Black Flag (Racing on the Edge) (70 page)

Alley walked down the
aisle first, followed by Emma, Andrea and Mallory taking their places.

In fear of my safety, I
chose Spencer as my best man. I wasn’t sure what he’d do to me if I hadn’t
chose
him.

The music changed to
Wagner’s familiar march. The guests stood, and my breath caught in my throat. I
had to remind myself to breath in and out. This is where the panic set it. Not
in the way you’d think though, panic that she’d change her mind.

To my frustration, my
view of where Sway and Charlie would first appear was obscured when everyone
stood, so it seemed to take much longer than it should for them to arrive.

Then
...
she was there.
My
bride.

All that fear and panic
melted away when emotion welled up in my throat and I gave up trying to breathe
normally. Momentarily shocked into complete immobility at the sight of her, she
was stunning.

Her long, dark hair had
been artfully, pinned up with a few odd curls hanging down. Her white strapless
silk gown was cut low enough to be sexy, but high enough to remain modest. It
fit snugly over her breasts and then spilling out into a wide skirt, with a
train down the back that followed along behind her on the floor. Although she
was eight months pregnant, you couldn’t tell by looking at her now.

It was perfect. It was
exactly the dress I envisioned her wearing.

Both Sway and Charlie
looked nervous, both probably concentrating on putting one foot in front of the
other. Charlie’s eyes were red and glossy—Sway looking at her feet.

Eventually she looked
up, her eyes darted back and forth uncertainly at first, searching, but after a
few steps up the aisle, her gaze caught mine and our eyes locked on one
another. When she broke into a beautiful, wide smile, I felt my whole body
relax.

I chuckled to myself
when Sway winked at me.

In another moment, she
was beside me, and Charlie took her right hand from his arm to place it in
mine.

“Take care of her.” He
whispered in words meant only for me.

I nodded to him before
he took his seat. I wanted to tell him I would, but I couldn’t form the words.

Sway clutched my hand
tightly, eagerly, lacing her warm fingers through mine. She gave them a squeeze
as if to reassure me that everything was right in the world, and I squeezed
back. I well knew it—everything was perfect. I thought about when I asked her
to marry me and how nervous I’d been. That didn’t even compare to this.

The ceremony itself was
a traditional one, but not lengthy.

Emma had pretty much
forced Sway and I to write our own vows, the problem was Aiden and I were drunk
when I finished mine last night and now, as I looked down at my hand that I
wrote them on, none of it made any fucking sense, not to mention they were smeared
from my sweating.

“Shit
...
” I muttered obtaining a few laughs from
Aiden and Spencer who stood beside me.

Sway smiled letting out
a soft giggle, she knew right then what I had done.

Wing it.
I told myself and went
for it.

I reached for her hand.
“Sway Marie Reins
...
you are my flywheel.
You are what
keeps
my
...
camshaft rotating.” Another giggle from Sway, I smiled down
at her. “You keep everything in my life, turning steadily. You connect the
missing pieces of my life together. I promise to always be there for you, no
matter what happens. I promise that if you’re sad, I will make you laugh. I
promise that you’ll never walk alone; I’ll stand by your side. Through the
brightest days and the darkest nights, I give you my heart and I give you my
soul.”

I exhaled the breath
I’d been holding when I finished. I smiled to myself that I delivered the
perfect vows she deserved with the right amount of aplomb for not having
anything to go by.

Sway of course was
crying by that point and it took every ounce of self-control I had not to break
down in front of everyone as well.

She smiled through her
tears as she began her vows. “Our lives are all about choices, it’s about
making our own happy ending. With you, I’ve done that.” Sway looked down at her
vows and then shot a glare toward Spencer who was laughing, crumpled up the
paper and threw it at him. She then turned toward me again. “Jameson Anthony
Riley, I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember. You’ve been by my side
since I was eleven, always supportive and never judging. I promise to tell you
when you’re being an ass. I promise to be your flywheel and make sure your
camshaft turns steadily.” She giggled. “Together we will walk as one. Together
our darkest nights will become our brightest days, I give you my heart and I
give you my soul.”

And then we exchanged
rings.

I had never worn a ring
before, but this one felt comfortable, like it belonged there and always would.
For my ring, we chose a black titanium ring since it was sure to get a little
scuffed with my lifestyle.

In all the moments of
uncertainty, the earliest days of our friendship with benefits, convinced I
couldn’t have it both ways, and pushing her away. They all seemed so silly now.
There was no way to doubt that we belonged together, forever. If these last few
months taught me anything, it was that together we were stronger.

I had this idea of what
my life would be life but this wasn’t even close. I honestly believe
expectations sell us short.

The real test is what
happens when the unexpected happens because that’s what really molds who you
are. It changes all those laid out plans you once had. But that change can also
bring something you never saw coming—the love of a lifetime.

My unexpected was this.
The girl I thought would never be mine, agreed to mess around with me. The girl
I never thought would understand how you felt, felt the same way. The girl I
never thought would love
me,
told me she loved me too.
And the girl I never thought would marry
me,
was
standing before me in a white dress, promising me forever.

This was one time in my
life where the expected truly did pale in comparison to the unexpected turn my
life had taken.

Sway was the girl that
spoke her mind. The girl that kept me in line and made me laugh with her
quirkiness and the adorable way her cute nose wrinkled when she laughed. She
was my rock.
My girl.
My wife.

Flywheel – Sway

In college, I took a
physiology class, only one, but I learned that Robert
Plutchick
created a wheel of emotions that consisted of eight basic emotions and eight
advanced emotions composed of two basic ones.

What happens when
you’re feeling all of them at once?

A
shitstorm
of emotional overload is what happens.

Standing in front of the
man of my dreams, butterflies dancing around in my belly, I had to focus just
on breathing, forget about trying to decipher emotions.

I did the only thing I
could do to distract myself. I decided on what I’d call myself now that I was
married. This could take a while but at the top of my list was “Wizard” since
I’m no longer a Pit Lizard and I’ve been upgraded from Pigizzle.
Wizard
...
It had a nice ring to it, magical even.
Just like our fairytale love story.

When I focused once
again on Jameson’s eyes as the minister finished the ceremony, so many moments
in our lives were replaying in my mind like a slide show.

The moment we met and
his grass green eyes locked with mine, wide and full of innocence. Our first
kiss and the way his lips felt when they touched mine, the ever-present
electric pulse humming between us and the exciting all consuming feeling
swirling throughout my body of our first kiss. I saw the day he asked me to
stay in Charlotte, the way his hand felt against my ankle when he spoke the word
“stay”. I saw the look of defeat when I left Sonoma. I saw him standing outside
my house, waiting for me. His expression when I told him I was pregnant.
And the look of pure relief when I agreed to marry him.

All of those images
were surging throughout me, ebbing electric tides of my memories with him. Here
I was, standing in front of the man I loved for the last ten years. I still
remember the knobby kneed little boy who liked cherry jolly ranchers, banana
only
Laffy
Taffy, and whined like a two-year old when
he didn’t get his way. He may be a NASCAR champion now but underneath it all he
was still that little boy at heart who was now my husband.

All the uncertainty I’d
ever felt that he didn’t feel the same way seemed so silly now. He was here,
showing
me that he had felt the same way all along and that this was where we belonged.

Looking at him now, why
did I ever have fear?

He was my hero, my best
friend, the boy I branded cows with and my shoulder to cry on when I lost my
virginity to a douche. He was my scary movie partner, the stealer of my Nine
Inch Nails CDs and my dancing partner to a dance that only he knew the steps.
He was my confidant, someone I could be me around, someone who knew me. He was
the boy who gave me my first kiss at eleven and stole my heart in the pits of
Knoxville Raceway seven years later.

He carved his name in
countless record books beside the greatest racers in the world and in my heart.

He was
my everything
and now he would be my husband.

Flywheel – Jameson

I was relieved when the
minister finally pronounced us husband and wife, and gave me permission to kiss
my bride. Sway had happy tears in her eyes as I leaned down to press my lips to
hers softly.

She had other ideas and
got a laugh from the crowd when she threw caution to the wind and flung her
arms around my neck threading her fingers in my hair, clutching me to her in a
deep kiss that was not quite polite for church. Thankfully, we weren’t actually
in one. Besides, I was delighted with her enthusiasm and returned the kiss with
as much enthusiasm of my own, probably more than I should have. But I wanted
her to know. I wanted her to know that I loved her all these years and wanted
her as my wife. I poured every emotion I ever had for her into that kiss.

It wasn’t until my dad
cleared his throat and said with no measure of amusement, “Hey dipshit, let the
poor girl breathe,” that I figured it was up to me to break the kiss and return
to the actual moment, here, in a room full of people.

I placed my hands
gently on Sway’s cheeks and pulled away, smiling down at her. She smiled, not
quite regretting her flagrant public display of affectionate abandon. With a
return smile of my own, I took her hand and we turned toward the congregation.
There was one last traditional moment to cap off the ceremony.

“Friends and family,”
Reverend Campbell announced, “it is my great pleasure to be the first to
introduce to you Mr. and Mrs. Jameson Riley.”

I loved the sound of
that, as old fashioned as it may have sounded.

I wondered if Sway had
even heard it. She was still looking up at me, beaming with apparent happiness.
As we were pulled into one after another of the congratulatory embraces of our
guests, she continued to clutch my hand tightly. My heart soared to see her
deep joy equally reflect my own.

There was no way to
doubt that we belonged together.

The reception followed
directly after the ceremony. Still clutching Sway’s hand, I led her into the
main lodge, decorated with more flowers, ribbon and white cloth. A bar and a
dance floor had been set up, and uniformed wait staff were ready with glasses
of champagne for our guests.

I glanced toward the
large glass windows looking over the ocean. It was still snowing outside and I
briefly wondered if we’d even be able to leave in the goddamn carriage. Surely,
it didn’t have snow tires.

Emma had built all of
the usual traditions into the reception agenda. We cut a five-tiered white
wedding cake heavy with fondant flowers and mashed bites into each other’s
faces. She threw her bouquet over her shoulder to the group of unmarried women,
somehow managing to direct it to her intended target, Ami, Justin’s girlfriend.

When it was my turn to
remove her garter, I wasn’t surprised to see that she had already maneuvered it
down from her thigh in order to modestly minimize the amount of leg she would
be flashing at the crowd. I had other plans for that. She was not escaping
this.

“Oh,
come on
...
” Spencer yelled from off to my left
when he saw what she’d done. “That’s no fun!”

For his amusement and,
admittedly, to tease Sway I flipped her dress up higher than necessary over her
knee, letting my fingers trace sensuously down the length of her leg as I bent
down to remove the garter, with my teeth, as slowly as I could. Spencer, Tommy,
who was feeling better, and Aiden both whistled as Sway flushed red.