Page 84 of Dirt Driven

“The devil,” Hudson growled in a very disturbing voice I’d never heard before. He went from barely talking a few months ago to growling out his words like he was possessed.

I feared for my life with that one. And it dawned on me in that office with them that we made the weirdest kids.

“And,” Gray finished, “on the sideboard you should just add a picture of Harry Styles.”

I stared at her. “Not a chance.”

“Yeah, okay.” Arie nodded, trying to accommodate all their requests. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“It’s gonna look like a schizophrenic’s car,” I told her, trying to voice my disapproval for any of it other than the flames. At least Pace and Knox had some sense.

Arie laughed, like my request meant nothing. “Be nice.”

And you know, I was beginning to realize when you’re married and have four kids, your opinion in anything meant jack shit.

Beside me, Casten grinned and gestured to the car Rowyn and Ryder designed. His car was covered in swirls and dots and a random star here and there. None of it made any fucking sense. It made me dizzy looking at it. It looked like a drunk was let loose with a box of Sharpies while on a roller coaster and attempting to draw.

“Whose idea was this?”

I glared at Casten. “Yours!”

“Oh, right.” He smiled when I knocked my shoulder with his. “I’m fucking brilliant.”

HONESTLY, I WASN’Tlooking forward to the second West Coast swing based on how the first part went. Or the middle. Okay, it’d been a rough fucking year. But I’d also been racing long enough to know you had years like this. Ones that made you appreciate the good ones even more.

What bothered me the most was not having Arie there. I hated the few days she hadn’t been there this season. No way I wanted to do a fucking month without her. I also had to respect Arie’s desire to stay home and heal from her surgery. It didn’t stop the husband in me from wanting to be there for her.

We said our goodbyes that night in the parking lot of JAR Racing where the haulers had just left. Jameson’s truck was hooked up to the one T-shirt trailer we were taking, the lights on and highlighting the stone sign in front of the building.

“Are you sure?” I asked Arie, pulling her into my chest, the hum of the diesel in the background drowning out her sigh.

She gave me “the look.” The one that screamed stop asking that. “I’ll fly out to see you in a couple weeks with the kids when you’re in Washington.”

“Do me a favor,” I whispered in her ear, reaching down to grab her ass with one hand.

“What?” she yelped, wiggling against me.

“Send me naughty pictures every day.”

She laughed. “That I can do.”

I hugged each one of the kids, kissed Arie entirely too inappropriately in front of her dad, and then got inside the truck with Lane and Jameson. Tommy followed us.

“Where’s Paxton?” I asked. He was originally going to come with us, and we’d drop him off in Indiana on the way.

Tommy shrugged. “He left this morning.”

I reached for my phone in my pocket, flipping through messages. “Aren’t you going to see him again?”

Tommy opened his cooler and reached for a beer. “Well, maybe. I don’t know.”

“You’re his dad,” Lane added, making his way inside the truck. “He’s fifteen.”

“Yeah, but once his mom finds out he spent three months with me, got arrested, lost his virginity, and now likes Fireball way more than he should, she might change her mind on visitation rights,” Tommy pointed out.

“True.” I smiled. “Did you ever figure out if his mom knew he was gone?”

“Nope. He kept saying he told her, but I don’t know. I didn’t see his face on the news.”

---