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I tilted my head tomeet his gaze. “I know.”

“I’ll never stoptrying.” He breathed against my neck.

I knew Jameson wellenough to know he was sorry and he wouldn’t quit but there was a small portionof him that was guarding for the unthinkable should it happen. He was shuttingdown parts he knew could be damaged.

I shivered despite thewarm haze, goose bumps of a different kind grazed over my skin. His lipsbrushed against my neck one again. “I really am sorry.”

9.Balance– Jameson

Balance – When a cardoesn’tundersteeroroversteerand is said to be riding likeit’son rails.

Throughout my life withSway, I have managed to fuck everything up.

The first time we hadsex, we were drunk. The first time I told her I loved her, it was right afterwe had sex, and I made her cry.

When she told me shewas pregnant, I was in the hospital, high as a fucking kite.

Somethinking I could pull off a proposal was wishful thinking, especially with myfamily and hers around to assist me in fucking it up. Not to mention thisweekend had turned to shit on more than one occasion with everything that happenedin Summerville. A weekend where I wanted to propose had turned into meconstantly apologizing for making her cry. So that afternoon, I tried again bytaking her to lunch before I had to be back at the track for race day activity.

Trying my luck once more,Emma made reservations for Sway and I so that I could propose. That was theplan at least.

The restaurant wasromantic and everything you would think a proposalshouldbe.

Most of the meal, Icouldn’t stop thinking about what the fuck I should say. Part of me wanted toblurt it out, part of me wanted to just hand her the ring and hope shemagically understood and the other part of me, the scared shitless part, wantedto leave. Not leave Sway, but leave this restaurant for even considering thisgoddamn idea. It just seemed so cliché now that we’re here. It’s been donehundreds of times. The man pulls out the ring under the candle light and asksthe woman he loves to marry him, cliché. That wasn’t us. There was so much moreto this than the standard cliché.

She deserved better. Wedeserved better than a cliché.

While my innerstruggles continued, Sway dropped her napkin to the floor when she reached foranother bread stick. Automatically I got down on my knee to get it for her, andwhen I looked up, I almost did it. The words were there but I wasn’t. Like Isaid,cliché. And after last night, she deserved so muchmore than a cliché proposal.

Instead, what did I do?

I blurted out will youmarry me in Italian because I knew goddamn well she wouldn’t understand.“Mivuoisposare?”

Sway blinked curiouslywhen I handed her the napkin, the question hung between us. I wanted to smackmyself in the forehead it was that dumb.

“What did you say?” shesmiled probably thinking,“Wow, he’s completely lost it.”Either that orshe was agreeing to my dumb thought.

“Umm...I said...you’re beautiful.” To add to my problem, “you’re beautiful”came out like a question.

She giggled, eyesscanning the nearby guests and then gestured with a flick of her hand for me tomove. “Get off the floor, silly.”

“I can’t do it likethis. I’ll do it when it’s right, but right now, like this,” I motioned betweenus. “justfeels rushed.”

“What are you talkingabout?” Sway asked with a mouth full of food.

“Nothing,” I mumbledcompletely embarrassed that I didn’t have the fucking balls to do this. “How’syour ravioli?”

“Delicious.” She wipedcheese off her lips and winked.

Another failed attempt,I was never gonna get this right. And to think I still had to race today. With theproposal heavy on my mind and now Darrin, I was hardly ready to race once wegot back to the track.

“What would you give upfor everything you’ve ever wanted?” was a question my dad often asked me.

The veracity of it wasthat it was a loaded question that couldn’t be answered without weight.

My grandpa used to tellme, “Jay, you can have anything in life you’ve ever wanted, if you give upeverything else for it. There’s a price tag on everything.”

I knew those sacrificesverywell by now and had since my first race.