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I nodded. “Yeah, we sold out last night.”
She nodded. “Okay. We should have more in Tulare.”
On race nights, I not only had my duties as the PR rep for the team, but I still made sure all the guys knew what heat race they were in and when the pill draw was. I knew lap times and who was fast that night, regardless of what team. I knew who had autograph sessions and what guys were having an off night, like my husband.
That wasn’t to say the other girls didn’t. Hayden kept track of merchandise sales. Lily made sure we stayed to a team budget, and if something broke and we needed parts, Lily was on the phone arranging for everything to be delivered.
“Thanks,” I told Lily and held up my cell phone. “I think we need more rack cards for Caden too.”
She nodded. “We do, and we’re down to our last stack for Jameson and Rager as well.”
See? We had a system down.
Making my way up to the pit grandstands, I feared what the night would bring. The interesting part of the night came when Rager and Easton were on the track during the trophy dash, lined up side by side.
Kinsley stood next to me in the pit bleachers. “Think Rager will behave?”
I chewed on my bottom lip. “Probably not.”
Kinsley dipped a chip into a big tray of melted nacho cheese. “Easton shoved him during the pill draw, and I know it wasn’t playful, though they acted like it was.”
My eyes narrowed in on the cars, swallowing over the lump forming in my throat. “They have history,” I told her, staring at my cell phone in fear of what would come later. My Twitter feed was blowing up with Tweets asking if I knew Easton was going to be there and what Rager thought. “He’s my ex-husband.”
She gave me a look. The one that saidwow, I really don’t know you at all.“Oh really? I didn’t know you’d been married before.”
I waved my hand around in the air. “It was ahugemistake. Should’ve picked Rager to begin with.”
Kinsley’s cheeks flushed. “I would have.” I laughed and she added, “Just saying.”
I knew exactly what she meant. I quickly updated the JAR Racing Twitter feed for the line-up with a picture of the cars on the track. The lights of the track shined brightly against the top wings of the cars as they rolled by the front stretch.
“Why’d you guys get divorced?”
Given how public my relationship was with Easton, it was strange to get questions like this. But Kinsley was also eighteen. And I imagine she never followed NASCAR. “We weren’t right for each other even from the beginning. But he cheated on me and then asked for a divorce.”
“And then you and Rager got together?”
I nodded, not wanting to go into all the details of,oh, right, I slept with him while I was still technically married to Easton,but whatever. The truth was, I’d been in love with Rager from the beginning, but too afraid to believe I deserved his love until he showed me.
Kinsley sighed, a blob of cheese landing on her white tank top stretched tightly over her belly. “I can’t go an hour without dropping something on my belly.”
“Been there, so many times.” Laughing, our eyes now on the cars coming out of three, the pace car darted into the infield. “Are your parents going to come out when the baby is born?”
She shrugged. “Probably not. I figured we’d fly out to see them after she’s born. I haven’t talked to them much since we moved to Charlotte after Christmas.”
“Really?” It was a strange concept to me not to be around family, given mine was with me every day. But there had been a time when I was traveling with Easton that I only saw my parents and my brothers once every six months.
“They didn’t agree with me leaving home at eighteen to follow some race car driver they knew nothing about. And then to get pregnant a month later…” She paused and drew in a deep breath and licked cheese from her thumb. “They weren’t happy about that one at all.”
Caden joined our team when he turned sixteen. His first season he filled in for Axel when Jack died, and then again for Rager when he was injured at Grays Harbor the following year. It wasn’t until the twins were born that Caden came on as a part-time driver when he was eighteen. The next year, full time after he finished second in the points. That same year, he traveled the full schedule with us, living with my parents in their motor home. He hadn’t even graduated high school yet, but there he was tearing up the Outlaws and winning enough that between him and the other JAR Racing drivers, Dad never once dropped out of the owner championship points the entire year. Around summer, he started spending more and more time on the phone with his girlfriend, Kinsley, and we finally met her at World Championships in Charlotte that year.
Last season, he took a detour around June and showed up in Grand Forks with Kinsley and a van they were sleeping in. And now here we are, eight months later, and she’s about to have a baby. Personally, I love having them traveling with us. She’s great with all the kids and it’s really nice to have extra babysitters when you’re on this tour.
“What does Caden’s mom think about you guys having a baby?”
“She’s worried we’re too young and with Caden’s being a racer and no real stability in his job, she’s just really worried. But from what Caden tells me, that’s what she does.”
“Worries?”