Sweet Caroline {Ryan Blaney} ✔️

eight • trigger warning

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Ryan climbed into his Bronco, leaning his head against the headrest. He closed his eyes for a moment, the day's events replaying in his mind. Ryan's anger towards Lydia had faded once she told him that she had tried to get ahold of him.

That admission had stopped him right in his tracks and the guilt crept up into his mind. He got hundreds, maybe thousands of messages on Instagram every day so he probably missed it but still. If only he had been more thorough, if only...

He tried to shake the if only thoughts out of his mind. They were pointless. The only thing that mattered was that he knew now and he had the opportunity to get to know Caroline, to be her dad.

When she grabbed onto him, her eyes filled with familiarity -- Ryan's heart skipped a beat. It was almost like she knew that he was meant to have a place in her life and Ryan would move mountains to keep it that way.

His anger had been replaced with excitement. He was going to get to see Caroline again in five days, show her what he loved. Ryan had a million questions about Caroline, her likes and dislikes. Surely she was a racing fan because she had been at the fan event and she had seemed to know who he was. He wanted to bombard Lydia with all of them but he stopped himself -- he wanted to learn the answers himself.

He opened his eyes, picking up his phone. His stomach dropped at all of the text messages from Stacy, wondering where he was, accusing him of cheating and then the text messages turned nasty, launching into a tirade about what an awful, worthless man he was and how he was lucky that somebody as amazing as she bothered to love him.

Stacy. She hadn't even been a thought in his mind. Ryan flinched at the thought of her reaction to Caroline, it would launch her into a rage like no other. Ryan knew that if Stacy knew about Caroline, she would turn her anger and constant nitpicking criticisms towards Caroline. Ryan had to protect Caroline and if that meant sneaking around for a while, he would do it.

Ryan set his phone in his cupholder. Earlier, he had hoped for a reason to end his relationship with Stacy and life provided him with one. He knew that even if he couldn't leave Stacy for himself, he had to do it for Caroline.

Ryan put his car into reverse. He had no idea how he was going to break things off with Stacy. She had managed to get her hands onto everything of his -- the house, his bank accounts, everything. He knew that it was his fault because he had let her but now he needed to figure out how to undo all the damage and that might take a while.

Relief filled Ryan, there was finally an end in sight, he finally had something to live for.

Ryan killed his engine in front of his house. The extra cars in the driveway told him that they were still filming for Racing Wives. Ryan turned the ignition, starting his car again, ready to reverse and go somewhere, anywhere that wasn't here. The last thing that he needed was cameras shoved in his face, Stacy playing the sickly sweet, loving girlfriend role that she plays so well.

"Ryan!" Stacy called, her voice fake with syrupy excitement. A cameraman followed her as she made her way towards the driver's side of his car. Ryan let out a frustrated sigh as he killed the engine again -- his chance to escape gone.

He could leave but he risked Stacy villainizing him. Ryan knew that a good portion of his fanbase were women that watched this show and it would be a PR disaster if he came across as the ass that Stacy would surely make him look like.