Pace Laps (Racing on the Edge Book 10) (7 page)

Casing – The tire body beneath the tread and sidewalls.

I told myself when my father died of brain cancer and kept it from me, I would never keep something like this from my children. Unfortunately, I understood why Charlie kept it from me. And I totally understood
why
my mother did. Jack was the same age I was when my mother died, and I didn’t think he could comprehend what that meant.

Maybe that was why she didn’t tell me. Had she known I wouldn’t have understood?

Probably. My mother was a smart woman. I’d like to think I was a little bit like her, if not just in looks.

“Should we tell them?” I asked Jameson as we lay in bed.

No way did I want to start today out like this, telling my family I had cancer, but in some ways I wanted to get it over with and move on.

“That’s up to you, honey. They should know. Arie knows you’re sick.”

He was right. He always had a way of being my reasoning. I needed to tell them.

The time came to tell them. I couldn’t keep it from them any longer, and I didn’t want to.

It happened before we left for Kokomo Speedway. Arie watched me closely that afternoon and I knew it was coming.

“I know something’s going on,” she noted, leveling me with a serious stare. I’d seen the look a lot from her growing up. Mostly when she was calling me out on being a shitty mother or the time I forgot to feed her all day when she was four. It happened frequently when you had three kids and a crazy life. If they didn’t say anything, how was I to know?

Straightening my posture, I looked her in the eye. I couldn’t keep pretending any longer and honestly, I didn’t want to. If anything, I wanted my daughter to know because I wanted her with me. “There is.”

“You said you would never keep a secret from us,” she reminded me.

I said that, didn’t I?

“It’s not that I’m keeping a secret.”
Lie. You were
. “It’s that I didn’t know
how
to tell you kids.”
And that’s the honest to God truth
. “I always told myself I wouldn’t keep anything from you kids, but it was harder to tell you than I realized it would be.”

Her breath drew out long and slow as if to prepare herself. “What’s wrong?”

Drawing in my own deep breath, I set the bag aside, unable to keep the tears at bay any longer. “I have breast cancer.” I hated the way it sounded saying it out loud, as if it were a death sentence. “Stage two. My doctor found the lump when I went in for my yearly mammogram.”

She blinked twice before asking, “Can you beat it?”

“It’s still contained to the breast tissue.” My emotions had gotten the better of me; my face clouded with unease. “So, the doctors have assured me that it’s the best-case scenario… I’m hopeful.”

Hopeful was right. It was all I could have been at that point.

“How is Dad taking this?”

Horribly. I remembered his face, the way the color drained and the distance in his eyes. Every detail of that morning came crashing back to me including his temper tantrum in the doctor’s office. “He was with me when I found out and you know him, he’s internalizing a lot.”

And sometimes physically displaying his anger.

“How long has this been going on?”

“We found out in December, right before Christmas, and tried some herbal remedies. They didn’t work so we went to see a specialist in Charlotte two months ago.”

“What did dad say about all this?”

I thought back to everything he’d said to me over the last few months and though all of it was encouraging, that first night stood out. “He said he’s in it with me. He said we don’t give up until the engine lets go.” My smile overtook me. “And then we rebuild. Whatever the cost, we rebuild.”

Arie’s tears fell hopelessly down her face as she chuckled at her dad’s words. “Of course he said that.” There was a moment where she remained quiet and then looked at me. “What are they going to do?”

Nonchalantly I replied with, “Cut the funbags off and give me new upgraded ones.” I admitted, getting perky funbags was actually something I wanted. My sweet, bratty children had sucked the life right out of them. They needed some inflation for sure.

“Do you have to have radiation and chemo?”

“No. They think they can get it because it hasn’t spread to the lymph nodes. I had yearly mammograms, so it was an early detection.”

“Then why have you been losing so much weight and disappearing right before our eyes? Everyone’s worried about you, Mom.”

“Arie, it’s just the stress and the not knowing that’s weighing heavily on me,” I told her, hoping she understood I
never
wanted to keep this from her. “I promise that I’ve told you everything now, and that’s also been part of the problem, keeping it from you kids and the family has been harder on me than you can ever imagine. My mom died of breast cancer, and I didn’t even know she had it until she died. I told myself I would tell you kids but when I found out… I couldn’t do it.”

She hugged me immediately, and I was on the verge of losing it all together. Arie wasn’t a hugger, much like her father, but when she did hug you, it was one you knew meant something, delivered perfectly timed and for a reason.

Jameson came in, assessing our embrace and tears, pushing his hat up with his left hand, he knew something was up. “What’s wrong?”

Brushing my tears away with the sleeve of her sweatshirt, I watched Jameson carefully. “I told Arie.”

Sighing with what seemed like relief at first, his eyes watered as though it hit him again, another wave of uncertainty.

“We gotta go.” He motioned toward the door with a nod. “Plane’s waiting.”

AFTER THAT WEEKEND in Kokomo Speedway, and telling our entire family, it seemed I constantly remembered things he’d said to me over the years when I found a note Jameson had written to me not long after his crash in Knoxville where Jimi died.

After we told the kids, and the rest of the family, it seemed they were intent on making sure we knew we had their support. Which I appreciated but a sense of fear came with that too because I didn’t want to worry anyone. They wouldn’t stop fussing over me, and I found myself in our closet a lot hiding out.

It was during those times that I was able to sit and think, where I was constantly remembering things Jameson had said to me over the years. And then I found a note he’d written me not long after his accident in Knoxville where Jimi died and Jameson was injured badly.

Sitting back against a pile of shoes I read a note. The one he wrote while I was going through my porn star days. I tried so hard to find the connection I thought we lost that I had missed it all along. Jameson reminded me then, and even now.

Sway,

So many times over the last few months I’ve wanted to ease your pain, tell you that everything was going to be all right, but I didn’t know if it would. I also knew that it wouldn’t change anything if I didn’t feel it.

Watching you sleep now, I’m reminded of what I haven’t considered over that time and what I nearly lost.

You.

I know I’ve been distant and unlike the man you grew to love surrounded by one dream and one lifestyle. Tonight, to feel you, to feel me, and to feel us once again, as one, was like being able to breathe again.

Our love was cultivated in the shadows and at a time that we least expected it. It shines through the darkest of moments, never fading, always triumphing over the heartache we have suffered.

You are the light that pulls the boy in me from anonymity and gives me a true purpose in a life of vulnerability and frustration. I wonder, looking at you in the purest form if I could have been a better husband or father. I wonder if you know how much I love you. I think the world of you.

Without you, all the trophies and titles in the world mean nothing. In the blinding spotlight my life has created, it’s you who brings me back.

Our life is measured in moments. Moments that test us, challenge us, and moments that make us fall to our fucking knees, begging and pleading for all we're worth for just one more moment.

With you, I don’t want to ever be out of moments. I want to feel my heated cheek against your skin as the word stay is spoken. I want to watch your eyes light up when I vow forever. I want to watch you hold three precious angels. I want to laugh with you, cry with you, and be one with you. Forever one heart and one soul.

I’ll never let you go.

~You are where my heart belongs

Jameson

When I finished, I burst into tears, clutching the letter to my chest, much like I did that damn photograph I had taken from the magazine. Which, by the way, was inside the same box with the letter, wrinkled edges, and everything. I remembered sitting on that bathroom floor and tearing it from the magazine.

Gasping, I gently took the worn paper in my hand. It seemed so crazy to think it was from six years earlier when it felt like yesterday.

Harness – The safety belt system worn by a driver.

“What are you doing?”

“You said you needed to be rescued. Are you coming or not?” Sway asked breathlessly. “The food is getting cold.”

“You brought food?”

“Well, yeah. I was hungry.”

“I haven’t climbed out my window in years,” I admitted, climbing out nonetheless. After falling about five feet, I landed on my ass with Sway standing over me laughing.

“Smooth, Riley. Real smooth,”

I glared at her as she brushed grass and dirt from my tux. “I should have changed.”

Sway glanced in my direction.

“Nah, you look good.” She winked. “Keep it on.”

That was when I finally looked at Sway’s appearance. While she looked beautiful as always, I had to laugh at her attire. She had on a black tutu over her jeans. “What’s with the tutu?”

“It’s prom, isn’t it?” Her brow furrowed like I was stupid for asking. “This is my dress.”

I shook my head. It fit her personality perfectly. She wasn’t the type of girl to go for the gown. She was simplicity.

A few minutes later, we were sitting inside Emma’s tree house eating Chinese food. I could always count on Sway to bail me out of situations. I laughed to myself at the thought of Chelsea looking for me at the dance, but I was almost certain she’d find someone to dance with. There were times where I felt bad for the way I treated Chelsea, but I was also well aware of the guys she flirted with and did God knows what with when I was out of town. I wasn’t stupid. We’d used each other.

In the distance, we watched as Tommy picked up Emma for the dance. They were going as friends, but that didn’t stop me from threatening to cut off his balls if he tried anything.

Mom fussed endlessly over her dress while we laughed. I knew damn well I’d catch hell from mom over this but, like always, I didn’t care.

As I took a bite of my egg roll, I noticed Sway gazing at Mom and Emma talking.

Unbuttoning the top buttons of my shirt, I attempted to get more comfortable.