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“Gray got to go!” he whined, nearing tears. “I want to.Please,” he begged, stomping his foot.
I could tell Rager was losing his patience with him so I approached them. “Pace, why don’t we go walk through the Sprint Car Hall of Fame? Papa’s championship car is in there.”
He let go of Rager’s hand and ran toward me. “Okay. Can Jacen come?”
Pace had recently taken a liking to his cousin Jacen. “Maybe. Go ask Uncle Axel where he’s at.”
He took off toward Axel and Lily’s motor home and I was left there with Rager between the haulers. Sighing, he ran his hand through his hair. “Relentless as his mama.”
I frowned. “I’m going to pretend that wasn’t a mean comment.”
“It wasn’t meant to be,” he admitted, his eyes returning to the track, but he wrapped his arm around my shoulder, his lips pressing to my temple.
I looked over at him, his hat shadowing his face. “You gonna take me for a ride?”
He smirked but kept his eyes on the distance. “Not on the track.” His hand slipped lower, to my ass, suggestively.
Turning toward him, I brought my hand to his scruffy jaw and eased his face toward mine. His bright blue eyes shined with the summer heat. “Are you using sex to avoid what’s really going on?”
Sighing, he turned his hat around backward and leaned his forehead into mine. “What’s really going on?”
“You’re scared.”
His jaw flexed as he swallowed, but no words followed. There was an apology in his smile as his eyes clung to mine, but still no denial. After time trails on Wednesday, he met me back at the motor home and fucked me against the wall in our very small shower. Following his heat race, two hours later, we had sex in the men’s bathroom stall with Willie in the next stall asking if it was wrong that he got chub from it. Or that he took a picture underneath the wall and Rager destroyed his phone afterward.
He was clearly using sex as a crutch. I couldn’t blame him in a way, but it didn’t make it any easier.
THAT NIGHT WEwent over to Dingus, a dive bar across the street from the race track. Most of the drivers and crew liked to hang out there. I didn’t want to drink with the upcoming surgery and believe me, my husband drank enough for the both of us.
“Every time I step foot in this place, I think my liver screamsfuck you,” Axel noted, stepping inside with Rager, me, Casten, and Hayden. Lily stayed back with the kids. We spotted Tommy, Willie, and Paxton. Yep. Underage kid in the bar.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Casten agreed. “Pretty sure the first time I got drunk was here.”
Both Axel and I eyed our brother.
He laughed. “Okay, that’s a lie.”
“Sweet spot!” someone yelled at the bar when they saw Rager walk in, hooded sweatshirt on, hat covering his eyes.
He nodded, but didn’t look up when he was handed his third beer of the night. Dingus was loud, dark, and exactly what he wanted to disappear into the crowd. He stayed outside with Axel, fully engrossed in a bean bag competition that had them shoving each other at one point.
Across the street, you could see the lights of the track. I sighed when I saw Olivia approach Axel and Rager. “She’s a bitch,” Willie said beside me, wrapping his arm around me.
“You’d think she’d get the point someday.”
“Not likely. But… she gives good head.”
I pushed him away, laughing. “Gross. Why would you let her?”
“Because you’re taken,” he teased, catching himself against the chain link fence.
I wasn’t surprised he’d slept with her. She’d made her way around to all the teams, dirt and asphalt. For some reason, it made me think of Easton, and the fact that he had too. Nausea rolled through me when she wrapped her skinny arm around Rager’s shoulders as he handed her the bean bag. Apparently she had inserted herself into the game.
He looked over at her, said something to her, and then twisted the other way toward his beer on the bench beside him. And chugged it.
She never moved away from him and it pissed me off that he didn’t punch her. Okay, I know he wouldn’t have done that but still, biggest slut in the industry for sure. Hayden stood next to me, scowling at her. “You need to say something to that basic bitch. Or I’m going to.”
“What am I going to say?”