Chapter 20
Jett
After a long day of work I come home to the smell of lasagna in the oven.
Damn, she even made her famous cheesy garlic bread that I love so freaking much I could eat my weight in that bread.
I drop my keys on the counter, and wrap my arms around Keanna’s waist while she sprinkles parmesan cheese on the freshly sliced bread.
“This smells amazing, babe.”
”Thanks,” she says looking back and giving me a quick kiss. “I’ve been craving a good home cooked meal instead of takeout. That’s the one thing I miss about living at your parents’ house.”
I chuckle and take some of our brand new plates out of the cabinet to start setting the table.
We’re finally slipping back into a good routine.
You don’t realize how calming and peaceful a boring, regular day can be until you’ve been thrown out of it for weeks.
I’m so grateful for everything we have and for the family we’ve built together.
Arko joins us at the dinner table. He sits right by Harper’s feet, watching with the intense discipline of a working dog.
Only instead of sniffing out danger, he’s hoping she’ll drop a piece of food.
To his extreme happiness, she drops an entire piece of bread.
Arko inhales it before it hits the floor.
He would have loved watching her eat when she was still in a highchair—food went flying everywhere but into her mouth.
After dinner, we settle on the couch to watch some TV and relax. Keanna always sits beside me, wedging her body against mine while scrolling on her phone or watching a show. I lean over and take my laptop off the coffee table. I’m not sure why, but she stiffens beside me.
”You okay?” I ask. “Did I hurt you?”
Her body is so tangled up beside me, I worry I squished her or something.
She shakes her head. “I’m fine.”
I lift an eyebrow, but I don’t push it. I settle back into the couch with my laptop and she looks back at her phone, just slightly further away from me than she was a few minutes ago.
I check my emails. Every company I’ve ever purchased from has sent annoying sales emails that I delete unread. A skim through a couple tracking emails from stuff I’ve bought for the house, and then see an email from a nonprofit. They want me to race for them next weekend.
I should be nice and reply to the email, but part of me wants to delete it and pretend I never saw it.
I don’t know these people so it’s not like they’re in my social circle, and I appreciate being considered for stuff like this, but it’s just too much.
I’ve had my fill of traveling around the country for now.
I type out a quick thanks but no thanks type of reply and hit send.
Then I read up on some motocross websites and check out one of my favorite small business YouTube creators.
He gives great advice for marketing that’s designed for business owners like we are.
We don’t sell stuff online. Our customers have to be local enough to physically show up at our location and that’s a lot different when it comes to marketing than if you were selling T-shirts online or something.
Beside me, Keanna shifts, and fidgets, and something is totally up with her.
I close my laptop. “Babe, what’s wrong?”
”Nothing.”
”Yeah, right. That was the fastest, most high pitched reply ever.” I nudge her with my elbow. “Something is bothering you. What is it?”
She chews on her thumbnail, which means she’s definitely stewing over whatever is bothering her. She hates chewing on her nails.
“I…accidently saw your email earlier.”
I shrug. “So?”
”So…I saw that email asking you to race next weekend.”
”Okay?”
”And I’m guessing you just replied to them, so I want to know what you said.”
”I said no.”
Her expression softens instantly. “Really? Why?”
I shrug again. “I mean…I don’t want to sound like some selfish jackass but I don’t have time to race for charity right now. And I’m tired of traveling. Maybe if another easy fifty grand opportunity comes up, but I’d rather focus on our business and making it even better.”
”So you don’t want to go back to professional racing?”
I shake my head. “I quit that years ago.”
”But then you came back. And Marcus said on live television that you were back.”
“Huh?” It takes a minute to remember what she’s talking about. “You mean the night of the fire?”
”Yeah.” She looks away. “You seemed so happy. I thought you’d go back to racing full time.”
”No, I’m done with that. Random races are fun but not full time.”
She snuggles back against me, and things feel more right with the world than they did a few minutes ago.
I kiss her head. “Have you been worried about that this whole time?”
”Yeah,” she mutters.
I chuckle. “Babe, you gotta talk to me. That's not anything to worry about! But, we do need money. We’ve spent more than we got from the insurance for our household contents.”
She turns to look at me, concern creasing her features. “That sounds bad.”
”Nah. We’re fine, it’s just that everything is expensive… furniture, and the remodeling, and the quote for the new driveway that we definitely need because I’m not dealing with mud every time it rains. I was thinking of offering night classes.”
”Night motocross classes?”
The concept sounds like she’s never considered it. And I hadn’t either until recently.
”Yeah, so I’ve had a lot of clients say they’d love to train at night.
And I’ve had a lot of potential clients say they want to take lessons, but they work during the day so they’re only free in the evenings.
Plus, the summers get so freaking hot it’s like riding in an oven most months. At night, it’s cooler and safer.”
”The Track does have a full light system,” she says. Her lips slide to the side of her mouth as she thinks it over. “My dad was hellbent on having those lights installed for if they ever wanted to do night races, and we haven’t yet.”
”Exactly! Night races are another way we could earn more money. I was going to pitch that to them soon. Friday Night Lights but for dirt bike racing.”
”That would be cool. There’s not much else to do in this small town. Maybe whole families would come out to watch them.”
I nod. “And every other night, The Track is totally empty. I could turn on the lights and open up to customers. Teaching pays me more than working there for the races. I could earn a lot more money with night classes, but it would mean having less family time at home.”
”That wouldn’t be as bad as you traveling,” she says. “You’d still come home at night. And we could go up there and hang out, too. I think it’d be fun.”
”Yeah? I think I’ll do it then.”
”Awesome!” she says, poking me in the abs. “Go earn that money. I like money.”
Two weeks later, our income has doubled.
It’s all thanks to me offering night classes.
I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before.
Most people work jobs in the daytime and only have time for stuff like this after hours.
It’s a huge success and I’m booked solid for weeks.
I did decide to build in Fridays as my off days so I can have date nights with Keanna and spend the day with Harper.
Standing at the finish line, I take a sip of water and crumple the empty plastic bottle in my hand.
The next trash can is a good distance away, but I’m too lazy to walk there, plus my client, Theo, is out on the track right now.
He could zoom by here at any second and take me out if I were to walk across the track.
So, my confidence gets a little cocky as I crush the bottle into a ball-like shape and throw it toward the bright blue plastic trash can.
I miss spectacularly. It doesn’t even hit the trash can, instead veering to the left and smacking the dirt. It’s not me. It’s the physics of a crumpled water bottle being not as good as regular ball.
Yeah, that’s what I’m going to tell myself.
Theo does two more laps and then pulls off to the side.
”Great job, man,” I tell him giving him a fist bump.
The bike idles as he pulls off his helmet. “My calves are killing me!”
”Yeah, yeah,” I say, messing with him. “Hit the gym and build your strength. This is the only way to ride—balls of your feet on the pegs. Anything else is lazy and slow.”
”Got it,” he says, exhaling slowly.
I know the poor kid is in pain. Motocross is extremely physical. It’s not just riding around for funsies while a motor does all the work. Your whole body gets a workout while wrangling the bike.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s Keanna, which is weird because she never calls me when she knows I’m teaching lessons.
She’ll just text me to call her when I get a moment.
Theo is telling me about his workout routine, so I feel bad but I let her call go to voicemail.
Theo’s in college, but his dad pays me a lot of money to teach his kid how to go pro and I don’t want to seem like I’m not giving him my full attention.
His dad sits in the bleachers right now watching us.
We get back to the lesson, and Keanna calls again. Twice in a row? That’s beyond weird.
”I’m sorry, man, my wife is calling.” I give him an apologetic look and step aside.
”Hello?”
”Jett!” Keanna screams. “Come home now!”