Pace Laps (Racing on the Edge Book 10) (22 page)

I laughed, leaning into the side of the hauler as he stared at me. “You know how that happens, right?”

“Shut up. Yes, I know
how
it happens. I just fuck,” he cursed, pacing now.

“Hey, man. Relax. You guys are great with the kids. It’ll be fine.”

He snorted, shaking his head as though he didn’t believe me. “Yeah, right.”

Truth was, I didn’t know they would be fine. Four kids were a lot, especially with their lifestyle, but if anyone could make it work, they could. They had love and a relationship a lot like Sway and me, and we did just fine over the years. We lost the kids on a handful of occasions at the races but eventually everyone turned up unharmed.

WHENEVER WE RETURNED to the west coast there was a sense of sadness that followed. Though it would always be my hometown, after Jack died in Cottage Grove, I think it was a reminder of how quickly our lives changed.

It’d been three years since he’d passed and it never, nor would it ever get easier to be in the pits at Cottage Grove, which was where we were tonight surrounded by the majority of our family. That was when Hayden came inside the hauler, pissed at her husband.

Hayden threw a positive pregnancy test right at Casten’s head. “I’m going to kill you. You said you got a vasectomy.”

Casten looked like he was sweating bullets and picked it up to stare at it. “Hypothetically, yes.”

Oh no. This was bad. Sway leaned into my shoulder. “She’s really mad at him.”

I grinned. “It’s great.”

She rolled her eyes and continued to watch them argue.

“No.” Hayden shook her head. “There’s no hypothetical about it.”

“Okay… I didn’t go through with it.” He turned to Rager for support. “He didn’t do it either.”

“I wasn’t scheduled for one,” Rager defended from where he sat with Arie on his lap, Bristol sitting on hers. “You were. Though I think I need to go back and get one now.”

Arie turned around and slapped his shoulder as if she was offended by that remark. “You said nothing while we were making the baby.”

Rager refused to answer her.

“Right.” Casten turned back around. “Anyway, I mean, fuck. They were gonna stick a knife near my junk. What was I supposed to do?”

She glared. No. Actually glared wasn’t the right word. More like scowled with a murderous expression. “You. Asshole.”

He dropped to his knees kissing her belly. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t forgive you.”

“Well, you will at some point.”

She pushed him away. “Not likely.”

Casten glanced at us when Hayden was out of sight. “She loves me.”

“Yeah, sure.”

It was late and the last place I wanted to be tonight was at the shop getting my car ready for World Finals, but I guessed I should have thought about that before I went and tried to make a pass on the outside last night in Salina. I’d rather have been in bed with Sway.

Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I checked the last message she sent me with a picture of her sitting on the bed waiting for me, proudly displaying her tits. Ever since the surgery, she has been obsessed with them like a fancy new toy five years later. I could understand her excitement. They looked amazing.

“Jameson!” Spencer shouted, slamming the door. “Are you in here?”

Fuck. Spencer found me. “Yep.”

There went my quiet night.

Taking a deep breath, I prepared myself as my brother approached me. I wasn’t the least bit surprised he showed up. Casten was right, Cole was in trouble when he disappeared. He ended up getting arrested a few months back and me, thinking I could help out when Alley called me in tears, I bailed him out of jail and paid off Nate, his drug dealer. I had my reasoning behind it, but Spencer didn’t always see it the way I did. Which was why he stormed inside the shop looking for me.

“It’s always about you. You think the fucking world revolves around you, and you can just interfere with everyone. For years I’ve let you take the lead. When you raced, it was always your neck on the line so I stood back and let you do it your way. Well, guess what, Jameson? This is not one of your goddamn races. This is my family. Stay out of it.”

There we were again, arguing about Cole and his stupid-ass decisions but nobody—not even my brother—got away with talking to me like that. Maybe my mother and Sway would too, but even then, they’d better have a good fucking excuse.

What Spencer didn’t know was how many times I’d bailed his youngest son out of jail. I wasn’t not about to tell him either. Fuck that.

“He was in trouble and he came to me,” I felt the need to tell him.

That was essentially a lie. I hated lying to him, but the truth was Alley was the one who called me and asked me to help, but there was no way in hell I was going to tell Spencer that.

Spencer may be pissed, but if he knew Alley came to me for help, I had a feeling he would fucking blow a gasket. Mostly because he told both of us to stay out of it.

Get this, I don’t listen very well. Surprised? Probably not.

He leveled me a serious look. “I’m not a fucking idiot. I know what’s going on. It’s my kid and you need to back the fuck up. For once, this isn’t about you,” he added. “You can’t control
everything
. I told you not to help him anymore.”

Did I deserve that?
In some ways, I thought I did.

“I mean, fuck, Jameson.” Shaking his head, he threw his hands up and began pacing the shop. “When Casten was a kid, he stole cars as a fucking sport.” His brow raised. “Did I ever interfere with that? Did I ever tell you how to deal with him or how to punish him? No. I didn’t. I stayed out of your kids’ lives.”

Standing, I buried my hands in the pockets of my jeans. “That’s totally different and you know it, Spencer. This wasn’t just about me bailing Cole out of jail. He borrowed money from the wrong people. People with connections. If I let him stay there, shit was going to happen. I mean, fuck, man, what was I supposed to do, let them beat the shit out of him and hope he survived?”

Spencer hung his head and then looked back up at me through his dark lashes. It made him look more intimidating that way. Mostly because that was what he was trying to achieve. “You should have come to me.”

“And you would have blown up on him and made it worse, or better yet, maybe even ignored it.” Shaking my head, my heart pounded as my irritation for the situation amplified. “What the fuck does it matter anyway? It’s over and done with, and he’s out of trouble. No harm done.”

He raised an eyebrow and took a step toward me. I could actually count on one hand the physical arguments Spencer and I had been in. It looked to me like I was about to head on over to the other hand. “No harm done? Are you fucking kidding me? You just can’t fucking stay out of it, can you? You just can’t leave shit alone.”

“I get that you’re pissed, but back off,” I growled, hoping he understood I wasn’t fucking around.

“So you bailed him out.” He practically spat the words at me. “And what exactly do you see happening now? You think Cole is just gonna see the err of his ways? Fuck, Jameson. Your money can’t fix everything. I get it, you’ve got money, a lot of fucking money and because of that you think you can just buy your way out of everything.”

My jaw clenched at the accusation. I’d never bought my way out of anything. Sure, I had money, more than the rest of my family, but still, I didn’t throw it around like it was nothing.

“Don’t you come in here and act like I’m the asshole for trying to help. Fuck that.”

Naturally, I never backed down to Spencer. I was the younger brother. Older brothers were kind of like meeting a bear on a trail.
Don’t make eye contact, but also don’t back down. The moment they sense fear is the moment you’re done for.

Spencer raised his hands and for a minute, I thought he was actually going to take a swing at me, but instead, he grabbed the back of his head and paced like a caged animal.

“Jesus Christ, Jameson, how is it that you can be so damn smart but so fucking stupid at the same time? Cole has a big problem. It’s bigger than just getting into trouble and having to be bailed out of jail. Why is it you can’t see that by you being there to clean up his mess every time he fucks up, he’s never going to learn how to fix his own damn life?”

If you asked me, he was overreacting. How could I turn my back on the kid when I knew exactly what those drug dealers were going to do to him if I didn’t help? I guessed in some ways I did it because I had hope Cole would turn himself around if he knew there was someone willing to help him get on the right track.

“You know, fuck it! I’m telling you right now, stay out of my business, Jameson. If Cole calls you, tell him no.” He waited for me to look at him, his blue eyes stone cold. “I mean it. I find out you’re helping him again behind my back, and the next conversation we have is going to be a lot more painful for both of us.” Turning around, he took a few steps away from me.

“You’re overreacting.” Of course I would say that. Would he expect anything different?

He stopped and turned to face me. He knew I had to have the last word. “Am I? What if this was Casten?”

His fist clenched at his side, and I was wise enough to know I needed to say something else. Believe it or not, I’d gotten wiser in my years. “Listen, you’ve got my back,” I told him, attempting to diffuse him. “Always. On the track, in my life, you’ve been by my side through everything and I’m just trying to have yours.”

Spencer snorted, his jaw flexing. “I get it. I’m the comedic relief for this family, but this is where it stops. You don’t go behind my back and take care of it. He’s
my
kid and
my
problem. Stay out of it.”

“Look, Spencer… When I was seventeen, I left home knowing nothing and you were there for me,
always
. You’re taking this the wrong way. I’m not trying to do this to one up you. I’m doing this to help you. I will never stand by and watch my family be threatened. I’m sorry. I won’t.”

“It’s not your fucking decision, Jameson.” And then he shoved me back against my toolbox. “Don’t you think I know what’s going on? Alley and I have been dealing with this for the last ten fucking years. It’s been tearing us apart. I’m doing this to teach him a lesson he desperately needs to learn. I’m not asking a lot of you, but I’m asking you to back out on this one.”

I could see where this was heading. We were about to say something we would regret, and I didn’t want that. So I held my hands up. “Okay, I’m out of it.”

Did I really believe I was?

No.