The Player Penalty (SteelTrack Racing #3)

34-Julian

I found her, and now my lungs don’t work. I suck in a breath and then another. “I went to your house and Sarah’s house.”

“Why would I go see Sarah?”

“You didn’t answer any of my texts or my messages. I kept trying to reach you.”

“It’s embarrassing. I forgot to charge my phone, and then I lost it. It’s probably still sitting on a park bench, or maybe it was thrown away. It’s not the first phone I’ve lost.” She shrugs. “Things go missing when they’re around me.”

“But you weren’t home. You were late.”

“We ran behind, and then the bus broke down. We ended up booking another night in a hotel. The kids were so upset there wasn’t time to call you. Also, I need a new phone.”

My legs nearly give out. “You don’t know what’s happened, do you? Not at all.”

“Did you win again? You won, didn’t you?”

“Not even close. Came in twentieth.” I sit and pull her into my arms, squeezing tight. The now familiar scent of citrus and vanilla fills my nose, and my heart slows enough to hear it beat. “Something happened Saturday night that you need to know about. It will upset you, but I’d rather be honest and have you angry with me than keep a secret from you.”

That opening statement is eerily similar to the one I gave her several weeks earlier.

“You’re scaring me, Julian.” She pulls away and yanks her hair.

“I’m scared, too, believe me. Here goes.” Offering a silent prayer to whatever force might be listening, I tell her every last detail, right up until finding her car in my driveway.

She says nothing.

“Lily, did you hear me?”

“Yes, every word.”

She doesn’t believe me either. “I didn’t do anything. I would not do that to you. Hell, I wouldn’t do that to us.” Lily doesn’t respond with words, but her body language tells me enough. “You’re having an anxiety attack.” I might join her.

“I’ll be okay.”

“No, you’re not. Of course, I dumped all this without considering how you would take it.”

“I believe you, Julian. Listen to me. I believe you.” She yanks my hand and squeezes. “Do you hear me?”

The rising panic fades. “You believe me.” I heard that part.

“I trust you more than anyone. Throughout that horrible story, it’s the one part I never doubted. You gave me your word, and I believe it.”

Her steady voice reassures me more than her choice of words. “What part do you doubt?”

“It’s who doubted me. Us,” she corrects. “I was jealous of all those women, Julian. You were circumspect, but I knew what you did at every race or every time you met up with Matteo. Everyone did.”

I also haven’t been with another woman in months. The desire wasn’t there even before our relationship started. “You shouldn’t have been. I’m in love with you, Lily. Absolutely, desperately, completely in love with you.”

Her eyes tighten. “That’s not what I mean.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They went after you, or at least a good amount of them did. They were confident enough to put themselves out there. To ask for it. I couldn’t for the longest time. That isn’t me.”

“It is.”

“It wasn’t,” she corrects.

“Everyone thinks I’m fragile, Julian. My dad used his career to get me a safe job. Sarah was a superficial kind of friendly while she walked on tip-toes there in the beginning. You were different. We laughed when I beat you at a game and then made lunch plans.”

“You wanted their confidence.”

“I wanted my confidence recognized, like how you saw theirs. Instead, you saw our age difference, kept me in a pretty box, and labeled it off-limits.”

“Oh.” The other women. I pull her against me until she settles against my chest. “I won’t deny any of it. You were off limits, partly because of your age. I was also afraid to risk anything because it might mean losing you. You were my first real friend, Lily. I didn’t have the confidence, not like I see it in you. Other people see it, too.”

“My father doesn’t. He thinks you’ll leave me. Dad worries I’ll become such a burden, you’ll walk away. Your offer is why he’s been so pleasant, isn’t it? I wondered why he changed his opinion of you so easily, and now I know. He thought he was protecting me. Again.”

“He loves you. You’re his daughter; he’ll always look out for you. That’s what parents do.” Not mine, but Pete Webb does. Boone and Sarah’s parents did the same. RMS exists to give them a future.

“Maybe. I’m still angry about it. You think he isn’t giving us a chance because of your past relationships when it’s about me. My dad thinks I can’t do it. Everyone thinks our relationship is so weak, we can’t make it a single weekend apart without you going wandering.”

Her nose wrinkles with disgust. It’s endearing, but I stay quiet.

“Are you still jealous of my past? We can talk about that more if you want.”

“Talk about women you’ve slept with? No, thank you. We can’t change what happened before; talking about it will only make me miserable. Right now, we need to make sure my dad doesn’t push to get you fired. Then we need to yell at everyone.”

I chuckle. “All that matters is you believe me.”

“No, it isn’t,” she says with a fierceness that turns me on. “No one believed you either. You deserve better than that, Julian. You haven’t done anything wrong, and it’s not fair you’re judged for the actions of others. You aren’t your dad. You’re a hardworking member of the team. Boone Rivers is lucky to have you.”

“You know about my father?”

“Sarah told me the entire story a long time ago,” she says.

“You never mentioned it.”

“What difference does it make? I know the man you are, not the fake story people tell each other because they want some gossip. I know what it’s like to explain, over and over, and not be believed. The more you insist, the less they believe.”

My throat closes up, so I can’t speak. Sarah insisted her father, Tom Rivers, take me on as a driver. It’s the only reason my career didn’t end like the rest of my family’s. For all that, despite everything, it’s always there. We cheated, and if someone did it once, doesn’t that mean they will do so again?

“Do you want to know my side of the story?” I ask.

“Only if you want to share. You aren’t obligated to explain yourself to people. Your actions show who you are. They did with me.”

“That isn’t always true. Maybe it should be, but it isn’t.” I sigh. This isn’t a secret. A random web search will tell people just about everything. “You know about my father.”

She nods. “Your father was abusive, Julian.”

“He never hit me. He never so much as touched me.”

“Abuse isn’t always physical.”

It’s like someone threw me into the sea years ago, and Lily came along to throw out a life preserver because I’m pathetic like that. “I guess that’s true. Shit. You’re the first person to say it. It’s strange. He taught me to drive, and he’s a great teacher. For everything I’m about to say, that part is true. He can race, and he can teach others how to race. One of the best we’ve ever seen, you know?”

“I know his name.”

“Dad has this talent. He knows your weakness and will call it out in the worst ways. As a kid, we’d end up crying over it, and then he’d get angry because we couldn’t take a joke. If we didn’t understand a school assignment, he’d call us stupid or tell us we would never get a job. If we didn’t like a certain food, he would have my mother make it for dinner. Then, he would make us sit at the table and eat every single bite. He would yell if we didn’t finish a chore and then yell for us to stop because we shouldn’t need to be told. We couldn’t win. I stopped bringing friends home because I couldn’t stand the pitying looks they would give me. Some of this sounds mild, but it was every day. Every day, no matter what. ”

Lily’s voice softens. “Your friends understood his behavior was wrong, even if none of you had the language to express it. That’s not unusual. That’s why I want to specialize in my teaching.”

She’s alluded to that a few times: giving children the means to communicate and advocate for themselves in a world that doesn’t always want to listen.

“It got better once I started winning races in my teen years. I started racing for the Cup Series full-time at only twenty-one. Wow, more than a decade already.”

“That’s younger than I am now.”

“You have more wisdom than I did at that age. That’s not an exaggeration, by the way. So, a few years later, my younger brother came in, taking Dad’s ride when he retired. It was the two of us, both decent, nothing special. But I got better, and he didn’t. Then, I made the playoffs, and he didn’t. That repeated the next year and the year after that. So, Dad decided he wanted both sons in the playoffs and came up with this scheme. Our third driver would wreck or spin, causing a caution. I was supposed to pit, allowing my little brother to move up and get in the playoffs.”

“Only you didn’t,” Lily guesses. “You didn’t participate. I know this part. You ignored the instructions coming from your radio and stayed out.”

“I stayed out, and my brother didn’t get that chance in the playoffs. Anyway, officials listened to our radio chatter and didn’t believe it was all an accident. We were busted, and there was no point in lying. I cooperated and confirmed everything. We lost sponsorships and couldn’t pay the bills.” That sickness in my stomach, the never-ending pit of misery and hurt that wouldn’t leave me during that time, comes back. I can still taste its bitterness. “Dad ordered me to shut up about it. He said it would all blow over if we denied it long enough. I knew it wouldn’t, even if he didn’t. My choices were to come clean and condemn him or to go along with it. I went with the former. I saved my career and lost my family. They’ve never forgiven me.”

“You once said you were estranged but never said why.”

“Now you know. It was the right choice, and I don’t regret it. Well, mostly, I don’t. Sometimes, I think of them during the holidays or after a win.”

“Do you think there’s a chance of fixing this?” Lily shakes her head, changing her mind about the question. “No, that’s the wrong question. Do you want it to change?”

“I spoke to him one last time after it was all done, and I signed on here at RMS . He said I was dead to him and that he only had one son. My mother was there with us, and he told her the same thing. I expected her to argue with him, but she didn’t. Her expression was sad, but she went along with it. She always did, and she always will. That was our last conversation. I still call him, sometimes, despite that.”

“So you still talk?” Her forehead wrinkles with confusion. “But you didn’t even visit him last year.”

“That’s because I leave him voice mails. He’s never returned one, at least not until now. He left me a message saying I was my father’s son, after all. It won’t be returned.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. That’s the story of how I lost my family.”

“No, Julian. That’s the story of how your family lost you. You aren’t the villain.”

“Like I said, more wisdom than I ever had. Let’s stop talking about my family right now. This is our first time together in several days. You know what I need to do?”

“Are you hungry?”

“Not in the slightest. I’m buying you a new phone. Two phones.” Maybe twenty new phones, so we can’t repeat the last 24 hours.

“Why two?”

“So we don’t worry in case one gets lost.”

“You aren’t buying me two phones.”

“Yes, I am. Along with a stack of journals, and maybe even a bookstore.” I laugh at her dubious expression. “I’m rich, Lily. Let me spoil you sometimes. We both deserve it.”

“Do you know what I’m realizing?” she asks.

“What’s that?”

“We make each other better.”

She’s right. We’re both in a better place than we were a year ago, and we managed it with the other person’s support. “I love you, Lily. Like I said, you aren’t getting rid of me. If this ends, it’ll be you doing the ending.”

“It won’t end, Julian.”

“Say that again.”

“We won’t end.”

I cut off her laugh with a kiss.