t show how it caught on fire, just the aftermath, or I guess you would say the during-math?
It was still on fire but being contained, so they said. At least no houses were in danger because, after all, it was a private piece of land, my private piece of land.
The more I thought about it on the flight home, the more upset I became.
The problem was that it would be in danger of engulfing a housing development which was on the other side of our 230-acre plot. Therefore, once again, I was going to have to pay for all the damage.
When we got home, the fire had been contained and all that remained was lingering smoke and a lot of burnt trees. We had a private gate when you entered the property and it looked as if someone had tried to run into it with a bulldozer.
Turned out to be where the fire truck smashed through it. A $23,000 gate was completely destroyed.
Awesome.
“Keep calm,” Sway said, when she noticed my anger rising. “Let’s not overreact until we know what happened.”
Clenching my jaw, I pulled to the right and around crossing over the creek and then down our road. Thick layers of smoke remained, curling as we drove through. “It looks like the aftermath of some kind of war.”
“Yeah, well there’s about to be World War III up in the place when I find our kids,” I seethed.
Entering our driveway, I pulled into the garage and shut the car off taking deep breaths and trying like hell not to explode. I remember all too well the shit my brother and I did growing up and understood that parties get out of control. The thing was that I had told Casten no parties and he didn’t listen.
Spencer was in the middle of our front lawn, passed out.
“Get up, asshole,” I kicked Spencer in the ribs before dumping my water bottle on him.
With a laugh, Sway walked back into the house to find Casten. We knew instantly he was behind this since Axel was racing in Chico.
“That kid parties harder than we ever did,” Spencer groaned holding his head with both hands. “I think he slipped me something.”
“I’m about to slip you something. Get off my lawn.” Turning on my heel, I left him moaning in the grass and I found Sway, upstairs, sitting outside Casten’s room watching him talk to a girl. He was barely clothed and she was sitting on his windowsill. Apparently, either coming or going.
The girl was young, probably fifteen and pretty. Casten went for the blondes. He had a thing about them. I never did so I couldn’t see that attraction, but she was pretty.
“Oh, my God, my son is a flirt!” Sway whisper shouted in my ear with a giggle forgetting that we intended to come up here because he was in trouble. “Go in there.” She shoved me forward.
“No.” I pushed against her and scrambled to stand behind her. “You can’t make me go in there. I won’t.”
“You’re a horrible parent.”
“I am not.”
“Adding breaking and entering to your dossier?” Casten asked the girl sitting on the windowsill.
“What do you know about my dossier, Casten?” the girl whispered sultrily.
Wow, isn’t she a little young? I thought to myself.
Sway must have thought the same thing because she put her hands on her hips and scowled at the girl from her place beside me. “Go in there,” she pushed me forward again and gave me the what-the-fuck look, “he’s too young to have girls in his room. Do something.”
I shook my head and whispered no frantically. I was not about to go in there while he was half-naked with a girl in his room. I was fourteen once. That would have been the worst idea ever.
Casten laughed and winked with his signature Riley smirk at the girl. “Ah, well, I know plenty, honey.”
I laughed quietly only to have Sway shove me again.
“He learned from the best,” I whispered with arrogance and jerked back when Sway punched my stomach.
We went back downstairs. I did not intend to see him, or the girl, naked after that ordeal with Emma and Aiden. I shivered at the sight and forced myself to focus on something else.
“We need to punish him,” Sway said once downstairs. She sat at the bar in the kitchen, her hands cupped around her cheeks in a defeated gesture. “He needs to be punished.”
“We should ground him.”
“Yeah, because that always works for him,”
Looking around, we needed more than just the average punishment. The house had been completely destroyed by water, red and yellow plastic cups, food, and some substance we had no idea what it was. It kind of resembled that crap that comes from a fire extinguisher. You name it and it was on the ground and outside in the haze of smoke.
I think we were both in shock that the kids had done all this in four days.
“How the fuck did they manage this?” I asked scratching my head.
“Maybe we can take his iPad away and his phone and then ground him to your parent’s house? He can spend some time with your dad.”
“Nah,” I laughed lightly thinking of how well that would go over with my dad. It wouldn’t. “Dad would kill him in a day. Maybe Aiden and Emma could take him. That’s punishment.”
Sway sighed, the defeated look returned. “No. Casten would kill Noah in about two minutes. Then we’d have to bury a body. Clearly, we can’t do that anymore. Look at our yard. It’s destroyed.”
“Good point.”
We decided we would ground him again but would decide on a proper punishment later. I knew one thing … he was cleaning this up. Walking to the fridge for water, I found what looked to be actual puke in our fridge. Sway wasn’t impressed and neither was I. We weren’t surprised though. The fire was a surprise but I always expected Casten to throw a party. All of our kids had at some point, so it was only a matter of time. Axel threw one when he was sixteen. Arie threw one when she was fifteen, and now Casten.
“I may kill my own son today,” she mused climbing up on the counter that had the only clean spot and folding her legs up as if she didn’t want to touch anything. “How many people do you think were in here?”
“Probably the entire state of North Carolina.”
Aiden showed up holding his phone in the air. “Phillip is on his way in case we need him.”
“Need him, why would we need him?”
“Well,” Aiden shifted from one foot to the other and I had to look away from him. I wondered how long it would be before I could talk to him and actually look at him again. “They set a large part of the property on fire and there, uh…” he was stalling.
“Spit it out,” I snapped shoving his shoulder. “What else happened?”
“I found a large amount of weed on Charlie this morning when he stumbled home.”
“Weed,” Sway perked up. “Why did he have weed on him? Our kids don’t do drugs.”
“Apparently, there was some drug use last night.”
I still couldn’t understand the need for Phillip. “So what, all kids do drugs at some point. Why does Phillip need to come?”
“Relax, I asked him to come because of the fire, Jameson,” Aiden said, becoming frustrated. “You can’t tell me the police aren’t going to be asking questions.”
“Was Casten smoking pot?” Sway grabbed Aiden by his shirt forcing him to look at her.
“How would I know? I was with you and Tour Ted, remember?”
“Oh, right,” she let go of him and then looked at me. “Oh man, he has a heroin addiction. I know it. This is horrible.”
I looked over at Sway as she ranted. Removing herself from the counter, she grabbed onto me as if she needed me to comfort her. “How did him smoking pot suddenly become a heroin addiction?”
“It’s a gateway drug, Jameson,” Sway wailed into my shoulder.
“For heroin?” she nodded and I scratched my head squinting at her. “Am I missing something? We smoked pot when we were kids a time or two and we never moved onto heroin?”
“What are you doing?” Casten asked, his rusty hair standing on end in disarray. When he finally came downstairs I was now standing in the living room.
“I’m wondering if your uncle is ever going to get off my lawn,” I told him glaring out the window. Spencer was still flat on his back not appearing to have moved at all.
“At least his clothes are on,” Sway added standing next to me with a cup of coffee in hand.
I shot her a glare.
“I wonder if Lane is still alive,” Casten mused, peeking out the back French doors to the pool where Lane was only is his underwear floating on a pink inflatable dolphin.
All of us looked out there to see not only Lane in the pool but Charlie and Noah curled up in a lawn chair together while Cole was sprawled out in the grass.
“What the fuck happened last night?” I finally asked when I noticed a hole in the wall right below the clock behind Sway.
Casten shrugged shoving a leftover slice of pizza in his mouth. “What? We had a few people over.”
“We?”
“Yeah, me and Arie,” as soon as he said Arie’s name his expression changed to panic but he wasn’t letting on. “Willie and Tommy are here, too.”
“We, as in your mother and I, specifically told you no parties.”
“I told you I was going to have a party.”
“And I told you no,” I said sternly. This “hardline” parent shit was hard for me, but I was trying. “... and you agreed.”
“That’s bullshit,” Casten laughed, “I never said anything like that.”
“Regardless. I told you no parties.”
“Hmmm,” he looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t recall hearing that part of the conversation.”
Spencer, soaked, stumbled inside after that and then fell on the floor in front of us. He curled up on the carpet in the family room and went back to sleep mumbling something about the sprinkler system.
“Let’s talk about the drugs that went on here,” I said when Sway kept nudging me in the ribs.
“What drugs?” He tried to look innocent, I’ll give him that much.
“No way, you’re not back-dooring me on this shit. I know you did drugs last night.”
He laughed, “You’re always so mature about things, Dad.”
“You’re right,” I looked at Sway, “we should have beaten him.”
Casten’s phone rang and he quickly turned it off as if it wasn’t the person he wanted to talk to.
“Do you think it’s his drug dealer?” Sway whispered in my ear.
“What? No. I don’t.” I looked around the room. “Where’s Arie?”
“Don’t be mad?” Casten’s eyes grew wider.
“Why?”
“I said don’t be mad.” Casten’s eyes did that pleading look he was so good at.
I stepped toward him, his hands rose and the confession spilled. “I accidently left her at the gas station last night. I’m sure she’ll be home soon.”
“How did you leave her at the gas station? You don’t have a license.”
“About that ...”
“Casten,” I looked at Sway and then back to our son. By my hard expression and flushed appearance, he knew damn well I meant business. “You better not have touched my Mustang!”
He backed away. “Your Mustang is locked up and you have the only key. Now your GTO seems to have been misplaced.”
“Misplaced?”
“Don’t worry, Dad. Van will find it.”
Sway interrupted. “How did the street catch on fire?”
“That is a long story and I assure you it wasn’t entirely my fault.”
Van walked into the house and stopped when he saw us standing in the family room staring at Casten.
Van gave a nod in the direction of the backyard. “How often do you guys swim in that pool?”
We looked in the backyard at the same time to see my now found GTO.
Casten smiled and patted my back. “Ah, yes, right where I left it last night. Phew.” He swiped the back of his hand across his forehead. “I was worried I misplaced it.”
Believe me when I say that my rage was boiling by that point.
“How did it get in the pool?”
“Ran out of gas when I tried to jump it over the pool?” He asked this as if it was a fucking question and then when my eyes widened, he tried to run away.
I caught him by the hood of his sweatshirt before he could escape. “How did the street catch on fire?”
“It was a big misunderstanding,” he gestured outside so we followed him to the back yard where the motocross track was. “See,” he flicked his wrist to the smoking pile under the double jump, “it didn’t go as planned.”
“I think it was more than a misunderstanding, Casten.” With my hands on my hips, I hung my head in shame that my kid had caused this much damage. Our entire backyard was black and smoking along with the field behind the house and much of the forest.
“It’s not that bad.”
Sway had to hold him back behind her when he said that. Spencer laughed and then ran off in the other direction. My eyes focused on Van. “Where were you in all this?”
His eyes widened in shock. “Me?”
“Yes, you... bodyguard,”
“I was out of town. It was Clint’s turn to watch them but he... well ...” Van’s eyes scanned the yard. “I’m not sure where he is.”
“He’s probably with Arie, I think. Listen Dad,” Casten peeked around Sway’s shoulder, “it wasn’t planned. We had some people over and it got a little out of control.”
“I gather that.” I snapped, throwing my arms up. “You better tell me what the fuck happened here!”
Casten started coming clean but surprisingly maintained his composed demeanor. “What’s the big deal? Lane wanted to jump through fire. It was a cool idea. We tried to build a fire jump. Which we succeeded in doing and it was awesome. It was a cool idea but we didn’t take into account the fact that the bike could catch on fire... Around the fifth or sixth jump, Willie’s bike caught a flame or something. I think his carb was leaking gas.” Casten pointed to the field. “He went off into the field and it caught the field on fire. I personally blame our hot summer. If we had some rain sometime we wouldn’t have had this problem.”
“You’re not really helping yourself.” Van patted his back. Even though Van was our bodyguard, over the years he had developed a huge soft spot for our kids and Lane. Cole, Noah and Charlie were assholes. No one had soft spots for them.
Sway and I both looked at him and then noticed Lane and Noah standing beside Spencer. Both of them resembled zombies.
“Jesus, Casten, look at this!” Sway raised her voice. Sway hardly ever lost it with the kids. I can actually count the number of occasions that she had gotten angry and yelled at them in a tone that I liked to refer to as the Mama Wizard Wrath.
Taking a deep breath, Sway shot him a glare. “It wasn’t this bad on the news.”
“Shit,” he looked surprised, “... it made the local news?”
“How did you think we found out?”
“I thought you found out this morning when you got home. Now I know it was a planned execution,” he looked at Spencer. “How’d it get on the news?”
“Noah,” Lane mumbled leaning against Van’s burly shoulders as support. Van side-eyed him and then laughed.
Casten looked at Lane and then Noah.
“Goddamn you, Noah!” Casten shoved him. “I told you not to put that on YouTube.”
Noah chuckled as he gained his footing, “My bad.”
“I still don’t understand how all this caught on fire from that field,” I voiced to them. It didn’t seem possible that two separate pieces of land could be on fire at the same time.
“Let’s get this clear,” Casten, said becoming serious all of a sudden, “I set this on fire.” He motioned with his hands to the wood pile and jump. “That ...” he gestured behind him to the field on the other side of our house, “… was not me. I don’t know … well, I know how that got on fire but that wasn’t me.”
“Well who did that then?” Sway asked.
“You need to discuss that with the Gomez boys but you may want to find that trophy truck of yours first.”
I was ready to kill someone when I heard that. They set the street on fire. Drove my GTO into the pool, trashed my house, broke the gate and stole my trophy truck. I very nearly lost it right then. If it weren’t for Sway, I probably would have.
“Where’s my trophy truck?”
Casten pointed to the field to the West of us. “It’s out there somewhere in the smoke. Turns out open headers start fires, too. Again,” Casten shook his head. “I have to say that I blame the dry weather.”
My glare found Sway. “Is it time to overreact yet?”
Sway looked at the boys standing there staring at me. “Let’s give him some time to think,” she said shooing everyone away.
“It was a simple fire jump.” Casten shook his head, again, dejected, as he walked back to the house. “That’s all.”
I think I stared at that jump for close to an hour. Killing my kids wasn’t a good idea so I stayed away for their safety. When I became less angry, I went back inside to see that Sway had ordered pizza. Food seemed like a good idea so I ate and by the time I was done, Casten had felt the need to explain more details.
I had heard enough. “Where the fuck is your sister?”
“I’m sure she’ll turn up. The car did.” He shoved more pizza in his mouth and then with that pizza still in his mouth, took a drink of Pepsi. He must have snorted or something because he ended up coughing out the last of his sentence. “Not ...” he waved his hands around trying to clear his throat, “to worry.”
“Worry?” Laughing, I shook my head. “Good luck when she gets home.”
“I think I’ll stay with Cole tonight,” he said jetting out the door. I grabbed him by the collar. “Nope, you’re grounded.”
I didn’t have time to stay and punish him but once Arie made it home after having to walk five miles, I was sure she would punish him. Sway seemed satisfied with this option as well. It wasn’t the first time our kids threw a party and I had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last. They were teenagers. It was to be expected. Setting our street on fire was a first.
I had a meeting that morning with Melissa to discuss the Monster Million coming up and the fan appreciation lunch that Simplex was having for me next week. It went well and then I returned home to help with the mess.
“Remember when Spencer drew that dick on the wall?” Sway asked scrubbing the counter with her rubber gloves on. Her eyebrows scrunched as she dug at what looked to be dried chocolate syrup.
My eyes shot around the house and then back to hers. “Yeah, why, what else did those shit heads do? Please tell me I don’t have a dick on the wall in here.”
“Apparently,” she gestured to the only lawn that hadn’t been destroyed by the fire. “ … Cole has a drawing ability.”
“What a fucking disaster.” I mumbled in shock staring at the patch of grass that had been branded with a welder. There, scorched in my beautiful lawn was another dick with harry balls.
Looking slightly ashamed of himself, Casten appeared in the kitchen holding a spray bottle of bleach and a bucket. “I’ve come to serve my sentence.”
Casten and I stared at each other blankly, each of us waiting for the other to say something. I think he was waiting for me to blow up at him, which I considered but tried the calm approach instead.
“Here’s the deal,” I said, breaking the silence between us, “you’re thirteen—”
“I’m fourteen.” Casten reminded me with an eye roll and a heavy sigh.
“I know that.” I took a deep breath and said what I needed to say. “Drugs are off limits.”
“Why?”
“They just are.” I fumbled through my words trying to get back on track. I wasn’t good at these conversations but my spawn needed to know my ground rules at some point. I didn’t do drugs and I didn’t want them to either.
“Fine,” Casten agreed. “No drugs.”
He left to clean the bathroom off the foyer. Sway looked at me and smiled pulling her hair into a bun. “Good job. I take back my previous statement. You’re not a horrible parent.”
“Thank you.” I kissed her nose. “Do we have any pain pills? My leg is killing me.”
“About that ...” her nose scrunched, her eyes dropped from mine. “You need to get that looked at. I think it’s infected.”
“I think you’re right, fucking no good turtle.”
“I need to go to the store so I will pick up something for you.”
Limping into the family room, I added, “Don’t forget more beer.”
I sat down on the couch with a six-pack intending to finish it off myself when Tommy, with no shirt emerged from the guest bedroom zipping his pants.
“Can I go outside now?” Casten asked when he finished with the backyard. The house was still a mess but it was considerably less of a mess. Instead of a tornado, it just resembled a small riot.
“Your mom’s not here do what you want.” I thought for a moment and then added, “Don’t steal any cars and don’t set anything on fire.”
“Word,” Tommy said sitting beside me. “You’re not good at parenting, are you?”
“No shit. Don’t tell Sway.”
“I thought he was grounded?” Tommy looked at me with confusion. Looking at him now, I could tell that he was still drunk.
“You should be grounded, too. I can’t believe you let all this happen.” I reached for my beer. “Are you questioning my parenting skills?”
“No,” Tommy said, “not at all.”
Casten picked up his iPad on the ottoman by my foot and laughed. “What’s that from?” he pointed to my turtle bite. “It looks like a hickey.”
“I thought you were going outside?”
He laughed the entire way out the door. Little jerk.
“Jesus,” Willie groaned as he made his way inside, “... this place is trashed!” Flopping down next to Tommy, we sat there drinking the rest of the beer.
A smiling Rosa emerged from the same guest where Tommy had come from.
Glaring at me, she gave Tommy a wink and shuffled into the kitchen where I heard the espresso machine going and her god-awful singing. Tommy laughed. Tommy’s laugh was more of a giggle, too. It definitely wasn’t a laugh you expected from a guy but it always made you smile.
“Did you... no ...” I looked back at Rosa in the kitchen. She was stretching out her calves. “Did you sleep with my maid?”
Willie broke out into laughter and curled into himself on the couch. Apparently laughter wasn’t helping his hangover.
Tommy grinned mischievously. “All girls need love, maids too.”
“You’re something else man.” I laughed slapping his shoulder. Reaching for the remote, I turned on the television and avoided all the news channels. I didn’t want to see my yard on the news anymore. Physically, it was bad enough to look at it.
Arie finally came home around six. It was the first time we had seen her since we got home.
The boys and I were still on the couch and Spencer had joined us. “Where the hell have you been?” I asked looking at her appearance.
She looked horrible. Her usually wavy rusty curls were matted and pulled under a gray beanie. Ripped jeans, a torn t-shirt and flip-flops completed her style for today.
“Nice to see you too, Dad,” She looked around ripping the beanie from her head and slamming it into Clint’s chest who walked in behind her. “Where the fuck is Casten?”
“Oh, Casten,” I called out amused. “Your sister is home!”
Arie glared and then shot up the stairs. The scream Casten let out was, well, similar to the sound a cat would make if it was being gang banged.
Lexie walked in behind Clint, looking just as bad as Arie, talking on her phone. “She had big boobs, smelled good, talked like a trucker and told my brother to fuck off. Of course we felt connected to her—” her sentence halted when she saw her dad. “I’m going to go now.”
“Probably a good idea,” I advised her and then looked at Spencer who was scowling at his daughter.
“Where were you last night?” Spencer asked her harshly. I had a feeling I didn’t know half the shit that went down last night but it was comforting to know that my kids weren’t the only out of control hooligans.
Cole bounced in behind Lexi and stopped when he saw Spencer, too.
“I was with Harper,” Lexi told Spencer hiding behind Cole. They both looked like they were ready to run at any moment.
“You mean that little shit that you’ve been seeing who was in prison?” Spencer asked standing up to tower over his kids.
“It’s not like he just got out of prison, Dad.” Lexi rolled her eyes. “It was like a month ago.”
“Well,” Spencer gave me a look and then focused on his kids, “that makes me feel so much better.”
“It should.” Lexi seemed completely satisfied with her response and smiled. She looked exactly like Alley when she smiled. Aside from the black hair, she was a spitting image of her mother.
Spencer walked to the door with his kids when Cole took off running from him. “Get back here, Cole. You’re not off the hook either!”
Clint held up his hands coming to sit next to me on the couch. A contemplative warning was displayed on his face. “I left them with Spencer in charge. When I heard Arie was missing, I finally found her walking to Brian’s house. I might add that Spencer’s kids are little jerks.”
“I know that. It makes me feel a lot better about my own.”
“Why is Arie so mad at Casten?”
“Uh, maybe because he left her at the gas station.”
“So she wasn’t here for this?” I motioned around to the madness.
“Nope, this was all Casten and the hood of hoodlums.”
“Hood of hoodlums,” I laughed and Clint cracked a smile.
“That’s Arie’s nickname for the boys.”
Rosa walked in, smiling again, and mouthed something to Tommy who giggled again. Tommy disappeared after that to find food. Apparently, his hangover was making him sick and he thought he needed food.
“How was your vacation?” Clint tried to make conversation.
“Horrible. I got bit by a fucking turtle and I think my leg is infected.”
“Ewww, Jay!” Rosa looked down at my swollen ankle. “That’s disgusting.”
“Rosa, shouldn’t you be cleaning? And do not call me Jay. I don’t like being called that.”
“Yeah, probably,” she grabbed the remote from Willie making herself comfortable beside me.
“Well then, do it. This place looks like shit and I don’t pay you to sit around.”
“I know.” She reached for the chips Willie had. “If you did, Willie would get a raise.”
“Hey, what did I do to you?” Willie stood and then fell back against the couch, “I stood up too soon.”
Rosa had an excuse for why she couldn’t clean every day.
Some days she would say that her back hurt. Other days she would say that she just wasn’t feeling it and my personal favorite, she couldn’t clean because it was her country’s national “no clean” day. Rosa said she was Mexican but she was Caucasian. She had pale skin and brown hair with blue eyes. She was not Mexican.
“Hey, Dad,” Casten stuck his head inside the door, his voice carrying throughout the foyer and into the family room. Apparently, he’d gotten away from Arie. “Can I go to Shane’s party tonight?”
“Get your ass in here!” I hollered back. I hated having a conversation when he was half hanging out the door. Mostly because he always said things that I couldn’t hear very well and before we knew it, streets were set on fire and my wife was convinced our son was a pothead.
“So, about Shane’s... can I go?” he asked, standing at the edge of the couch, his phone in hand.
“What? No. Jesus. Look around this place. Do you honestly think I should let you go to a party?”
He looked around and smiled. “I’m legendary. That was pretty much the best night of my life,” Casten chuckled as he stared out the window reminiscing.
“Do you pay attention to anything I tell you?”
He shrugged, “Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“Well, there were times this morning, and in the past, that I’ve lost interest when you’re talking. It’s only natural.”
“You need to act more responsible if you ever want to be left alone again. This will never happen again.”
“I know what I’m doing, Dad. Last night was just a little out of control. I’m certain, at future parties, I can do better crowd control.”
“I’m certain you don’t have the faintest goddamn clue what you’re doing,” I said to him. I stood now towering over his five-foot-two frame, “now go clean the pool, make sense?”
“No.”
“Too fucking bad, do it.”
Tommy returned and cooked dinner for me and the boys. About the time Casten had the rubber gloves on again, I was halfway through my second six-pack of beer.
“Be ready at four if you’re coming with me tomorrow,” he said to Casten.
“Four am?” Casten asked in horror dropping the mop. Tommy nodded. “I don’t think so. This isn’t a dairy farm. I never get up that early, ever.”
I laughed. My family made me crazy. Arie and I ended up talking later that night. Apparently she had been left at the gas station before the fire had been set. Either way, they were both grounded. Naturally, she blew up at me for grounding her. What teenage daughter wouldn’t?
I wasn’t pleased about all the damage to the house and our property. I made sure all the kids, including the cousins, worked around the property to repair everything that was broken including the gate. They weren’t getting away that easy. They all tried to act like it was no big deal and they didn’t trash it that bad but if you saw it, our house look like a bunch of crazy monkeys got loose.
A few things we couldn’t figure out how they had been destroyed so we went back to look over our surveillance cameras in the house and property. We watched that shit for hours and on replay sometimes. I’d never seen a party like that before and honestly, I was proud of my kids in some strange sense. If I was there age, that would have been one kick-ass party. I was not impressed with them destroying my GTO or my trophy truck and they would be repaying me for that. I already had Noah and Charlie working at the shop after school and you get bet their asses would be there for years to come now. Those fucking trophy trucks are a hundred grand a piece and my GTO. That was a collector’s car! I was beyond pissed and they knew it.
Sway didn’t feel the need to talk to Casten about the girl in his room and neither did I. He was fourteen and I had a feeling he was already sexually active but I didn’t know for sure. In my opinion, he seemed too young to be having sex so we talked to him about being responsible, locking his door and what not, the house rules so to speak, and taking precautions to prevent pregnancy and diseases. It’s not as though we condoned our kids having sex in our house but we weren’t stupid either. I understood my feelings at that age and if my parents had told me not to have sex, I would have done it anyway regardless.
My theory on Casten being sexually active, and I never told Sway about this, was confirmed when he came with me to Fontana a few weeks after the street fire shenanigan.
That Saturday morning, we were sitting outside my hauler waiting for qualifying to begin when a girl walked up. She looked young, maybe sixteen or seventeen, with bleached blonde hair and very tan. She was your typical California girl you saw at these races. Nevertheless, she wasn’t very bright, her first mistake.
Keep in mind, Casten hadn’t improved on his humor. He still took advantage of the weak and made it his own game. Now was no different.
She asked for my autograph, which I gave her and then moved on to the next fan waiting in a line of about twenty people. As always, in the paddock, they seemed to accumulate out of nowhere.
Out walked Casten with just a pair of khaki shorts and flip-flops on. This was usually what he preferred to wear so we never commented. I don’t know why he felt the need to half dress himself but he did. At least he had pants on. It was an improvement from when he was two.
There he was sitting in a folding chair beside me looking down at his phone when he caught a glimpse of the blonde girl that stuck around after I signed her tank top. The girl was looking at Casten, as he looked up at her.
What did Casten do?
The little shit raised his hips, moved to a slouching position and let his sunglasses slide down his nose. Looking up at her, he said, “You looking for a ride or something, sugar?”
He said this just loud enough for her, a few bystanders, and me, to hear.
The girl blushed. Hell, I think I blushed. Casten must have felt he scored and sparked conversation with her. Kyle overheard as well and shook his head after telling me it was time for qualifying. “He’s definitely a Riley.”
I left after that paying no mind to my flirting son and walked toward the grid to qualify. After securing the pole position for Sunday’s race, I signed a few autographs and then stopped by the bathrooms in the infield. I heard the moans of a woman before I even made it two feet inside the door. Did I walk out? No, I just stood there. I wasn’t sure what to do. It wasn’t the first time I had heard people having sex in the infield. I’d even witnessed it a time or two.
“You like that, don’t you?” I heard a low raspy voice that I recognized as Casten. That little shit was fucking that girl in the bathroom.
Walking out, I shook my head as Tate came around the corner. We ran right into each other.
“Oh,” he righted himself and grabbed my shoulders to keep me from falling too, “Sorry ‘bout that Jameson,”
Shit. Now Casten would know it was me. I failed to realize that Casten could have cared less if he got caught having sex in the bathroom with a girl who was more than likely a few years older than him.
Turns out, he didn’t.
The girl, however, she cared. “Your Dad’s in here!” she squealed in horror. “Oh, my God!”
Not wanting to hear anymore, I jetted from the door as did Tate.
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Tate laughed beside me as I tried to focus on something else, anything else, but I couldn’t.
Casten was all smiles that night when we went out to dinner with Tate and his son Jacob.
The conversation started when Tate asked him, “So Casten, you enjoying Cali?”
“Oh, yeah,” Casten nodded, dipping his French fry in ketchup. “It’s been great.”
My only bit of parenting to him, “You’re using protection, right?”
He nodded and then smiled. “I’m not stupid.”
Later that same night, he looked at me with a smile. “I wasn’t having sex with that girl, Dad.”
“Oh,” was all I said to him. It made me feel better but it also made me nervous that soon he would be active in that way.
I wasn’t comfortable with Casten being fourteen and sexually active but what else was I going to do, stop him? I could I guess and keep him locked up, but he’d do it anyway. My theory, and most didn’t agree with, was to educate him on the consequences of getting a sexually transmitted disease or getting some girl pregnant. I did that. He knew very well what would happen and he was cautious, so he said.
I knew my sons weren’t stupid but it also felt wrong to watch them follow in my footsteps, with women. Luckily, Axel pulled his head out of his ass and stayed with Lily. Casten he was enjoying himself just like any fourteen-year-old boy would be. Other than working at the shop during the week for Axel’s team, he had a pretty easy life, but that was Casten. He was easy and always had been, aside from potty training. That was a nightmare. You didn’t have to understand Casten, he was just him. Smiling, energetic and here to have a good time, my house was proof of that.