Page 119 of Trading Paint

Leaving Sway in Bellingham was hard. We had so much fun together it was difficult to leave. I was so close to giving in at the bar that last night, I honestly think if I wouldn’t have gotten so drunk, I just might have acted on what I was feeling that night but no, I got scared and downed as much alcohol as I could and left myself a mess.

“I thought for sure that you two were gonna...” Tommy said when as we headed for baggage claim.

“Yeah...” I hung my head. “I almost did.”

Tommy came to Las Vegas with me and then he was off to Mooresville to see my dad about the sprint car team. I told him he could either work on the Busch team or sprint cars and he chose sprint cars. I couldn’t blame him. That’s essentially where I wanted to be too. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed racing these stock cars but you have to understand that’s where I came from, it was in my blood.

We landed in Vegas, Aiden met us there and we drove to Las Vegas Motor Speedway where I was met with yet another girl I despised these days, a reporter for FOX Sports, Ashley Conner. She reminded me of Chelsea but with black hair. As you can probably guess, I slept with her one night after my first Busch series win in Nashville back in February. I’d avoided her ever since because really, I did this all the time.

She caught me when I entered the paddock looking for Spencer and Kyle.

“Why haven’t you called?” she asked keeping step with me.

I didn’t look her direction just stared straight ahead. “I didn’t know I was supposed to.”

“Well we slept together.” She said this like it meant something. “I thought you’d at least call.”

“I don’t know what you expected this to be?” I motioned between us. I’d seen her around the track; she slept with most of the drivers so I couldn’t understand what would make me any different.

“Not this...you led me on and now this...” she threw her arms up.

I hung my head walking. It was the same shit all the time and you’d think I’d learn by now. “What do you want Ashley? What do you want fromme?”

“You,”

“No,” I shook my head. “You don’t really.”

“Yes I do.”

I stopped walking and turned toward her.

“No, you don’t.” I tried to convey the warning I was giving her but I could see she wasn’t buying it.

“You have a girlfriend?”

“I don’t do girlfriends.”

“So what is it then?”

“It’s nothing.”

She sighed dramatically and shifted her weight to one foot. Her black hair blew across her face until she tucked it behind her ear. I looked into her blue eyes, watching as she finally grasped what I was saying.

“Don’t act like it meant anything to you either.” I chuckled despite my annoyance with the situation. Spencer appeared at the corner of the hauler watching us from about twenty feet away. “The next weekend in California I saw you all over Mason.”

I may not have cared about these girls but I was well aware of the fact that they were usually with another driver by the following weekend. They were not about to make me feel like shit when they were using me for the exact same reasons.

I started to walk away when she just gave me that blank expression. When I approached the hauler Spencer laughed and tossed a bottle of water at me, his head tilted toward Ashley who was still standing where I left her.

“Making the rounds?”

“Fuck you,” was my only response as I tossed my bag on the ground.

You would think by now I would have learned to stay away from these women but you also have to understand that the need was there and so were they. It was wrong but it went hand in hand. Everywhere I went, women hounded me and sooner or later, I crumbled and gave in. Now I had to pay the consequences. Ever since I won my first race in Nashville, it was worse than ever.

Before practice started, I was waiting for Kyle and the car chief, Mason Bryant, to finish up the notes from last week’s testing here. They entered the data and then calculated a setup that would work for practice. We usually liked to practice in race trim, change a few small adjustments for qualifying and then revert to race trim for happy hour. After the cars were inspected prior to the race no more changes could be made so you had to be pleased by that point.

While I waited beside the car, my phone buzzed.

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