The Rookie (Racing On The Edge #7) (30 page)

Nothing happened over night. It couldn’t. Not with how far gone things had gone south. I wasn’t going to let it either. Too many times I’d acted on impulse and I wasn’t doing it any longer.

I didn’t travel with the team much until Knoxville Nationals and I helped with the merchandise trailers. I spent time with my mom, we designed all new gear for JAR Racing and the 25
th
Anniversary.

Eventually I did end up talking to Rager again. At Knoxville. It was the first night of racing while I was closing up the trailer and getting ready to go back to the hotel I was staying at with Hayden and Casten.

He came up behind me and smiled. It still got to me. I must have given him a look because his face broke when I did. “I can’t keep doing this with you. I’m sorry. I hold onto the fact that you might give me a shot. Like really give me a shot and it’s not gonna happen.”

“I did give you a shot.” I leaned against the side of his hauler. “A few times now.”

“No, you didn’t. You gave me
you
, but never a shot at actually having you in the ways he does. What do you want from me?”

“Your friendship.”

“I’m always gonna want more.” He was trying to detach himself from this feeling. I knew it by the look on his face. It was the same one I saw at my wedding. “I’m constantly baited by you. The way I love you is fucking all or nothing for me. In my eyes there’s no one good enough for you. Even me. Especially me.”

“Why?”

“I’m a fuck up baby. I’ve got racing. That’s all.”

For someone reason Rager believed he was a fuck up. I’ve never understood why but I never believed it either.

This situation had most definitely gotten out of control and I was the one holding the blame here. I didn’t like how I was acting. Easton was right when he said I was looking for an out. I was. I was looking for a way to clear my head. Instead, I complicated it even worse.

Those next few weeks, I kept a close eye on Easton. He was leading both the Truck and Nationwide points, and was only nineteen points out of the Cup championship as they had three races left before the chase started.

He won at Michigan that weekend after Knoxville Nationals so I sent him a text.

And he was. He was giving me exactly what I asked him for. I knew he was busy. He had a life too and a career that didn’t lend well to walking away. That wasn’t what I was asking of him either. I just wanted to find myself in all this. Figure out what I needed in a relationship and figure out which guy I needed to follow.

Every year since Grandpa Jimi died we have a memorial race for him at Grays Harbor. This year it landed on my birthday weekend, on my actual birthday. The race was called on rain though so everyone headed back home. I decided to stay that night at my parent’s home on Summit Lake they’ve had since Axel was born. We spent time here in the winters when I was younger but I hadn’t been back there since I was seventeen. Everything felt unfamiliar but yet, still home.

I was out on the deck listening to the rain and the ripples of the lake slapping at the dock when I heard a knock at the door. My bare feet squeaked on the mahogany floors as I ran toward the door.

When I opened it, I wasn’t surprised to see Easton standing there soaking wet.

“Of course you show up in a storm.”

“I was going for a romantic gesture. Did it work?”

I laughed. “A little.”

When he closed the distance between us, I sighed in contentment.

“What are you doing here?”

“I didn’t come here to fight. I just…I couldn’t
not
see you on your birthday.” He gave a half-hearted smile. It seemed like a rare sight. I hadn’t seen him smile in a long time. “Sorry I’m a day late.”

“You were a little busy.” I shrugged. “It was a good race though. You drove smart.”

“Seems I’m growing up a little.” It was his turn to laugh. There were tears in his eyes when he spoke again. His thumb moved over my shoulder and his broke. “I can’t do this anymore. Not without you. I don’t know what that says about me but I…I’m lost. I’m so fucking lost without you.”

Tears streamed down my cheeks. “If you’re doing this, you need to do it for you and stick with it for you. Not me. When you decided to do it, it wasn’t for me. It was something
you
wanted. You didn’t decide on triple duty with me in mind and don’t quit, or win for me. Do it for yourself.”

“What if I can’t anymore?” It was an honest question. It wasn’t something where he had to think about it. He was so far lost in this he wondered that himself.

“You made the chase last night.” He smiled at my words knowing I watched. I wondered if he realized I hadn’t truly missed a single race. I was always watching. “I think you can do it.”

He knew I was right but he couldn’t bear to say it. He was struggling. I knew that but there wasn’t anything I could do for him. Or at least I didn’t think there was right then.

“I could say I’m sorry for everything that’s happened in the four months but what would that even mean? I think you need more than that, don’t you?”

“I don’t need apologies. I never have. What I needed was a man who loved me more than racing.”

He was still bitter when he said, “And Rager does?”

“That’s not the point, E.”

“I know.” His head hung, his feet shuffling feeling like I was going to ask him to leave any minute.

“And I’m sorry too.” I said, meaning it. It wasn’t all on him. It never could have been. He stepped closer, as if the distance was killing him.

“Tell me what you want, Arie.” I felt his breath hit my face as he spoke. “I’ll give you anything you want. I told you, I’ll walk away if it’s what you want.”

I paused because what comes next is the defining factor in all of this. My one chance to make a rational decision about my love life.

“I want you, Easton. You.”

“Are you sure? What about Rager? I know you feel something for him.”

“I won’t lie to you, Easton. I do. But it wasn’t enough that I want to leave you.”

“Why was it so easy for you to leave in the first place?”

“You have to admit, our problems started way before that night. It just felt like eventually you were making decisions by yourself, ones we should have made together. Like that magazine.”

He nodded knowing his mistakes. He’s not alone though, I’ve made them too.

“I never meant to turn to Rager. That wasn’t something I planned.” It wasn’t either. I wasn’t lying to him.

“Did you…sleep with him?” He could barely get the questions out.

“No.” and then I knew I needed to tell him the whole truth. “But it wasn’t because of me. I tried. He turned me down.”

Easton’s stare was on the floor, nodding, barely breathing or able to look at me.

“You’ve done other stuff?” His eyes squeezed shut when he asked the question.

“I kissed him…and took my clothes off.”

“Have you ever slept with him?”

“Not technically.”

“And that means?”

I wasn’t sure he wanted to know what I was about to say but Easton’s a numbers guy. He needs to know things. Even tiny details. It’s how he calculates the information in front of him.

“I gave him head when I was sixteen. We almost had sex a few weeks later. And then again a couple weeks ago. But he stopped us and said he couldn’t do it.”

Easton tensed, his chest rising and falling rapidly as if he was struggling just to get air, only he was getting too much.

“Do you love him?”

“I will always have feelings for Rager. I’m sorry. But I don’t love him enough to leave you.”

“You did leave me.”

“And you know what I’m talking about.”

Easton nodded, because he did know.

We were both quiet for a minute when he stepped forward. “Where does that leave us now?”

“I’m not sure.” I admitted, because I wasn’t sure.

His hands were shaking, unsure if I was going to push him away this time but I needed Easton. I did.

It might seem crazy and I’m confused. I am, but mom was right. There’s a reason why I fell for him. There was a reason why I married him.

“I love you,” he assured me, his palms cradling my face, his mouth inches from mine. His eyes searched mine, unsure. A sense of familiarity seeping into both our pores. Rager and I had history but Easton and I had more than history, we had this level of intimacy that only a husband and wife can navigate. Were we back to normal? Far from it. Was it wrong for us to want each other physically at this moment? Nothing wrong at all, this was one step in our journey back to each other and I was going to take it.

I wasted no time when I brought his lips to mine. When his lips finally touched mine, they were hesitant and unsure. Something happened when he did kiss me though. It happened in both of us. It had been since May since we were intimate and I knew it’d been that long for him. Immediately we were a tangle of hands racing to find each other and breathing heavily.

He unbuckled his belt and then his jeans pushing them down just enough to free himself, gliding his hand from base to tip twice. There’s part of him that’s teasing me, I could feel it. He wanted to make me beg, see how bad I wanted it. I didn’t even care that it was against a wall. I just wanted him.

“I missed you…so much…” His hands moved to my ass while both my legs curled around his waist, my heels pressed against his ass, feeling him flexing forward. With his words, tears welled in my eyes, overcome by this, him, us.

I watched the movements in his chest, his stomach, the look on his face. I watched the way he watched me, so unsure but yet, never stopping. He knew if I didn’t want this I would have stopped him.

Without breaking eye contact, he entered me. His sad eyes, as if he thought this is the last time, fall from mine. I know he could see the emotions in my eyes. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t look at me. Maybe for once, my intensity is too much. I know he could see the desperation, the urgency, the hunger in them.

He kissed me deeply, sliding in and out of me as he tried to keep himself steady holding me against the wall with his movements. It wasn’t easy but the friction was exactly what I needed.

The fire inside me built quickly up my thighs and into the pit of my stomach as my orgasm hit me.