Aced (22 page)

Silence fills the line. I visualize him picking his jaw up off the ground. Insubordinate Rylee is rare and yet he shouldn’t doubt I’d go there instantly when it comes to my boys.

“Rylee.” My name again said with detached frustration.

“After working for you for twelve years, you didn’t think I was important enough to let know that—”

“I was protecting you.”

“Protecting me?” I all but yell into the phone, temper boiling, and body trembling with disbelieving anger. “How about you do your job and start protecting those who matter the most? The boys? Zander?”

“I was,” he says, his voice barely audible. “If I’d told you without all the information, you’d act in haste, rush to The House before all facts are straight . . . and then that leave of absence would be permanent, Rylee. And that would not only hurt you, but the boys too. You are their number-one advocate, their fighting force, and so I was protecting Zander by not telling you. If you get fired, you’re not going to be there when he needs you the most.”

His words knock the whipping winds from my otherwise stalwart sails. They should shock me from my funk but almost plummet me further into it because it makes me realize how much I miss my boys, and how lost I feel right now without being able to champion for them even when I know it’s best all around with the baby coming sooner rather than later.

“Teddy,” I finally say, a cross between disbelief and gratitude mixed in my tone because he’s right.

“I wanted to talk to his caseworker at social services first, get the answers before I called you.”

“Okay. I just . . .” My voice fades off as I shake my head and try to figure where to go with this conversation when I was so sure of my knee-jerk reaction two minutes ago. “Why step forward now?”

“Opportunity? Obligation?” He fishes for the right answer when I know deep down it’s none other than a self-serving agenda.

“Zander called me, Teddy. He’s scared to death.”
And I am too
.

“I know he is, Rylee, but this is what we strive for. To find good homes for these boys and give them the life they deserve. I know you’re close to him and worry but social services is doing their job and vetting this couple—”

“Not just any couple,” I say, incredulity in my voice, “but his uncle who used to be a hardcore drug addict. They want money.” There’s no other reason in my mind that someone would ignore their own flesh and blood for almost seven years and then suddenly want him.

“We don’t know that. People can change.” The laugh I give in response is so full of disbelief that it doesn’t even sound like my own. My stomach tightens and acid churns in my gut.

They don’t love him
. So many thoughts race and circle but that’s the one I cling to the most.

“Perhaps, but I’m a little leery of accepting he wants more than just the monthly living subsidy that comes along with fostering Zander. It’s been so long Teddy, and voila, he sees a picture on TV of Zander and me, and all of a sudden he feels this deep-seated need to be an uncle again? I don’t buy it.”

It’s bullshit is what it is.

His audible sigh is heard through the line. I feel my stress levels rising, not great for the blood pressure, no doubt. “Let’s just see what happens, shall we? They’re going to have a monitored visitation, see how things fare, and go from there.”

“But Zander doesn’t want to,” I shout.

“Of course not, Ry. It’s scary for him, but this is our job. Get them back with a family unit, and have the most normal life possible.”

“I still don’t believe for a minute that Zander’s best interest is on anyone’s mind but mine.”

“I take offense to that, Rylee, and am going to chalk it up to you being upset.” The stern warning is noted and yet a part of me doesn’t care. “Trust me to do my job.”

“Yes, sir,” I state, trying to contain the sneer in my voice that I feel in regard to the reprimand. “I’m upset, Teddy, because he’s upset and I can’t do a damn thing about it.”

“I know, kiddo. And that’s why you’re their number-one advocate. I’ll keep you abreast of the situation. Now I’ve got to go before Mallory gets in a tizzy that I’m working on a Sunday.”

“I’m sorry for bugging you,” I apologize, acknowledging that he has a life to lead beyond the boys. Just like I do. I recall Colton’s words about how I need to start taking care of our family too.

I blow out a breath as I sink down into the chair behind the desk and try to process the past ten minutes.

And I don’t think any amount of time will help any of it make sense.

If someone steps forward and wants him because they love him, wants to give him a traditional home life with the white picket fence and Zander falls in love with them back, I’ll be all for it. One hundred percent. But the scared tone and the broken waver in his voice scream unease and fear. They tell me so much more than any words could ever express.

Everything is tumbling out of control so fast around me and there is absolutely nothing I can do short of take him as my own. And as appealing as that sounds, then that would mean I’d leave six other boys to feel like I chose him over them. And I’d never do that. I love them all.

I clutch my stomach as a sharp pain contracts around it and tell myself to breathe deeply and try to calm down. The problem is that I know calm is not a damn option anymore, because it seems lately, everyone is out for something.

And that makes me worry how exactly I’m going to bring a baby into this world, and be able to protect him or her as fiercely as I’d like.

“Ry? Are you coming?” Haddie’s voice breaks through the haze of disbelief and concern that weigh down my every thought.

“Be right there,” I say. I’d much rather sit here and try to figure out what I can do to make this all right again.

“And it seems Donavan can do no wrong on the track this season, Larry. Let’s just hope all of his extra-curricular activity off it doesn’t prevent him from finishing strong here today,” the television broadcaster says as the camera pans to a wide shot of Colton’s car on pit row with the crew standing around it. I blanch at the commentator’s statement, but my skin is getting thicker and thicker with each passing day.

It doesn’t make it any easier but rather more my new normal. And I’m not really sure I like this new normal at all.

In my periphery I see Haddie watching me to see my reaction to the comment on the TV. I don’t want to talk about it so I concentrate on the images on the screen. I’m able to make out the back of Becks’s head, Smitty’s face tight with concentration as he adjusts something on the wing, and then I find Colton in the back, shooting the shit with another racer. The sight of him calms me instantly and has me reaching for my cell in anticipation of his promised pre-race phone call. His voice is exactly what I need to hear right now.

“Fuck them,” Haddie says, holding her middle fingers up to the television, making me laugh. I can tell that was her intention with the comment when I look her way.

“You could have gone, you know. I would have been fine by myself,” I say, knowing full well I’d rather have her here with me to help calm my nerves since I can’t be at the race.

“What? And leave your pregnant ass behind? Nope. Not gonna happen.” She smiles as she lifts her wine glass to her lips. “Besides, someone had to stay here and guard the wine cabinet.”

“Guard it or deplete it?” I ask with a raise of my eyebrows that gets a laugh from her followed by a guilty shrug.

“What good is it if it’s not consumed?”

“True,” I muse, shifting on the couch when a sharp pain hits my lower back. As much as I try to hide the wince, it doesn’t go unnoticed by Haddie. I grit my teeth and ride it out as my stomach rolls again and fight the wave of nausea that temporarily holds my body hostage.

“You okay?” Haddie asks. She shifts to get up and move over to me, but I stop her with a wave of my hand as I take a deep breath and plaster a fraudulent smile on my lips.

“Yeah. The baby’s not too thrilled about something I ate, I think,” I lie, talking myself into it when I know it’s most likely the stress over everything: the tape, Zander, the race. Too many things at once.

“Uh-huh,” she says in that way that tells me she’s not buying my story. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the phone call about Zander or the—”

The ring of my cell cuts her off and I scramble to answer it, fumbling my phone even though it’s in my hand. I just really need to hear Colton’s voice to quiet everything in my head.

“Colton?” I sound desperate but I don’t care.

“Hey sweetheart. I’m just about to get strapped in but I wanted to call real quick and tell you I love you,” he says, voice gruff, the sound of chaos all around him in the background.

“I love you too,” I murmur into the phone followed by an audible sigh.

“You okay?” he asks. It sounds as though he is searching to understand the caution in my response.

The tears sting the backs of my eyes as I nod my head before I realize he can’t see me. I swallow over the lump in my throat. “Yes. It’s race day. You know how nervous I get.” And technically I’m not lying to him. I do get nervous, but it’s the other things about Zander I desperately need to share that I can’t before he gets on the track.

Things I can't have mulling around in his head when he's supposed to be concentrating on the race.

“I’m going to be fine, Ry. In fact, I’m going to win and then rush home to get my victory kiss from you and claim my checkered flag.”

My mind flashes to my cache of checkered-flag panties—my unofficial yet Colton-approved race day uniform. The underwear I have worn every race day since that first one in St. Petersburg so very long ago.

Just like the ones I’m wearing right now.

“Smooth one, Ace.” I laugh, feeling a tad better even though his words do nothing to abate my unease when I see him on television going two hundred plus miles an hour, wedged between a concrete barrier and another mass of metal.

“You like that?” He chuckles. “You wearing them?”

“You better win and rush home so you can find out for yourself.”

“Hot damn.”

“Be safe,” I reiterate as I hear Becks call his name in the background.

“Always.” I know that cocky grin is on his face, and his certainty allows me to breathe a little easier.

“Okay.”

“Hey Ryles?” he says just as I’m about to pull the phone away from my ear.

“Yeah?”

“I race you.” And I can hear his laugh as he hangs up the phone, but the feeling those words evoke stay long after the line goes dead. I sit there with my phone clutched to my chest and send a little prayer into the universe to let him come back whole and safe to me.

“You okay?” Haddie asks softly.

“I’ll tell him about Zander when he gets home,” I say as if I need to justify my actions.

“Radio check, One. Two. Three.” The radio comes to life as Colton’s spotter calls out and immediately distracts us from our conversation.

“Radio check, A, B, C,” Colton says, and for the first time in what feels like hours, a smile lights up my face.

But the low ache deep in my belly stays constant. The ball of tension sitting in my chest only increases as the familiar call is made on the television, “Gentlemen, start your engines.”