Racing Outside the Line: A Love Story at 190 Mph (38 page)

"Who are you and what have you done with my wife?" he chuckled.

I smiled at him sympathetically, placing a sweet kiss on his cheek, "It’s one thing for her to be hurt and heartbroken at what you and I did to her, but she isn’t hurt, she wants revenge, she wants to win. It would be tough to fight against pain because I’ve been there, and I caused hers, but that’s not what this is about for her. If there is anything in this world that I am perfectly and completely equipped to do, it’s put this woman in her place, which in this case, is far behind
me
."

"I have to try to keep her from going to the media on this, though. I think she may listen to me if I go talk to her. She’s not a bad person it’s just that she’s just a little angry right now."

"Wow, they were right," I shook my head at him. He looked at me with confusion. "You never saw her clearly did you?" He shook his head, clearly not understanding my meaning. "Lacy told me that you never listened to her, you never saw Alexandria for who she was, but I didn’t fully believe it until now. How many different people tried to warn you about her?" He shook his head again still not connecting the dots. "Did you think they were all lying to you?" I remembered the things Desmond had told me about Alexandria, surely he would have tried to make Seth see her clearly. "Did you think Desmond was lying to you, too?"

He pulled away from me, his face clearly stricken and leaned against the wall. "I didn’t really listen. She was easy not to really love, but I thought that was my fault, that it was because I was pushing her away. I didn’t think it was
her
."

"And now?" I prodded.

"I dunno." He was staring intently at the tile.

"Yes you do." I could see it on his face; he just didn’t want to admit it. As much as he likened himself to a tough guy, he was a softie, and admitting that someone was inherently bad was against his better nature. "You’ve already put it all together. You just don’t want to admit it."

He nodded reluctantly. "She was easy to ignore because she was always hiding who she truly was anyway. It really didn’t matter who she was, though, I wasn’t really interested in her, just in having someone, having an excuse not to hunt you down and hurt you again." He groaned and threw his head back, staring at the ceiling, "I was stupid, wasn’t I?"

I nodded, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to add to what he was feeling. This wasn’t really about me anymore.

"Shit!" he rubbed his palm across his eyes in clear frustration. "She’s gonna make this a media event no matter what I do, isn’t she?"

I nodded again, sadly this time, because he was figuring out what I had already understood and what I suspected Desmond had already understood. I felt bad for him. He had been tricked by this woman, and while it was his own self-induced blindness that led him here, he didn’t deserve to have to deal with her.

"I can handle her, but I can’t handle the media, I wouldn’t even know where to begin on that one." He pulled away from the wall and glued his lips to mine as his hands ran up and down my body. "I love you, wife."

I laughed, "screw love, you’d better
worship
me for dealing with the beauty queen for you."

"Hmm, worship huh? I think I can handle that." His hands trailed down to the button on my jeans and before I could fully comprehend his words, he had my jeans unbuttoned and the zipper down. His hand was about to descend when I pulled away from him.

"People—outside," I said breathlessly. "Later," I blushed.

He let out his sexy little groan almost making me change my mind, but he threw up his hands and walked out of the bathroom mumbling something about seeing me clearly as a satanic temptress.

Outside, we were greeted with a much larger audience than we had expected. Desmond, Chelsea, and Wyatt were there. Gene was at the grill with Gary and, just as I had thought, Jake and Lacy had wandered over. Sitting with them, however, in chairs I didn’t even know we had, were several of the wives we had met in their coaches earlier and their husbands. It was a little daunting to be the sudden center of everyone’s attention.

"'Bout time, you two decide to leave the bedroom," Jake yelled as he came over to smack Seth on the back.

"What can I say," Seth was loud enough for the people across the way to even hear, "the little woman here is insatiable."

I punched him in the arm for that comment and felt the heat rush to my cheeks.

"Watch out for that right hook there, Seth," Gary yelled from across the way, "Paulie says it’s stronger than you’d think."

Seth looked down at me warmly and put his arms around my shoulders squeezing tightly. "Oh, I learned long ago not to underestimate her strength or her temper, didn’t I, love?" I smiled up at him shaking my head in mock disapproval.

Desmond laughed loudly, although with Desmond, he was so big, there really wasn’t any other volume for him, but loud. "Hey, Seth, remember that time you kissed that trophy girl, and Lex poured a pound of sugar in the gas tank of your ‘68 Camaro?"

"How could I forget? Clogged the crap out of the fuel filter; took forever for to get it all out."

"How would you know," I scolded him. "I’m the one who cleaned it out for you!"

He knew where I was going with this. When he became serious about racing Late Models, I had helped work on Seth’s Camaro. I probably had more labor hours on that car than he did. He silenced my attempt to reveal this information by planting his lips on mine. I reached up and ran my fingers through his soft hair pulling him closer to me. A ridiculous and addictive surge pulsed through me as soon as he touched me and especially now that he was kissing me in front of these people; it was intoxicating. When he pulled back from me and looked down in my eyes, he was smiling arrogantly.

"Who the hell
is
this guy?" I heard one of the drivers ask Desmond through a laugh.

Seth sat down in one of the camping chairs and pulled me onto his lap. The chair was large enough that he was able to pull my head against his chest allowing me to comfortably dangle my legs over the arm of the chair, cradled lovingly in Seth’s arms. It didn’t take Desmond long to pull Chelsea onto his lap as Seth had done to me, although no one had strange reactions to this since it was typical of Des to have a girl draped over him. But Chelsea wasn’t hanging all over him like the typical girl. Instead, I noticed she was comfortable, but he was the one whose hands were all over her. Desmond launched into a recap of our life story over dinner, and he and Wyatt took turns telling humorous stories about things I had done to Seth in my attempts to get his attention.

As the evening wore on, the drivers and their wives left, Jake and Lacy returned to their kids in their motor coach, and Gary went back to his own motor coach. Other wives and drivers stopped by intermittently to offer their congratulations and see us for themselves, while Desmond, Seth, and Wyatt continued to talk of old times. It got dark all too soon, and Gene came over to me and kneeled down as I leaned forward.

"I’m sorry, I didn’t know ‘bout Paulie or I’da come down there with ya. I shoulda been watchin’ ya more carefully." He sounded so sincere as if it were his responsibility to protect me. He was definitely one of the sweetest men I had ever known in my life.

I pulled myself up off Seth’s lap standing up so that I could wrap my arms around Gene in a true hug. "You have been so good to me, Gene, and I just love you to death."

Gary yelled out, "Watch it, Seth, looks like Gene’s makin’ a move on your woman," but Seth just laughed.

"While I could certainly use someone helping me to look out for myself, you don’t need to protect me. I can handle myself, but I don’t know what I’d do without your friendship, Gene. I was also hoping you might teach me how to cook, since everything you make tastes like heaven." Gene blushed a little, smiling sheepishly as he studied his shoes.

"It’d be ma honor." After punching Seth in the arm again, he called it a night and headed back to Gary’s motor coach, where he typically slept.

The rest of us shifted to the motor coach inside. I could feel the tension coming off Seth and Desmond and knew where the conversation was going before we even sat down. Seth pulled me over to the dinette area and the three of us, Seth, Desmond, and I, looked grimly at each other. Neither one of them seemed to want to start it off, so I decided to take the bull by the horns, so-to-speak.

"She’s going to cause a scene, it’s inevitable. The question is how to make the media care less about her than they do about telling our story."

Desmond looked at me, his eyes wide with surprise. He shook his head. "I don’t know why I’m so shocked, you are
my
sister. Clearly, some intelligence was passed on to you genetically."

I punched him in the shoulder for that one, but he wasn’t paying attention to me. He was looking skeptically at Seth who didn’t seem to want to say he was wrong, so I decided to say it for him.

"He knows he was an idiot, he should have listened to you about her, but he wasn’t really thinking clearly. You know, he can’t help it, he’s not from the same intelligent gene pool as we are." I flashed Seth a toothy grin before yelling, "No offense, Wyatt." He reached over casually and tickled me until I screamed, "you win, you win!" My goal had been met though, it broke the tension. Desmond and Wyatt were now able to start talking about how to get everyone on our side before Alexandria could do any damage.

Five minutes later, I left the guys to hash out the details and went to join Chelsea on the couch to finally relax in peace.

After watching an entire race on TV, Wyatt finally stood up and asked, "Chelsea, you ready to head back to the hotel?"

"Sure, Wyatt," she said as Desmond got up from the table along with Seth who would drive them back to the limo.

Seth and I went to sleep fairly early that night in preparation for the early morning he would have the next day. He set the alarm for the ungodly hour of 7am when he would have to head out to the hospitality tent to schmooze with the sponsors.

Unable to return to sleep without him next to me, I pulled myself into the shower attempting to turn my attention to getting ready, looking my best, and trying to decide upon an acceptable outfit for the day.

Where it had been breezy the previous day, there was only warmth when I walked outside in my jeans and t-shirt. I quickly opted for something that I knew would not only make Seth quite happy, but that would put Alexandria in her place. I changed to a black strapless bra and black tube top that, when paired with my basic designer blue jeans, made my curves ridiculously obvious while showing off my small waist and round butt. I knew I looked "good," I wouldn’t venture onto "great" because I just wasn’t that vain, but I knew I could count on "good." I slipped on my black Converse, thankful that Christina had thought to include them, and put enough curl in my hair to make it wavy in a messy, "I don’t spend much time on my looks," way. With a little makeup, I was ready to face everyone’s scrutinizing attention.

The morning went by pretty quickly. Gene came into the motor coach not long after I finished getting ready and made breakfast for an army. Desmond, Chelsea, and Wyatt came in not long after Gene, and we sat around drinking coffee and talking for a while. Desmond and Chelsea seemed closer than the previous night. He had his arm up on the seat behind her and was leaning toward her as Wyatt walked me through the crazy schedule that Seth would be keeping today. Between a driver’s meeting, a two-hour autograph signing, and scheduled time to be with his crew before the race, I didn’t see how Seth had time to breathe on race days. He explained that in between each scheduled appearance, he would be doing intermittent interviews with the press and signing more autographs along the way. I could do nothing but shake my head at the busy schedule he would endure.

My thoughts were, however, pulled from further thought of Seth’s schedule by Wyatt’s cryptic question aimed at Desmond. "Have you released it yet?" Desmond nodded.

"What are you two talking about?" I could smell a plot here.

Wyatt looked at Desmond and jerked his head in my direction as if to say, ‘you tell her.’ Desmond patted my hand, "Seth and I decided that it would be best to do what Lacy did with the women, to beat Alexandria to the punch and spread the information to the media before she had a chance to make it look like something we were hiding. So I borrowed some pictures from the photo album Seth made for you and the picture of the three of us when we were younger and gave it to Fox who will be broadcasting today’s race. Their broadcast will start at 1pm. I’m sure it won’t take long for them to plaster your pictures across the screen. They’ve requested an interview with Seth anytime he is available this morning, by the way. I’ll have to pull him from the hospitality tent early for that. I’d like you to come with us to the interview. I think Seth will certainly have a different look on his face if you’re standing behind the cameras."

"Oh-Kay," I nodded quietly. "They aren’t going to want to talk to
me
, are they?" I wasn’t sure how I felt about all of this, but if it helped the situation he was in with the media, then I wouldn’t withhold my help.

"They might. I’ll know more later this morning when they give me the details of the interview. Don’t worry, sis, you know I’ll look out for you."

"I know, Des, I trust you, I just want to be prepared, ya know?"

He reached across the table and patted my hand, "I know."

The rest of the morning, I spent getting to know every nook and cranny of the motor coach; it was mine now, after all. Chelsea and I looked through all the drawers and cupboards getting to know it all. I didn’t find anything surprising or disturbing except for a half used box of condoms in Seth’s bedside table. I threw them away since I had been on birth control since college. At about 10am, Desmond came wandering into the motor coach.