Trading Paint (Racing on the Edge) (6 page)

“No. I mean
...
as friends. I don’t have feelings for you if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Good. Friends,” I smiled and hugged her.

Glancing at the pit bleachers, I saw Amber eyeing me. Amber was Justin West’s cousin that followed me around any race she attended. She was nice I guess, but annoying. She was also fourteen. Being sixteen, almost seventeen, that was not an option to me. I didn’t go for the younger ones. Besides, she seemed clingy, that was another trait that was not an option.

I pulled Sway closer. “Do
me
a favor this weekend?”

“Sure,” she said without question.

“Will you pretend to be my girlfriend for a few days?” she started to object so I held my fingers to her lips and tilted her head at Amber. “You see that blonde over there?”

“Yeah,”

“She’s obsessed with me and I may or may not have told her you were my girlfriend the other day.”

“You dirty fucking liar.” She accused but laughed despite her scowl. “Sure, but if you molest me at any other time other than necessary, I will junk punch you.”

“So that’s a no on sex then?” I grinned.

Her expression was alarmed. “Deals off,” she said beginning to walk away.

I snatched her hand with mine pulling her back toward me, she stumbled over the tools scattered on the floor and landed against my chest. “I was only joking.”

“Good,” she finally said.

We didn’t have to do much pretending to convince anyone we were girlfriend/boyfriend and we did end up kissing a few times.

My male hormones peaked and attacked her in the back of the hauler at which point she had to push me off her, laughing. She thought it was funny; I did not.

I’d never spent so much time in the shower as I did during that weekend. Being able to kiss Sway whenever I wanted was a little much for me to handle.

The weekend of racing went good. I ended up with a feature win that night at Terre Haute and then two-second place finishes to Justin West at Lernerville and Grandview.

Justin West was tearing it up in the USAC silver crown divisions with me. After his second championship, he caught the name “Wicked West from the Mid-West.”

Another kid who was becoming a definite force was Ryder Christiansen from North Carolina. He was a year younger than us but had significant possibilities as a driver and frequently referred to as the “Beast from the East.”

If you ever saw Ryder, at barely five foot two, he was hardly a beast.

I didn’t have a name that I knew of, or at least they never told me what it was.

That weekend in Terre Haute also marked my first pit fight.

During a heat race, this kid from California, Bret Luther, kept clipping my right rear. I corrected it every time except the fourth time when it sent me into a flip.

This was not acceptable to me and I let him know it.

I should have known my chances of doing damage to a kid nicknamed “Bubba” were poor.

Me
being roughly six foot one now had the guy on height but weight, not so much. I worked out constantly and felt comfortable with my strength but when you encounter a two-hundred and sixty pound seventeen year old kid, you shouldn’t start a fight. I lacked any sane thoughts that night though.

Holding a wet towel to my bloody lip, my dad smirked. “You met Bubba?”

“Thanks for the warning.” I grumbled.

“No problem.”

As my junior year progressed, I began contemplating the idea of a girlfriend.

Spencer had started dating Alley, the girl we met coming home from Florida so entertaining the idea of a girlfriend was something I thought I should try and maybe, just maybe, I’d stop thinking about Sway naked.

I could only hope for this at least.

Chelsea Adams was a girl I had been messing around with these days. We had a few classes together and she frequently hung out at the track as the trophy girl from time to time which is how we met.

I never looked twice at girls at school. At the track was different because I thought, “Hey, she’s at the track so maybe we share the same interests.”

I soon found out that Chelsea knew nothing about racing and hated it. This wasn’t lost on me but she was attractive and willing to mess around with me so that satisfied that urge for a while and became a way for me to channel some of my hormone driven thoughts away from Sway.

There was one problem with this. Sway hated Chelsea. So when I told her I wouldn’t be going to Tommy’s party that night, she wasn’t exactly ecstatic with me.

Sway’s reaction, “Are you
...
?” her voice halted but I knew what she was asking.

“Yeah
...
” I muttered unable to speak the words loud enough. “We’re going to the movies.”

I couldn’t understand why it was so hard to tell Sway but I felt like I shouldn’t be telling her this. Yeah she was my best friend but it felt as though I was cheating on her when I wasn’t.

“Have fun,” she simply said and walked toward Tommy who was carrying a keg into his parentless house.

I felt an unfamiliar sadness seeing her walk away that I didn’t recognize. Was it wrong to see someone else? I thought we were friends. Did she want me for something more?

I hardly enjoyed the movies. Thinking of Sway’s reaction had me puzzled and constantly assessing the situation like a goddamn girl. I almost checked to see if my balls were still there.

Chelsea had other ideas and we ended up leaving early and making out in the passenger seat of my car.

When she pulled her shirt over her shoulders, I stopped her.

“I need to get going.”

Her eyes searched mine. “You don’t want to
...
” she motioned to my erection she was currently sitting on.

I did, believe me I did, but not with her. I felt nothing toward her besides physical excitement she was providing by writhing around on my lap. Other than that, it wasn’t much more stimulating than the porno’s I had stolen from Spencer’s stash.

“No
...
I have to get up early.” I told her and drove her home without another word.

When I got home, I threw myself against my bed when I noticed my cell phone vibrate. I had a voicemail from Tommy.

“Sway is drunk off her ass at my house. Can you come get her? My parents will kill me if they find her in my room.”

When I got there, Sway was sitting on Dylan Grady’s lap, kissing him.

Glaring at Tommy, I took hold of his jacket when he tried to run from me.

“What the fuck? I told you to keep an eye on her?”

“I did
...
see,” he motioned to her with wide-eyes. “There she is
...
I’ve watched her the entire night.”

Tommy has always been scared of me, for good reason. Right about now he looked like he was about to shit himself.

It was hard not to chuckle when his appearance matched his hair color.

Tommy had this curly orange hair that looked like carrot top or something you’d see on a clown. I usually steered clear of orange heads because the orange hair just didn’t seem right to me and usually meant the individual was off their rocker in some way but Tommy was cool.

I punched his shoulder. He rocked back on his heels reaching for the doorframe to steady
himself
.

“I said
watch
her, not let her make out with that douche.”

I strode up to them determined to give Dylan a piece of my mind. I stopped a few feet shy of them when I heard Sway whisper to him, “Let’s go outside. I need some air.”

They stood and walked outside. I don’t know if she saw me standing there but I’m sure she didn’t because she walked right past me and left with Dylan.

Frustrated, I left and told Tommy to keep her keys with him so she couldn’t drive. I couldn’t control who she left with but I wouldn’t let her drive drunk.

I spent the remainder of the night replacing the rear axle on my car before tomorrow night’s race at Elma while thinking of ways to convince Sway she could do better than Dylan.

I couldn’t come up with anything, anything that made any sense at least.

I didn’t want to stand in her way but I also thought she was far better off without someone like Dylan. Not understanding the pain I felt when I saw her kissing Dylan was also throwing me into a spin.

I’d never seen Sway kiss someone else other than her dad and it was also something I never wanted to see again.

Months passed and the school year progressed.

Sway never talked about Dylan with me and I never spoke about Chelsea. I guess you could say she was my girlfriend to the outside eye but I hardly admitted it to Sway or myself. Chelsea and I continued to go on dates, mess around and then I took her home. It wasn’t love; it wasn’t even lust. It was filling a crack I knew was there but also refused to look to see how the crack originated in the first place.

Chelsea was all right, but she lacked a personality. Get her talking for more than a few minutes and you quickly realized the dye she used in her blonde hair had killed one too many brain cells.

I don’t know if I need to point this out, but I hated high school, absolutely hated it. The high school experience alone is an emotional rollercoaster. Hell, our teenage years themselves were enough and then you add the pressures of co-existing together with a bunch of other crazy teens
...
stupid.

All the hype around school was discussions of who was going to junior prom and with whom. I had no desire whatsoever to go to a high school dance. But no, my mom was forcing me to go. Something about needing to be a normal teenager and I was only partially paying attention to her.

Sway and I had originally planned on going together when she backed out and said she couldn’t. I knew it wasn’t that she couldn’t but that she didn’t want to. We equally hated high school.

Knowing my mom wouldn’t let me back out, I was forced to go with Chelsea.

The night of junior prom, I was pouting in my room while dressing in my tuxedo. The fact that I had to wear a monkey suit to the event was yet another bullshit tradition I was not so happy with.

I decided to call Sway to let her know how upset I was with her backing out. It went straight to voicemail so I expressed my concerns with: “
I hate you. Come rescue me.”

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been sitting in my room sulking and wondering if I could make myself appear sick when I heard a tap at the window. I turned to see Sway standing there, balancing herself on a ladder.

My first concern should have been how in the hell Sway made it to my second story window but it wasn’t; it was relief. I had no intention of going to that goddamn school dance nor did I want my pictures taken as a reminder that I was forced to attend in the first place.

“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 brushing grass and dirt from my tux. Why I was still wearing it should have concerned me. “I should have changed.”

Sway
glanced
my direction.

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

I finally looked at her 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. This is what Sway did, never what you expected her to do.

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 like this. 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 were I felt badly 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. She was using me as I used her.

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 undershirt, I attempted to get more comfortable.

“Do you miss her?” I asked softly leaning into her shoulder.