Happy Hour (Racing on the Edge) (42 page)

What followed was a stream of loud ear splitting crashes.

Jameson was like a ticking time bomb of immense strength, combined with a penchant for highly intelligent over-analysis. It could make for a deadly combination at times.

Kyle shook his head leaning against the car while the crashes dissipated, his arms folded over his chest. “He acts like a goddamn child at times.”

“I’ll talk to him.” I suggested leaving Emma and Kyle outside.

I peeked my head inside the door hesitantly, unsure if I would be hit with a flying object.

“Jameson?” I called out searching for him.

I found him slumped on the floor against the cabinets. With his head bent forward, his knees were raised, his hands resting on his knees with a piston in his right hand.

With his gaze fixated on the piston, he spoke. “You shouldn’t be in here right now, Sway.” Jameson warned. His voice surprised me, he sounded irate, a tone he rarely used with me.

I didn’t listen though. Instead, I sunk down beside him on the floor, looking over the wreckage in the hauler.

Parts, paper, and tools were scattered across the tile floor in the aftermath. Water dripped from the counter where he’d smashed a gallon container that was sitting there.

Watching the water drip forming a puddle, I jumped when I heard the door opened.

“Jameson?” a familiar nasally voice called out.

Seriously?

We both looked up to find Chelsea sticking her head inside.

I almost grabbed the piston from Jameson and threw it at her.

 “Are you ready?” Chelsea asked looking at Jameson.

He hesitated for a brief moment before replying. “I’ll be
...
there in a minute.”

I looked over at him, on the verge of tears once again.

He stared back at me, his expression unreadable and then his eyes fell back to the piston.

That’s why he nodded? He agreed to go with her?

Chelsea smiled at Jameson again. “I’ll be waiting.” She turned and glared at me before walking out.

“I’ll let you get to
...
that
.” I choked, tears threatening to overtake me. I felt as though my heart had just been lynched right then.

Jameson closed his eyes, shaking his head, unable to answer. His breathing was heavy and uneven. Similar to earlier today, he looked as though he was going to vomit. He swept his trembling hand across the back of his slick neck. I could literally feel his body trembling next to me.

If I wasn’t so upset right now, I would be concerned about his physical condition but no, I
didn’t
care. Well I did, but I didn’t.

Trying to hold on to some dignity, and telling myself  not to cry, I rose from my place on the floor beside him and felt his hand grasped mine when I started to walk away, his warm fingers grazed mine.

“Sway,” his voice cracking as he tugged on my hand. “Don’t go,
please
honey.”

I couldn’t look at him. “Why?
Why
should I stay?” An emptiness was lingering and I struggled not to fall to my knees before him.

“I
...
don’t want you to go. Not like this.”

Still refusing to look his direction, teetering on the edge of control, I maneuvered my hand away from him to lean against the counter with my back to him. My head fell forward against the cabinets. “
Why
, Jameson?”

A deafening silence spread throughout the hauler waiting for him to answer. The only sounds were my silent sobs and Jameson’s heavy breathing behind me.

What surprised me, the piston he was holding flying across the hauler striking the wall beside me, the metal wall indented on impact.

“Fuck Sway,” his voice was harsh with an emotion I couldn’t identify. “What do you
want
me to say? Just fucking tell me what you want to hear and I’ll say it. I’ll say whatever you want me to!” He pleaded in a desperate but brusque tone.

That statement right there brought me back to reality. And though I wanted to hear he loved me and wanted me to stay, that wasn’t going to happen. It wouldn’t mean anything if I had to tell him to say it.

“That’s the problem, Jameson.” My eyes fell closed. “I shouldn’t
have
to tell you.”

I couldn’t stop the sob that broke through. He tried to reach for me again but I shook him off and made my way out of the hauler, stepping over the piston lying at my feet.

It hurt every muscle in my body to walk away.

It was unnatural for me, something my muscle memory for him was against, forced even. When I reached the door, I could feel the burn of his anguished eyes on me.

Once the door closed behind me; a string of loud profanities followed by another loud crash of tools hitting the walls of the hauler.

It wasn’t just a few tools—he was destroying everything that was left of it. All you heard was deafening cracks of metal hitting metal while he ripped everything apart. That ticking time bomb had detonated.

Do you ever wonder when the exact moment was that your life turned to shit? I did.

I was certain I was in that moment right then.

Aside from the time I lost my virginity in the back of a truck at a dirt track, this was what I referred to as “rock bottom”.

Crying uncontrollably like the broken-hearted pit lizard I was, I stumbled across the paddock towards the driver’s compound to towards Jameson’s motor coach.

I walked past Kyle on the way there so now he was tagging along behind me trying to convince me to let him give me a ride to the airport.

Fighting the nausea and panic, they seemed to be balancing each other out and keeping the other from overtaking me completely.

When I realized I had no way of getting to the airport by myself, I agreed to let Kyle take me. After all, I could hardly navigate walking right then, driving just didn’t seem like a good idea.

“Are you okay, Sway?” Kyle’s eyes looked over me, searching for any sign of damage. “Did he hurt you?”

“No. I’m fine.” I tried to speak calmly but I swayed in place. I couldn’t tell him that physically I was fine, emotionally, not so much. “I just need to leave.”

I stepped outside the motor coach after getting my bags to see Darrin walk past and linger near the Expedition, waiting.

Kyle was already inside the truck so I had to pass by Darrin, alone, to get to the vehicle.

This day just keeps getting better, doesn’t it?

Right before I was about to open the door, I heard his dark vexing laughter. “You didn’t think he’d want friends with benefits forever with Chelsea around, did you?”

Without thinking, my dirt-track-raised-instincts shinned like I was the center of the solar system. I didn’t hesitate for one second. I stomped over to him, dropped my bags at his feet, grabbed him by the shoulders and brought my knee hard between his legs, and I think I felt his balls crunch.

“You didn’t think you’d be able to use that dick forever, did you?” I countered, laughing the same dark vexing laughter and trotted my brokenhearted pit lizard ass back to the car while he moaned on the ground.

When I got inside the car, Kyle was laughing so hard he could barely speak. Eventually he stringed together: “That was awesome,” And then followed up with a concerned gaze and, “Remind me never to piss you off.”

Pulling through the gates, I saw Jameson getting into a black SUV with Chelsea. Not that I really gave it much effort, but I couldn’t help the sobs that broke through when he glanced back at me. I knew he couldn’t see me with the blacked out windows but I saw him and that alone was enough.

I felt bad for Kyle, having to drive me to the airport while I cried like a baby but he was a trooper and let me be. Every time he tried to help or comfort me, I just sobbed harder so he finally gave up and just let me cry it out.

I had no idea this would feel so horrible when I decided that night in Charlotte to do whatever this was I did. The pain, the regret, and the sadness that I felt, was overwhelming.

The most overwhelming part about it was given the chance; I’d do it all over again right now if he asked me to.

I hated how he consumed my thoughts. I hated how every decision I made was with him in mind. If you’ve never had someone control you this way, without knowing, you couldn’t understand how I felt and how much it bothered me to feel that way.

So my crazy-irrational-break-your-heart-logic
was
crazy-irrational-break-your-heart-logic after all. It was one hell of a three weeks. My crankcase had seen more align boring and press forging in those three weeks than ever before. I couldn’t say I regretted doing any of it because I didn’t. I don’t regret anything that happened, it was the best three weeks I could have imagined. I wished he would see that I was enough for him and that he didn’t have to ask me to stay. I would have stayed just to be with him but I’m not what he needs.

Maybe Chelsea was what he needed, someone without obligations back home, someone who could be there for him every weekend.

Damn you crazy-irrational-break-your-heart-logic. Damn you.

Now I needed to go find that support group for pit lizards who got their heart broken because this pit lizard, currently crying her eyes out on a plane back to Washington, had her heart broken.

I didn’t care that the entire plane was staring at me like I’d lost my mind because really, I could give a flying fuck what they thought.

When the passengers next to me started putting in their headphones, I really wanted to stand up and shout something completely inappropriate like, “Jesus Christ, I have crabs, give a girl and break!” but I didn’t.

Instead, I sat there and sobbed my broken pit lizard heart out, occasionally blowing my nose really hard and asking the woman next to me to hold my snotty tissues.

That’s what she deserved for putting headphones on and acting like I didn’t exist.

Once I arrived back at the Sea-Tac Airport, I was walking to get my bags when I passed by a sports bar with highlights of today’s NASCAR race.

Naturally, I stopped, broken hearted or not, I just want a glimpse of him.

I caught the last half of the highlights. “While Bobby Cole went on to win the race, his hotheaded teammate “Rowdy Riley”, didn’t fare so well in the race or the hit he took in the race for the championship. Fox Sports tried to catch up with Jameson after the race, a representative for the team said he declined any interviews.”

They cut to a view of his hauler. “It appears this hotheaded rookie took his frustrations with today’s DNF rather hard and out on his team’s equipment. It was reported that Jameson destroyed the teams hauler not more than fifteen minutes after this afternoons race when he wrecked in turn two, causing some thirty thousand dollars damage in equipment.”

Knowing I was behind the temperament, I stopped listening after that. I also knew my heart was in about a million pieces right then but I couldn’t help but want to be there with him.

It had only been four hours since I last saw him and I was already tempted to fly back to him and tell him I’d be anything he wanted me to be as long as I was with him.

You’re pathetic Sway, absolutely fucking pathetic. Go find your support group.