Now
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
Jackson
“Are you sure you can’t stay?” Evie pleads from the bedroom.
I hold back a sigh, grabbing a few shirts from the drawer. Not this again …
She’s still seated on the padded stool of her dressing table when I return to the room, her round belly stretching her sweater.
“We’ve talked about this, princess,” I remind her, arranging the T-shirts into my suitcase.
“It’s just one race.”
“It’s not just one race, Evie. It’s a behavior issue. If I miss the opening of the season without a good excuse, they won’t trust me anymore.”
“But you have a good excuse.”
“What? My wife doesn’t like it when I race?”
She squints her eyes at me from across the room. “No, your eight-month-pregnant wife gets severe anxiety when you race, and it’s not good for the baby.”
“It’ll sound the same to them,” I explain before returning to the walk-in closet to get more stuff.
Evie still isn’t over this when I come back. “I’m not asking you to stop racing altogether, Jax. Just this one. And maybe the next one. Unless she’s here early.”
This time, I can’t hold back from sighing. I throw the two sweatpants in the suitcase and walk up to her. “You’ll be alright, Evie. You’ve gotten better lately, haven’t you?”
“Because it was the off-season. But my blood pressure is up again. It’s been up for three weeks.”
“Have you talked to your therapist?”
“She says it’s probably not just me, but also the pregnancy hormones making me irrational. But I can’t help it, Jax. I can’t control the way I feel about you racing again.”
“It’s just a couple of races, Evangeline.”
“Exactly. It’s just a couple of races. You can skip them.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, closing my eyes as I take a breath to gather myself.
When I open them again, I’m focused. “We’ve been working on this for almost seven years, Evie.
I’m nearly there. Next season, I’ll be in Formula One.
The team principal confirmed it. I’ll be their rookie.
Then, we’ll move to Italy with our baby girl, and everything will be alright.
But I need to go to Sakhir. I need to do this race. ”
Tears make her eyes shine, but they don’t roll down, gathering on the water lines. “If you really loved me, you wouldn’t abandon me like this. And if you loved our daughter, you would stay to protect her.”
There’s something so wicked in her accusation that I step back. “You’re the one stressing over nothing, Evie. I’m just doing my job, not causing your hypertension. You are.”
My response comes out much harsher than I meant it, and this time, two drops, clear like crystal, slide down her cheeks.
Fuck … I don’t have time for this. My flight is in less than two hours.
I return to her and squat down, leveling my face with hers. “Listen, I’m a race car driver. It’s my job. And I’ll keep racing for as long as they let me. Let’s say I skip two races. The baby is born, all is well. What happens when you get pregnant again? Do I stop racing for nine months?”
“I don’t know.”
“You need to decide what you want our future to be. Do we keep moving forward to Florence in Tuscany, or do we go back to Florence in Colorado?”
She shakes her head adamantly. “I don’t want to go back.”
“Then what? Because if I’m not driving, the only job I can get is at my brother’s garage. Maybe we could find a trailer near your mom’s. She could help with the baby.”
Her eyes darken at the suggestion. “Now you’re just being cruel.”
“I’m being realistic, Evie. You don’t have your degree yet, and with a newborn on the way, it’ll take a while. And I didn’t get enough credits to graduate from high school. We’re on the best path we’ll ever be on. The only thing we can do for ourselves and the baby is to keep going forward.”
She says nothing, sliding the back of her hand under her runny nose. Taking it as her admission that I’m right, I push myself up and return to the closet.
I’m almost done with my suitcase when Evie stands up, struggling a little under the weight of her belly.
“Just one race,” she tries again. “Just this one. Then we induce in a month, and you can go to Jeddah.”
“Evie …”
“I’m not asking for the moon, Jax. Just for you to put me first, for once.”
An uncontrollable snort comes out of me.
“For once?” I repeat. “For once? All of this is for you, Evangeline!” I say loudly, motioning at our bedroom and all the things she bought to fill it.
“I’m working so damn hard all the time so I can give you the life you deserve,” I continue.
“So you can buy all the shit you want. So we can have a nine-hundred-dollar vintage armchair that isn’t even really vintage. ”
“You said you liked the armchair.”
“That’s not the point!”
“Then what’s the point?!”
“The point is, my job is racing. You’ve known that since we started dating, and now you’re trying to wriggle out of exactly what you signed up for.”
“I didn’t sign up for becoming a single mom because you went and killed yourself driving a car!”
“Well, you grew up with one who showed you exactly what not to do, so I’m sure you’ll be fine if I di—”
The burning smack of her hand on my cheek leaves me stunned. Did she—did she just slap me?
“Fuck you, Jackson,” she spits out, eyes full of anger. Hearing her curse is even more jarring than the blow to my cheek. “How can you talk about it so casually?!” she continues.
“I was joking!”
“It’s not a joke! It’s a real possibility. You could die and leave us behind. I could lose you forever. Your daughter could grow up without a father. Why can’t you understand that’s what I’m worried about?!”
“I understand, but you’re being irrational.”
“Am I? You almost died last season!”
“Not even close. I had two broken ribs and a concussion. I was back on track three weeks later, racing two weeks after that. It was nothing.”
“It didn’t look like nothing!”
Her voice cracks, and her anger turns into tears as she presses her hands over her face. She sobs, shoulders shaking with it.
Fuck … I can’t leave like this, when we’re fighting. But I also can’t miss my flight.
Feeling like shit for making my pregnant wife cry, I come in and wrap my arms around her in a tender hug. She lets me, which I didn’t really expect.
About two months after the accident, I watched the video of my crash. It looked so much worse than when I experienced it. The car actually flipped in the air twice before landing back on the ground. I never even noticed that. And the engine fire was much larger than I recalled.
She saw it all unfold in real time. The crash, the flips, the sliding, the fire, my inability to get out, the medics strapping me to a stretcher … She thought I was going to die, and she hasn’t been able to shake that idea out of her head since.
I hold her like this for a long moment, waiting for her sobs to slowly fade and for her tears to be quenched. When she stops shaking in my arms, I kiss the top of her head and pull away. She lets me as I guide her to the bed, to sit next to my suitcase.
The time-out was good, allowing our high emotions to go down so we can resume our conversation more calmly.
“Listen,” I say softly, crouching down. “I’ll be gone for just five days.
We can do five days, right? We did nine months, remember?
” I wipe away her tears, hating to see her like this.
She nods. “I’ll see if I can find a masseuse who does house calls.
She’ll come every day to help you relax.
You’ll rest and take care of yourself the whole weekend.
But you won’t watch the race, okay? I promise you I’ll be fine, but I don’t want you watching and worrying. ”
She nods again.
I lay a hand over the roundness of her stomach and say, “Our girl is supposed to arrive between Australia and Azerbaijan. Which means if everything goes well, there’s one more race to go through after this one.”
Already, I can see concern resurfacing in her misty eyes. So I quickly suggest, “I’ll call my mom and see if she can come live with us until the baby is here. It would be nice to have her around, wouldn’t it? She’d make you her pecan pie. And that oxtail stew you love.”
A small, shy smile twists the corners of her lips. “It would be nice to have her, yes.”
“Good. I can see if your mom wants to come as well, if you—”
She gives my shoulder a shove, almost making me lose my balance. “You’re an a-hole.” She smiles, though, shaking her head.
I take the hand that shoved me away and kiss its palm. “I am. But you love me anyway.”
“Against my better judgment, yes, I do.”
She lets me kiss her, and then I press my lips on the heavy bump between us.
“You be good to your mommy while I’m away, baby girl.”
“I’ve been thinking, for her name …”
“Yeah?”
She hesitates, passing a hand over the taut skin of her stomach. We’ve been throwing name suggestions around, but nothing has felt right yet.
“I really like … Ophelia,” she says.
“Like in Hamlet?”
“You read Hamlet?” she asks with unmasked surprise.
“I read it in high school, yeah. Everyone was plotting against everyone. It was a mess. Kinda reminded me of The Lion King.”
She giggles and grabs my face for one more kiss. “You’re an idiot, Jackson Reyes, but you’re my idiot.”
“I am?” She nods. “I’ll take it.”
I look down at her stomach, caress it, and say, “Hear that, Ophelia? I’m Mommy’s idiot.”
“You like the name?”
“I do. It’s beautiful. Perfect for her.”
I give my wife one more peck and return to the closet to get the last of my things.
Once everything is ready, I close my suitcase, zip it, and set it down on the floor.
When I return in front of her to take her necklace off so I can take it with me, I can tell she hates this but holds back from asking me to stay. She knows it’s pointless.
We don’t have a choice.
“And this is the garage,” I say proudly.