“Well, hang on. I have food in there. I sat through almost three hours of his droning on and drinking. I’m starving.”
“I’ll walk with you.”
She gave a quick nod and he walked with her to Cal’s truck.
“Give me his keys. I’ll toss them in the truck and grab your food.” He opened the door and took a look at Cal, wishing he could give the douchebag a swift kick in the nuts for treating Evelyn this way, but since she was right there, he figured that wouldn’t be a good idea. Instead, he grabbed her bag of food and shut the door.
Then he pulled out his phone and called Fred, Cal’s crew chief, explaining Cal’s current predicament. After a few well-deserved expletives, Fred said they’d be out in a few to retrieve Cal and put him to bed.
He turned to Evelyn. “They’ll come get him.”
“Thank you.” She looked around. “I guess I need a ride back to my hotel.”
“I’ll take you.” He looked at her bag. “What have you got in there?”
“Steak salad.”
“Come on back to my trailer and eat first. You must be hungry.”
“Beyond hungry.”
He motioned with his head. “Come on. I’ve got pop in the trailer.”
She hesitated for a second, then nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”
He didn’t know why he invited her to come back with him, other than he felt bad for the way Cal had behaved with her, and for the way he had acted today. He’d been angry about last night, but that didn’t give him the right to treat a woman the way he’d treated her today. He’d shut her out, and given Cal the opening to pounce. He took responsibility for that. There were nice guys in his sport, and the opportunistic type.
Cal was the latter, and it irritated him that Evelyn had to spend the evening with a drunken piece of shit like Cal.
Of course, it had been Evelyn’s choice to go out with Cal, but he knew she’d done it just to piss him off.
It had pissed him off. He didn’t like admitting that, because it meant she mattered to him. And she didn’t matter to him. He hardly knew her, and it wasn’t like they were dating. He might have kissed her once, but other than that they were nothing to each other. She worked for his father and they were supposed to spend time together. He was still trying to figure out how they were supposed to handle that.
In the meantime, maybe he’d have to learn to temper his anger over stuff about his dad and not jump all over her.
They entered his trailer and he got her a drink. She slid into the booth and opened her bag, dragging out a salad and some bread.
“Did you eat?” she asked. “I have plenty here.”
“I ate earlier. Go ahead.”
She dove into her food and he could tell she was hungry, which only served to make him angrier with Cal. He refilled his drink and took a seat across from her.
“Cal has a drinking problem.”
She took a few bites of salad and then a sip of her drink. “No kidding. That was obvious after his eighth beer and fourth shot of whiskey.”
“The bad thing is, he’s an awesome driver. When he’s sober, he’s one of the best out there. He just can’t lay off the alcohol. It’s been a problem for a while now. The year after he won the championship, it went to his head. Big time. He thought he was hot shit, really bought into all the hype and the media bullshit. Women flocking to him, fans all over him, it messed him up. He ended up losing a really great wife who couldn’t handle his cheating.”
Evelyn paused and looked at him. “I’m sorry to hear that. He was so nice to me earlier today.”
“Like I said, when he’s sober, he can be a really nice guy, but then it’s like there’s this switch inside him, and when it gets flipped, he turns into someone completely different.”
She bit into a slice of bread. “Yeah. An ass**le.”
“Exactly.”
After she finished her food, she took a long swallow of soda. “I’m sorry about Cal.
I see a lot of parallels to that in Washington. Nice people get elected, their heads filled with all the great things they think they can do. Then all that changes when they come to Washington. All that power corrupting and all.”
He shrugged. “Some people are weak. They can’t handle fame and fortune and being handed things. You go from nothing one day to having a staff of people asking what they can do for you the next. They don’t know what to do with it and it affects them negatively. Their egos explode.”
“I agree.”
He wanted to throw his father into that mix, but they were having a good conversation right now and he didn’t want to f**k it up.
“Has anyone talked to Cal about rehab?” Evelyn asked.
He let out a laugh. “Yeah. Tons of people, from his ex-wife to his crew chief to the head of the racing division. He won’t listen. And he never drinks when he’s racing, he’s never late for a practice or a qualifying or a race. He’s never had a DUI, so they can’t sanction him. When he goes out drinking, he tips the places well. And he does a lot of his famous partying in his trailer, surrounded by people he trusts. His fans don’t know about it because he keeps it on the down low.”
It wasn’t very down low tonight. She wondered how many of his fans were at the restaurant. It was dark and private and there weren’t very many people there. Maybe that’s why he brought her there, because he liked the anonymity of the place.
She nodded. “He has to want to help himself anyway. Until he does, there’s really nothing you can do.”
“The other drivers worry, though. Everybody’s afraid that someday he’s going to show up drunk for a race and hurt himself—or one of us. Then all hell is going to break loose.”
“God, I hope that doesn’t happen.”
“Me, too. It’ll end his career. Or one of ours.”
They both went silent then, and Gray knew this was the moment he needed to man up and say something about last night.
“I’m sorry.”
She lifted her gaze to his. “About what?”
“Last night. About jumping all over you about helping out Miranda. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“You’re sensitive about anything having to do with your father. I understand that.
Instead of talking it out with you, I reacted negatively. I’m sorry, too.”