“You’ll have to talk to Dad on that one,” said Kent.
The host left a split second of dead air, then obviously accepted that Kent wouldn’t say anything further.
“He’s doing a good job,” Larry said to Dean.
Dean nodded. He was a veteran of many interviews, and he obviously knew they could get tricky, particularly when they were live.
“Next caller. We have Patrick from Charlotte. A hometown fan.”
“Hello, Kent?” came the caller.
“Hi there,” said Kent.
“I know there’s a lot of money involved in NASCAR. I wonder if you worry about scam artists.” The caller paused.
“I don’t follow you,” said Kent.
“Gold diggers,” explained the caller, his voice going hard. “Who take up, for example, with your uncle, who should know better than to be conned by a young, pretty face.”
There was a moment of stunned silence, both on the air and at the barbecue. Larry met Crystal’s gaze and saw the hurt in her green eyes.
He swore under his breath, rising from his chair to go to her.
“If you’re suggesting some of the team’s wives and girlfriends are beautiful,” Kent’s voice followed him, “I’d have to agree with you. My fiancée, Tanya, for example is a knockout. Love you, honey. And my spotter’s new fiancée could stop traffic-even at 180 miles an hour. As for the money in NASCAR, I think it’s a well-documented fact that racing is expensive. That’s why we appreciate the support of sponsors like Vittle Farms and, of course, Dawson Ritter and Maximus Motorsports. We couldn’t race without them.”
“We have to take a short break,” the announcer put in. “For some words from one of our favorite sponsors.”
“That was outrageous,” Patsy hissed.
Crystal’s lower lip trembled, but she put on a smile. “Kent did a great job deflecting. We’ll have to thank him for that. You have a very intelligent son.”
Larry drew Crystal into his arms. “I’m so sorry.”
“No worries,” she said, pulling back, and turning her attention to the table, brushing off some imaginary dust and straightening a fold that didn’t need straightening.
“Why do people have to fixate on age?” said Patsy vehemently.
“You’re joking,” came Dean’s dry voice as he joined them, opening the barbecue and picking up a pack of matches.
Patsy glared a warning at her husband.
He glared right back. “You’ve done nothing but fixate on my age for months.”
Larry was too stunned to immediately react. His brother and sister-in-law looked genuinely furious.
“Not now,” Patsy said, and Larry snagged Crystal’s elbow, easing her away from the married couple.
Dean slammed down the barbecue lid.
Patsy glanced around at the group of people studiously concentrating on other things. Obviously mortified, she fled into the motor home.
“Should I go after her?” Crystal asked Larry in a worried voice.
“Probably give her a minute.” He tilted his head to look at Crystal. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
“We should talk about this.”
“About what?”
He drew a sigh. “Don’t play dumb with me. I know your IQ, remember?”
“It’s one wing nut’s opinion. Patsy’s the one with the real problem.”
Larry sat down on a lawn chair, drawing Crystal sideways between his knees. “We can talk about it later.”
She crouched down to perch on his thigh, sending him a smoldering gaze. “Talking’s not what I’d planned to do later.”
IT WAS AN EMOTIONAL WEEKEND for Crystal and everybody else. Kent took third in the Pocono race, while Dean settled for fourth. Dean barely missed being caught up in a Bart Branch instigated pileup, which probably upset Patsy. She left the track before the end of the race.
By the time Crystal realized she was gone, it was too late to go after her, and nobody heard from her before Crystal and Larry packed up for home.
Saturday night had been glorious in Larry’s arms, but he’d been strangely quiet all day Sunday. And now, pulling up to Crystal’s staircase, he shut off the engine and angled his body to face her in the car.
“I promised myself I’d do this before I dropped you off,” he said.
She swiveled to face him, bracing her back against the car door, making out his face in the stark white of the parking lot lights. “Do what?”
“I think…” He paused and pulled his hand over his chin. “I think we need to stop seeing each other.”
Crystal’s stomach plummeted, and her entire world shifted beneath her. “What?” she barely rasped, desperately hoping she’d misunderstood.
But he nodded his head. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought.” He choked out a self-deprecating laugh. “A hell of a lot of thought.”
Crystal struggled to understand his bombshell. “Is this because of the call-in show?”
“It’s because of a lot of things.”
“The guy was a judgmental jerk.”
“But he hurt you.”
“He didn’t hurt me,” she protested. “He’s a total stranger.”
“I saw it in your eyes,” said Larry.
“You were thirty feet away.”
He gripped the steering wheel, focusing out the windshield. “I’m not the right guy for you.”
Real fear gripped Crystal. “Yes,” she insisted. “You are.”
He shook his head. “You want children.”
“Not that badly.”
He looked at her again. “You deserve children. I’ve seen you with Jennifer and David, and you’ll make a great mother.”
“And you make a great father. That doesn’t mean-”
“I am a father. That’s the difference.”
Crystal stared in silence at his implacable face. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t do this to her. She loved him. She was completely and desperately in love with him, and she couldn’t imagine her life going forward any other way.
“I don’t understand,” she tried.
“I love you,” he said.
She shook her head in denial. “If you loved me-”
“Because I love you, I’m walking away. I’m not what you need.”
“You’re exactly what I need.”
He reached for her hand across the dim front seat. “You need someone younger. Someone in the same space of life as you.”
She gave a cold laugh, yanking her hand away from his. If she was forced to endure his gentle touch, she’d burst into tears. She had to stay strong here. She had to somehow convince him he was wrong.
“And what space of life is that?” she asked.
“Starting a family, not finishing one off.”
She felt a spurt of anger. “Is that how you see yourself? Finishing off.”
“I’m fifty years old.”
“Yeah, you’re fifty, not eighty-five.”
“Crystal.”
“Don’t Crystal me. There are two of us in this relationship. It’s not all up to you.”
“It’s for your own good.”
“If you loved me, you would fight for me.”
“I am fighting for you. And the person I’m fighting is me. I’m walking away so that you can have the life you deserve. If you think this is easy for me-”
Panic clawed at her chest. “Then don’t do it.”
“I have to do it.”
“No.” She shook her head frantically. “You don’t.”
Larry took a deep breath. “You’ll thank me-”
Anger overcame everything else. “I will never thank you. Leave me if you have to, but don’t pretend it’s for me. There’s no younger version of you waiting on the next street corner. There’s you and there’s me, or there’s nothing at all.”
He reached for her again, but she shrank back.
“That’s simply not true,” he told her. “There’ll be other men.”
“Other men? You can actually visualize me with other men?”