son was back on track.
Kent glanced up and blinked Larry into focus.
“Oh. Hi, Larry.” Kent’s gaze slid briefly to Crystal, but he didn’t seem to recognize her.
“Hi, Larry,” Neil offered, but there was a tightness around his mouth as the two men kept walking.
“What are you doing?” Crystal asked Larry.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve never had a man embarrassed to be seen with me before.”
“I’m not embarrassed to be seen with you.” The mere thought was ludicrous.
She gestured back to Kent and Neil. “Then what the hell was that all about?”
Larry pretended to misunderstand. “You think they were arguing?”
“Don’t play dumb with me.”
“Seriously,” said Larry. “I think they were fighting about something.”
“You’re going to be fighting about something in a minute if you don’t smarten up.”
Larry tried to lighten the mood. “You’re telling a rocket scientist to smarten up?”
“I am when he’s behaving like a moron.”
He sighed, knowing full well she was talking about how he’d distanced himself from her when he saw familiar faces. “I was trying to be discreet. There’s no need to start gossip.”
“I don’t care about gossip.”
“Well, you should. NASCAR is a tight-knit community.”
“Is this an age thing?”
“This is an ‘I don’t want to announce our private business to the world’ thing.”
Her lips compressed. “You were perfectly fine until Kent came along.”
“We were an anonymous couple until Kent came along.”
“So, we’re going to have a secret affair. Is that it?”
No, that wasn’t it. Of course he didn’t want a secret affair. He didn’t want an affair at all. Trouble was, until he figured out exactly what was going on between him and Crystal, he didn’t know how to present it to the world-or his family.
“Because I can be discreet,” she told him, taking a backward step away from him. “I can be so discreet, you won’t even know I’m here.”
“Crystal.”
She took a second step, and said, in a voice low and intense, “You want to hide me out at some beach house at night then pretend not to know me during the day-”
“Stop!” He hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings. He took the two strides that separated them. “I want this to be dignified.”
“It is dignified. Or at least it was until two minutes ago.”
He lifted off his cap and dragged a hand through his hair. “You want to tell people we’re dating?”
“Is that what we’re doing?”
“See?” he hissed. “
“Do we have to give it a label?”
“If we don’t, they will.”
“So, let them.”
“Are you serious?” Did she know what kind of speculation that would cause?
“Oh look,” she said, nodding over his shoulder. “There’s Dean and Patsy.”
Larry twisted his head around.
“Hi, Dean. Hi, Patsy,” Crystal called with a wave.
Then, before Larry could react, she snagged his arm, pulled herself up and gave him a nuzzling kiss in the crook of his neck.
His body clenched in horror.
“Speculate
“I don’t believe you did that,” he growled, shaking free as he turned to meet his brother and sister-in-law.
Dean’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Patsy’s were wide with surprise.
“Crystal,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you this far from Charlotte.”
“Larry invited me,” said Crystal, and Larry tensed, waiting to see what other information she was about to offer up.
“We’ve been discussing a writing project I’m working on,” she finished.
“What project is that?” asked Dean, eyeing Larry up and down.
“A cookbook,” Crystal supplied. “I saw you had a good race in Charlotte,” she said to Dean.
Eyes still hard, Dean opened his mouth.
“Thank you,” Patsy put in, forestalling whatever it was Dean had been about to say, and earning a scowl from her husband. “The charity walk went well this morning,” she continued, directing her attention to Crystal. “I understand Softco made a nice donation.”
“Missed you there,” Dean said to Larry, innuendo sharp in his tone.
“I’ll be sending a check,” Larry added, refusing to rise to his brother’s bait.
“So what were the two of-”
Patsy nudged her husband with her shoulder, talking overtop of him. “Will you be joining me in the motor home later?”
“We might head up to Alan Cargill’s skybox,” Larry offered, feeling Crystal’s immediate and disapproving glare. “It’s a little hot down here. Hope you don’t mind but we dropped off Crystal’s dog at your motor home.”
“That’s fine. It’s the best place for him,” Patsy said. “Well, we’d better get going. We don’t want to be late for the driver introductions.”
“Have a good race,” Larry said to Dean, offering his hand.
“Good luck,” Crystal echoed.
“Thanks,” said Dean with a shake, but his expression told Larry they’d be talking later.
Larry watched them melt into the crowd. “See what I mean?” he said to Crystal.
“Are we going to hide up in the sky box and pretend we’re just friends?”
He thought about that. “Maybe.” Couldn’t hurt. At least for a while.
“You plan to see me again?” She leaned her shoulder to his, tipping up to whisper in his ear. “You plan to sleep with me again?”
He couldn’t deny that. “Absolutely.”
“What are the odds we can keep it a secret?”
“I’d have to write an algorithm to know for sure.”
“Ballpark it.”
“You trying to beat me at my own game?”
“You bet.”
He gave in with a harsh sigh. She was right. If they spent any amount of time together, their relationship was going to become public knowledge, at the very least public speculation. Hiding was a bad plan.
“Fine.” He agreed, deciding they should ease people into the idea. “We can wander around the infield. We can hold hands. But no public kissing. We’re not teenagers, and there are members of the press around here. As you know, the press loves my famous family.”
“I’ll try to restrain myself,” she muttered.
He held back a smile. “You do that.”
“But we’re kissing later.”
“Of course.”
“I don’t care if we have to park the rental car behind a warehouse or hide out in an airport restroom.”
“I’m not going into the ladies’ room. And you’re damn sure not going into the men’s room.”
“Do you academics get paid by the debate?”
“We do.”
“It shows.”
