Raced (20 page)

I sigh and plop down next to him and repeat my question. “Why would I be at the track?”

“Because that’s where you go when you need to think things through.”

I look over at him like he’s lost it because he sure as fuck is losing me. “Is there something you know that I don’t? Like what exactly I’m supposed to be thinking through?”

“You know life is one big scavenger hunt,” he says before falling silent. I stare at him as he looks out the window and try to follow the bread crumbs he seems to be dropping here. “Fate hands you a list of things to experience. Ones you never expected, ones that break you, ones that heal you. So many of them you swear you’ll never even attempt or want to cross off your list. You get caught up in the day to day, moment to moment, and then one day you look at your list and realize you’ve unexpectedly completed some of the tasks. It’s only then you realize that the brutal truths the scavenger hunt has made you face has not only made you a better person, but has also given you an unforeseen prize when all is finally said and done.”

Has he been hitting the bottle today when I didn’t know? He’s gone from the track to a scavenger hunt. I get he’s talking about my life in some context, but I need help connecting the dots here.

“Dad.” I sigh the word, part question, part exasperation. Throw me a goddamn bone here.

Rylee laughs and the sound floats inside causing me to look back at her.

Always back to her.

“I’m not going to lie, your list has had some pretty fucked-up shit on it, son.”

The way he says it, like he blames himself for the shit he couldn’t prevent, stabs at the parts deep inside of me. Parts I’d always thought dead until recently. The kid in me starts to apologize and then I stop myself. Can’t apologize if I don’t know what the fuck I did wrong, so I just sip my beer and give a noncommittal sound, not wanting him to feel guilty for the demons that came before he could protect me.

“I just think it’s time that you look at your list. Take stock of all of those things—expected and unexpected—and look at what extra things you’ve earned for crossing those items off.”

Silence falls between us as his words and what I think they mean start to sink in. The weight that has been lifted from my shoulders. The poison exercised from my soul. The new chance at life without the demons snipping at my heels.

All because of the defiant as fuck contradiction of a woman my eyes keep drifting back to.

“Sinner and saint,” I murmur without thought. My dad either doesn’t hear me because he just pulls the beer to his lips and takes another sip or chooses to let my comment slide. And as thoughts connect, puzzle pieces begin to fall in place. “Dad?”

“Hmm?” He doesn’t look at me, just keeps his eyes forward when I slide a glance his way.

“What is it you think I’m thinking about?” My voice doesn’t sound like mine when I ask it. It’s cautious, quiet, and I don’t care because all I want to know is his answer.

“How you’re going to ask Rylee to marry you.”

He delivers the statement so matter-of-factly that it takes a moment for me to register that I’m choking out, “Fucking Christ, Dad!”

Disbelieving laughter follows right behind my words. I scrub my hands over my face, more than aware of his scrutiny, and yet my mind races with his comment. Parts way down deep that I’m not sure I want to acknowledge flutter to life like nerves right before the green flag is waved on race day. Nerves that tell me my adrenaline need is about to get its next fix.

A fix.

A necessity.

Something you can’t fucking live without.

Rylee.

Dots connected. Bread crumbs scattered and gone so I can’t find my way back again.

The question is, do I want to?

Shit, I’ve got Becks chewing my ear about it and now my old man starting in. Fuck yes, the thought has crossed my mind. But shit I just realized I’m capable of loving someone, let’s not shoot the gun without loading it first.

Ruin a good thing by fucking it up with something that’s so bad for so many.

And things are good between us. Like fucking stellar. We’ve never talked marriage. Never even brought the word up. I told her I wanted to see what life hands us and she was cool with that. Didn’t say first comes marriage and shit.

So why all a sudden is the idea mulling around in my head when it’s a finish line I swore I was never going to officially cross.

Fuck me running. C’mon, Donavan. Speak the fuck up. Assert yourself. Say hell no instead of wondering what it would feel like to have her name be Rylee Donavan.

“Well, I don’t hear you saying no, now do I?” He glances my way, raises his eyebrows, and then leans back to put his feet up on the coffee table.

Ah fuck, he’s getting comfortable. I know what this means.

Can’t we just back the hell up here? I prefer the guessing game. I can fill in another answer we can get stuck on. Anything but this because it’s causing me to think of things I shouldn’t be thinking.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and squeeze my eyes shut momentarily as I try to wish the conversation away. And when I do, all I see is that goddamn vision of Rylee in a white dress that Becks’s comments at the pool party caused me to think of. And shit, that vision comes back with a vengeance. Veils and rings and shit I shouldn’t be thinking of. Shit that’s getting way too comfortable as a visitor in my thoughts lately.

I shake my head. Need to clear this nonsense. Rid it of the road this man is never going to race down. So why do I see the metaphorical finish line at the end of the track all of a sudden?

My heart pounds momentarily until I push away the thoughts his words are creating. What the fuck is going on here? Why does my dad have me thinking of scavenger hunts and marriage proposals?
Sweet Jesus
.

“You’re not pulling any punches today, are you?”

“I don’t believe I threw one,” he says, completely unaffected.

Is he fucking kidding me? Must be nice to sit there so calm and collected when he’s doling out sucker punches to make a damn point.

I slump down in the chair and rest my head against the back of it, eyes looking up at the pool’s reflection on the ceiling. I focus on it as he allows me the silence I need to swish the thoughts around like mouthwash. A necessary evil that burns before it leaves you cleansed.

Marriage.

The word lingers. There’s something about it that I can’t quite put my finger on. First causing panic, then banging around like a ping pong ball before feeling like that fucking grain of sand in my swim trunks. The one you feel at first, irritating with every movement—your mind thinking of how you need to strip your suit off so you can wash it out—but then as minutes pass to hours, you don’t feel it anymore.

It’s still there, in that spot right between your nuts and your thigh, and you’re kind of okay with it.

And it’s all because of her.

Fucking Rylee. I shake my head, one thought more than all others front and center. With temerity and defiance, obstinance and patience, she chipped away at every hard edge of me until there was nothing left but the truths I feared. The bent and broken. The ones buried so goddamn deep I knew they’d push her away.

And yet when all was said and done, when the poison in my soul was lying on the table so she could see how fucking dark it was, she looked me in the eyes and told me I was brave, loved the broken in me. I gave her my darkest and her response was to give me her light. Her love.

I blow out another sigh and scrub my hand over my face, words forming and then dying before I can speak.

“C’mon, Dad, me? Marry someone?” I spit the words out—words that used to be a given fact—so why in the fuck do they feel like lies when they come from my mouth while I’m looking at her?

“I call bullshit. Nice try though.”

And there’s the knock-out punch.

I stare at him, waiting for him to look at me, wanting the fight to prove he’s wrong. To prove that nothing’s changed. I can be with Rylee but that’s enough for me. No rings, no strings.

But that half-ass smirk is the only reaction he’ll give me to the buttons of mine he’s pushing with expertise. One by fucking one.

So why doesn’t that pitching feeling in my stomach come when I think of it all of a sudden? I have so many fucking excuses why I’ll never get married and yet even with the last push of my button, not a single one comes to mind.

The only thing that does cross my mind is the woman sitting feet away, well within perfect reach.

“Life only hands you so many chances, Son. You seem to have used quite a few this year already. I don’t think you should take many more for granted.” He turns his head now and locks eyes with mine. The man that’s sat beside me most in my life, held my hand to help me conquer my biggest fears, called my superheroes with me, is telling me there’s one left I have yet to face.

That there’s one item left on my scavenger hunt that will give me an even bigger reward than I ever thought I deserved or was imaginable.

Something happens.

Fuck if I can explain it other than that dead calm right before the green flag waves. When your body is amped up on adrenaline, mind is blanking sound out, everything is happening at a lightning-fast speed, but you sit there like time is in slow motion. Calm. Resolute.

At peace.

I force a swallow down my throat, past my heart lodged there, because motherfucker … this broken man who was once held together with Scotch tape is now rock solid, and it’s all because of Rylee.

She may be my kryptonite but fuck if I'm the superhero worthy of her.

His words echo in my head. Pushing me. Questioning me. Making me want things I never expected to want or deserve. Ever. I look down at the label, my fingers playing idly with it as ideas form, possibilities arise.

“How did you know Mom was the one?” I don’t give him a yes or no answer that my thoughts just might be veering in the direction his questions ask me about. I keep my head down, needing to get used to this idea myself.

Let the grain of sand irritating my nuts become a bit more familiar first.

I can feel his eyes on me, know he wants me to look up at him, but I can’t. Fucking sand isn’t all that comfortable just yet.

“How did I know?” He chuckles and the tone of his voice has a corner of my mouth pulling up into a smile. “Your mother walked into the cafeteria on the lot one day. She was an extra and I was an assistant director and she intimidated the hell out of me. She was gorgeous and commanded attention. And then she looked up and smiled at me and I knew. Just like that.” He pauses for a beat until I raise my eyes to meet his.

“How did I know? Because I let her in, let her see the good, bad, and ugly about me. I gave your mother the power to destroy me when I fell in love with her, and she didn’t. She was my prize at the end of my scavenger hunt. Without her I wouldn’t have this,” he says, motioning to my sister and then me. He glances out to my mom and smiles softly before looking back at me. “In racing terms, she was my checkered flag, Son.”

… I gave her the power to destroy me …

His words stagger me. Open me. Urge me. Seal a fate I never had control of until now.

He has no idea I call Rylee my checkered flag—no fucking clue—so I’m knocked back a pit stop second, pulse pounding, mind thinking of possibilities that were never mine to think.

I’m so focused on my thoughts and the bottle of beer in my hand, I jump when he cuffs me on the shoulder. “You’ll figure it out, Colton. You’ll make the right decision when or if you want to.” He rises from the chair and stands there looking outside for a moment. “You’re a good man. She’d be lucky to have you, just like your mom and I have been.”

He starts to walk away, his unending confidence in me still staggering after all this time, after all the shit I’ve put him through.

Even at my darkest.

“Dad.” I don’t know why I stop him when the conversation itself has made me uncomfortable, but I do.

He stops but doesn’t turn around, his back to me.

Words tumble. Thoughts scramble. But for some reason the ones that never stuck before are the only ones that do now.

“I love you.” The words are out without thought, my hands shaking, the little boy in me hoping he hears them.

I immediately hear the hitch of his breath as his whole body freezes. He slowly hangs his head forward, his shoulders shuddering momentarily. He raises his head and nods a couple of times. “And that is my unexpected reward for my scavenger hunt.” His voice is thick with emotion. “I love you too, Son.” He says it so softly before waiting a beat and walking into the kitchen area.

I exhale the breath I was holding, thankful he didn’t make a big deal and embarrass me when he heard the words it’s taken me a lifetime to say. Grateful we’re so close that he knows what I needed.

I shake my head. Shit, that was intense. All of it. Revelations and confessions I never expected to make all of a sudden fall like rain around me.

Fuckin’ A.

I look up and Rylee’s eyes lock with mine. The smile comes so naturally to her lips that my body—head and heart—react immediately to her.

And I know.

Just like that.

Something I’ve spent a lifetime fighting is all of a sudden knocked out by this defiant as fuck woman who owns the heart she showed me could beat again.

Fuck me. I just keep knocking ’em down one right after the other. Might as well tackle this bad boy while I’m on a roll.

My mind starts churning, ideas forming. The scavenger hunt of my life continues. I smile back at her as I stand and just stare.

My future.

My salvation.

The woman I want to marry.

Fuck. That grain of sand just became comfortable.

I guess the plus side is if marriage is sand, at least I know my dick is going to be covered in it.