She melted into my embrace, her head leaned back against my shoulder. “I love you too.”
I wasn’t sure what changes we needed to make to get through this season, but I knew when I was ready I had the crew to back me.
Twisting around in my arms, Arie leaned into the countertop, her eyes on the backyard. “You need to have a talk with naughty Knox.”
I raised an eyebrow. Last time she said that he’d lit the carpet in the family room on fire with matches he’d found. “Why?”
“He peed on Bristol when she was in the pool. Dropped his swim trunks, whipped it out and peed on her head.”
I wanted to laugh, because it was kinda funny, but I held back. “What’d she say?”
“She called him a bitch.”
“Can’t say I blame her. Do you think he meant to?”
“Oh yeah, he meant to.” Arie laughed. “She wouldn’t let him use the donut floatie. So he peed on her.”
I stepped back, distancing myself and laughed. It was all I could do because I loved that these were our problems now at the moment. Racing took up so much of my head most of the time when we were on the road that it left little room for things like this.
Glancing behind Arie, I noticed she’d been making hamburgers. She passed me the plate. “I’ll finish up in here if you go stick these on the grill and talk to naughty Knox.”
Taking the plate, I leaned in. “Only if you promise to put those lips to work later.”
“Bargaining for sex now, are you?”
I laughed. “I’ll do anything if it gets me lucky.”
“Cook the meat and maybe you’ll get to victory lane tonight,” she told me, winking as she suggestively shook the salad dressing in her hand.
Damn her. I waited a few minutes before I went outside to face the kids, for obvious reasons. Outside, Tommy, Paxton and Rosa were still in the pool trying to teach Pace how to jump off the diving board. His way of jumping was all in, arms flailing and feet kicking and usually ended with him belly flopping.
After putting the burgers on the grill, I found Knox in his time-out chair in the corner having to watch his brothers and sister play. He frowned when he saw me, his scowl earning his nickname. One would think Hudson was our meanest kid, and if I had to compare him and Knox, I’d say Hudson nine times out of ten. But Knox, fuck, that kid knew how to get revenge and mean it. Hence why he peed on his sister’s head.
I sat next to him on the lawn chair and knocked my hand to his knee. “Whatcha in the pits for this time?”
Pouting, he crossed his arms over his bare chest. “Bristol’s mean.”
“Is that why you peed on her?”
He stared at me, as though he couldn’t believe I knew about that and then pointed to Tommy. “He said I could.”
Tommy snorted. “No, I said you could pee outside, not on Bristol.”
Knowing toddlers, I understood where the confusion happened, but it still didn’t mean he should be peeing on people. I scooped him up into my arms, his wet hair soaking my shirt. He smelled like sunscreen and marshmallows. “You gotta be nice to your sister, dude.”
I didn’t have siblings growing up, and probably for a good reason. I was a lot like Hudson and Knox—mean as fuck and didn’t have time for bullshit. He lost interest in swimming and Tommy made his way over to me.
“You ready for nationals?” he asked, shaking the water from his orange hair.
I shrugged. I wasn’t sure of the answer. I knew I wanted to be sure, but there was still that fear imbedded deep inside me I couldn’t pinpoint. In a lot of ways I’d convinced myself that once I was back in the car everything else would fall into place.
Tommy nudged my knee with his hand. “Are you supposed to be cooking those burgers, or setting them on fire?”
“Shit.”
Turns out, I couldn’t even cook dinner. See? I needed to get back to racing.
Tuning – Adjusting the parameters of a system in an effort to optimize performance.
Monday morning, Rager was cleared for racing three days before Knoxville Nationals. Eighty-six days after the accident at Eldora. And I was pretty sure the only reason he was cleared was because he went to a doctor he knew would give him clearance. He’d been in the car twice, both times, it was as if he hadn’t missed a beat. Physically. Emotionally, I wasn’t sure that was the case.
Emotionally, I was a wreck too. The same week he was cleared to race, Caden and Kinsley moved to Atlanta where Caden would be doing an inpatient rehabilitation at Shepard Center. While they were waiting for the swelling from his injury to go down, they were hopeful he would regain function in his legs. Maybe not be able to walk much, but you never knew. He’d already regained some feeling in the tops of his thighs, so it was great to hear he’d be going to a specialist.
He talked to Rager a lot. Nearly every day. Along with my dad who paid for them to move to Atlanta and footed the bill for his therapy there. And I know what you’re thinking, he didn’t have medical insurance? Believe it or not, the majority of race car drivers don’t have medical insurance, or enough coverage to get them through these kind of events, and even life insurance was tricky to get and not cheap. Caden and Rager both had received close to a hundred thousand dollars from the World of Outlaws Benevolent Fund, but still, it didn’t come close to covering Caden’s medical bills.
Rager and I had purchased
