Page 14 of Trading Paint
“Will you pretend to be my girlfriend for a few days?” she started to object so I held my fingers to her lips and tilted her head at Amber. “You see that blonde over there?”
“Yeah,”
“She’s obsessed with me and I may or may not have told her you were my girlfriend the other day.”
“You dirty fucking liar.” She accused but laughed despite her scowl. “Sure, but if you molest me at any other time other than necessary, I will junk punch you.”
“So that’s a no on sex then?” I grinned.
Her expression was alarmed. “Deals off,” she said beginning to walk away.
I snatched her hand with mine pulling her back toward me, she stumbled over the tools scattered on the floor and landed against my chest. “I was only joking.”
“Good,” she finally said.
We didn’t have to do much pretending to convince anyone we were girlfriend/boyfriend and we did end up kissing a few times.
My male hormones peaked and attacked her in the back of the hauler at which point she had to push me off her, laughing. She thought it was funny; I did not.
I’d never spent so much time in the shower as I did during that weekend. Being able to kiss Sway whenever I wanted was a little much for me to handle.
The weekend of racing went good. I ended up with a feature win that night at Terre Haute and then two-second place finishes to Justin West at Lernerville and Grandview.
Justin West was tearing it up in the USAC silver crown divisions with me. After his second championship, he caught the name “Wicked West from the Mid-West.”
Another kid who was becoming a definite force was Ryder Christiansen from North Carolina. He was a year younger than us but had significant possibilities as a driver and frequently referred to as the “Beast from the East.”
If you ever saw Ryder, at barely five foot two, he was hardly a beast.
I didn’t have a name that I knew of, or at least they never told me what it was.
That weekend in Terre Haute also marked my first pit fight.
During a heat race, this kid from California, Bret Luther, kept clipping my right rear. I corrected it every time except the fourth time when it sent me into a flip.
This was not acceptable to me and I let him know it.
I should have known my chances of doing damage to a kid nicknamed “Bubba” were poor.
Mebeing roughly six foot one now had the guy on height but weight, not so much. I worked out constantly and felt comfortable with my strength but when you encounter a two-hundred and sixty pound seventeen year old kid, you shouldn’t start a fight. I lacked any sane thoughts that night though.
Holding a wet towel to my bloody lip, my dad smirked. “You met Bubba?”
“Thanks for the warning.” I grumbled.
“No problem.”
As my junior year progressed, I began contemplating the idea of a girlfriend.
Spencer had started dating Alley, the girl we met coming home from Florida so entertaining the idea of a girlfriend was something I thought I should try and maybe, just maybe, I’d stop thinking about Sway naked.
I could only hope for this at least.
Chelsea Adams was a girl I had been messing around with these days. We had a few classes together and she frequently hung out at the track as the trophy girl from time to time which is how we met.
I never looked twice at girls at school. At the track was different because I thought, “Hey, she’s at the track so maybe we share the same interests.”
I soon found out that Chelsea knew nothing about racing and hated it. This wasn’t lost on me but she was attractive and willing to mess around with me so that satisfied that urge for a while and became a way for me to channel some of my hormone driven thoughts away from Sway.
