Wreckless

by Katie Golding

  ***

  “You got him! You got that sombitch!” Mason yells at the bull rider on the TV. He’s been yelling that for over the last hour to all the bull riders on the TV.

  Billy and Bryan are on the edges of their seats in Billy’s farmhouse living room, Mason and Dax already on their feet, their boots matting the faded shag carpet. I survey the four of them cautiously from my spot against the wall. Under a pair of mounted antlers that smells…fresh.

  “Don’t let go!” Billy perks up. “Keep spurring him!”

  I glance at the screen. The bull rider looks like he’s gonna have the worst neck ache of his life when he wakes up tomorrow morning, and the bull looks furious. This is fun? Where is the elegance of teamwork, the glory of a perfectly struck goal?

  I look into the kitchen behind me—which Billy must have just repainted, because the crisp white cabinets and yellow walls don’t match the rest of the aging house—to see what Lorina is doing. My brow furrows into a scowl when I find her and Taryn leaning against the kitchen counter, talking.

  I push off the wall, dropping my empty beer in the waste bin on the way there.

  “No, it’s totally not like th—Yes?” Lorina drawls, smirking up at me when I stop next to her.

  I keep scowling, pointing to the cutting board by her hip. The one with a clean knife and a whole head of garlic. Unpeeled. “I thought you said you were helping to cook dinner.”

  “I am.”

  I groan, my entire body running on nothing after she spent all day draining me dry. Not that I’m complaining. “Lorina, I am hungry. I told you earlier: you have to feed me and let me rest, or I break. Most importante: food, cara.”

  Taryn cracks up laughing, tossing her long blond hair before she recrosses her cowgirl boots the other way. “God, you’re just as bad as Billy. The spaghetti will be ready in a few minutes.”

  I glance around at that interesting announcement, and water is boiling in a pot that I pray doesn’t have pasta in it yet, tomato sauce simmering in a skillet. But the smells are all wrong.

  “Anyway, back to MMW possibly coming to MotoPro…” Taryn says.

  The girls are already back to talking as I go over to the stove, turning off the burner under the water and lowering the one under the sauce.

  “I can’t believe MMW is really considering crossing over after all this time,” Lorina says. “I thought that would never happen.”

  Pull out a wooden spoon from a utensil canister on the counter to taste it and—

  Don’t react. I very slowly put down the spoon. Start thinking. Fast.

  What would Nonna do? Throw it away, my mind whispers.

  “Get him, get him, get him!” the men’s voices swell in the living room. Followed by a cheer that reminds me of my uncles whenever Francesco Totti made a goal. A sad twist pulls at my lips—can’t believe Il Capitano retired.

  God, I miss Italy.

  “Werner said they’ve played with the idea before,” Taryn says as I head over to the cupboards and start looking for the salt, maybe some oregano. I’m not counting on finding anise. “But that it was way too expensive with the engineering it would take to get their bikes competitive in the MotoPro arena. Not to mention the—hold on. Um, excuse me? Hi, you with the tattoos. What are you doing?”

  I check over my shoulder, and yes, the beauty queen is addressing me. “Cooking. I would like to eat before we fly to Brno domani.”

  Lorina snorts into her hand, Taryn drawling, “By all means, Massimo. Because when Billy and I invited you over for dinner, it was so you could cook it yourself.”

  “Grazie. That was very kind.” I nod at her and keep searching, coming up with stacks of mint-green ceramic plates and flower-print bowls, at least a dozen flour-free cookbooks, and an endless arrangement of coffee mugs.

  “Jesus Christ,” Taryn mutters with a laugh.

  I finally find the spice cabinet, taking out what I need. Fresh herbs are better, but dried is better than nothing. And I mean nothing.

  “See? Now do you understand what I’m dealing with?” Lorina says.

  Just for that, I smack her ass on my way back to the stove. “Sì, but you love it.”

  A low growl rumbles from my Tigrotta on the other side of the kitchen. “No, I don’t.”

  “Uh, yeah you do,” Taryn tells her. “Ow! Don’t pinch me…”

  “Ow! Don’t pinch me either.”

  I chuckle to myself as I let the flavors fall from their plastic tubes with automatic flicks of my wrist, leaning closer and wafting the smell up to gauge the balance. Better.

  “So if MMW comes to MotoPro, are you going to try to move with them?” Lorina asks her friend. “I mean, wouldn’t that make everything a million times easier on you and Billy so you’re not racing on opposite weekends?”

  “Girl, you have no idea. Look at our schedule this year.”

  I glance over, the pair of them looking at Taryn’s phone.

  “What do the yellow boxes mean?”

  “We’re home at the same time.”

  “But there’s, like, none.”

  “Yeah,” Taryn says with a humorless chuckle. “Most months, we get maybe one or two days. Some months are worse. Right now, I’m counting down the days to Valencia.”

  Jesus. I don’t know how Billy does it—being apart that much. I knew it was bad with the way he’s always on his phone, but I didn’t think it was that bad. Except with the way the Superbike and Moto circuits overlap so there’s almost no downtime for the fans…yeah, it would be.

  Heading over to the sink, I wash my hands, then head back to Lorina, sliding her two inches to the left. “What are you…” she sputters when I slip my arms around her waist, then get to work on the garlic she was supposed to be chopping but didn’t. “I can move, you know.”

  “This is okay.” I scoot a little closer, stealing a kiss to her neck before I begin watching what I’m doing over her shoulder. For all her protesting, she leans back against me, and I love the way she feels in all the places I want to feel her most. It almost makes me want to take my time, but the garlic should’ve gone in long ago.

  “Okay, so you are…really good at that,” Taryn says with a chuckle.

  I shrug. “I have done this once before. Maybe twice.”

  The girls laugh, Taryn going back to looking at her phone. “Anyway, so…since we have a few more minutes while the guys are distracted, and since Massimo has decided to recook my dinner, I’m gonna go ahead and show you something. But, Lor? You can’t freak out.”

  “Since when do I freak out?”

  I lift my head, looking at Taryn.

  “I mean it.” Then she turns the screen to Lorina.

  “Screw you too, Miette,” Lorina mutters. Then she scrabbles to pull the phone closer, blocking my view of the cutting board. I drop the knife on instinct before I accidentally cut one of us. “That’s my bike!”

  The words are like a jagged rod of dry ice getting jammed down my spine—and it’s not even my moto. I lean closer to check, Taryn showing both of us the screen. Some blond chick is blowing a kiss in red Dabria leathers, captioned with the words, “Having a nice break, loser?” But she’s not standing next to the production model they race in Superbike. That’s the MotoPro prototype Lorina rides, except for the different number on the front.

  My eyes flick to Lorina, waiting for the explosion when the realization hits her: Dabria isn’t just thinking about dropping her. They’re already courting replacements, and if she doesn’t ride well in Brno, it won’t even matter what her final World Champion standing is. She’ll be gone long before then.

  Damn it, she didn’t need this right now. Her confidence is shaky as it is, and now more than ever, she needs to own all our asses in the Czech Republic and prove everyone wrong.

  “You think that’s real?” Lorina asks Taryn, her voice
at a quarter of its previous strength.

  “Scusa.” I slide Lorina out of the way with an easy smile, grabbing the cutting board and the minced garlic and carrying it to the stove. They could probably debate the minutiae of this for hours, but Lorina doesn’t need to dwell on it. She needs to keep riding, keep focused on what she can control, and let go of all the crap she can’t.

  Taryn shrugs, putting her phone back in her pocket. “I don’t know but…let me know if you need me to talk to anyone about a sponsorship for you.”

  My knife stops midscrape into the pan, my heart seizing in my chest, and I can’t believe I didn’t…

  Of course she would go Superbike if Dabria backs out. It’s the next logical step. She’ll take a loss with the power gap, but she’ll still get to ride, and she’ll be with her best friend.

  But it also means when I’ll be racing in the United States, she’ll be in the Netherlands. When I’m in Australia, she’ll be in Qatar. When I’m at home in Ravenna during a break, she’ll be in Thailand. Portugal. France. It’s like that through the whole circuit.

  I go back to scraping garlic into the sauce I’m not sure I can save, trying to keep calm.

  “But even as I say that,” Taryn goes on, oblivious to the shockwave she just sent through my universe, “I also feel like I should mention that a couple days ago, Miette was saying something about the ‘powers that be’ maybe creating a women’s division. And considering it was Miette and that this was translated by yours truly because said conversation was originally in French, I wouldn’t put much—”

  “Later.” Lorina’s eyes dart to mine from across the kitchen, but it’s fast. Too fast. “We’ll talk about it later.” Then she clears her throat. “I really like what you’ve done with the cabinets.”

  Fuck, she’s totally going Superbike.

  ***

  The night air is thick and sweet as I rock slowly in one of the chairs on Taryn and Billy’s big back porch, taking a pull from the cigarette Dax offered me: a very nice, very tall cowboy who speaks a little high school Italian as it turns out. He and Bryan already went back to the second house on the property I can’t see from here anymore but could kind of make out earlier. Mason and Billy are inside. Watching more bull riding.

  I take another drag, looking at constellations I don’t recognize as strange bugs make strange sounds. But I can’t stomach the stars for long before I close my eyes, trying to push from my mind the last call I had with my mom: how pissed she is that I’m here, proving all her worst fears into reality. Mostly how hurt Dario is that I’ve been gone for all of my longest break of the circuit.

  The back door creaks, and I scuff the cigarette on the underside of the rocking chair and drop the butt into my beer bottle, all without acting like I’m doing anything. “Tigrotta,” I casually drawl when Lorina busts me a second later. Her arms are hugging a blanket she’s got wrapped around her shoulders, along with a pretentious arch to her eyebrow.

  “That’s disgusting.”

  I give her that. “It is not a habit. Just a pleasure.” No budge. “That I am apparently quitting.” I score half a smile, and she takes my outstretched hand and comes around my side, settling her ripped little body on my lap. The woman has more individually sculpted back muscles than I’m able to name, in any language. “Ugh,” I groan, adjusting her so my dick isn’t breaking in half. “You are a heavy Tigrotta tonight.”

  She sticks her nose in the air, then continues getting comfortable. “Not my fault you’re a really good cook.”

  “I told you once already, cara: I am good at everything.”

  Lorina gives me a whole smile this time, but it comes with a devious curve to her lips. “Except for riding horses.”

  I gasp, pretending to be shocked. “That was supposed to be a secret,” I growl at her, Lorina cracking up as I go for the spot where she’s most ticklish. I’m also the biggest hypocrite in the world, because despite all my preaching, I don’t know how I’m supposed to be okay with losing her if she doesn’t make it all the way back in Brno and the worst happens.

  I didn’t come this far, wait this long, to lose her this fast.

  Lorina drops her forehead to mine, her smile brighter than the moon when she lifts a soft kiss from my lips, and I can’t resist a low moan at how delicious she is, always. “I love when you taste like pasta.”

  Lorina giggles, her hand cradling my cheek and holding me to her as I nuzzle my way into her neck, breathing in lemons and moto exhaust from our ride over here. It feels like a lifetime ago that we were competing in Germany. When she was dodging my calls in her hotel room, not realizing I was calling from right outside her door. But it’s only been a few short weeks. And even with as much as I miss home and my brother and some real freaking espresso, I’m still not ready to go back.

  I need another week. Another month with her. I just need…more. Worse, I already know the very second we cross the circuit gates, everyone is going to be keeping us apart: Frank, Vinicio, Angelo, everyone. And there’s not a damn thing I can do.

  “I love you,” I whisper in Italian, because I can’t help it when I’m already missing her this much. Lorina captures my lips with hers and kisses the hell out of me, but she doesn’t say it back. She never does.

  “I want to ask you something,” she whispers instead, her bottom lip nervously bit.

  My heart slams in my chest, and I mentally scream at myself that if she asks if I’m okay with her going Superbike, I will say yes. I will support her dreams, no matter what, because for Lorina, racing comes first. Always has, always will, and I swore to myself that I would accept being second place in her life as long as I got to have her in mine.

  But fuck, I don’t want her to go.

  “How come,” she says, her cheeks darkening, “when you say ‘I love you’ in Italian, it translates as ‘I want good things for you’?” She peeks up at me, shrugging. “I thought you were supposed to say ti amo.”

  I cough out a laugh from the shock of the question I was absolutely not expecting, and honestly, I don’t know which one I’d rather not answer more.

  “Don’t laugh at me,” she mumbles, and I am such a jerk.

  “Oh, Lulu,” I drawl with a pout, shaking my head. I press an apologetic kiss to her forehead; at least she lets me. “I will explain. In Italia, there are two ways we say it. Ti amo is more for…for Billy and Taryn. They live together, and they will probably be married soon. For friends? We say ti voglio bene.”

  Lorina stiffens on my lap, the wind beginning to bend the trees behind her. “Did you seriously just tell me that you think Billy loves Taryn more than you love me, which is why you’re using the friends-only version?”

  I roll my eyes. “No.” Though I doubt me explaining this more is going to make a difference when she only ever hears what she wants to. “I said they are committed to each other. Both of them. You have trouble admitting to your friends we are even together. So to you? I say ti voglio bene. It does not change how I feel. Only what I tell you I feel.”

  Lorina looks away, a guilty tug to her mouth. I gesture at the fields and fishing pond, because I’m an idiot. It really doesn’t bother me that much when I didn’t expect any different. You have to trust before you can love, and she’s still learning to trust me. But she’s trying. I know she is.

  “Look,” she says quietly, but she’s staring at the porch and won’t meet my eyes. “Saying that to someone…it’s the one thing in my life I do slow. As in I have never said that to anyone. And when I do, I want it to really mean something. I want it to be real.”

  I nod, sweeping her hair back from her face. “And I want you to take your time, cara. I am not in a hurry. I have waited for you before. I will wait again.”

  She blushes fantastically at the moon and the fields. “I don’t understand you, Massimo. You keep saying I need to let go, to be ready to lose everything. ‘A car is a car.
A moto is a moto. A contract is just a job, Lorina,’” she mocks. “But then how do you explain your attachment to me? A girlfriend is a girlfriend?”

  I scoff, hating how well she just busted me on the very problem that brought me out here to start with. “It is not the same. I did not buy you.”

  She does a double take in my direction, then glowers at me. “Damn straight you didn’t.”

  A smug curve takes the corner of my mouth, because I can’t resist going for it. “I would not have paid as much as you probably think you are worth.”

  She pushes my shoulder, tuning away from me as much as she can. “Ass.”

  “Lorina,” I groan, adjusting her on my lap. My leg is dead asleep. “A car is a car. A moto is a moto. You are…you are a part of me.”

  She peeks at me from the corners of her eyes, because she can’t resist either. I know she can’t. “What, like your heart?”

  “No, not my heart.”

  She gives up on acting mad and turns back to me, snuggling up on my chest. “Your lungs, then? Am I the very air you breathe, Massimo Vitolo?”

  “Now who is the ass?” I shake my head as Lorina laughs, hugging my arms around her again and rocking us slowly in the oversize chair. “No, cara, you are not my lungs. You are like…you are like my dick.”

  She guffaws, full-out giggling when I start tickling her side again.

  “What is wrong with this?” I ask. “You make me a man, make me feel strong.”

  “Aww,” she teases, batting her eyelashes at me.

  “Ti voglio bene,” I tell her, not a single tremor in my voice as I meet her eyes and say the truest words I’ve ever said, in the first language I ever learned. “And I will do what it takes to make you happy, keep you satisfied, and protect you.”

  “Mas…” Lorina melts into me, because at some point in the last couple of weeks, she’s started understanding Italian. I have no idea when she’s sneaking in her study sessions, but as long as I go slow and enunciate, she gets it. I did have to start taking my mother’s calls in another room, though.