“Are you okay if I stay here? At least until Oliver wakes up?” I ask, my thumb stroking her soft stomach.
“I’d like that,” she whispers, snuggling back into my chest farther.
“I’ll try not to wake you when I get up to take care of Oliver,” I state as my eyes close in exhaustion.
“Well, if you do, there’s only one thing to do when we’re both wide awake in the middle of the night.” She wiggles her ass back against my cock, just to make her point.
I chuckle against her ear. “Naughty girl.” I sigh deeply and let myself start to drift. “That’s why I love you.”
Only I don’t think those words are in my head.
I think they were very much spoken aloud.
And I don’t want to retract them, even if I could.
***
“Hey, Mack,” Jim says with a big grin as I step into the kitchen. He’s standing at the frying pan, something that smells an awful lot like bacon simmering in the grease.
“Morning, Jim. How was your night?” I ask, headed straight for the coffeepot.
“Pretty good. Slept like a baby once I got to bed,” he says with a laugh.
“Hey, thanks again for helping with Oliver. I appreciate you giving up your weekend to come help me,” I tell him, sipping the hot cup of joe.
“It was no problem, really. I’m happy to help whenever you need me.” He removes the last of the bacon from the pan and places it in the oven with the rest. When he turns to face me, I swear I can feel every ounce of his focus solely on me.
“Can I ask you something?”
Jim picks up his own coffee mug and leans against the counter, facing me. “Shoot.”
I divert my eyes. “It’s about Lena,” I mumble, glancing up to see him smile.
“I figured as much. Come on, let’s have a seat at the table.”
When we’re seated across from each other, I finally ask the burning question that’s plagued me since she walked through my front door. “Do you think I can convince her to stay?”
Jim sits back, a sad smile on his lips and a far-off look in his eyes. “It’s my fault, Mack. The reason she didn’t want to go with you,” he starts.
My entire body tenses.
“I don’t mean it like that. I didn’t say anything to keep her from going, but I suppose it didn’t help that I dragged her around all of her young life. She lived in a motorhome, Mack. Yeah, we had a house, but after her mother passed away, neither of us liked being there much. Especially me. So I pulled her from track to track without really considering what was best for her.”
“You did the best you could, Jim. I’m sure it wasn’t easy being a single father and on the road.”
He’s already shaking his head. “No, it wasn’t, but I could have done better. Looking back now, I wish I had done it differently. I wish I had given her more than weeknights at a shop while I worked on cars and weekends at a track while I worked. She never complained though, at least not at first.”
He takes a deep breath and focuses over my shoulder. “It was when she was a teenager that I noticed the change. She was always this happy, easygoing little girl who loved to be in the mix of the action, but suddenly, she was changing. Hormones and all that shit. Mack, I had no idea what to do. That’s when I knew it was time to take her home, to let her grow roots. We sold the house we were living in and I found the track in Brenton. It was a fresh start for both of us, and exactly what we needed.” His eyes meet mine. “The problem was, I did it too late. She was tired of life on the road. She wanted a slice of normal. That’s why she couldn’t go with you, Son.”
My heart hammers hard. So hard, I’m sure Jim can hear it across the damn table.
He leans forward, his eyes still locked on mine. “Don’t give up on my baby girl, Son. She loves you but has to come around in her own time. You represent her past, the one thing she gave up and swore she’d never go back to. She tried to move on, but in the end, there’s only one man for my baby girl.”
My throat burns with emotion and what little coffee I’ve consumed turns sour in my stomach. “That night, the one where she was supposed to get married,” I stop and take a deep breath. “That’s the night of Oliver.”
He slowly nods his head, taking in my words.
“I was a wreck, hating life and everyone in it. Especially myself. Renee was there and we did a few shots. One thing led to another and we got drunk and slept together. It was the night I became a father without even knowing it.”
This is the first time I’ve ever talked about Lena and her almost marriage.
“I hated that guy,” Jim mumbles, sipping his coffee. “He was all wrong for her, but I knew she had to figure it out on her own.”
I nod my head. “It wasn’t until two weeks after that, when you showed up at the Pocono race, and told me she didn’t get married. I’ve never felt so relieved in my entire life,” I confess, recalling exactly what it felt like back then. To find out from Jim she was getting married. To a stockbroker named Perry, for fuck’s sake. I was a mess for months, but able to put all of my focus and drive into the racetrack.
Until that night.
The one where she was supposed to get married.
I had wrecked my car in qualifying and drowned my sorrows
