Page 71 of Trading Paint

The party in our pit that night was insane as it should have been. He had just won a national event and that was huge. Even though I felt my feelings shifting, I knew Jameson’s weren’t. When we kissed later that night, the uncertainty was clear. Even when we ended up falling on top of each other sitting by the fire we camped out next to, he tried to get up many times but came back again.

Once again, we slept in the same sleeping bag. We seemed to do this when we were drunk and trying to avoid my own internal deliberation, I got so drunk I blacked out.

All I remember was making out with Jameson and when I woke up my bra was off, though my pants were still on and intact. My shirt was another story, as was Jameson’s.

Both of us were confused as to what happened but I was relieved to know that I didn’t have sex with him, at least we didn’t think so considering our pants were on. I later got a laugh out of Jameson when he admitted he needed to change because it was apparent he had gotten pleasure out of whatever we did in that sleeping bag. This entertained me. Poor boy had been so sexually deprived he probably came just from making out. Not to say I didn’t because I probably did too.

As usual, we never talked about what happened in the sleeping bag and by the next weekend at the Williams Grove National Open, we were back to being our usual selves.

I think that’s what I was beginning to love most about him. We had a good relationship and didn’t even need to try. We could get drunk, fool around, and we didn’t need to explain. It was just friends being comfortable. I knew we needed to have boundaries to it and I was certain we would never have sex but we were sexually comfortable with one another as well as being able to not have to try. We were just friends in his eyes but I saw more to the fazing mystique that everyone else saw.

I saw Jameson Antony Riley, my best friend who inadvertently and unbeknownst to him, I had just fallen in love with. I think.

Being in Williams Grove that weekend meant Jimi and Nancy were around. I thought I’d hidden my newfound knowledge of loving my best friend fairly well. I told him to fuck off on more than one occasion this weekend butapparently...I didn’t slip this past Nancy. How could I? She herself loved a racer.

“I’ve seen that look before sweetie.” She said to me as we watched Jameson and Jimi during hot laps.

I hid my face in my hands. “I’m so stupid.”

Gently she rubbed my back. “You’re not stupid. I’ve been there before.”

I had heard from Emma how Nancy and Jimi fell in love but I didn’t know everything. By her expression, I was about to find out. I loved Nancy. I felt at ease in her presence and now wasn’t any different. She had a way of calming your nerves and you didn’t even know it until you sighed happily. She was literally like a breath of fresh air.

Tucking a loose strand of her rusty waves behind her ear, she smiled. “Do you want to hear how we fell in love?”

I nodded and positioned myself so I could hear her better. With the cars on the track, their roar could be deafening at times.

“My childhood wasn’t the greatest. After my parents died my aunt Mae moved us to Elma where she met Terry, the owner of Grays Harbor raceway before Charlie bought it. So like you, I grew up around Elma.” I knew this already as she’d told me once before as did Jameson. “So when I was seventeen I was running the back ticket booth when the sprint car guys of the mid-west were in town. This was before the World of Outlaw series was formed. There I was, working the booth when a handsome driver approached. I’d seen my share of roughed up drivers so to see a handsome one, I was looking.” She smiled again, her eyes lighting up when she looked over at Jimi sliding past Shey in turn three. “I watched him race in the heats and then made my way to the pit concessions. Jimi came over for a beer. I wasn’t sure he was twenty-one so of course I carded him. I handed him back his ID and beer to have him keep a hold on my hand and say: “Does this mean I get to take you out later.” We went out later that night and I was sure when he left town the next day that he would forget my name. I didn’t see him again for four months and by then I was eighteen. He came to town again for the track championship night but he wasn’t racing. I couldn’t figure out why he drove across the United States to not even race.”

I smiled warmly. “He came for you?”

“Yes, he said he knew what he wanted and that was me.” Nancy put her hand on my back again. “Once the Riley men figure out what they want, they’re persistent and relentless.”

I knew this well. This season couldn’t have begun any worse for him when he started USAC and now look at him: two points out of the lead in the Triple Crown heading into Pontoon Beach with six weeks to go. I had no doubt in my mind he’d pull this off. When he wanted something Nancy was right, he was just like any other Riley, he persevered against all odds.

“I won’t say anything.” Nancy offered observing me watching Jameson sign some autographs in front of the pit gate. “But once he figures out what it is that he wants, I get to say I told you so.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t feel that way.” I responded disheartened.

Nancy laughed quietly. “I know my son. Of all my children, I can read him the best.”

I was about to tell her she was wrong when Emma dropped down beside us in the bleachers. “I swear to god, the longer we are around each other the more I want to kill him. He’s such a jerk these days.”

“He’s not that bad.” I replied gazing at him like a goddamn idiot. A few pit lizards had surrounded him when he got out of the car.

“Bullshit he’s not that bad. That asshole punched Trace!” Trace was another midget driver that Emma had been hanging around with. She apparently didn’t get the memo when he told her she wasn’t allowed to date other racers.

“Why do you think we intended to stop having kids after Jameson? He’s been that way since he was a baby. You should have seen the fit he threw when we took his bottle away.”

“What do you mean intended to stop having kids?” Emma asked skeptically.

“Emma,” Nancy sighed but had a wide grin as if she’d just won the lottery. “You were an accident.”

“I was?” she balked.

I laughed, scratch that, I fucking fell over laughing hysterically. Not because Emma was an accident but because of her expression of pure mortification.

Emma leaned over and pushed me off the bench. I landed on my ass, still laughing next to the bleachers. “You bitch.”

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