Cross the Line

PROLOGUE

Dev

October – Austin, Texas

I’ve fucked up. Boy howdy, have I fucked all the way up.

My race engineer is in my ear, asking questions like What happened? and Are you okay? and, most importantly, How much damage did the car sustain? I need to answer him – need to reassure him and the team that I’m conscious after skidding through gravel and hitting a barrier at nearly a hundred miles an hour. For now, they’ll have to trust my vitals displayed on the pit wall computer screens, because I can’t seem to form the words to tell them. Not because there’s anything physically wrong with me. It’s just that my brain is . . . not present. It’s taking a day off. Fully out to goddamn lunch. And it’s not because of the crash.

‘Dev?’ Branny’s voice breaks through the fog, his concern deep and clear over the radio. ‘Can you hear me? Are you okay? Repeat, are you okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ I choke out, still clutching the steering wheel. My knuckles are probably white underneath my gloves. ‘Car’s done, though. I’m sorry, everyone. This is on me.’

Like any good engineer, he’ll want to question what the problem was, but he knows better than to ask it over the team radio where anyone in the world could be listening. It’ll wait until the debrief, and then I can get my ass handed to me by our CEO, our team principal and my lead mechanic. And I’ll deserve it, because this really was on me.

This was no fault of the car, the track surface, another driver, or a force of nature. No, I committed a mortal sin while behind the wheel.

I got distracted.

It shouldn’t have happened. It’s never happened in all my years of racing, and certainly not during the five I’ve spent in Formula 1. I’ve never let my mind wander so far that I braked too late and lost the back end. I barely had time to react before coming to a bone-shuddering stop in the barriers.

‘Turn the car off and come back to the pit,’ Branny instructs.

I do what I’m told before I ruin anything else. I can only imagine what the TV commentators will have to say as they discuss the possible reasons for my crash. I can practically hear them saying, It’s such a disappointment, but what matters is that he’s okay.

But I’m not okay. I’m far from it. I screwed up big time – and I don’t mean the crash.

I can’t stop thinking about it, even as I pull myself out of my ruined car and walk away from millions of dollars of damage. If I’m being honest with myself, things may never be okay again.

Because I kissed Willow Williams last night. And now I’m a dead man walking.