Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Izzy
Winter settles in like an old friend, cozy and quiet, yet with a chill that makes me want to stay wrapped in the warmth of my garage. The days are getting shorter, and the nights longer, but Xavier and I find ourselves more often than not buried in grease and tools rather than anything else.
The race cars are the one thing that keeps us connected in a way that feels.
.. safe. Amid the snow and the cold, we’ve spent the last few weeks working on our cars, fine-tuning everything for the upcoming racing season.
It’s easier this way. It keeps us distracted and fills the space between us with something tangible.
I know we both feel it. That pull. The one we don’t talk about.
But we don’t have to. It's there, unspoken, between us like a quiet hum, always below the surface, especially when we're working together. His hands are on the engine, his eyes focused and intense. I catch myself watching him more than I should, like when he wipes the sweat from his brow or when his muscles flex as he pulls a stubborn part free. It’s frustrating, honestly. I’m supposed to be focusing on my own car, but somehow my thoughts always wander back to him.
“Izzy, you good over there?” Xavier’s voice cuts through my haze, and I realize I’ve been standing in front of my car, holding a wrench, doing nothing for the last few minutes.
“Yeah, just thinking,” I answer quickly, snapping back to reality.
He glances at me, his brows furrowing, but I flash him a quick grin and dive back into the engine. The familiar hum of the tools and the sound of the car parts shifting under my hands help push the thoughts of him aside for a moment. It’s like a mental reset.
But then Xavier’s there. That damn proximity.
He’s on the other side of my car, working on his own, and I swear I can feel the heat of his body against mine even though we’re not even close.
Every once in a while, our fingers brush as we pass a wrench back and forth, and my skin burns like it’s been set on fire.
I hate how much it affects me. I try to shake it off.
"Let me know if you need help," he calls out casually, like he doesn’t share the same tension between us that I do. I know he does. He's too quiet, too careful around me. Just like me. We're both pretending to be okay with this.
"Thanks. You too," I say, keeping it light.
The truth is, I can’t decide whether it’s better to keep things this way.
Friends. Complicated enough as it is without me starting to feel things I shouldn’t.
There’s too much riding on the upcoming race season.
Too many risks, too many ways to screw it all up.
And Xavier? Well, he’s racing for himself, sure, but we both know he’s also racing for something bigger.
I get it. And I’m not going to be the reason he throws it all away.
Still, every time he looks at me like that, every time his eyes meet mine under the hood of a car, I feel like I might break.
It’s not even the physical pull. It’s the way he makes me feel like I’m the only thing that matters for a split second.
It’s the way he makes me laugh when I’m frustrated, and the way he knows when I need silence and when I need someone to talk to. I don’t know what to do with that.
I don’t think he knows either. At least, I hope he doesn’t. It would make things a hell of a lot easier if he didn’t. We’ve built this routine, this delicate balance where we’re friends. Honestly? I don’t want to mess it up. Not now.
But the way he talks to me when he’s not trying to hide what’s underneath it all gets to me. The way his voice softens, like when he says my name a little too slowly, a little too... personal.
“B,” he says, stopping in front of me after we’ve spent hours working. “You need anything before we call it a night?”
It’s the way he looks at me again, like he’s trying to figure something out, and my stomach flips. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he’s asking more than whether I need help fixing my car. But I do know better.
“Nope, I’m good,” I say, trying to sound breezy. “We’ve got a long way to go before race day.”
He nods, a small smile pulling at his lips, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. We’re both pretending.
“Yeah. We’ve got this,” he says, but there’s an uncertainty in his voice that catches me off guard.
We both know it’s going to take more than fixing engines to get us where we want to go. But neither of us is ready to say what’s really on our minds. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
As the winter months drag on, we keep going. Friends. It’s the only safe place for us right now. But every laugh, every accidental touch, every lingering look... It’s all getting harder to ignore.
And I can feel it. The day will come when we won’t be able to hide from what we really want. But for now, we keep pretending.
We keep racing.
The sound of the freezing wind scraping against the garage windows is enough to make me shiver, but it’s the emptiness inside that makes me want to leave even more.
Xavier’s been distant lately, more than usual, and it’s not the work on the cars keeping him busy.
It’s like there’s a quiet weight hanging between us.
I first noticed it when he started heading out a little more often.
We used to grab a bite after working on the cars, talk about the race season, or bullshit about whatever random thought popped into our heads.
But lately, he’d been leaving after our sessions with barely a word, just a quick, “I’ll catch you later,” and off he’d go.
At first, I told myself it was nothing. He’s probably dealing with stuff. School, racing, life. Things were starting to feel like they were building toward something bigger. But then it happened. He mentioned it one afternoon, as if it weren’t a big deal.
“I’m gonna meet up with some people tonight,” he says, wiping his hands on a rag. “Get my mind off things, you know?”
I want to ask what exactly he means by that, but I don’t. My stomach twists, and a rush of jealousy hits me out of nowhere. But what do I have to be jealous of? We’re friends. Nothing more. Right?
“Alright, have fun,” I say, trying to sound casual.
He offers me a quick smile, the kind that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I watch him walk out, my mind spinning in circles. “Some people.” I hate how uncomfortable I feel with him being out. He isn’t my boyfriend. He doesn’t owe me an explanation. Still, it doesn’t sit right.
That night, I try to focus on my schoolwork.
Graduation is looming, and I feel the pressure.
I need to finish strong, and the thought of stepping into the real world, away from the comfort of racing and the garage, is both thrilling and terrifying.
But every time I look up from my laptop, my thoughts drift back to Xavier. Where is he? Who is he with?
The next time he comes over, the tension between us is palpable. He doesn’t mention the “dates” again, but I can tell something has changed in him. He’s quieter, more withdrawn. And I? I can’t shake the nagging feeling that whatever is happening between us is slipping away.
A couple of days later, Xavier shows up at the garage, looking different. He has a lightness in his step, and his eyes hold something that wasn’t there before.
“So, how’d it go last night?” I ask, my voice a little too sharp.
“Good,” he replies, a small grin tugging at his lips. “Good to get out, you know?”
I nod, even though I don’t feel good about it. “Yeah, I get it. You need a break.”
“I’m not gonna lie,” he says, sitting on the bench next to me and wiping his hands. “It was nice. Got to talk to someone who wasn’t covered in grease all the time.”
Something in my chest tightens. “Who?”
“A few girls I met through friends,” he says casually. “Nothing serious.”
I pretend I’m okay with it. I tell myself it’s nothing. But the little voice in my head won’t shut up, won’t stop reminding me I was probably overreacting. That I had no right to feel... well, whatever this is. Jealous? I shake my head. No way. I don’t have the right to be jealous.
Still, the more I see him with that look in his eyes, the more it stings. Something inside me, something I buried deep beneath the layers of friendship, is aching. Is it too late for me to want more than the cars, the garage, the routines?
But I keep telling myself the distance between us isn’t real. This is all a phase. He’ll get whatever is going on out of his system, and we’ll go back to our easy banter, our comfortable connection. It’s better this way.
The weeks leading up to graduation fly by in a blur.
Schoolwork piles up, but I can always count on Xavier to make me laugh during study breaks.
The tension between us remains, but we have a routine.
Every day, he walks me to all my classes, and we sit together at lunch.
I’m not about to throw it all away because of. .. whatever this is.
One afternoon, I catch him staring at his phone, his brow furrowed, his fingers tapping the screen in thought. It’s a brief moment, but it’s enough to catch my attention.
"Everything okay?" I ask, trying to sound neutral.
"Yeah." He clears his throat and pockets his phone quickly. "Just... stuff."
I know better than to push. But for some reason, I can’t stop the question from escaping before I can bite it back. "Are you... seeing her again?" I mean to sound casual, but it comes out sharper than I expected.
He glances at me, his expression unreadable for a moment, then looks down at his hands, a sigh escaping his lips. "I don’t know, B. I’m... trying to figure some stuff out."
I swallow, pushing the lump in my throat down. "I get it. You’re busy with school and the racing season. I don’t want to complicate things."
He looks up at me then, his gaze softening, but there’s still a distance I can’t ignore. “It’s not that simple. But we can’t go back to how it was, right? Things are changing, Izzy. And I don’t know what to do with it.”
It hits me then. He isn’t talking about school or racing. He’s talking about us. I’m terrified to admit I feel the same way. I want more, but neither of us is brave enough to take that step.
So we do what we always do. We focus on the cars. We work on the engines, get our hands dirty, and pretend the tension between us doesn’t exist. But inside, something is shifting. Something is about to break, and I’m not sure either of us is ready for it.