Racing Outside the Line: A Love Story at 190 Mph (15 page)

10 Discovery

On the jet on our way to Indianapolis, I tried to zone out and not think about the fact that I would be seeing Seth in less than two hours. My stomach felt like a washing machine set to delicate cycle, my lunch swishing around inside of my belly. It may not sound like a long time to be away from Seth, a little less than two days, but it seemed so much longer. The anticipation of flying out to see him had been markedly exhausting. I had never been the type of girlfriend in college, who sat around waiting for some guy to call, but we were talking about Seth here, and I couldn’t help but allow my life to revolve around him. The closer we got to Indianapolis, the antsier I got. Only two words were written on the piece of paper that was to be a letter to Chelsea. Instead of writing, I sat tapping the pen against the table and staring out the window until Wyatt leaned across the table and put his hand over mine. Looking up at him, he smiled.

"Are you nervous about the race?" Great! Another opportunity to show off my fabulous lying skills.

"A little."

"Mmm Hmm," was the skeptical noise that came from Wyatt as he raised his eyebrow at me for the second time since we boarded the plane. He looked concerned, but not the typical version of a concerned face that I was used to seeing. This seemed familiar, though. I leaned back in my seat dramatically and let out a loud sigh. He put his laptop away and pulled out a binder placing it on the table in front of him. The second he opened it, my eye caught the first page, and my heart started thumping loudly. It was a picture of Seth, looking undeniably sexy in sunglasses and a white t-shirt. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the picture. I could tell Wyatt was watching me out of the corner of his eye, so I did my best to look away from Seth’s picture.

When my peripheral vision picked up on Wyatt turning to look at me, I took slow deep breaths to try to calm myself.
Be calm and composed,
I told myself.

"Hmmmm?" He seemed to question himself before looking back down at the picture in the binder. "It’s an ad for these sunglasses," Wyatt explained, pointing at the sunglasses in the picture. "I’m supposed to decide on the best picture to have placed on his website. A woman’s perspective would be nice." He slid the binder over to me as I put away the stationery I was writing my letter to Chelsea on.

I flipped through the pages and did my best not to let my jaw drop. He was amazing in every picture. He wasn’t smiling in most of them, but there were a few with his crooked little smile that always made me wonder if he were thinking of sex and always made me wish he were thinking of sex with me. Remembering our conversation last night, it suddenly hit me that it was highly plausible that he was thinking about having sex with me in each of these pictures. A ridiculous giggle escaped my control along with a profuse smile, and immediately I knew I was busted. I tried to get a handle on my facial expression and failed miserably. I bit my lip, trying to hide my smile and looked away.

I heard Wyatt sigh loudly and with exasperation, as he leaned back in his chair. He covered his eyes with his hand and started laughing… I was toast. He couldn’t
not
know at this point. "Oh boy," he sounded sort of amazed as he shook his head slowly, "It’s my job to make him attractive to women, to draw in that crowd, but I didn’t intend for that to include you sweetheart."

Trying my best to evade an admission of the truth, "He’s cute, there’s no denying that."

"Oh, honey…" he sighed loudly again. "The years I’ve spent trying to keep that expression
off
your face…"

I pretended not to hear him. I wasn’t ready for this discussion. I needed Seth with me to have this discussion with Wyatt. I put my finger on a picture and pushed the binder across the table back at Wyatt, "That one," I managed to sound remarkably composed.

"Alexis?" I didn’t respond, instead, I took the chicken’s way out and got up to use the restroom. When I came back, Wyatt had the laptop out again and was typing furiously away. I was grateful that he let it drop.

An hour later, we were making our final descent into Illinois. I did my best not to think about who was already waiting for me here because I was trying to avoid any more uncomfortable moments with Wyatt. He clearly knew that I still had an insane crush on Seth, but was polite enough not to bring it up again.

A limousine met us at the plane and we were on our way to the racetrack. Wyatt was on the phone the second we got off the plane and hadn’t gotten off the phone since. It gave me some time to compose myself before seeing Seth again. It was dark outside, so I could only see the blur of passing lights as we wound our way through Indianapolis.

When it seemed we had moved away from the lights of the city, Wyatt snapped his phone shut and reached over to squeeze my hand, "We’re here."

Surprised at how calm I wound up being despite that I had been a nervous, agitated wreck the whole flight here, I listened as we pulled up to a gate. Wyatt handed the driver a card, and we were allowed to enter. I couldn’t hear anything from inside the limo, but I could see people moving around every now and again. Finally, we came to a much quieter area, and I heard Wyatt on his cell phone again, "We just pulled up… okay, I see you."

Looking out Wyatt’s window I could see a fancy golf cart type vehicle pull up next to the limo. Wyatt got out of the limo and turned back to help me out. Desmond got off the golf cart and came over to hug me. "Welcome to Indianapolis." I tried to smile, but my mind was busy wondering where Seth was. Wyatt opened the passenger door of the limo, "We’ll need you again in a few hours, Jared."

"Climb aboard, Lex, we’ll head over to Seth’s RV and talk about dinner plans. I don’t know about you two, but I’m starving."

"I could definitely eat," was Wyatt’s response before he began talking business with Desmond. The RVs we passed by were amazing. I had never seen such extravagant things on wheels before. Each one had its own personality. Delicious smells emanated from the RVs, which made my stomach begin to growl.

We came to a stop in front of an RV that was blatantly Seth’s. I wasn’t sure if Seth was inside it or not, so I was uneasy about what was going on.

I looked around at the different RVs parked near Seth’s as Wyatt and Desmond continued talking heatedly about something business related. Wyatt grabbed his laptop bag and opened the door to head into the RV.

I assumed Seth was not around since I didn’t hear Wyatt offer any greeting. Just as I turned around to grab the bag I had brought on the plane, a hand came from behind me to rest on top of mine. I took a deep breath knowing exactly who it was and took in the smell of his cologne. His arm brushed mine as he leaned over to whisper in my ear, "I missed you, beautiful." Leaning my head toward his, I closed my eyes simply enjoying being near him again.

"Would it be inappropriate to give you a hug?" I asked hopefully.

"I think we can get away with it."

I turned into his arms and squeezed him tightly. It was incomprehensible how comforting his arms could be. He kissed the top of my head, and I felt his chest rise and fall.

"I’d forgotten how amazing you smell," he commented. "I wish I could hold you all night."

As we pulled apart from each other, not wishing to press our luck, I looked into his eyes and saw that he was feeling the same desperate need that I was. "I
have
to be alone with you."

"I’ll find a way," was all he had time to say before Wyatt poked his head outside of the RV to look at us.

Instead of just shouting something out to us, he surprised me by stepping slowly out of the RV and walking over to where we were standing. Thankfully, we had separated to an acceptable distance and were just standing there innocently.

Wyatt stopped just in front of us and looked down at me, then over at Seth. Seth looked quickly down at the ground. I was looking at Seth looking at the ground when Wyatt finally spoke. "You know, Seth, I noticed something interesting on the flight up here." I could feel the blood rush to my face as I looked up in panic at Seth. Seth’s head came back up and he must have seen my frightened expression out of the corner of his eye, because he turned his eyes back to me. He took the tiniest of steps toward me before stopping himself.

Wyatt smacked his hand to his eyes and shook his head as he had done on the plane. "Well, at least I don’t have to lecture you about not hurting her feelings."

Seth was looking into my wide eyes with confusion as I mouthed the words, "He figured it out."

"Crap!" was Seth’s loud response as he bent over, placing his hands on his knees, looking as if he had just run a mile. I watched Wyatt walk over to him and placed his hands on his shoulders pulling Seth back up until he was standing.

They looked at each other and Wyatt started shaking his head again, "You know, Desmond really is going to kill you this time." Seth closed his eyes and nodded slowly before Wyatt started laughing. He walked back to the RV, and just as he reached the door, he turned back to look at us again only to laugh harder. "He’s gonna kill ya, and I’m gonna watch."

Standing there, unable to move, I had to really focus to figure out what had just happened here. Wyatt knew all of it, knew it wasn’t a one-sided thing, but then, I had to remind myself, he had always known it wasn’t a one-sided thing, so why wasn’t he angry now? Why was he leaving it to Desmond?

I felt Seth’s hands on my upper arms as he tried to get my attention. Knowing I had a look of confusion on my face I went ahead and asked, "What did he mean ‘this time’?"

Seth shook his head and pulled me into his arms, "We have to go in or Desmond will be suspicious."

"Why don’t we just tell him? Wyatt knows, why not Des too?"

"You have to trust me, I have to get out of this mess with Alexandria,
then
we’ll tell him, I can’t fault him for killing me when I’m engaged to another woman." At that rather painful reminder, I pulled myself away from him and walked toward the door to the RV. This was
so
not the reunion I was hoping for.

Inside the RV, I could hear Desmond angrily speaking to someone on the phone, but I didn’t hear what he was saying. He looked up at us and stepped into one of the rooms in the back, closing the door behind him. Seth took this opportunity to grab my hand and pull me further into the RV.

"Seth, you might want to stay away from her. If I were in your place, I’d want to make sure Desmond didn’t find out until I was in a big open space where I had plenty of room to run away from him." He finished his statement by laughing again as he sat back on the couch flipping channels on the huge plasma screen that was suspended from the ceiling at the front of the motor coach. "Where’s Gene? I’m hungry."

"He went to the store. He said he wanted to cook something special for our new guest. He should be back any minute." Turning back to me he explained, "Gene is my mom while I’m on the road. He drives the coach from place to place, cooks for me, keeps the fridge stocked with everything I like, picks up after me, keeps me from oversleeping, tells me when I’m being a jerk, anything I need him to do. You’ll like him a lot."

Seth smiled down at me as he responded to Wyatt, "He said, ‘boy, you really put yourself in a heap of shit this time, didn’t ya’ then he said, ‘Can’t say as I’m sad to see Miss I-broke-a-nail go."

"I’m sure he’s
quite
upset to see her go. Which reminds me, isn’t she…"

Seth grabbed my hand and started pulling me toward the door, "Come on, I’ll give you a tour of the outside."

Wyatt was shaking his head and grabbed Seth’s other arm as we passed him. Seth pushed me gently toward the door, "Give me a second with my dad."

I nodded and went outside wondering what that was all about. A minute later Seth emerged from the coach and pulled me into his arms. "I had to make sure he wouldn’t say anything until we’re ready for Desmond to know. He said he would stay silent when it was necessary."

"What was he saying about Alexandria?"

"You have to see our setup out here—it’s pretty nice—there’s even a plasma out here." He was pulling on my arm again, but I could smell a distraction.

"Okay," he conceded letting his shoulders slump in defeat. "But let me kiss you first." Without waiting for my permission, he leaned down to kiss me. It didn’t take long before my arms were wrapped around him and his hands were tangled in my hair. He guided me back toward the stability of the motor coach pushing his body into mine. When his lips left mine and descended on my neck, I let out a soft moan. Every thought went right out of my head, that is, until he whispered warmly in my ear, "Alexandria will be at the race on Sunday." I was almost too wrapped up in kissing him to understand what he said… almost. Then, it all came together and smacked me in the face like an angry fiancée who found me kissing her man.

Seth placed soft little kisses along my neck as I tried to calm myself down. He kept kissing me all over my face and neck as he added more information to the stinking pile he just gave me. "I left her a voicemail telling her not to come; she sent me an email saying she would be here." He kissed my neck and pulled my shirt off my shoulder to kiss me there. "I told her we needed to talk immediately. She said it would have to wait until she got back from visiting her sister." His hand went to my waist and pulled up the hem of my shirt until his hand found contact with my skin. "She knows what I’m going to say and is avoiding it." His hand moved to my back, then down my lower back to rest where my back met my butt. "Lex, she’s gonna make this more difficult, and Desmond says there’s nothing I can do to stop her without causing a larger media mess." I closed my eyes and sagged in his arms as he held me close to him. He took his other hand which was blocking my escape by resting against the motor coach and wrapped it around me.