Blowing out a breath, I look forward, pressing my hands between my knees. The wind lazily ruffles the long strands of my hair, cool against my freshly shaved undercut. I have to admit, there’s so much peace to be found in the silence of a place that’s normally a sea of colors and overlapping chants, typically more explosive than a rock concert.
“It’s nice up here,” I tell him, bumping his shoulder with mine. “The track all quiet and deserted.”
He takes another bite, not looking at me.
“So…” I drawl, searching for an icebreaker. I glance over at his ice cream, and I smile to myself. Vanilla. He prefers chocolate. I do too—too much. “You really went all the way to Ravenna and back for some authentic gelato? That’s a pretty fast trip, even for you.”
“I went to pick up my suit and your dress from the tailor.”
Endless affection warms me. I forgot we were supposed to do that today.
After we got to Spain and caught up on some z’s, we had a shopping trip to make. The end of season award ceremony is always held Sunday night after the final race, where medals and trophies galore are handed out for everything from most poles won to crowning the official World Champions. I usually pick up a dress somewhere in the last few stops before getting to Valencia, but I’d been so distracted with the points and placements and enjoying the hell out of Massimo, I forgot. He didn’t, and so to Carrer de la Pau we went—the upscale boutique strip in downtown Valencia.
We had way too much fun bickering at Hugo Boss and Michael Kors, embarrassing sales people while we battled over blue suits versus black, dresses that were (in my opinion) too sexy and, according to him, not sexy enough. But we came away with a suit that would crush James Bond’s ego if he laid eyes on Massimo and a creamy Chantilly lace cocktail dress that I want to be buried in. Even if Massimo had a heart attack when he peeked at my credit card receipt, I don’t care. It could be my last awards ceremony with Moto Grand Prix, and I wanted to feel good.
“Thanks for doing that,” I tell him, and he nods.
“Dress looks good. Cannot tell they changed it.”
I smile to myself as he takes another bite of his ice cream, not even sure he’d know what to look for but loving that he checked.
“You know you have to wear your Tissot watch from winning the first pole,” he says.
“Yeah.” Standard procedure.
“Also, the top of your dress is too high for a necklace, so I got you some earrings.”
God, could he be any sweeter? “You didn’t have to do that.”
He shrugs, then pulls a small box from his pocket and hands it to me. More than a little curious about the design and style he chose—the man has exquisite taste—I open the box. All the air in the universe rushes into my lungs, and I immediately snap it shut, frozen as blood drains from my face.
Massimo glances at the box, then at my eyes before looking forward once more. He sets the ice cream cup on the bench, his hands lacing together. “Stay with me,” he says. “Even if you do not race moto, even if I do not, we would still be together. It will…” His jaw locks, barely getting out the words, “I will make this okay.”
Tears blur my vision, but it’s not enough to erase the sight of him blinking more than normal as his gaze drops to the bench in front of us. I clench the box in my hand, everything in me breaking when he tries to cover a sniffle by clearing his throat.
Never once has he been anything but calm about the possibility of me losing my contract. Never once has he let it slip that it’s worrying him or that he’s upset about it. But this box, his silent tears he won’t let fall, they say everything.
How scared he is.
How hard he’ll fight.
How much pain he’s been keeping from me.
“Massimo…” I breathe, but it’s so choked, I don’t know if he even hears me.
“I love you,” he says fiercely, his eyes snapping to mine. “And if Angelo allows me to stay, I will not let him tell us we cannot be together. He cannot keep us apart if we are married, Lorina, and I could quit moto to follow you home, yes, but I cannot do that. I have to race. It is everything that makes me the man you are with, but if I stay… I do not want to do this with you gone. I do not know how to win when you are not here, making me crazy. I just—” He blows out a breath. “I want you to have what you want, but you are what I want. So stay, Lorina. Stay with me.”
I cup his cheek with my free hand, trying to get him to calm down. “Listen to me.” My voice is slow as I bring him forward until I can lean my forehead to his. “You are going to be fine. You’re the best racer I’ve ever seen, and I’m so proud of you.” I pause to pull in a shaky breath, but my voice is still raw. “And even if Angelo changes or backs out of your contract, someone else is always going to sign you. The things you can do? It’s only right that the whole world knows your name.”
Massimo’s hand covers mine. “What good is the world knowing my name when you are not here to say it?”
More tears stream down my cheeks. Especially when I make myself place the box back in his palm, then cover it with mine, our fingers lacing together around it. “I don’t want to lose you,” I promise. “It hurts so much, I can’t even describe it. And I know you’re hurting too, but this…this isn’t the answer. As much as I wish it could be, it just isn’t.”
He exhales, his voice unsteady when he asks, “No?”
“No.”
He grits out a curse, looking away.
I bring him right back to me, my thumb sweeping over his cheek and catching a trail of moisture that absolutely wrecks me. “Hey.” My voice is broken—so, so broken. “Only because there are things that have to be fixed, things we need to talk about first. Things you need to let me say.”
Like how I can’t dare tell him that I know what he’s really doing. Because I have no doubt that in his mind, not only would this keep us together if we both stay on the circuit—no way will Angelo be able to stipulate Massimo stay away from his wife—but it’s also a safety net for me in case I lose my contract with Dabria. Something to make me happy enough to forget all I’ve lost.
But I didn’t start dating him as an escape to my problems on the track, and I won’t marry him as a way to avoid the conditions in his contract, as a consolation prize to losing my ride. The future of our relationship should have nothing to do with racing, and this is exactly why I haven’t told him about Germany. Right now, it’s too tied up to say yes.
And yet there is already a part of me secretly praying that one day soon, he’ll ask again. I have to say no to him today—I have to until he’s asking for the right reasons and not out of fear—but it doesn’t change the fact that the idea of spending my life with him is so right, I’m barely resisting giving him the answer that’s always lived in my heart.
Massimo sighs, then tries to smile, but it’s all wrecked and wrong. “Why do you always have to be so difficult?”
Shaking my head, I force my own smile through my tears. “I don’t know,” I breathe. “But I blame your dad.”
He lifts the softest kiss from my lips I’ve ever felt. It doesn’t help the pain, the thousand apologies I wish I could tell him for failing to see him sooner. But it helps, just a little, that it’s not over yet. That we’re not over yet, even after this.
He turns forward, scrubbing a hand over his face and putting the box in his pocket. Then he picks up the ice cream cup.
I hug his arm, leaning my head against his shoulder as he takes a bite. Swiping my fingertips under my eyes, I listen to the silence of the track.
It’s too quiet.
I bump against him a little. “You could at least offer me some.” He holds out the spoon to me, and it’s cool and soothing, the vanilla rich on my tongue. “Holy crap, that’s good.”
“Mm-hmm.”
He takes another bite, and I snuggle a little closer. The s
un is dropping lower and lower, turning the sky the sweetest mix of orange and purple. “Massimo?”
“Hmm?”
“Did you really just propose to me, and I said no?”
He takes another bite of ice cream. “Sì.”
I bite my bottom lip, then I peek at him. “Can I see the ring again?”
He reaches into his pocket. Low in front of us, he pops the box open with one hand. I sigh longingly at the sleek platinum band and the pear-shaped diamond, the widest part of the stone racing away from the pointed end.
Massimo snaps the box shut, putting it back in his pocket.
“Hey!”
He offers me another bite of ice cream. “You said no.”
I sputter, my mouth full. “It was the right thing to do!” His eyes dart to mine. “Well, what are you going to do with it?”
He scoffs. “I am going to take it back. You know how many euro I paid for this? Too much.” My nose wrinkles as Massimo holds the spoon out to me once more, a grin growing in the corner of his mouth. I’m just wrapping my lips around the spoon when he adds, “Too bad I have to take it back. It would have gone perfect with your dress.”
“Ugh,” I groan, my head falling against his shoulder. He’s absolutely right—with the creamy lace and my Jimmy Choos? “I’m so freaking stupid.”
“I told you,” he says, “three goats.”
Chapter 25
Massimo Vitolo—November; Valencia, Spain
The sky is gray, like the weather is sick to its stomach with nerves, just like the rest of us. My eyes travel over the commotion down pit lane, people scurrying around in preparation, but I don’t see Lorina anywhere. Damn it.
This could be it. The last race I ever ride, the last race she ever rides, and I don’t want to go out there without seeing her first. I just don’t.
Still can’t believe she said no.
I head into my garage, grabbing my gloves and yanking them on, then picking up arguably the most important part of my gear. A smile pulls at the corner of my lips as I tug on my helmet and clasp the buckle, my crew rolling out my moto for me.
Swinging my leg over, I let the vibration touch every part of me when it starts. It growls and rumbles, eager to take the win, and both my stomach and my height drop as Lucio pulls out my tire stand, Vinicio nodding at me.
As calm as possible, I pull out and cruise down pit lane behind Lorina. The crowd explodes when sunlight settles on my shoulders; thousands of people are on their feet, screaming and jumping up and down. She flips up the face shield on her new helmet and smiles back at me. Instead of her standard American flag on top, there are four wide, diagonal claw marks, her country’s flag waving out from behind them.
The design I whispered to her constructor came out nothing short of badass, and I wonder what she thought when she saw it. She looks forward and tests a controlled lean to the left, then to the right, and I do the same: my moto obeying my every command like it was its idea first.
We come to a stop on the white lines, and Lorina doesn’t have pole position, because I do. I glance at her, and she gives me a thumbs-up. I don’t look any farther behind us, where Billy is in third, Santos is in fourth, and Mason is starting in fifth. We’re about to see them in every turn, every push for more speed in the straightaways over the next forty-seven minutes, broken down into twenty-seven laps that blur by in just over a minute and a half.
It’s going to be the longest, fastest race of my life.
Vinicio and my crew jog to my side, propping up my back tire and doing one final check over my moto while some girl in a Motul outfit appears with an umbrella. I peer past swarms of people in different colored sponsor T-shirts, and I finally see Lorina’s manager holding up her mobile phone and her earbuds. She waves him off. I don’t know how she’d hear music right now anyway, not with 150,000 fanatical Spaniards in the stands chanting “Wreckless.”
“You need earplugs,” Vinicio tells me in Italian.
I roll my eyes at myself. I’ve got to get my head in the damn game. I unsnap my helmet and lift it off, leaning past Lucio to take the small foam earplugs from Vinicio’s hand. A drop of water hits my cheek. I straighten and wave off the Motul girl, looking to the sky. The clouds are churning, their color darkening.
Oh shit.
“It’s going to rain,” I tell Vinicio. “I need to be on wets. Now.”
If I start on wet tires, I’ll be fine through the rain and I won’t have to pit to change motos. My slicks don’t have enough traction for the water, the rain cooling the rubber so they’re not as sticky. But if I go on wets and it stays dry, I’m screwed. I won’t be able to get enough speed to win. And I have to win, according to my last conversation with Angelo.
Vinicio shakes his head. “The storm won’t break until an hour after you’re done. You’re fine.”
My crew chief appears beside him, nodding. “We’re going on slicks. It’s still declared a dry race.”
I glance around, and he’s right: everyone else is still on slicks. No one is changing—not Santos, not Giovanni, not even Billy. Lorina definitely isn’t switching, but I’m not surprised after how many times she’s won off the gamble of using slick tires in the rain. I blow out a breath, left with no choice but to put in my earplugs and slide on my helmet.
My ass drops as someone pulls out my stand, the rest of my crew and Vinicio all clapping my shoulder before they exit the track with everyone else. My eyes search the sky, and I lift up my face shield to see if I feel any more drops. Nothing but wind.
I flip it down, cameras on cranes rising from where they were swooping low over the track in front of us. I check on Lorina, and she’s smoothing her hands over her fairings, probably praying, like she always does.
I check forward in time to see the green flag being walked off the track, the lights on the clock tower counting down to the practice lap. Then the green lights are out. Go.
My toes push off the ground as I shift from first gear up to sixth, the transmission growling hungrily with every drop of my heel. I cruise smoothly with no one in front of me, feeling the flex in the fairings and the torque in the throttle, and it’s all perfect.
Ducking low, I test the traction in the small straight between turns six and seven, and I can feel every bump and ripple in the track. The brakes bite in the sharp swings between eight, nine, ten, and eleven, and the moto is flawless. Like an extension of my body. And my body feels fast.
Tight corner of turn twelve, long half-circle of thirteen.
It’s there that I hear the crack of thunder.
It snaps loud and close, and after the hard left of turn fourteen, my eyes dart up to the sky. It’s not going to hold. I glance around for an exit, but I’m too far past the pit lane entrance, and I’ve got nineteen riders behind me, all slowing but still going too fast for me to turn around.
“Fuck!” I yell in my helmet, stopping on the white line.
I lift up my face shield, and yep, I definitely just felt water. I slam it down. We need to switch. It’s too dangerous to stay on slicks, no matter what Lorina thinks. I may have sworn after Rimini that I’d stop trying to protect her from herself, but she made promises too: that she’d try to be more careful about what risks she took and when she took them. And while I’m perfectly okay with the fact that my girlfriend races at deathly speeds, I’m not going to applaud her if she decides to race without her helmet or if she doesn’t use the right tires.
“Lorina!” I shout with everything in me. Her helmet turns my direction. “It is going to rain!”
“Massimo, what are you doing, man?” Billy yells behind me. “Whose team are you on?”
I don’t respond. Let him tell Angelo about what I just did. Her safety is more important than any contract.
Lorina looks up, flips up her face shield. But she doesn’t flinch, doesn’t jolt. She doesn’t feel it. Christ,
please let her believe me. For all I know, she could think I’m lying to her and it’s a ploy to slow her down so I can assure my own win.
It would be a brilliant play, and yeah, I want the win, but not at the expense of making her crash. I’m still holding out hope that there can be some kind of life for us together after the crowd forgets our names and our motos are given to those who are younger, faster. But we can’t have that life if we die.
“Frank!” she screams toward the fence line. A relief I’ve never felt takes my veins, and I sink back a little on my seat, finally able to start breathing again—she believes me. But I have no idea if her manager can hear her over the roar of the idling engines on the track. Not to mention the league of raging fans still chanting her name. “Frank!”
He finally straightens, cupping his hand behind his ear.
“Get the wets ready!” she shouts, but he shakes her off like he can’t hear her. “Get the wets!”
“Shut up, Lorelai!” someone behind us yells. I think it was Santos.
“Get the wets!” she screams again, and I check the clock tower. The red lights are still lit. My pulse is hammering like it can feel the call to fly, and I look to Lorina. She’s leaning forward and patting her tires, then pointing to the sky. Frank’s head jerks upward, then he gives her a thumbs-up before slapping his palm on his wrist—needing to know when she’s going to pit. She shoves her fist into the air, lassos once, then punches again.
One lap.
I see him curse, then slash through the air before hitting his wrist.
No time.
“Stop arguing with me and get her ready!” she screams. He takes off toward her garage, and I look to the clock tower.
The red lights disappear, and I charge off the white line, opening my throttle and shifting up as fast as possible. Lorina somehow cuts in front of me, taking the hole-shot—first place in the first turn.
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