Page 7 of Happy Hour

After all, I wouldn’t mind housing Jameson’s camshaft. And the camshaft, well, it’s a long shaft inserted into the crankcase that rotates. Naturally, I would refer to this as a penis.

“Sway?” I jumped when I heard someone yell my name.

Jameson had stopped his adjustment under the hood but hadn’t looked up yet. His head remained bent forward peering down at the car, one hand rested on the hood over his head.

My eyes searched for who called my name. It was his spotter, also Emma’s eye candy, Aiden Gomez, who had called my name and was jogging towards us.

Trying to hide behind Spencer didn’t do any good. I was heaved into a massive hug from Aiden as he swung me around.

Aiden Gomez was a tall lanky guy with blonde curly hair that stuck out from under his hat. He was a cowboy straight up from the deep south of Pickard Alabama. I’ll spare you my stereotypical thoughts of folks that come from Alabama because let’s face it, in NASCAR—I was surrounded by the mullet madness from the southern states.

Aiden was cool though, for a spotter. I had my own feelings on spotters. They were good people—but crazy if you ask me. Anyone that could stand hundreds of feet up in the air and hang over a railing was certifiable insane in my book.

Jameson met Aiden last year while he was racing in the Busch Series and when Jameson got the opportunity to race in the Winston Cup Series, he asked Aiden to come with him as his spotter. Emma was the most excited because it meant she has to be around him more. They had a secret love for each other that hadn’t been revealed to the big brothers, if you know what I mean.

“Careful, Aiden—she feisty today,” Spencer warned rubbing his forehead. “She nearly took my head off.”

“It barely grazed your eye.” Aiden finally set me down. “Where’s Emma?”

“Uh,” Aiden gave me a tentative smile. “She said something about getting you something to wear for tonight and left for the mall. She took Lane with her.”

Emma...oh Emma...she took every opportunity she could to make me her dress up Sway-doll. The last time I let her dress me in Daytona, I looked like the 4th of July exploded on me.

I loved Emma like a sister but sometimes I wanted to kill her.

Actually, most of the time I wanted to kill her. She had this ridiculous obsessive-compulsive disorder that seemed to be heightened by her need to control other people and lather herself with lotion.

I wished she’d just leave me alone and go back to counting, applying ungodly amounts of lotion and sanitizing everything she saw but no, what would be the fun in that for a deeply troubled sadistic shopaholic like her? The answer, it wouldn’t be. Just like her brothers, they lived to annoy me in ways I found beguiling. They were my family.

“Well...she’s wasting her time.” I huffed. “I’m not wearing anything she picks for me.” I crossed my arms like a spoiled child.

I wasn’t lying either—I refused to play dress up tonight.

I hadotherplans. My plan exactly, convincing Jameson he loved me too and letting his camshaft meet my crankcase and test out my bearing alignment (a process to make sure all bearings are aligned so when the camshaft is run through, no binding occurs). Or, maybe we could do some thrust bearing (a type of bearing that’s designed to support high axial load while rotating). Or if things really go my way, I could do some micro polishing (a procedure that cleans the camshaft with high speed polishing belts)...I could go on for days like this. I had a name for anything sexual and it wasn’t what it was commonly referred to.

To me, the inner workings of an engine bared little resemblance to the actually function and instead, bared a strong resemblance in a sexual nature.

When you think about it,reallythink about the way an engine operates, you’d be absolutely baffled at how closely it resembled sex. I’m not very mature, as I’m sure you’ve guessed by now.

Spencer and Aiden were grumbling about the fine issued by NASCAR when they stopped and smiled over my shoulder.

I turned sharply to see what they were smiling at only to see Jameson making his way over to us with a huge grin.

I ran at full speed towards him jumping in his arms, and yes, I wrapped my legs around his waist. I won’t lie, I was hoping for some sappy reunion where he confessed his undying love for me and we drove off into the sunset in his race car, but that didn’t happen. Instead, hedidwrap his arms tightly around my waist pulling me against him tightly.

“I’ve missed you Sway,so much!”

If I wasn’t already in love with him, I just fell in love, and so did my crankcase with my legs still tightly wrapped around his waist.

Right about then, I realized my crankcase was making all kinds of justifications that my mind would have no patience for, if it were still in charge. Warmth spread over me when I could feel his strong arms flex as he held me against his body. His breath blew over my neck, shivers ignited down my body firing nerve endings into race mode. I hoped like hell he didn’t feel me trembling in his arms.

“I’ve missed you too.” I said softly breathing in the smell of his sun kissed skin. He smelled of racing and summer, two things my senses had memory for.

At my words, Jameson turned his head kissing my cheek, his lips lingering. Pathetically, I found myself leaning into his touch.

It must have looked inappropriate because Alley cleared her throat beside us. “Do you two need a room?”

I looked over at her pursed lips in a hard line while she glared at me.

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