The Rookie (Racing On The Edge #7) (14 page)

“I can fucking see that.” Casten looked around at what used to be the floor but was now a quarter midget track. Even had a nice cushion built up against the walls like they’d raced in here all night. “But why the hole in the floor?”

“We needed dirt.” Spencer looked at him like he was stupid, barely breathing between his laughing and snorting.

“So get it from outside.”

“We already had the bobcat inside. That’s inefficient to go outside again.”

“What did I ever do to you?” Casten asked staring at him in disbelief.

Dad looked at him like he was crazy. “You set my house on fire. Twice. And don’t get me started on my pool and how many times that thing has had to be drained and repaired.”

“Do you like swimming?” Spencer asked Hayden, who’d yet to say a word. It’s hard to believe something could make her speechless as well.

She immediately walked outside and looked at their pool.

Dad had drained their pool and him and Spencer had bedazzled a dick on the bottom with shiny jewels that reflected the sun’s light amazingly and then refilled it with water.

“We glued that shit down and then put a glaze over it. You’d have to dig up the concrete to fix that.” Dad pointed out, proud as can be with a crazy grin plastered on his face.

Spencer couldn’t even hold himself up he was laughing so hard. “We dick-jazzled your pool!”

“That’s permanent?” Casten asked, staring at the pool and the way the sun reflected off the dick in the water. That motherfucker shined so bright I was sure the astronauts on the space station were laughing at it.

Dad nodded proudly.

Hayden looked at it and covered Gray’s eyes. “The fuck it is.”

Casten bowed to Dad. “Well played, old man. Well fucking played.”

Spencer stood next to me and nudged my shoulder. “That pool is pretty awesome, huh?”

I had to laugh. There would always be a prank going on with this family.

“Don’t ever come over to my house.” I told him walking away.

“Admit it, you want a dick-jazzled pool.” Spencer said, following me.

Hayden was most certainly not impressed by Dad and Spencer’s art work on the pool. In fact, she was pissed but you could tell she knew she had no room to complain about anything. When her and Casten got together they wreaked some serious havoc on my parents place last year before Gray came along. Yeah, best to keep your mouth shut otherwise there could be some other surprises in store from Uncle Spencer and my dad.

Tequila is my drink. It’s my comfort. Makes me mean as fuck but I love it. It also gets me thinking. And never in a good way. It’s like it tries to talk me into shit.

There I sat Friday afternoon drinking by myself. Didn’t even need the salt because I was crying so much all I needed to do was lick my lips and take a lime.

Most of my thoughts revolved around Easton. I’ll admit to myself that it may have been childish of me to walk away. I would never admit that because I had my reasons.

I’ve always been one to react, ask questions later, deal with the consequences. I get that from my dad.

He was staring at me right now.

“I thought you were in Michigan this weekend.”

“You mean Dover.” I looked up and then back to my shot glass. Beside it was a lime, salt shaker and a bottle of tequila. “Nope. I’m here.” And then I took the shot and pushed the bottle to him. “Want one?”

Dad looked at me, then the bottle. “It’s only eleven in the morning.”

“So? When does anyone in this family care about what time it is when they start drinking?”

He studied me for a moment. “Good point.” Taking a seat next to me, he reached for the shot glass. We took about two shots and then he laughed. “I feel like a bad parent right now.”

Casten walked in with Gray right then. She had shit all over her face, food and God knows what else in her hair. It looked like he hadn’t brushed it in days.

My stare went back to my dad. “No, he’s the bad parent.”

Gray smiled immediately when she saw my dad and tried to take his shot glass.

“No, no.” Casten said tapping her nose. “Mama would kill me if you got drunk before you turned two. And she’s not happy with me…” he looked at Dad. “Or Papa.”

It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Gray had her first drink before she was two. I was actually somewhat surprised she hadn’t had a drink already given who her parents are.

My phone rang when Casten walked outside with Gray after that.

It never stopped ringing since I left Charlotte. He was persistent. I’ll give him that. He knew where I was but there was no way in hell he was showing up at my parent’s house.

Being drunk, I listened to the message. Only problem was I hit the speaker button so Dad heard the message. Whoops.

“Arie, just answer the fucking phone! You’re my wife and you’re not going to just shut me out.”

Dad stood and grabbed my phone from me and dialed Easton’s number.

I couldn’t hear what Easton said, probably thinking it was me, and then he stopped when my dad started to speak. “Okay, listen to me. You will not talk to my daughter that way. Ever.”

He waited, Easton said something else and dad responded with, “I don’t give a shit. When she’s ready to talk, she will.”

Well said.

“Something you need to tell me, Arie?” Dad said.

“Have another round, Dad, it’s five o’clock somewhere.”

Wave Around – If a driver is a lap down and the caution comes out, the lapped cars have the option of pitting, or not. If they chose not to pit, they are allowed to go to the back of the pack of the lead lap cars. Advantages are the driver gets a lap back. The disadvantage is he doesn’t pit. This is different than the “Lucky Dog” rule that allows the first driver a lap down, his lap back.

As Sunday rolled around, I was constantly searching for updates on Twitter to see how Easton was doing. I knew immediately he was struggling without me there. As if I needed the confirmation.

He got into a late race wreck with Sean and Asher that set him back to fourth in the championship points. Immediately I clicked on the post-race interview.

There he was standing next to one of the ESPN announcers who frequently interviewed him and he didn’t look happy. He was about to say something stupid.

“Easton Levi…you had a rough night in the 600 and it seems your luck has continued over to Dover. Can you tell us what happened during that late race wreck there with the fourteen and then two?”

My dad has always been cautious when he talks to the media about anything. He has to be. He’s been burned too much. Easton hadn’t learned that yet.

Easton wouldn’t look at the camera, instead his head was down staring at the ground. “Again, Sean just turned up into me. If you can’t drive you got no business being out here.”

“So you think he turned into you?”

“He did, and we took out two good cars during the process. I feel bad for Asher and I’m sorry. He had a good strong lead. Just as good as ours. My Simplex Ford has never been better.”

“What does this do to your championship hopes?” he asked Easton.

He finally looked at the camera, his eyes cold. “It just feels like everyone is against me in pulling this off.”

Then he walked away.

I sent a text to Jessie knowing I could trust her.

Shit. I understood he was a mess, but it wasn’t my job to fix this either. He needed to do that for himself.

I knew Easton wouldn’t be at the house since Jessie said he was at the team meeting right now. I snuck over to the house to grab some clothes. On my way to the JAR Racing shop Lexi was texting me.

When you text Lexi, you better get ready for an afternoon of texting. Lexi is always bored. It takes a lot to keep her attention and in turn she’ll just send you random text messages all day.

I couldn’t stop laughing. It was one text after another.