Racing Outside the Line: A Love Story at 190 Mph (36 page)

I turned my attention back to the man whose arms I was so happily ensconced in. "So you were never affectionate with your many women?"

He chuckled again and rolled his eyes as he lowered me back to the ground, "Lacy’s filled your head with all sorts of information hasn’t she?"

"Is it true?" I allowed an inquisitive smile to play across my lips. "You didn’t hang all over your girlfriends like you do me?"

"Love, you should know by now that you are
it
for me. You always were. I was just too much of an idiot to admit it out loud sooner. When I was touching them, I could not, for the life of me, stop thinking about you."

I stood up on my tiptoes and kissed him on his cheek. It was actually a bit humorous, when I thought about it. It was funny how life came full circle. I laughed a small, but satisfying outburst.

"What’s so funny?" He crouched down to look into my eyes.

I shook my head and rolled my eyes, "They were your Joshes, weren’t they?"

He looked at me with those big beautiful eyes of his, full of confusion, but I watched as he seemed to work through it all and remember that night after the prom. I had said my life would be simpler if I had wanted Josh instead of what I couldn’t have, which was him. Would he remember that, though? I was about to explain it to him when recognition lit up his face and he kissed me sweetly, "Yes, they were my Joshes. Poor girls never had a chance up against even just a memory of you. You have no idea how many times that memory of your prom night crept into my fantasies," he shifted his position to where his teeth could graze my earlobe. I had to close my eyes in reaction to the sensation that ran all the way down to my toes. He whispered huskily, "You were so completely unforgettable. So responsive and passionate, you made me feel like
I
was the seventeen year-old losing
my
virginity. It was impossible to shake what you did to me."

"You know, I still have the dress in my closet at home, if you want to reenact it."

His smile turned devilishly handsome, "Mmm," he groaned, clearly thinking it through. Then he shook his head as though he had water in his ear, "The very idea is making it hard for me think, love. I can’t pick you up and carry you back to the motor coach right now, Gary would kill me. Change the topic, before I lose it."

I smiled about my power over him and asked questions about the car. "How’s she handling?"

"Pretty good," he draped his arm around my shoulders, and I threaded my fingers through his, playing with the feel of my small hand within his much larger and rougher one. "I’m not too unhappy, she’s a little tight in the middle, a little loose off, but the boys are working on that."

"You gonna raise the track bar?" Hey, I didn’t grow up around racing for nothing.

"Yeah, they’re raisin’ it a little, but they’re also makin’ a spring change before the next practice." He was looking down at me with those big sexy eyes of his just sparkling away. "I love you," he whispered in my ear.

"I love you too," I smiled, "but what brought that on?"

"I sometimes forget how lucky I am to be able to share all of this with you. There aren’t that many drivers who find love
and
a woman who wants to learn about the cars we drive, let alone one who taught herself when she followed you around before you were anything."

"Yeah, well, I was an excellent stalker," I laughed.

"You had help," he said laughing. His cheeks blushed, which was odd since he rarely got the least bit embarrassed. "I was kind of always trying to
make
you be in my way back then, no matter where you stood. I couldn’t help but deliberately walk the same pathway as you. And you were so clumsy that a lot of times, I, you know, had to hold onto you after bumping into you just to ensure you could still stand okay. There might have been a few times that my hand grabbed onto an inappropriate portion of your body."

My head shaking in amazement, I felt like the surprised expression I wore on my face was a permanent fixture. He was
trying
to touch me.

I stood there next to him, my arms wrapped around his waist and my mind wrapping around our past together. I looked out at his crew and vaguely watched them work on the car as Desmond came up to join the conversation that Jake and Lacy had started with Chelsea. I couldn’t help but feel like my life had finally worked itself out. I started vying for his attention at the races, and here is where we were standing, saying to everyone, "No more hiding, no more games, we’re in love with each other no matter what you all think."

His eyes turned to mere slits as his hand deviously spread a little further up my breast, "Forgotten already? I’ll have to fix that later."

"Yes," dropping the innocent routine, "you certainly will." Jake’s movement caught my eye again as he kissed Lacy briefly, but passionately, before letting go of her and walking back to his garage.

"It’s about time to head out. Will you be here when I get back?"

"I have to follow Lacy around convincing everyone that we are insane about each other. I don’t have too much trouble with the insane part, since almost everyone already knew that about you," teasing him was such a natural thing. His hand changed its sexy position to one succeeding at tickling me. I laughed without control for a moment before Seth allowed me to continue. "It’s the PDA, can’t be away from you portion they’re all having trouble with. I suppose I can’t be too surprised since I clearly spoiled all other women for you." I was exaggerating my confidence in the last statement, still not used to the apparent hold he was telling me I had always had on him, but after so many years of rejection, could you blame my poor brain for not immediately accepting this truth?

"Mmm, clearly," his nose was buried in the hair on the top of my head. I wanted to turn my face up to meet his lips, but Gary approached us looking uncomfortable.

"Uh—Seth, excuse me, Alexis, but uh, you gotta get in the car now," he ran his hand through his hair in apparent agitation. I suddenly worried that I had been monopolizing Seth’s time and worried that it was actually
me
that was distracting
him
.

Seth pulled his face out of my hair long enough to answer, "Be there in a sec, Gary." I looked up at him with an apologetic half-smile and tried to disentangle from his arms.

"Uh uh, don’t look at me like that, he isn’t being my keeper, love, he just isn’t used to seeing me drape myself all over a girl. I think it’s odd for him, just like you said it’s hard for the wives to believe it. You bring out a part of me no one has seen."

"I should hope none of them have seen your
part
," I teased.

"Well, I’m not in the habit of showing it off, except to you, wife."

"I’m glad to hear that, even if it does feel like a week since I’ve properly appreciated it."

"You’ll have to make up for that later—I have to go." As I nodded, his hands found my cheeks again. He held onto me for the briefest of seconds and kissed me. "Wish me luck?"

"Always," I said instinctively, "make me proud." He winked at me before relinquishing his grasp on my cheeks then turned to walk toward his car. I could certainly admit that the power of his masculine, sexy swagger was not lost on me. He was so confident that it bordered on arrogance, but remained in the sexy range instead of being annoyingly vain.

Seth had barely gotten into the car before Lacy was beside me shoving me toward "Cartman."

"We have work to do, and don’t tell me to forget it, just get your butt in the cart."

It seemed like a good ten hours later before we were finally on our way back to the motor coach. During a "chat," as Lacy called it (it seemed more accurate to call it a testimonial), with the particularly skeptical wife of Brice Eli and his mother, I was able to watch Seth qualifying on their plasma TV (he came in 4
^th
). They were friendly enough with me, but I could tell that they were just being polite; it would take some time to cultivate a true friendship with any of the women I was meeting.

Throughout all of the conversations I had that afternoon, the recurring theme was, "Seth? Affectionate? In public? Here? No, just not possible." They didn’t seem to doubt that he had married me, but they were more focused on the fact that he had become a different man with me. This seemed to be what they were all interested in seeing.

I was, however, happy to hear that they all held Seth in high regard as a "nice guy" and a "respectable driver." I had learned enough growing up around racing to know that the term "respectable driver" for these women meant "won’t put my husband/son in danger just to gain position."

Back at the motor coach, Desmond and Wyatt were adamant about going to the hotel to check in before coming back in a few hours to have dinner with us. I rushed my way through this discussion since Seth was waiting for me. Once they were gone, I opened the door and went inside the motor coach.

Seth wasn’t in sight, so I went into the bedroom to find him sprawled out on the bed watching TV, his arm behind his head, resting against a few pillows. I leaned against the doorway and looked at him.

"How did it go with the women folk?" he asked casually.

"They were surprised that they were being introduced to your wife and it
wasn’t
your ex, but they seemed to find it a pleasant surprise. She doesn’t have too many fans here. They don’t, however, buy that we are as in love as Lacy is telling them, which means that they aren’t seeing much of a difference between my right to you and A—hers." As silly as it may sound, I still didn’t want to say her name, it made her seem like a more powerful figure in our lives. "Lacy thinks that they’ll make a point to come by and check us out on their own tonight and tomorrow, she thinks they’ll be immediately won over."

"But you don’t?" How perceptive of him. I thought I had done a pretty good job of hiding my skepticism.

I shrugged in response, and he patted the bed next to him. I pulled myself from the doorway and walked over to the bed to sit down beside Seth, leaning up against the headboard. I kicked off my sneakers and brought my legs up close to my chest, hugging them to me. He was watching racing on the TV, and I tried to let myself laugh over the behavior pattern I had noticed so many years ago. It seemed all drivers and their crews were ridiculously obsessed with all forms of racing. They raced their own cars then spent their free time watching others race cars. You would think they would get bored. This always made me smile, but I couldn’t seem to let it crack the tension I felt. Something about the emotional weight of the day and being back in the room of his motor coach made me uneasy. I tried to shake off the memories, but it was more difficult than I had thought it would be. Of course, Seth noticed right away.

He jumped up off the bed and left the room. I was about to follow when he came rushing back in with a box wrapped in silver paper and white ribbon topped with a large white and blue bow. It was certainly something wedding related.

"I have something for you," he played with the bow on top of the box. "I was going to save it until we were alone tonight and could take the time to look through it, but," he looked up at me, and I could see that he was worried about me. I was worried about me, too. Would I always feel uncomfortable here? All of this was such a large part of his life, what if I always felt as though I didn’t belong? He scooted closer to me and leaned forward wrapping his arm around my chest and pulling me into him. "I think you could use this right now, and maybe you could show it around. It might help."

He pulled back and placed the box in my hands. I carefully undid the bow and pulled the top of the box off. A wide smile spread across my face. It was a book covered in ivory satin material with crisp white embroidered swirls all over. In the center was a close-up picture of Seth and me with the beautiful sun setting on the ocean behind us. Seth was in his white dress shirt, and I was in my wedding dress. His hand was cupping my cheek and we were staring into each other’s eyes with such obvious love. If I hadn’t been there myself, I would say that we
had
to be acting. It didn’t seem possible that two people could look this in love. I bit my lower lip, trying to hold back the sentimental tears that were threatening their presence. Embroidered in black above the picture were our names and the date of our wedding. I opened the book and found the rest of the portraits, but Seth’s hand stopped me from going further.

"I know you feel a little lost right now," he took the album out of my hands and set it on the small table beside the bed, "but you belong with me. We belong together, we always have. Nothing else matters, no one else matters, just us. You can tell them all to go to hell, love, really, I don’t care if you pull a Desmond and punch them all," he smiled at me, and my own smile pushed a tear down my cheek. "I just want you to be okay with being here."

I stayed quiet. I wanted to be okay with being here too; I just didn’t know how to go about it.

"Remember when I raced Late Models and you would help with the car?" I nodded. How could I not remember that? Those were some of the best memories of my teenage years. "You could do that again. You don’t have to be with the women doing whatever it is they do. You could stick around the garage with me and help. Hell, you should have heard Wyatt singing your praises about how much you used to help with the car. I’d give him a week before he’s got you down at the shop helping out. I just," he paused leaning back, his left hand now resting on my stomach as he ran his right hand through his hair, "I just want you to be you. Forget the crap that’s going on and forget what’s happened, I want
you
, just you."