The Legend (51 page)

I nodded.
There was no sense in denying it now. Perhaps it was wrong of us but we had our
reasoning.

“Tell Arie
to come in here.”

Once the
door opened, Willie shot out knowing he didn’t want any more of the verbal
lashing. I motioned with a nod for Arie who was still standing near Easton. His
head bent forward with his arms crossed over his chest never moving when Arie
stepped way.

Arie
entered the office closing the door behind her. “What happened between you and
Easton?” Jameson asked her but keeping his eyes on the wrench in his hands, his
body relaxed as he slouched in his chair.

“Nothing
happened with me and Easton.”

“Then why was
he fighting with Grady this morning?” Jameson looked at her as if he knew she
was lying and that only pissed him off.

“Please
don’t go crazy dad. If I tell you the truth, you have to keep calm.”

“Tell me.”
He demanded dropping his gaze to the wrench again. I stood there trying to
follow everything that happened this morning and, without a doubt, I was
confused.

“I had
been hanging out at the shop a lot trying to help the guys and get the
merchandise trailers loaded. That’s when Grady started talking to me. We went
out for lunch one afternoon and kind of got to be friends. I told him I wasn’t
ready for dating or anything like that so we stayed talking but he said that he
wanted more. So I stopped hanging out with him. Then one night, right before
Thanksgiving, we went to a movie. Grady told me that if I didn’t
...
” tears streamed down her cheeks, she
swallowed over her tears trying to hold back. I moved to comfort her. She let
me for once and then quickly swiped the tears aside straightening her shoulders
as if to say she wasn’t going to breakdown. “Grady told me he would do
something to your car if I didn’t sleep with him. So I did. We uh
...
” Arie let out a frustrated sigh looking so
much like her father in that moment. “Just like every other lying bastard I
seem to get wrapped up in; he used me and did it anyway. So yeah,” her voice
rose with each word. “I got more shit to deal. I once again gave myself to a
sack of shit and he destroyed my family because he could. He knew all along
that he could use me and he did.” Arie looked at Jameson, embarrassed. “That
night before the race, I know you saw our interactions together and I’m sorry I
lied to you. I just couldn’t take seeing the look on your face that you have
right now.” Her voice lowered. “The look that says you’re once again
disappointed in me.”

“It wasn’t
up to you to take care of.” Jameson told Arie. She bowed her head as if she was
completely ashamed of herself. “I don’t want you to ever get involved again.
Understand?”

Arie
nodded, nearing tears again, she began to walk away when Jameson called out to
her. “I’m not finished Arie.”

I gasped
at his tone, sharp like a razor but dull too. I had never heard him so angry
with our kids. Fear of the outburst I saw coming pricked my skin and I wanted
to comfort her and tell him to take it easy on her.

She
stopped, weary, but didn’t turn around. Her hair fell over her shoulders
blocking my view of her face. I looked at Jameson trying to tell him to stop
and to take it easy on her but he looked right through me.

“Next time
come to me before you go making deals with my employees. It’s not your place to
get involved and I don’t want to hear about my daughter giving herself to men
for the sake of my safety ever again. I mean it Arie, I better not hear of
something like this again.”

Jameson’s
eyes dropped to his desk and the door slammed behind Arie.

“What
happened out there?” I asked moving to sit on his desk.

He
wouldn’t look at me as he stood. “Take Arie home.”

“Jameson?”
I tried to reach for him but he threw his hand up away from my grasp. “I will
see you tonight. Please take Arie home.” He repeated.

I waited a
few minutes inside the office noticing he must have thrown a few things with
the broken glass from the picture frame he smashed. It was one of the
JAR
Racing crew, Grady included.

Taking a
deep breath, I was determined to get through to him and get over this.

When you
think about it, most of us, our intentions are usually pure. We want to do the
right thing. Arie wanted to do the right thing. But still, we, as any human,
push boundaries set between us and others to get what we want or to justify the
bad we’ve done into the good we intended to do.

But,
unfortunately there are these things called limits. And we were finding out the
significances behind those now. Grabbing my mocha beside me, I pushed myself
from the thoughts and made my way back into the shop.

“I don’t
give a shit!” Jameson yelled over his shoulder before the door slammed shut. I
wasn’t sure what he was talking about but it seemed the boys did. Spencer,
Aiden, Tommy, Willie and even Casten, were here now, all gathered in the shop.

“That went
super.” Tommy laughed from his place on the floor.

“Get up
lazy!” I kicked his thigh. “You were absolutely no help with controlling him.”

Tommy
rolled to his side and then got up. “Excuse me, but he shoved me today. No
fucking way I was helping out with that argument.”

“Why did
he leave?” I asked looking to any of them for an answer. Arie moved to stand
next to me, ready to go I assumed.

“Apparently
Grady is planning on confronting Jameson before the dinner.”

“Is he
really that stupid?”

“Yes.”
Arie said sarcastically and then looked at the floor. “I’m ready to go whenever
you are.”

Willie and
Tommy looked at each other curiously. I decided it was time to leave. I took
Arie with me as we headed to the banquet hall.

“I’m sorry
mom.” She said when we pulled into the parking lot. “It’s like I don’t think
sometimes and go with an impulse.”

Shutting the
truck off, I looked over at her tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear.
“Baby, please don’t fall into the trap of trying to fix things by having sex
with boys. It doesn’t work. I tried and it got me nowhere.”

“Did you
have sex before dad?”

“Yes, with
a few people. My first time was in the back of a truck.” I admitted with a good
amount of shame remembering the feeling that had knowing I had been used by
Dylan and distinctly recalling the bruises I received too. “I know what you’re
feeling.”

The
biggest question was did I honestly know what she was feeling right now?

No. I
didn’t. I didn’t because for one, she gave herself to a boy again and that boy
tried to kill her dad. No one could understand what she was feeling any more
than they could understand what Nancy was feeling or Jameson. Guilt,
resentment, hatred, sadness were all justifiable emotions.

“Did you
and dad
...
well,” her face
flushed with pink, her eyes falling to her phone in her hands, “did you get
together before?”

“Before marriage?”

“No, like
in high school?” she clarified.

Was
this appropriate?
I thought
to myself looking around for Alley. She usually helped me through these
conversations with Arie since she had usually already had them with Lexi.

“Your dad
and I were best friends when we were growing up and yes, we did do things when
we were younger
but
we never had sex until we were twenty-three.”

“Did you
always know that you wanted to be with him?”

What
was this?
I felt like I was
back at
Planned Parenthood
being questioned when I went there to get
condoms when I was seventeen.

“Now that
I think about it, I was attracted to him from the very beginning. But with
Jameson, he was so dedicated to racing that anything we had together was a
distraction. After years of ignoring it, we finally gave in.” I laughed and
motioned around the car to her.
“Obviously.”

Arie
thought for a moment and then smiled. “Easton asked me on a date.”

I couldn’t
believe it. Even with everything going on between Jameson and Grady and all the
shit surrounding this
clusterfuck
, my daughter was
confiding in me. And to top it off, a good guy was interested in her.

I leaned
over and kissed the side of her head. “He seems like a good kid sweetie.”

Emma was
pounding on my window so our mother-daughter-moment was up. Rolling down the
window just a smidge, I stuck the straw to my coffee out the window allowing
Emma to take a drink. She did and we both laughed.

“Do you
ever find your aunt annoying?” I asked Arie glaring at Emma through the glass.
She stuck her tongue out but smiled.

“I find my
entire family annoying at times.” My glare shifted to Arie. “But
...
I love you guys. I just don’t like you
sometimes.”

“Wow, you
are so much like your father it’s scary.”

“Come on,”
Arie opened the door. “Let’s go put together a disaster.”

A disaster
it would be if Grady showed up. Charges hadn’t been filed against Grady yet
because we hadn’t done so. Phillip, our attorney, was working on it. Until
then, Van and Clint kept a close eye on him. Unfortunately, they couldn’t stop
him from showing up tonight.

The entire
time we were setting everything up my mind wouldn’t settle, racing through
everything that happened this morning with Arie and Jameson and the entire
Grady situation. Jimi’s conversation rang through me, him not trusting Grady
and not acting sooner led us here. The pain brought the prospect that once
again, I was watching from a distance as my husband fell apart.

My other
problem was that Arie had been involved. You try so hard to protect your
children whether it’s breastfeeding or formula, what preschool to send them to,
what kindergarten, and all the way up to when they’re teenagers and who their
friends are.

Are those
friends responsible?

Will they
make good decision?

Will they
be able to see their dreams come true?

So much of
our lives are unpredictable and frightening. You don’t know what the next left
turn will be or how you’re going to handle after the next caution flag. It’s a
gamble.

After
everything that happens, we want to show our family we love them, maybe hug
them a little tighter when we learn of tragedy. My answer, always do that.

Always
tell them you love them. Always make the best of it. Someday you won’t have the
option.

No one crossed
Jameson. And honestly, it wasn’t because of his temper but out of respect for
him. In the sprint car world, NASCAR, and racing in general, he was highly
respected. And the fact that he trusted Grady only to find out that he used
Jameson was the lowest appreciation for respecting him.

I called
Jameson several times. All my calls went to voicemail. I called Tommy, he
hadn’t seen him. I called Willie, he hadn’t seen him and finally, I called Van
and Clint. No one had seen him.

I was one
worried Mama Wizard by the time the teams began to show up. We had family, the
Cup team, nearly everyone from Riley-Simplex Racing both the road crew and the
guys back at the shop. JAR Racing was here, even the guys that drove the trucks
and who we rarely saw. Andrea made it over. It was the first time I had saw
Macy, her and Van’s daughter, in about a year. Logan and Lucas came. Most
everyone we knew was gathered for us to show them how much we appreciated them
in our time of need.

Casten
came inside with Nancy when I was greeting a few of the representatives of
Solar Seals. He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me away with a smile to where
Spencer and Aiden were standing. “We have a problem.” Were his words to me
followed by a grin and then an eye roll, “Shit’s about to hit the fan mama.”

“I think
the shit hit the fan a long time ago.” I reached out and snatched a beer from
someone’s table not carrying who had been drinking it. Following the boys
outside, I downed that beer in all of two seconds.

Casten
looked at me when I burped, amused. “Careful there, it’s still early.”

Outside, I
had a feeling that Arie must have come clean to Easton because when Grady
appeared in the shadows of the parking lot, Easton Levi was the first one in
his face.

It made me
proud that Easton felt the need to defend Arie and I think Jameson felt the
same way as I saw him leaned against the side of the building, still in the
shadows, dressed in his tux. For a moment, I was caught off guard with how
beautiful and downright sexy he looked.

He had the
mysterious edge by keeping his distance but you knew the fire inside was still
there. Much like the photographs I loved so much, his head was bent forward,
the growth of his hair, finally showing, blended in with his jaw line. 
His hands were buried in his pockets with his cane beside him.