Authors: Shey Stahl
“I’m Sway, Jameson’s
wife,” she said patting my knee. “Those little hoodlums are Axel and
Casten
.” She tapped the tops of their heads as she
introduced them but neither turned around. Instead, they sat quietly eating hot
dogs. Sway laughed when they didn’t turn around. “Don’t let the rapt attention
on the track fool you, they’re never this quiet. I had to beat them in the
truck for throwing dirt at me. They’re only acting this way in fear I’ll tell
their dad, which I will.”
“That’s a cool name,” I
said smiling and feeling comfortable around her already. I had a hard time
getting to know people back home because usually they were afraid of
me―being the mayor’s daughter and all. Now, no one knew that side of me.
“Yeah.”
Sway tossed a sweatshirt over her bare legs when the wind picked up slightly.
“My parent’s named me after a Rolling Stones song.”
We made small talk for
a moment, I told her about leaving home right after graduation. She thought it
was funny and understood why. Finally, someone didn’t give me a look of
what-the-hell-were-you-thinking.
Sway was easy to talk
to and I found myself engrossed in everything she had to say. It was like I had
some kind of girl-crush on her. She was adorable and I wanted to kiss her. Not
really but she was cute.
“How long have you been
married?” I asked taking a drink of the beer Gentry handed me and trying to get
over my girl crush on this woman.
Sway glared at Gentry
shoving his shoulder, her diamond ring shined with the movement. “She’s
eighteen dude, not cool.”
“Whatever.” Gentry
flipped his hand up with a smile and sat down next to the boys in front of us.
“We’ve been married
almost eight years,” she said. “We got married when I was eight months pregnant
with that one.” Leaning forward she tapped the top of the older boys head. He
gave her a nod but paid no attention to her when a string of five sprint cars
came onto the track for what they called a trophy dash.
These weren’t your
average NASCAR car either. They were about half the size in length with large
back tires, open wheels and a wing on the top. They were adorable.
Then we started to talk
about the situation Dylan and I had now found ourselves in, confused, lost,
running from something we didn’t understand.
I felt bad pouring my
heart out to her but Sway had that type of personality that I started spilling
my guts to her and forgot all about the race.
Sway smiled. “We were
eighteen once. I don’t think Jameson and I could get anything right at that age
and it was like we had to do everything wrong before we did anything right.”
“But you were together
eventually.”
“Well yeah,” she
motioned to the two little boys sitting quietly on the bench in front of us
both wearing black racing hats and sweatshirts that matched their dad’s number
and sponsor. “But we broke each other’s hearts before we ever got to the point
where we were actually together.”
“Would you have done
anything different?”
The older of the two
kids looked up when he saw his dad approach, his racing suit tied around his
waist with a swarm of fans following him, mostly women. The idolizing smile was
undeniable when his dad grabbed the two boys into a hug hauling them over his
shoulders.
Sway laughed lightly,
“No,” she looked at the older boy with a smile, “I wouldn’t have changed
anything.”
Jameson didn’t stay
long, said nothing in acknowledgment to me, kissed his wife and then took off
in the other direction with two other drivers, his head down, hat drew low to
avoid eye contact with anyone.
The night progressed
and I spent more time talking to Sway and her sister in-law, Emma, than I did
Dylan. He didn’t
care,
he was in heaven surrounded by
fast cars.
Emma was something
else. Other than that crack head we picked up in Oklahoma City, I’d never met
someone with that much energy and she had two kids wrapped around her. These
women were amazing.
Jameson ended up
winning the main event, which seemed to put his family in a good mood. His
sister Emma invited us back to their pit to hang out.
Jameson came back into
the stands after receiving the trophy. He looked up at Dylan and me but said
nothing, his eyes scanning the crowd. He seemed uncomfortable surrounded by
them and appeared to be focused on getting away.
“Come back to the pit,”
Emma said holding one of her sons by the hood of his sweatshirt so he couldn’t
escape, the other one was held by who appeared to be their dad. “We’re going to
cook some burgers.”
Dylan was all about
food and Emma wasn’t taking no for an answer.
When we got to their
pit near the back of the large dust field, it was scattered with cars, a large
black and grey bus, three large haulers that stored the sprint cars and a
handful of ATV’s and dirt bikes. There wasn’t any shortage of toys either.
Inside the haulers, you could tell this whole thing was a family affair and
they were all very close. I felt a little out of place but Emma and Sway were
good at making us comfortable.
Food was everywhere too
and so was the beer. Dylan’s favorite.
Sure enough, I looked
over at him, standing next to the black and red hauler beside Kyle and another
guy I hadn’t met yet, drinking a Coors Light.
Jameson was
standoffish, kept his distance for the most part but after two beers, he began
to open up and started joking around with his team. You can tell they feed off
him. He’s full of attitude, much like Dylan, and set’s the mood around him. If
he was quiet, they were quiet. When his mood lightened, they started in.
Aside from all this,
Jameson never lingered far from his wife. They were always within a foot of one
another whether they meant to be or not.
Sway was kept busy with
the kids but every once in a while she would stop and talk to me.
The kids were
entertaining to watch. I still hadn’t seen the girls they said were around but
the boys, who stood near the fire after we ate hamburgers, all throwing sticks
and rocks in it. They alternated between throwing stuff in the fire and riding
around on a mini-dirt bike they had.
Sway sighed beside me.
“See…” she pointed to Axel who had a flaming marshmallow on a stick swinging it
around, “excellent birth control.”
She had that right.
Their entire family was
a good time. I enjoyed all of them.
What I wasn’t so
enthusiastic about was Dylan’s eyes on Sway. As I said, Sway was cute, mostly
beautiful but she had cute down to an art. The way she would giggle, her facial
expressions, all of it would attract most men.
Dylan watched Sway walk
by, his eyes lingered when she bent down to pick up the younger child when he
started eating dirt.
“Monkey, no,” she said
brushing the dirt from his mouth. “That’s yucky.”
The boy laughed, an
infections giggle like his mothers.
I didn’t focus on that
though. No. When I saw Dylan look at her, my mind wandered. Did he find Sway
attractive?
Of course he did. Sway
was beyond beautiful and had the personality to match it. She had rich dark
flowing hair, an amazing curvy figure with cushion in all the right areas. She
wasn’t too skinny or too thick and had the best ass I’ve ever seen. Dylan,
being an ass man, looked.
My eyes stayed on
Dylan, watching, waiting to see what he would do. Loving someone does strange
things to you. It’s cumbersome, innocent at times, life changing, goose bump
making, to I can’t sleep without you by me. And then, even though the words
hadn’t been spoken, a defined relationship set, when you see them look to
another for any reason, jealousy induced behavior rears its ugly head. I saw it
with Eric a time or two and with Dylan at the nightclub. Now I was experiencing
it.
The rush, the anxiety, the uneasiness.
It was all
there.
He eventually averted
his eyes, as though he didn’t intend to look or didn’t want to be looking, but
when she bent over again setting the child on the ground, Dylan’s eyes lingered
on her chest.
My heart was in my throat,
my breathing heavy as my gut turned. That’s when Dylan looked at me, maybe
trying to figure out why I was looking at him the way I was.
If he was supposedly in
love with me, why was he looking at Sway that way?
It hit me then; the
jealousy I was feeling was something I had never felt before. It was a reality
checking, mad, throat clenching, eye burning, and soul taking.
A noise brought me
back; a beer can
tossed
aside, a movement in the
distance.
Jameson noticed and
stood from his place on the tailgate, his daunting calloused green eyes on
Dylan. Slowly, he walked over to Dylan, grabbed the strings of his hooded
sweatshirt and the other took a good handful of the shirt to pull him closer,
glaring, silence heavy and threatening. “Don’t even think about it, kid.”
Dylan, young rough
trouble himself, kept his composure but you could tell he was a taken back by
it. Laughing nervously, he held up his hands, his voice low, “No man, not
thinking about it.”
“Good,” Jameson said
letting go, his hands smoothed Dylan’s shirt out as he cracked a smile. “She’s
taken.”
Letting go of Dylan
completely, he pushed away, his face marked with sinister shadows but with a
relaxed edge. Jameson seemed to be joking but the threat was there. He was
simply giving Dylan his side.
A little shaken, maybe,
Dylan took a drag from the cigarette he had in his hand and then tossed the
butt in a shallow puddle, shaking his head with a low laugh.
“Dude,” Kyle pushed
against Dylan’s shoulder. “Don’t do that again. She’s like the warden’s wife,
don’t ask, don’t touch, and don’t look.”
“Noted,” Dylan said,
the nervous chuckle returned before he took a drink from his beer.
Spencer, Jameson’s
older brother that had been harassing the kids and their flaming marshmallow’s
most of the night smiled at Dylan, his eyes wide but laughing silently. “You
got that bad boy image packed down but don’t fuck with Jameson, he’s highly
unstable.”
Sway laughed curling
into Jameson’s side when he put his arm around her. “Knock it off boys.”
Dylan moved to stand
next to me again, his arm around my shoulder and for a moment, a brief moment,
I didn’t want it. Love was crazy, right? Made you crazy, fucking crazy with
crazy thoughts.
He turned to face me,
sad maybe, caught yes. “I wasn’t looking because I was interested,” he said in
his defense, half-pleading, half-reassuring and low, only for me to hear.
“Okay,” I said not
knowing what else to say, laughing snidely.
The activity around us
didn’t lend well to a jealous side so I forgot about it, mostly, it didn’t stop
the fire in my stomach and wondering why he looked in the first place. Dylan
seemed agitated and annoyed, maybe he was upset with himself or maybe he was
upset that someone called him out on it.
Sway giggled in the
distance, Jameson was whispering something in her ear and Emma was talking to
Dylan about Charlie, her son, who had just smacked him with a stick that was
more like a log. She was apologizing.
I found it interesting
the way Jameson and Sway watched each other and moved as one. It was a refreshing
type of relationship and you knew that without knowing, they were together. You
didn’t have to be told, you knew.
Everyone relaxed as the
crowd around us thickened. We stood around in a circle, drinking, talking, and
mostly listening to Jameson and crew mess around.
The younger boys were a
little rowdy after a while, bored I assumed and Jameson
kept
having
to grab the older one, Axel, by the hood of his black sweatshirt
and tell him to knock it off. He never raised his voice, he didn’t have to. His
tongue was sharp and quick on its own.
Dylan wanted to look at
the cars so Kyle took him inside the hauler and then leaned over the side of
one of the sprint cars pointing out various parts I assumed.
When I looked up, my stare
caught Jameson, who was on the other side of the fire from me, and he smiled
softly reaching forward to hand me a beer. “You’re twenty-one, right?” he
teased.
I wasn’t sure what to
say,
here this famous race car driver was now talking to me
after nearly kicking my friend’s ass for eyeing his wife’s ass. It must have
been written all over my innocent face that I had been comparing myself to
Sway. I couldn’t help it.
That’s when he
surprised me and was far more perceptive than I ever thought he would have
been. “Don’t sell yourself short. You’re beautiful.” His stare wasn’t on me but
on the beer in his hand but the words were meant for me. I knew that much.
“Never doubt that,” he said before bumping my shoulder with his and winking at
me. “He’s only got eyes for you.”
It was a brief
interaction and then the gathering around us caught his attention but after
that, I was a fan for life. I could totally see myself being a pit-lizard as
Sway called it for that man. I get it now. He had the looks, the personality
and one hell of a glare. Dylan knew firsthand that too.
Dylan made his way back
over to me, a smile, a flicker in his eye and a beer in his hand, laughing with
Kyle.
Jameson glanced over
his shoulder at the GTO parked next to his hauler. “So you’re into cars?”
He was making
conversation and Dylan knew it, relieved I think. “Yeah,” he nodded paying
close attention to the guys in the back of the hauler now shoving each other
with a camaraderie rather than anger.
“I got a few classics
back home too,” Jameson said wrapping an arm around Sway when she made her way
outside the hauler. She’d just rounded up the kids and got them all inside the
motor coach that was parked on the other side of hauler near the fence.