Page 129 of The Champion
After a while and water fight later, I looked around thebackyard for Casten and couldn’t find him. Next thing I knew, he was over inone of the flower bed making mud pies. This was entertaining because he didn’thave any water to make them so he used his only resource. Urine.
“Are you serious?” Sway asked when she too realized whathe was doing.
I pointed at him and shook my head leaning against theside of the back deck. “What do you think?” she laughed along with me. “I’m notsure whether to be proud of disgusted.”
We eventually got our little mud pie maker in the houseand cleaned up and on our way to dinner with Spencer and Alley to celebrateLexi’s fifth birthday.
I don’t mind the occasional birthday party and actinglike a kid again but I didnotlike Chucky Cheese.
Axel agreed with me.
That’s the thing about my little guy. We agreed on mosteverything and it was nice, whatever your mental state is, to have company.
On the other hand, eighteen month old Casten was crazy.The kid laughed all the time, had more energy than Emma and never stoppedlaughing. Did I mention that already?
The kid was constantly bouncing off the rev limiter andwas a tornado of destruction with a blinding smile that drew you in and relaxedyou at the same time. He was the perfect combination of both Sway and Itogether but he did remind me more of Sway.
“Is he for real?” Axel nudged my arm while we sat andwatched Casten toss the balls from the ball pit at unsuspecting people and thenduck and hide in the balls as if no one tossed them. How an eighteen-month oldkid could figure out to do this should have been surprising but not for Casten.
I shrugged indifferently.
There were so many people and kids around screaming andhaving a good time it was hard to actually talk with anyone but I eventually mademy way over to Spencer and Aiden held up at a table drinking beer with my dad.
Dad was watching Casten and his ball game before heturned toward me in the booth. I poured myself a beer from the pitcher on thetable, thankful they served beer here.
“What’s with the little one?” Dad asked. “Does he everstop laughing?”
“Not that I’ve seen.”
I took a slow drink of my beer watching Casten closely ashe tossed one at Cole, Spencer’s youngest, who walked past. Cole didn’t likebeing fucked with by anyone so he jumped head first into the balls and roughedthe little guy up a little bit, well as much as a three-year old kid could.
“What’s the plan for Axel and Indy next week?” Spencerasked keeping one eye on Lexi and Arie climbing on a rock wall.
“Well, we leave for Daytona tomorrow afternoon. The raceis on Saturday so then we leave for Indy on Monday. I need both of his carsready by then.” Tommy plopped beside me with Casten on his shoulders. Castenimmediately crawled onto my lap and looked up at me.
“Bite?” he asked.
He did this any time he wanted a bite or drink ofsomething.
“No monkey, this is daddy’s.” Sway and I called himmonkey because he climbedeverything.
Casten eventually lost interest in my beer when henoticed there was pizza at the table.
“I’ll have both cars ready by then. The Honda 160 isn’tready though. We still need to change out the tie rod in it—he broke it lastweek.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I told him with a shrug as Axel satdown with us. He looked completely bored. “USAC won’t allow him to race it in asanctioned race until he turns eight.”
“All right,” Tommy nodded while Axel frowned. “I haveboth 120 cars ready.”
Spencer laughed. “Did you know they moved him from theRed to the Blue Honda 120/Animal class?”
“When did that happen?” I knew the USAC rules these daysjust as good as I knew NASCAR or the Outlaw rules being the owner of yetanother team. “You have to run three events before they move you up.” Trying tocalculate the races he’d run this year as my brow furrowed as I looked over atAxel. “I thought you missed a few?”
“I did. I missed the Mason Dixon Shootout and theMilwaukee Mile.” He counted on his fingers. “I ran Dual in the Desert, WesternDistrict Qualifier, Midwest District Qualifier and the High Desert Classic.That’s four.” He held his tiny hand in my face displaying four fingers to me.
“Oh yeah,” I nodded ruffling his hair. He smiled up atme. “I forgot about the High Desert Classic.”
It’s not that I meant to forget about it either but Aprilwas a busy month for me between the cup schedule and the outlaws. I never had achance to make it out there for that one and usually I made it out to at leastone night of his racing.
