Chase's POV:

The homemade cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting that mom made for breakfast before heading out for a while to clear her head threatened to reappear as I sat down at the kitchen table with Dale, Chad, and Casey. Dale had called his other siblings and I had talked to them as well. Like he'd said, they were all willing to be here for this but I ultimately thought that having the entire Earnhardt clan here would just make Chad and Casey seem like they were being ambushed. I wasn't ready to blow their image of their dad to smithereens but they needed to know what to expect when Dale and I finally made our new-found kinship public knowledge. They deserved to know the microscope that this was going to put our family under.

Taking a deep breath –and really wishing that it wasn't frowned upon to start drinking at nine in the morning because that would make telling this a little bit easier– I sat back in my chair, rocking it back on its legs. "There's no easy way to tell y'all this so I'm just gonna spit it out. Dale and I are–"

"In love with one another and leaving your wives" said Casey, always one to bust my chops when possible. Everyone around the table erupted in laughter, even Dale which was surprising since he was getting roasted on because of me.

"Fuck you." I said, flipping him the bird as a smile tore across my face even though what I was about to tell them really wasn't anything that they would be smiling about later.

"If it's not that then it must be that you two convinced Callie and Amy to become part of the polygamist community and yall are all gonna be brother/sister wives." said Chad, taking a bite of his third cinnamon roll.

"Welllll," I said, sitting the chair back on four legs. I placed my elbows on the table and took yet another deep breath. "In a roundabout way, y'all are kind of right."

My comment earned me curious glances from both Casey and Chad.

"I thought you were just going to spit it out." said Casey when I didn't speak immediately.

"What Chase is trying to tell you is that he did one of those DNA tests and found out that he had more siblings than just you two." Said Dale, cutting into the conversation.

"What the hell do you mean by that? Daddy never cheated on mama and mama never cheated on daddy" said Casey, anger in his tone. Ohhhh this is gonna hurt big brother...

"According to mama, she and daddy hit a rough patch a couple years before I was born. Daddy took off and was gone for more than a year. Since mama was convinced that she and her boys had been abandoned, she took some time to contemplate her life and all she was going to have to do to raise you both. While she was taking time to herself, she ended up running into an old friend. Long story short, they rekindled a relationship that had simmered for years. She was getting ready to file for divorce and start her new life with the old friend when that all got shot down because daddy came back into the picture swearing that he would do anything to have her and the two of you back into his life. They had just started working things out when mama found out that she was pregnant with me." I explained, giving the cliff notes version of what was now my life story.

"I think I remember some of that," said Casey. "I've never mentioned it to mama or even to you, Chad. Hell, I thought I had dreamed it to be honest. But I remember there being a time that daddy wasn't there. I was young, like maybe four or five at the time, but I do remember it."

"So who the hell is the old friend that mom was ready to run off into the sunset with?" asked Chad.

Silence settled around the table. Tension built. Casey and Chad both looked as if they couldn;t wrap their head around what was being left unsaid even though you could see on their faces that their minds were working overtime. Dale looked remorseful in a sense. All in all, no one wanted to speak –or even think about– the next words that needed to be said. But keeping them unsaid defeated the purpose of this whole conversation so I bit the bullet and let the words fall from my mouth. "Dale Earnhardt Sr."

Casey and Chad both stood from the table so fast that their wooden chairs crashed to the floor, slamming against the hardwood. They both ran their hands through the hair in frustration –something I did too that all three of us had gotten from Daniel. Casey began to pace the kitchen while Chad just stood looking out the window. Dale and I sat quietly, waiting for one of them to speak first. We didn't have to wait long.

"Youre fuckin' telling me that you and Jr here are brothers? That you are actually the son of one of the biggest names to ever grace the sport of NASCAR? Youre saying that our mama had a damn affair with the fuckin' Intimidator and you are the result of that?" said Casey, his voice edging closer and closer to hysteria. "Where are the fuckin' cameras Chase? Tell them to come on out and tell us that this is all some sort of fuckin' joke! Because this is too far-fetched for even a movie writer to come up with! Not even Hollywood could come up with something this off-the-fucking-wall!"

"It's not a joke." I said calmly. Seeing Casey and Chad both react the way they were left me feeling anything but calm but I knew that someone had to have a level head here. Which was funny considering I was usually the one that was lashing out and letting my temper fly.

"Believe me, I've been where you are right now," said Dale. As he spoke, Casey and Chad both looked at him. "I know what all of this feels like. I know that it seems like everything is a fuckin' mess right now but it will be fine. Yes, it means that you are all going to have to sit down and talk. But it doesn't mean that anything has to change between y'all. The three of you are still brothers. The three of you still have all of your childhood memories. The only thing that is changing is that Chase is finding out that Daniel wasn't his dad. I mean it's not like he's going to stop being y'all's brother just because he found out that he has a different dad."

"Dale is right." I said as I stood from my chair. I walked over and draped an arm over Casey's shoulders before doing the same to Chad. "Nothing between us has to change with this new news. I just wanted to tell you all so that you were blindsided like I was. Because believe me, the last thing I expected to find after doing that test was that I was anything but Daniel Rice's son."

"So that makes Jr our what? Step brother?" said Chad after a few minutes.

"I guess. I don't really know how all that works." I said. "But if you're counting Dale as a step brother, you can't forget Kerry, Kelley, and Taylor. They all have the same paternal father."

Casey and Chad both hugged me tight before breaking it and inviting Dale into the mix. When we all started to feel a little too close for our male comforts, we broke apart. Casey was the first to chime in with a joke. "So what comes with having a famous step-brother? Pit Passes? Unlimited free trips to whatever race I want? Gotta give me something here."

"You've already had access to that type of shit, jackass!" I said, a genuine smile coming across my face for the first time in days.

"So all we get is bragging rights?" Chad chimed in.

"And invites to every national holiday," said Dale."I'll show yall how the Earnhardt's party it up."

"Or maybe we show all you Earnhardt's how the Rice's do it." said Casey.

"How about we just mingle the two?" I said.

"Sounds good to me." Casey, Chad, and Dale said in unison.

🏁🏁🏁🏁🏁

After sorting everything out with Dale and my brothers, there was only one thing left to do –figure out how to make up my actions to Callie. And to do that, I needed to get my ass back to Nashville quick, fact, and in a fuckin' hurry.

As I drove the rented truck to the airport to catch a flight back, I thought about the past couple of days and all that had happened. When I'd gotten to mama's I'd been so mad at the whole situation that I was seeing red. But now, after learning the truth and the story behind it all –and knowing that nothing was going to change between Chad, Casey and I– I felt more calm than anything. That didn't mean that the part of me that always hated leaving mama and my childhood home wasn't rearing its ugly head as it always did though.

Leaving my childhood home and mama behind always stung, but this time it stung a little more considering the reason for my visit to begin with. I knew mama was still reeling from her revelations. I knew that by telling me about her whole past with Sr, she was reliving the pain of losing him first to keep a happy home for her other two kids and secondly after losing him so tragically when he crashed at Daytona. I know that opening up those old wounds has got to be hard for her. But when I'd offered to stay and comfort her though it all, she'd denied my request, basically telling me to get my ass back to Nashville to my wife and son.

I'd just sat down in my first class seat when a text came through from Amy. I opened it quickly, my breath catching in my throat as I looked at the picture. It was obvious that the photo was edited but that didn't take away from the meaningfulness of it in the least. The photo was of me in my NASCAR days edited to have Dale Sr. at about the same age. In the photo, Dale Sr. had his arm slung around my shoulder as we both smiled for the camera. Until that moment, I'd never seen the resemblance between the two of us. Even after Mama had said that it was in the eyes, I couldn't see it. But in this photo, the resemblance was uncanny. And it made tears sprang to my eyes.

I tried to hold them back, but I couldn't. Tears rolled heavily down my cheeks as I stared at the picture, realizing that I was never going to be able to get a photo like this that wasn't photoshopped. And all because – if the rumors are true that is – Sr. had refused to wear the newest safety equipment that NASCAR had wanted him to wear. In that moment, every feeling I had ever felt over the sport losing a legend that day slammed into me ten-fold. I know it sounds crazy to say that it was as if the wreck had just happened and I had just lost my father. But for me, even though the wreck was 22 years ago, it was new for me because Sr. wasn't just another driver in a sport that I love. He wasn't just someone that had had their life taken too soon. For me, it was my father that had been lost. A father that I was never going to be able to meet. A father that was never going to be able to meet me.

Unable to do anything else, I pulled my notebook and an ink pen from my duffle bag and just let my feelings flow onto the paper. I was so lost in my thoughts and the moment, I didn't even realize we had taken off until the pilot came over the intercom telling everyone that we were about to make our approach into Nashville.