The Champion (Racing on the Edge) (33 page)

Let me give you an idea of how
many
people we had.
So starting with us was me, Jameson, Axel, Arie, and Casten.

Six-mouth old Casten wasn’t exactly running around. He
was constantly attached to the foodbags or eyeing his older brother and
laughing.

Spencer and Alley were here with Lane, who had just
turned eight. Lexi and Cole were also here but instead of running around after
the motorized vehicles like the older boys were, they were playing in the
shallow parts of the water.

Then we had the terrible toddlers, Aiden and Emma’s
hellions, Charlie and Noah. Not as bad as the Lucifer Twins but were definitely
giving them a run for the title of the worst children ever. It must be
something with twin boys. I could only assume that with age, they’d be even
worse.

Being only three and a half, they still had time.

Speaking of Lucifer twins, they were here too but
seemingly well behaved for the most part. They’d just turned eleven and it
appeared Van kept them in line.

Justin, Ami their daughter Lily and their new little
one-year old boy, Kale, were with us as well.

Then we had the adults without kids; Tommy and his
girlfriend Melissa (and yes, the Melissa who represents Simplex), Tyler and
Cody. Ryder showed up with a new girl on his arm and Tate, his wife Eva and
their son Jake came out. Bobby, Paul, Andy and even Colin Shuman came out for a
night.

It seemed as though we had everyone here including Jimi
and Nancy.

With this many people, it made for some interesting
times.

I don’t know why we went camping. It’s not like we have
ever had a good time doing it. Most of our time camping was spent running around
after the kids and remembering all the past bad times we’d had camping.

To understand how strongly we felt about camping, you
have to understand our brush with death the last time we camped. We made sure
we were in an area with no cougar sightings. If you don’t remember exactly what
happened, all I can say was we almost died, a few times.

There were no cougars in the area but there were seven
little boys under ten years old and two who had just turned eleven to annoy us.

I can’t count the number of times we told those boys,
“Stop throwing rocks and put that goddamn stick down!” or “Get the goddamn
stick out of the fire!” and “Give me the goddamn stick!”

Then there were the moments after cooking the s’mores
that we had to say, “The marshmallow is on fire, get it out of the fire, don’t
throw the marshmallow at your sister, and give me the goddamn marshmallows!”

It was hell. I couldn’t understand why parents would
willingly put themselves through this regularly. I sure as hell wasn’t going
to. I love my kids dearly regardless even if they throw rocks at me, spit on
me, or punch me in the throat when they’re throwing a fit but when we were
outdoors, it was worse. You wouldn’t believe the shit kids could get into at a
race track with thousands of people around but when we went camping, my dear
god, it was worse.

Axel, my beautiful little four-year old son, was being a
little shit. He was upset that we didn’t bring his go-kart or his quarter
midget so he insisted on being on his worst behavior.

Jameson had to tell him on more than one occasion that
he’d never race again if he didn’t straighten up but he insisted on being a
complete turd. We’d only been there five minutes when Jameson had to discipline
him for throwing rocks at Logan. Not that I blamed him but still, Logan and
Axel needed to learn that they couldn’t just do whatever they wanted.

With Axel and his behavior this weekend, Jameson and I
wanted him to have some balance and time away from racing from time-to-time but
just like Jameson, he wasn’t having it.

Instead, he was buzzing around on Lane’s dirt bike.

Lane headed in the opposite direction of the Riley boys
and racing preferring two wheels to four.

Jameson may have had something to do with this as he was
constantly riding his dirt bikes around our property in Mooresville. Lane soon
picked up on it. Right after he turned six, Spencer bought him one for his
birthday and he’s been riding ever since.

So the kids stuck sticks in the fire, rode dirt bikes,
swam in the lake and were just kids.

The adults, we drank. It was the only way to remain
stable.

Even though there didn’t appear to be any cougars or
bears, the bugs were another story. They were obnoxious. There were small ones,
big ones, colorful ones, some the size of fucking birds, noisy ones
...
I feared for my skin and soon for my sanity
when the itching began. I felt sorry for addicts who went through withdrawals
and wondered how in the world they didn’t take a grinder to their skin.

If I could have found one, I would have.

I must have lathered up with an entire bottle of calamine
lotion while Jameson washed his skin obsessively like he would actually wash
away the bites. It didn’t work and in the end, we itched.

“I don’t like this.” Jameson said conversationally
slapping away a bird-sized mosquito.

“Me either.” I took a drink of my beer peering down at my
speckled itchy skin. “There are so many bugs.”

“It’s Alabama. What did you expect?”

“So?”

“That’s all this state has besides peaches, is bugs.”

“Peaches are from Georgia.”

“Sway,” his eyebrow arched toward me. “they have peaches
everywhere.”

“I know that. I’m just saying that the term
peaches
goes with Georgia,” I scratched my forehead. “not Alabama. Just like apples go
with Washington and oranges go with Florida.”

“Does it really fucking matter?”

“Yes.”

He snorted and stood up. With a stretch, his back arched
and he yawned running his hand through his hair and then down his jaw. Eyeing
the lake, he motioned with his head toward the direction of the lake. “I’m
going for a swim.”

Alley started laughing beside me while lathering up Lexi
with sun block.

“I can’t believe Aiden thought this would be fun.” She
said only to me.

Emma was all about camping and couldn’t stop organizing
and making our campsite homey, so god forbid we bad mouth the trip in front of
her.

I never got up from my little throne next to the
campfire. Hoping maybe the bugs would leave me alone, I realized by not moving,
I attracted them like a florescent light.

Later that night, after dinner, Spencer and Aiden took all
the kids to go watch fireworks and that left Jameson and I
alone
.

You can imagine how we made use of the time.

“You wanna get naked?” he asked wiggling his eyebrows at
me.

“You know
...
sometimes
women like romance.”

“Oh—sorry,” He moved to sit next to me, the rusty
highlights in his hair sparkling from the light of the fire. It was a sweet
gesture when his hand rose to cup my cheek and leaned in to kiss my forehead.
“Honey, please get naked with me?”

“You’re such a knob.”

A few minutes later, we were both naked inside our tent.

“Can you scratch my ankle?”

“Yeah—sure,” so I scratched his ankle.

“Thanks.” he grunted pushing me forward to grasp my ass
with his hand. I liked it, a lot.

To me, there’s nothing better than camping in the middle
of nowhere and having hot dirty sex with your dirty heathen while the kids are
occupied.

Speaking of dirty, dirt was literally everywhere in the
tent. And in Alabama, the dirt was more like clay and it sticks to you. I was
itchy and the dirt kind of felt nice chaffing against my skin.

“Can you scratch my back since you’re back there?”

“Yeah—where?”

“By my ass
...
oh
yeah
...
right there.” His movements
didn’t stop either and I’m not really sure what felt better, the scratching or
his movements, so I moaned. “Oh yes!”

“You like that?” he asked with a hint of arrogance. “Fuck
yeah you do.”

“Yes!”

Suddenly he stopped. “Wait, what are you liking more, the
scratching or the sex?”

How the fuck do I answer this one?
They both felt
good but the combination of the two was what was
really
good.

“Both.” I squeaked.

I heard him sigh and fall back on the ground.

“This isn’t working.” He started itching his arms
obsessively like a junkie.

I scrambled on top of him to straddle his hips. “Yes it
is working.”

“No it’s not. We itch and we look like we have
chickenpox. You know how much I hate stuff on my skin and look at it!” His eyes
closed. “I want to go home.”

“So you don’t want to
...
”
I swiveled my hips once, his back arched as his hands stopped itching and flew
to my hips.

No more words were spoken as the dirty heathen took over.
It was one of those times when you don’t say anything because you just have a
mission: getting done before the kids came back.

By the time we were done, we were sweating, covered in
red clay and a few more bug bites.

“Ow!” Jameson yelled rubbing his leg. “Something bit me!”

I grinned.

“Was it a cougar?” I started laughing uncontrollably on
the floor of the tent. “Or maybe in was a shark.”

Holding his calf, he scowled. “No!”

“Come here.” I motioned for him to lie against my chest,
still laughing. “Let the mama wizard see.”

He was hesitant but any chance at cuddling the funbags
was appealing to the dirty heathen, so he did. Examining his calf, above his shark
bite, there was a raised blotchy patch.

“Oh you poor thing,” I cooed running my fingers through
his hair. “Are you going to be okay?” Despite my calmed tone, I was still
laughing.

“Stop laughing,” he pulled back to glare. “This is
not
funny. What if I was bit by a deadly spider?”

“Well then—I will apologize when you die.”

He side-eyed me. “Nice.”

It wasn’t long and the kids returned all of them popping
off their rev limiters as Jameson would put it.

After that it was the battle of getting the little shits
to bed and to stay in bed. It was almost like they smelled the fresh air and
once it hit their lungs they acted like fucking brats.

It took Jameson, me, and Spencer just to get Axel into
bed and finally Nancy had to step in.

Arie was easy. She went out like a light when Jimi
captured her in his arms.

Casten stayed awake, for a while, eyeing everyone
curiously, but it seemed okay since he was a baby and couldn’t tell anyone how
ridiculous his parents acted when the kids went to bed.

He did however pass out about the time Tommy, who was
suffering from allergies and who took to drinking Benadryl, plopped down in a
camping chair next to Jameson and started telling him about how he thought he
needed a raise.

Tommy was joking because Jameson gave willingly to
everyone on his team whether it was the Cup team or sprint cars.

Every year Ford handed Jameson a brand new truck of his
choice. And every year, he then handed that truck over to one of his boys. He
always went all out on Christmas and birthdays for anyone on his teams. Most
thought he was an asshole but he knew everyone’s birthday on his team and
surprised them every year with something most could never dream of affording.

Why did he do that?

Because to him, he wouldn’t have any of the luxuries he had
now if it wasn’t for them.

Jameson, concerned that his only mechanic on his sprint
car team was drinking Benadryl as though it was a juice box, looked at Jimi,
who was still holding Arie, for help.

Jimi shrugged when Jameson tried to take the bottle from
him and gave us the same look he’d given Nancy when she made him sit through
the
Sex in the City
movie.

“He’s drinking Benadryl through a straw.” Jimi reminded
us. “I guarantee you that’s the least of your problems tonight.”

And my god was he right. That night seemed to be
something similar to the old pit lizard days. Thank god there wasn’t a tattoo
parlor nearby but we did have a branding torch courtesy of Spencer.

It started when Spencer said, “I bet you can’t swim
across this lake.”

You never say that to these boys and expect them not to
react. Ever.

Jimi stood, shifting Arie to his other arm, and motioned
around. “The shit is about to hit the fan and I’m tired. No one kill themselves
tonight. It’s supposed to be relaxing and the nearest hospital is miles away.”
He looked at Tommy and Spencer. “You two stay away from my fucking tent
tonight.”

Jimi and Nancy put Arie in our tent and then snuck off to
theirs.

So what did happen when the parents went to bed?

Oh god. Where do I even begin?

Spencer started in with the ‘I bet you can’t do that’
shit and that resulted in Jameson, Justin, Tommy and Aiden swimming across the
lake. About one minute into it, Justin confessed he couldn’t swim very well and
ended up coming back when he couldn’t touch anymore.

That left Jameson, Tommy and Aiden battling it out in
their own version of aquatic survivor. I was amazed someone didn’t drown out
there with the way they were dunking each other.

Halfway across the lake, they gave up and decided
drinking beer was more entertaining than drowning. It also had something to do
with Justin reminding them there were snakes in the lake.

Spencer convinced they had no balls for not completing
his stupid ‘I bet you can’t do that’ task, threw insults at them all night.

Tommy, wanting to one-up Spencer, decided he was going to
fill the water balloons the kids had with piss. Yes, a twenty-eight year old
man-child was filling water balloons with urine.

The worst part, my twenty-eight year old husband joined
him.

Here’s the thing though and what these dumb shits never
considered. Spencer has pulled off more pranks than all of them put together.
He knows when he’s about to be pranked and usually knows how.