Page 18 of Finding Jeremy
“First, I think someone needs to get a bit more sleep,” Gray suggested, sliding his fingers through Jeremy’s hair. Having discovered how much he enjoyed having it stroked and played with, he intended to use it as a means of lulling him to sleep.
“Bet we run into Haven and Maddox tonight,” Jeremy murmured, nuzzling Gray’s neck. “They’ve been tossing around ideas about building a derby car for next year to advertise the businesses.”
“Would be fun,” Gray said. “I wouldn’t mind getting in on that.”
“Me neither. Then we can sit on the bleachers on the opposite side of the tracks, where it’s just friends and family members of the racers.”
“Really, you’d want to just sit there and not be behind the wheel of the thing?”
“Me?”
“Pretty sure you’ve got the most racing experience out of all of us.”
“Oh, a dirt bike, yeah, but not in a car.”
“So? You have a year to practice.”
Jeremy grew silent, nuzzling again and licking up the side of Gray’s neck. “Do you really think Haven will let me do it?”
“I don’t see why he wouldn’t,” Gray said. “Am I missing something here?”
Jeremy shook his head, brushing his short hair against Gray’s cheek as he settled in. “No, just, he’s never mentioned it. Just the car.”
Gray chuckled at that. “Probably because he’s still working that detail out and trying to figure out how much extra work it will make for the shop.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Jeremy remarked, punctuating it with another yawn.
“Nap, or you’ll be shambling up and down the rows like a zombie and throwing darts at the poor stuffed animals instead of the balloons when you try to play the games.”
“I suck at those games,” Jeremy grumbled. “Never win nuthin’.”
“Because they are designed to make sure people lose,” Gray reminded him, continuing to stroke his hair, pleased when Jeremy finally started growing heavier against him.
“Should get a big, fluffy stuffed animal for a copilot,” Jeremy muttered. “And dress him in badass clothes. Could do different themed outfits for different races and really have fun with it.”
“It would stand out, that’s for sure,” Grey murmured. “You’d wind up with your own cheering section if you went that route.”
“Oh my god, how cool would that be?” Jeremy declared, words slurring a bit against Gray’s shoulder. “Would kinda be like the llama races.”
“Llama races? What llama races?” Gray asked, knowing he shouldn’t ask because that would just get Jeremy talking again instead of napping the way he needed to, but Gray had never heard of such a thing, and his curiosity was already getting the best of him.
“The 4H kids do it as part of the animal show. They dress their llamas up in different costumes during the llama show. Thekids wear costumes too, so like, this one year a girl had her llama in a dragon costume, and she was wearing this cool leather outfit with a cardboard and tinfoil sword on her back to make her look like a dragon rider. This other kid dressed her llama to look like a kitty-cat, and she dressed up like a ball of yarn.”
“And they what, ride the llamas in races against one another?”
“I wish. That would be even better. They just line them up and lead them across the corral and back, which is already a challenge, since some of the llamas don’t want to run and others try to change directions and give their handlers a real hard time. This one year, a llama dressed up like the Tin Man found a patch of weeds poking through the fence and decided he liked them too much to move. All the rest of the llamas were running, and he’s just standing there nibbling until the kid who was showing him picked the weeds and held them out to him to get him to start walking towards the other side of the fence. They did finish the race, though.”
“If you tell me the kid was wearing a scarecrow outfit, I swear I will wind up suffocating; I’m gonna laugh so hard.”
“Nope, no scarecrow, sorry,” Jeremy snickered, his giggles growing as he raised his head to look at Gray. “He had a head-to-toe lion costume, with a big poofy mane and everything.”
“Get the fuck out of here! In the middle of summer? Why!”
“I dunno, maybe it was either that or Toto.”
“I’d have gone for Toto at that point,” Gray admitted. “At least there wouldn’t have been a hot ass mane to contend with.”
“Shit, I’d have just gone as Dorothy,” Jeremy said. “A dress and some stockings are a lot less material to deal with. Don’t know if I could have run in those ruby slippers, though.”
