The Legend (18 page)

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 in a low raspy voice I recognized as my son, 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 Casten could care less if he got caught having sex in the bathroom
with a girl that was more than likely ten 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’s 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
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, make him stay locked up, but he’d do it
anyway. My theory, most didn’t agree with, was that I would educate him on the
consequences if he was to get someone pregnant and the diseases. 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 as any fourteen-year-old kid
would want. Other than working at the shop during the week for Axels’ 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.

7.
Head Sock – Jameson

Head sock – A fire resistant head mask worn
under a drivers helmet to protect them should a fire arise inside the cockpit.

When I got
back home after that weekend in Fontana with Casten, Sway had arrived home from
Eldora where she’d been watching Axel race in the Four Crown Nationals.

I didn’t
feel the need to tell her about Casten with the girl in the bathroom when she
told me Arie had moved in with her
shitfuck
of a
boyfriend over the weekend and Axel got a fine of $25,000 for punching Brian
Tyler, the
shitfuck
Arie was dating.

I might
add he was the same
shitfuck
that got her arrested
earlier in the year.

Our little
spaz children were no longer children but becoming adults that were giving me
gray hairs and setting streets on fire. It was around that time in my life
where I began to feel bad for my parents.

Sway and I
sat there in the kitchen discussing Aries’ latest rebellious move when she said
to me, “we will just have to wait to see if she comes to her senses.”

“What made
her move out? Did you get in an argument or something?”

Sway shot
me a look of horror. “No! She packed her shit when I was in Eldora and then
left me a fucking text message.” Pushing the phone at me, I looked at the text
message, “Real classic huh?”

“She’s
sixteen—”

“She’s
seventeen, Jameson.”

“Regardless,
she’s seventeen and I won’t allow that.”

“What are
you going to do?” Sway laughed. “
...
Drag her
home by her hair?”

“If I have
to, I will.”

“So
mature,” she rolled her eyes pouring a glass of rum.

Rosa
walked in holding a tissue to her eyes. “I can’t believe our little girl moved
out.”

“Really,”
I balked looked at Sway and then Rosa. “She’s not your little girl, Rosa.”

Ignoring
me, Rosa poured her own glass of rum and started drinking with Sway.
Apparently, I was no longer part of the conversation as they made small talk
with each other. There were times, and now was a good reminder of it, I felt
like my lifestyle was harder than in needed to be. Life on the road was never
good for family life. My biggest fear was that they suddenly wouldn’t need me
anymore. That they had become so accustomed to me not being around, that they
wouldn’t notice when I was. My biggest fear was that they would make a life
without me.

I had a
hard time with Arie dating Brian. I didn’t trust him and this tattooed angry
little girl was not the Arie that we knew. She used to be such a sweet girl.
She was a little girl that would be bouncing with excitement when I got home
and rush to the door to wrap her-self around my legs. Now all I got was an eye
roll if I was lucky.

With Axel
suspended for punching Brian, I had a feeling it was something more than your
average pit fight. Knowing Axel, I knew there was more to it than racing. Axel
didn’t go around punching just anyone. Usually it was provoked for him to take
a swing at someone.

Just as I
was about to call Axel, who was now heading to Terra Haute, Van called.

“Jameson, we
have a problem,” were his first words followed by, “meet me in twenty minutes
at the sprint car shop.”

I was
there in ten along with Sway and Rosa who insisted on coming with us.

Van was
waiting by his car, his burly arms crossed over his chest with his head bent
down staring at the ground.

“What’s
up?” I asked reaching for Sway’s hand as she caught up to my jog over to Van.

His eyes,
cold and tense, met with mine and reminded me of the time he found Darrin in
the bar. Van was different these days, a former Navy Seal, he was hired by our
attorney back in 2003 to be my bodyguard at a time when a rival driver and me
were heavily involved in an on and off the track battle.

Emotionally
I still wasn’t over the fact that Darrin had gotten me to a point back then
where he knew it would destroy me, Sway. Van also lost his family because of
Darrin. He and I had a connection that was hard to break we understood each
other.

After the
thing with Darrin, Van had become close with our family and eventually
re-married and had a little girl, Macy, and adopted Andrea’s twin boys, Logan
and Lucas, after they were married.

He always
treated my kids like his own. Their safety meant everything to him. Over time,
I realized just how much of an impact they had on him. The only way I could
describe this would be the potato theory. You can put a potato in a freezer
eventually it will grow roots. You can wrap it in plastic and freeze it, and it
will still grow roots. My point, even frozen spuds grow roots eventually. My
kids were Van’s frozen roots.

The
faraway look in Van’s eyes confirmed he felt the connection between now and
back when Darrin had gotten to Sway.

I was
about to ask him again what was up when he let out a deep sigh and opened the
back door to his SUV revealing Arie.

Arie sat
curled up in the seat, her legs drawn to her chest as she shook with sobs. At
first glance, you wouldn’t think anything was wrong with her, aside from the
crying, until you saw her face.

I couldn’t
see
her
face. No, the face I saw was one of a girl who’d given
everything to a boy, once again, only to have him use her.

At the
sight, I thought for sure I was having a heart attack. Sway gasped when Arie
looked at her moving quickly to sit next to her. My stomach dropped, the pain
surged through my arms and legs, throbbing. The blinding anger rose, I could
feel my chest tighten trying to subdue the onset.

Sway
cradled Aries’ head in her lap, sitting beside her on the bench seat. The black
leather of the seat only made the red bloodstains on her white shirt more of a
shock, a horrifying shock.

Sway’s
eyes searched mine waiting for my reaction. Arie refused to look at either one
of us.

The thing
is
,
I didn’t see Arie in that moment. I saw Sway lying
in a hospital bed because I couldn’t protect her against Darrin. Now
, nearly twenty years later,
history had repeated
itself. Only now, this was my own flesh and blood. A little girl that I watch
carefully as she slept in my arms as an infant, praying nothing bad would ever
happened to her. The same little girl would wait up for me on Sundays. A little
girl that I taught to ride a bike, kissed her scrapes when she fell, played tea
cups on Monday mornings and watch
The Princess and the Pea
repeatedly
for an entire year. The same little girl that had me spray paint her Barbie
Power Wheel to match my race car when she was four.

This was a
difficult image to stomach that’s for sure.

Grady, who
had been inside the sprint car shop, came out with a nervous energy to him. “Is
everything all right out here?”

Van and I
looked back at Grady he looked concerned. “Everything’s fine Grady. Please
leave.”

He didn’t
need telling twice but something struck me as off. He was at the sprint car
shop when I didn’t tell him he needed to be. He should have been off today as I
gave him every Monday and Tuesday off. I didn’t have time to focus on that now.
Instead, my attention was on my daughter.

“How did
you find out about this before me?” I asked turning back around to face Van.

“She
called me to come get her,” Van said beside me, his voice was low. “It seems
Brian wasn’t happy with Axel’s reaction today and took it out on Arie.”

When Van
spoke, Arie sobbed louder clutching herself closer to Sway whispering, “I’m
sorry.”

“It’s all
right baby.” Sway soothed, gently running her hand across her back. Arie
flinched squirming from her touch.

Sway
swallowed and then lifted Aries’ shirt. I lost it completely.

“What the
fuck happened?” I demanded of Van. “Where is that fucking kid?”

He shook
his head slowly, his eyes drowning. When it came to my kids, I knew him well
enough to know that this is who he was. “I’m not really sure but I think we
should get her to the doctor first. Those aren’t her only injuries.”

I don’t think
I will ever understand why the strong preyed upon the weak. I’ll never
understand why good people die young and assholes get to live happy long lives.
I’ll never understand why a six-year old little boy with bright chocolate eyes
never got to see his first race and lost a battle he should have never had to
endure. I’ll never understand why planes crash and kill innocent victims or why
one person loses their life in a wreck and others walk away without a scratch.

Mostly, in
that moment, I couldn’t understand why Brian would do something like this to my
little girl simply because Axel punched him. I didn’t know everything that
happened between them and I honestly didn’t care. All I cared about was
why
Brian felt the need to take it out on Arie. I needed answers.

Sway and
my mom ended up taking Arie to the hospital while Van and Spencer went to
question Brian. I never liked Brian and he was about to find out just how much
I disliked him. He was about to have a really bad day.