Hot Laps (36 page)

I had to leave for work, as did Hayden so I drove her to work Thursday morning. My
mind was all over the place and Hayden and I didn’t exactly speak on the drive there.
I thought a lot about racing and what this would mean. I couldn’t race and have a
kid, too, could I?

My brother did and so did my dad. That shouldn’t stop me, right?

Once I was in the shop, like the exact moment, Charlie was in my face.

He was saying all kinds of shit about me using Hayden and I understood none of it.
So I punched him. I’ve heard my family say I’m nothing like my dad. That’s not entirely
true. If you piss me off enough, I’m exactly like him. React, then talk.

Noah had to separate us and then Hayden was standing there with her hand over her
mouth, watching.

I was breathing heavy, trying to get myself together but I couldn’t. Everything I’d
bottled up for so long with Charlie and this situation had blown up.

“You think this will work out between you two?” Charlie yelled over my harsh words
I was sure no one could decipher. I was pretty upset by then. “You don’t know anything
about her!”

“Come on, Casten,” Axel tried to push us apart again. “He’s just—”

“He just needs to mind his own fucking business.” I pushed back against my brother,
creating distance and faced Charlie again.

“I know enough,” Charlie snapped, his eyes only on me as we stood just feet from one
another again, both sporting bloody lips. “All that I asked was that you not fuck
around with my friend like the rest of the world has. That’s all! And what did you
do, you got her pregnant!”

I don’t think Hayden told him because that’s when she blew up. “Oh my God!” she screamed
pushing Charlie away from me, hitting his chest with angry fists. “What the hell is
wrong with you?”

“I quit!” he snapped flipping the engine in my stall to the ground. “Try running this
fucking business by yourself!”

Axel looked to me and then to Hayden, barely regarding her before rolling his eyes
but said nothing.

I stood with my arms extended holding myself up against my tool box with my back to
Hayden never acknowledging her. My hands were spread wide, my weight leaning into
them and my head bent forward contemplating what the fuck was going on with me. My
emotions were all over the fucking place. You’d think I was the one pregnant.

I turned around and faced my brother.

Axel glared at the engine smashed on the concrete floor. “As if we don’t have enough
shit to deal with—an eighty-thousand-dollar engine is trashed!”

When Axel slammed the shop door behind him, Hayden watched me closely. “Are you alright?”
she asked in the timid beaten dog tone again.

I turned to face her, blood poured from my lip as my restive eyes gauged hers. “Do
you want this? I’m not going to put up a fight for someone I don’t think will fight
for me in turn.”

“I built a fuck fort for you?” was her response. “And I’m having your baby.”

“Do you want to be with me?” my voice dropped low and defeated. “Is that something
you want?”

She looked at me, wondering what went wrong from me telling her I wasn’t going anywhere
this morning to this, confused and frustrated.

I guess maybe it was adrenaline or maybe it was just me finally being exposed. This
girl here, the one with the tearful expression before me, had taken my heart and now
I was scared what she could do with it.

“I think what I want is for you to see what it is
you
want.”

And then she left.

Post Entry – A team or driver who enters the race after the deadline. A post entry
is allowed no driver or owner points.

Originally Anna was going to go with me to that first appointment my doctor scheduled
for me Friday morning but she had a meeting in Charlotte she couldn’t get out of.

As I was leaving work around two that afternoon, Casten came up with his hands buried
deep in the pockets of his gray cargo shorts, his hat pulled down low. “Are you leaving?”

He wasn’t dressed in his usual CST shirt so I was aware he was either leaving or maybe
just arriving.

We hadn’t spoken since the incident with Charlie yesterday morning. I guess in some
ways, I needed some space from him.

“Yeah, I got a doctor’s appointment. They’re doing an ultrasound.”

He didn’t say anything, his attention on his feet when I said, “Okay, well, see ya
around.”

Maybe it was all my emotions but I felt like crying.

Sometimes a girl just needs a good cry. One that cleanses all her frustrations.

That’s what Haley used to tell me when we were kids and I’d catch her crying. If you
ever spent any amount of time around her, you understood she was a girl on a mission.
Nothing scared her. If she wanted to accomplish something, she did and there was no
question.

But I saw a side of her late at night that some didn’t. The fear she had buried down
deep. The fear that drove her to do what she needed, but also, the fear that got the
best of her at times.

If I thought it was tough being the youngest, and having a mother who I was sure hated
me, Haley had the expectation of greatness. I didn’t see it for a long time but I
did when she moved away. My parents expected great things from her and she did great
things. But there were times when she didn’t. Times when she would go to a party,
or date a guy they didn’t approve of.

In many ways, she was just like me.

This was apparently my fear. I was fucking up and I was doing it big time.

What bothered me the most was how Casten and I went from best buddies to this. It
was depressing.

Just as I was walking away, he surprised me. “Can I come with you?”

“You want to?”

“Yeah,” his eyes met mine and he reassured me he wasn’t a total asshole, just maybe
a quarter asshole. “I don’t want you to go alone.”

He’s not an asshole at all.

The drive there was quiet, neither one of us speaking much. When we got inside the
clinic and the doctor asked Casten if he wanted to come back, I could almost see the
sweat pouring off of him.

When they put that little magic wand on my stomach, he started breathing heavy.

When he looked at me, he squashed every bitter thought I might have had for him, or
this situation. Gentle eyed and soft voiced, I saw a side of Casten I didn’t know
was there. Very much a boy still, he was a baby of a family that had busy lives. No
one ever took him seriously. I don’t think that necessarily bothered him.

But he had a job now and he was doing something. He had goals he was working toward.
Now he knocked up a girl.

What would they think of him now?

That scared him.

In a lot of ways, Casten and I were very similar. Often times I would be thinking
something and he’d say it.

I think that’s why I understood his fear right now. I had the same fear.

“There is your baby,” the ultrasound tech said, pointing to the screen. “Looks like
you’re due in early January.”

“The other guy told me December twenty-sixth.”

She shrugged and hit a button on the side of the monitor. “By the measurements, it’s
telling me January tenth. They could have been off on the calculation.”

I swallowed over the lump in my throat and looked at the screen, then to Casten and
back to the screen.

When we heard that steady flicker of the heartbeat and the little diamond-shaped blip
on the screen, his smile matched my own.

“That’s the baby?”

The lady nodded at my question.

We didn’t say anything in that moment. Nothing. We just stared at the screen.

When the lady left, Casten looked at me. “You asked me to see what I wanted.” Swallowing,
he drew in a deep breath and placed his hand over my bare stomach. “I want this.”

As scared and nervous as I was about it, I wanted that too.

I don’t even remember leaving but the next thing I knew, we were in his truck and
sitting outside the doctor’s office talking. I had the picture in my hand.

“I can’t believe this,” I shook my head. “I just can’t believe you put a baby in me
with your balls.”

He laughed. “You know, they should have done an ultrasound on my heart,” he laughed.
“That would have been interesting. I think it stopped beating.”

“We have to tell our parents, Casten.” I continued to stare at the picture and then
he took it from me, taking a closer look at it.

He gave me that look of panic again, then looked back at the picture. “Maybe we don’t
have to tell them.”

“Or maybe we do.”

“Okay, well, let’s start with yours and then we’ll slowly move to mine,” he suggested.
“How about that?”

“Fine.”

Two hours later we were sitting in my parent’s living room.

“Can I get you something to drink?” My mom asked Casten, ignoring me when I asked
for water.

“I’ll have a beer,” he said, laughing, trying tease her.

“The fuck you will. Aren’t you nineteen?”

“I’m actually eighteen.”

Casten looked at me when she walked away. “Who is that lady? She’s not very friendly.”

“My mom. You met her before, dumb ass.” I had to laugh knowing this was where the
shit was about to get real. I’ve been going over this conversation in my head for
days and have yet to come up with a justifiable way of telling them.

“Oh.”

“Uh-huh.” I patted him on the back. “You’re off to a great start with her.”

Confusion came over him. “Everyone likes me. I don’t get it.”

Dad came in after that and shook Casten’s hand. I doubted he would be doing that if
he knew the truth. In fact, he’d probably be kicking the shit out of him or showing
him his gun collection in the basement.

“How’s the points going with your dad and Axel? Aren’t there like two points separating
them now?”

“One now after Charlotte.”

He nodded. “Tate said Easton’s doing good, too, and gonna do the triple duty next
year.”

Casten removed his hat scratching at his mop of hair and then smiled up at my dad.
“Yeah, that’s the plan.”

Conversations flowed for a while and then Dad looked at me, and then my mother who
had said nothing. She was such a bitch. I think that if it was acceptable, she would
have ate me when I was a child.

“Haley is doing great,” Mom said, rubbing it in my face that yes, my sister is doing
great in college and making something of herself. I decided now was the best time
to piss in my mother’s Cheerios.

Only problem was, I could barely get it out.

“I’m pregnant,” I told them, lacking confidence, naturally.

“You’re what?” Dad asked, arching his eyebrow at Casten.

“I’m—”

“I heard you the first time,” he interrupted, trying to breathe. I could literally
see his hand twitch, as if he wanted to reach for his gun I was sure wasn’t far from
him.

“Well, most wouldn’t say
what
then, would they?” Casten clarified, not helping the situation at all.

He shot Casten a glare.

“How could you do this?” he asked me.

“I didn’t do this,” I pointed to Casten. “His penis did. Or I guess, if you ask him,
his balls did.”

Casten’s cheeks flushed as he looked at me in horror. He was most definitely afraid
of my dad. Pussy.

Dad stood and stepped toward Casten, his eyes incredulous, and before I could stop
him, he had him up against the wall and his hands fisted in his shirt. “What the fuck
were you thinking?”

“I’m sure we can work something out here, Mr. Harris. I know this,” he stopped, and
then collected himself a little with a deep breath, “wasn’t planned. We didn’t … she
was on the shot. It was an accident and then she got bit by the snake.”

That did nothing to calm my father. Nothing at all.