”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.
