Racing Outside the Line: A Love Story at 190 Mph (17 page)

Desmond looked up at Seth and definitely gave him a scrutinizing glare. "I dunno," he wondered aloud. "She’ll be alone most of the day, I don’t think she’d like that."

"What am I, boy? Chopped liver?" interjected Gene animatedly, "She can keep me comp’ny all day an’ if I can take care o’ that one there," he reasoned pointing to Seth, "I can take care o’ anybody. You just leave her to ma care."

Finally managing to pull myself together enough to spit out a statement on the subject, I said, "Do I look like a frail child or do you just all really enjoy treating me like one? You know I survived for four years in another state all by my little old lonesome without any kind of protection from any of you. I’ll stay here, and you and Wyatt will go to the hotel, that’s the end of the discussion." Desmond leaned forward and looked as if he was going to argue with me until I held my index finger in front of his face and, "Now see, that was my polite way of saying butt the hell out, do you want to see the impolite version, ‘cuz you’re pushing me to it!" As expected, he cowered back in his chair with a defeated look on his face.

"Damn, darlin’ remind me not to get on yo’ bad side," Gene commented with a smile as all three men nodded in agreement with wide eyes, but silent mouths.

Gene finished cooking our meal while the guys sat around talking about racing business. After dinner, Seth took Wyatt and Desmond back to the limo while I helped Gene clean up.

When I went to put the trash out, Seth had returned, taking the opportunity to sweep me up off my feet. "I’ve been waiting to carry you into my bedroom and make mad passionate love to you all evening; it’s about high time I get started on that."

"What about Gene?"

"He stays with my crew chief Gary in his motor coach when I have visitors." As if on cue, Gene came smiling out of the motor coach, said a very quick good night, gave Seth a quick wink, and walked away whistling.

Impressively, we made it all the way into the bedroom before we tore off each other’s clothes. After the exhausting day I had had and the blissfully exhausting evening of making love with Seth, it didn’t take much coercing to fall asleep, especially when I was lying in Seth’s arms.

At some point later in the morning, I woke up to Seth pulling me into his arms. As I snuggled up close to him, enjoying the warmth of his skin against mine, he whispered, "I sleep better when you’re close to me." I smiled into his chest and rubbed my cheek against his skin before falling back asleep.

The next morning I woke up to find Seth had already left the room. I wasn’t surprised since I knew his schedule had him up pretty early in the morning. I quickly took a shower and got dressed. When I emerged from the bedroom, I was surprised to find that Gene wasn’t immediately inside the motor coach. I thought that I had heard him, so I walked past the kitchen area and leaned on the chair in front of the couch to look out the window. I saw him standing there talking to a man I didn’t recognize along with Wyatt and, my heart jumped, Seth. I wanted to rush outside and throw my arms around him, but I wasn’t sure if I should, or if I could. It was daylight, anyone could be watching and we were supposed to be undercover here. I spent a minute or two debating what to do when I finally decided to pull out my cell phone and text message him again. "I see you, but you look busy."

I watched him get the text message, and the smile that lit up his face spoke more to me than any note he could have written. I watched him put his cell phone back in his pocket and say something to the guy they were just talking to before patting him on the back and walking toward the door. I was suddenly self-consciously patting my hair and biting my lip as I stood up and waited for the door to open. The second our eyes met, though, I was completely lost in the land of ridiculous smilers.

"Hi baby!" He came over to me and wrapped his arms around me, picking me up in his strong arms until I was at his level. I kissed him and wrapped my arms around his neck encouraging him not to let go of me. "Mmm, you sure know how to greet a guy."

I couldn’t stop myself from beaming, "You’re not so bad yourself." He certainly did look amazing today wearing a white polo shirt with the Keller Motorsports logo on it and dark blue jeans with sparkling white sneakers. So simple and so darn hot.

"Lex, this is Jake Taylor, one of my best friends out here on the track. We’ve been trading paint for… geez, how long’s it been, Jake?"

"Uh, let’s see… your sorry ass… oh, my bad," he apologized to me, "your sorry butt’s been hogging up my rearview mirror for like three years here in the cup series and what like two years before that, so five years?"

"Jake here likes to think that he’s the better driver, but his stats don’t quite show that. Had a bit of hard luck last week didn’t you?"

"With you being a rearview driver, blocking the hell out of me, what was I supposed to do?"

"Okay, okay, boys, let it go," Wyatt intervened.

"Yes, sir," Jake did his best imitation of a sulky child before turning a smile to me, "you’re far too pretty to be stuck around an ugly kid like this, what’s say you come on down to my motor coach and we leave ugly here to stew in his blocking juices?"

As he stepped closer to me, Seth threw his arm possessively around my shoulders and pulled me into his side. "I don’t think so," he added in a suddenly cold and hostile voice.

"Well, well, well," Jake grinned. He turned to Wyatt and Gene and asked, "Have you seen this? Mr. calm-and-you-can’t-shake-me, just went from joking to jealous in less than three seconds. I think we have ourselves a winner here." I wasn’t sure what he meant by having a winner here, but I was impressed with the fact that I was responsible for this newfound jealous streak. Jake turned to me and put his hand out, "I’d like to shake the hand of the lady who finally got to the man of steel." I was confused, Seth was engaged to another woman, he had been for some time, and wouldn’t she have ‘got’ him before me. I wanted to ask Seth what it all meant, but clearly this was neither the time nor the place.

Wyatt, ever the protective guardian couldn’t resist putting in his two cents, "Yeah, well, he just better not screw this one up or he’ll be knocking on your door, Jake, looking for a place to live."

"Aww, come on Wyatt, have a little faith in the runt," he encouraged as he punched Seth in the arm.

"So, uh," began Jake gingerly, "if you don’t mind my asking," he seemed suddenly cautious, "how did Desmond react to this?"

I looked at the ground so I didn’t see anyone else’s reactions. Again, I found myself feeling really guilty that everyone except Desmond knew about Seth and me. The others must have had similar expressions upon their faces because none of them answered the question, but Jake still figured it out.

"Well, shit!" he chuckled, "Can I tell him? On second thought, Lacy’s really fond of my smile; I’d hate to have my teeth knocked out. But I just gotta be there when it goes down. He’s gonna kick the living shit out of you for sure!" He looked down at his watch and was suddenly serious, "Time to go, brother."

Seth looked down at his watch too, before turning to me. "Don’t worry," he said as he put his hands on my cheeks and tilted my face up. "It’ll be fine." Then he seemed to struggle for a moment as he looked into my eyes. "There’s something I really want to tell you, but this isn’t really the time or the place," he looked up at Wyatt who was watching him intently, "I’ll be back around 10:00am, we’ll talk then." With that, he kissed me. Since his friend, Gene, and Wyatt were all near us, I expected it to be a quick kiss, but he surprised me by
really
kissing me. He moved one hand from my cheek to my waist and pulled me into him as his tongue darted in to brush against mine. I had both arms wrapped around his chest and tried to use my strength to pull him deeper into me. I felt him chuckle against my lips before giving into my silent request and delving deeper into my mouth with passion.

I vaguely heard Jake yell, "Hey now, Seth, come on, there are children around… Gene, cover your eyes, this is too HBO for you." But Seth just wrapped his other arm around my waist and kept on making out with me.

After another moment, I felt Seth start to pull away and knew he had to leave me. I was so wrapped up in how much I wanted to stay in the moment that Seth had to hold me close to him before I could support myself. He ran his hand through my hair as he looked down at me, "I have to go, baby. Stick with Gene today, he’ll make sure you’re safe and you get to see everything that goes on." All I could do was nod. He kissed my cheek and let go of me, watching to make sure I didn’t still need his assistance. He walked over to the cart affectionately called "Kenny" and was climbing in when he stood back up again and hopped off.

"I almost forgot!" He jogged back to me, fishing something out of his back pocket, "Here is a badge. This will let you go anywhere I’m at, but be careful, as soon as you leave the motor coach area, you’re fair game as far as the fans are concerned."

He kissed me on my cheek and jogged back to "Kenny" as Jake commented, "Damn, she’s fine, Seth! How do you always get so lucky?"

I didn’t hear his response; I just watched them drive away as Gene came up behind me. "You have some kind of effect on him, honey."

I turned a confused face on Gene, "Is that a good thing?"

"I sure think so. Come on, let’s get ya somethin’ to eat. Gonna be a long day."

As Gene made me breakfast, we talked about all sorts of things. It was a comfortable conversation all morning, I didn’t have to try to keep it moving, and we never had any uncomfortable silences. We discussed Seth’s teenage years, and I tried to think of every embarrassing story I knew about Seth. Gene admitted he had heard most of them from Wyatt, but said he really enjoyed the way I told stories. We talked a bit about Gene’s family and how his parents had always been racing fans. He asked me about my parents and was somehow able to get me to tell him some good stories about them and Desmond without making me feel sad about losing them.

Around ten o’clock, I was dying to see Seth again. It sounds like exaggeration, but I just got such a high off of the tension that existed between us and the passion that we felt for each other that I just wanted to keep feeling that again and again.

I spent the previous hour helping Gene with chores around the motor coach. I had helped him fold all of Seth’s clothes and was putting them away in the drawers in the bedroom when I stumbled upon a drawer with clothes in it that clearly belonged to a woman. Upon further exploration, I found two more drawers with what must have been Alexandria’s things. I wanted to throw up when I found the drawer with her underwear in it. They were all skimpy thongs that screamed at me:
they had sex in this room!
This
was
their
room! She slept here and she slept with him!

A sharp pain set off in my chest as I leaned against the bed unable to tear my eyes away from the drawer. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t seem to ignore it. It was like something evil was in the room and I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep in here with these things sharing the space. She had drawers in his cabinets. She belonged in here. What did I have? I just had a small suitcase that could easily be rolled out of here. She was permanent. She was still his fiancée, for God’s sake! She had drawers and a big diamond ring that screamed, "I belong to Seth!" What did I have?

Despite the fact that I knew I would encounter things like this, I was still stunned by what it felt like to actually deal with it. I knew yesterday, that she would be here, that he would be in contact with her, that she was the fiancée and I wasn’t, but none of this knowledge prepared me for my own reaction. It hurt… It hurt like hell. It was in that moment as I stared, stunned, at her underwear in his drawer that it hit me like a ton of bricks… I was completely in love with the man. Oh sure, I was always in love with him, but like I said before, that was a young love, one that wasn’t returned, it wasn’t an adult woman’s love for a man that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. And, in that moment, sitting immobile on the floor, I realized that nothing mattered except the fact that I wanted to be with him for the rest of my life.

This realization didn’t lessen my pain, in fact, it strengthened it. I loved him and he was engaged to another woman. I dropped my face into my hands as I shook my head disapprovingly at the situation I had launched myself into. What an idiot! It was this position that Gene discovered me in when he came to see what had taken me so long.

"Ah, darlin’," his voice was warm and affectionate. He kneeled down on the floor and pulled me into a hug patting me on the back. "It’s you he cares for. He never really had much feelin’ for her. She sorta foisted herself upon him. This is her doin’ not his. He didn’t ask for her to take up his space."

"Yes he did," I argued, "the second he put that ring on her finger, he said, let’s share everything and what do I have? What am I? I’m not his fiancé, Gene,
I
am the other woman!"

"Honey," he drawled out slowly, "you’re what he wants. I can see it plain as day. I’ve never seen it on his face before, he wants
you
."

"It’s not as easy as that."