Page 27 of The Champion

“Sorry.” He finally said and reached for the peanutbutter.

I snatched it before he could take it again—trying torestrain myself from laughing at his expression of scared shitless. “No, no,you’re done with the peanut butter.”

This babysitting shit was hard work. How our familythought we could handle a newborn baby, the Lucifer twins and Lane all at once,was bullshit.

Lane was okay...thetwins were not. They were hardly classified asnormalchildren.

It was the day before I had to leave to Daytona forSpeedweek and the last thing I wanted to be doing was babysitting these shitstoday but Andrea had to take Charlie up to Seattle for a doctor’s appointmentand Alley and Spencer were at the doctor as well getting an ultrasound.

Logan had long since passed out next to me but Lucas wasanother story. It was now close to nine o’clock and I thought for sure he’d beasleep by now but no such luck.

I’m almost certain he had this plan that if he annoyed melong enough I would have I eventually caved and given him chocolate so he wouldhave left the room. You’d think at some point logic should have set in and Iwould have recognized a pattern but no, I chose to ignore it. Ignorance isbliss at times.

“Is everything okay?” Sway asked carrying Axel into thefamily room, amused I’m sure.

I shot Lucas a warning glare.

“Yes, everything is fine,” I told her, feeling as thoughI had finally gotten the situation under control, and not wanting to miss anymore of the Deadliest Catch.

The minute she walked in the kitchen, Lucas startedwhining again that the tape was hurting his arm. I hadn’t had much experiencewith sugar-mania before, but was intuitive enough to know things were not goingwell.

I was blissfully engrossed in my show whilesimultaneously contemplating a career choice into the crab fisherman shit andpretending Lucas wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary besides jumping onthe couch and looking for some sort of attention. I ignored him. He wasn’tgoing to get attention from me. I was trying to watch a goddamn show and notthink about Speedweek fast approaching.

Then he jumped off the couch, untied himself, and tossedthe remotes directly at me. One hit me in the forehead, and the other hit thewall behind me, knocking over a glass on the end table.

Once I got hit in the face, I lost my composure.

“I warned you once.” I told him carrying him kicking andscreaming up the stairs. I set him on the bed where they were going to besleeping in. “Now...go to sleep.”

“I’m not tired.” He countered and sprung to his feet.

“Well I suggest you get tired.” I closed the door behindme praying that Axel never acted like them. If he did, I would be sending thelittle asshole to boarding school as soon as permitted.

When I finally made it to bed that night, Sway was fastasleep with Axel. He was snuggled up against her chest in our bed, nuzzling hisfoodbags. I couldn’t blame him. I wished I was doing the same.

Mentally I was preparing myself for racing again butemotionally I wanted to be here, with my family. This off-season had broughtwith it another reason for me wanting to be home with my family. Axel.

I laid there awake, watching my son and wife sleepremembering these last few weeks with them. Between testing and being pulled inevery direction possible by my sponsor, I was still able to find time here andthere to be with Sway and him.

I couldn’t tell you how attached I was to them now. Not aminute went by that they weren’t both in the back of my mind.

As careful as I could, I wrapped both arms around themand was asleep before I knew it.

There was the most annoying sound in the worldinfiltrating my sleep and it wasn’t stopping.

I opened my eyes and blinked steadily into the darknessof the motor coach only to see my phone was blinking on the nightstand.

Back to reality.

Once I arrived in Daytona, I was in race form once again.Though I missed my family, I loved racing and there was no denying that when Iwas at the track. It was in my blood and would be forever.

What I didn’t love was the newfound fascination everyonehad with my personal life and me.

It seemed everywhere I turned people were asking how mymarried life was, or how my son was. I wouldn’t mind telling them but I alsoknew my words were never my words. Everything I said these days wasmisconstrued into something else entirely. So I kept my mouth shut.

I was always in a shitty mood when I had to get up earlybut when I was away from my family, it was worse.

Once I was surrounded by the obligations of the day, Iwas grumpy and that was never a good thing. Just ask Emma who was currentlyshoving posters in my face while I glared at her.

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