CHAPTER EIGHTEEN CLARKE #2
The waiter had a baffled look on his face. “I know we have a bottle back there. Hardly anyone ever orders it. I know it says scotch on the bottle. I’m guessing it comes from Scotland?”
He could hear Ceci chuckling.
“That’ll be fine,” he said.
She began eating while he stared at his plate. He was going to need that scotch.
She peered at him over a rib she held in front of her mouth. “You can’t use a fork and knife you know.”
“I’ve eaten ribs before.”
“Really?” she said with an exaggerated tone of surprise.
“Yes, really,” he said, his voice carefully modulated.
He sighed when the waiter set the glass of scotch before him.
“Thank you.”
He took a sip and coughed.
Ceci set down the rib. “No good?” she ventured, not even trying to disguise her amusement.
“Definitely not single malt.” He set the glass down and examined his plate. He picked up what looked like the least fatty rib and took a bite. “Hmm,” he murmured, taking another bite.
“What?” she asked.
He nodded, but said nothing as he kept eating until he’d plucked every morsel of meat off the bone. He placed it on his plate and then looked up at her.
“It’s very good,” he said. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”
She shrugged. “I don’t want to hear anything—one way or the other. But I guess I’m glad you like it.”
“Are you?” he asked, suspicious.
She flagged down a waiter, held up her finger for him to wait, finished the contents of her glass, handed it to him, and asked for another.
“Won’t that be your third?”
“Are you keeping count?”
“Well, it would appear someone needs to.”
“Fine, if it satisfies your superiority complex, then I won’t stop you. Contrary to what you might think, it is not my mission in life to make you miserable.”
“And yet you’re so good at it.”
The waiter walked up with her bourbon.
Maybe all that bourbon isn’t such a bad thing, as long as I’m by her side to make certain she makes it back safely to her hotel.
“What did you mean when you said you know I can get rattled and that today was a case in point?”
“Well, I was referring to the race.”
“I gathered as much. But what about the race?”
“You know.”
She picked up her glass and took a long swallow.
“What do I know?”
She emitted an exasperated sigh, as much with the rise and fall of her shoulders as with her audible and forceful exhale.
“You should have won today. You had the win until—”
He could feel himself losing patience—one virtue he usually had no trouble maintaining, except around her.
“Until what?” he snapped.
Her eyes sparked. “Until you didn’t—”
“Didn’t what?” he barked, loud enough that a couple of people at a nearby table looked over at them.
“Have it—won.”
Gritting his teeth, he grabbed his glass.
“You are the most fucking exasperating woman I have ever met, and frankly that’s a fucking understatement.
I don’t think there’s even a fucking word for what you fucking are.
I suppose Homo sapiens didn’t fucking think it would be fucking necessary to come up with one. Turns out they were fucking wrong!”
Her eyes widened. “Sir Clarke! Language! I lost count of how many times you said fuck!”
He glared at her. “I did not say fuck. I said fucking.” He swallowed the rest of the liquid in his glass and slammed it on the table. “God, that stuff is fucking lousy. I can’t believe they have the fucking gall to call it scotch.”
When he looked at her, she had that smile on her face, the catlike one she had in his dreams.
Do not go there. Do not go there. Do. Not. Go. There.
She started to laugh.
He pointed his finger at her. “Don’t you laugh. Don’t. I mean it. Explain what you mean when you say I had the win until I didn’t.”
She managed to stop laughing, but not without some difficulty. “I think you’re the only driver, other than Ian, I’ve ever seen race fearless. I mean you used to.”
“No one races fearless.”
“Maybe you’re right. Let’s just say you made it look like you were fearless. When you raced, how can I describe it? It was seamless. It’s like there was no separation between you and the machine. It felt so intuitive. So right. It was a thing of beauty.”
He didn’t know what he’d been expecting her to say. He only knew it hadn’t been this.
It felt like that scotch had crystallized into a rock the size of a meteor, which was now stuck in his throat. He swallowed.
She sighed. “As a rookie, you came on the scene, rode that track like you’d been doing it for years. It must have scared the shit out of the other drivers. To be that good. From the very start.”
“Well, I trained and practiced. A lot. My father put me in my first kart when I was three years old. I mean I couldn’t race at that age, not officially. So he made his own track and had me karting around that.”
“I didn’t mean to suggest you didn’t put in the time and the hard work.
But so did the other drivers. And I never saw one of them hit the track as a rookie like you did.
” Her gaze locked on his. “But somewhere along the way, things changed. There’s always a moment when you hesitate.
I used to think it was just doubt. But then I noticed you did it even when you were ahead, when the win was a virtual lock.
And always on the final turn. It doesn’t matter the track.
Always on the last turn you’ll see before the checkered flag.
So, I’ve been wondering if maybe deep down you don’t want to win.
That last race of last season at Silverstone, you would have won if you hadn’t taken your foot off the gas that fraction of a quark that you did.
Sure, Ian was close, but he wasn’t in your space.
Maybe he was cutting it too close, but when you took your foot off the gas and started to brake, you skidded just enough so that there was no way he couldn’t hit you, going full throttle as he was.
So even if he was in part responsible, so were you. ”
Was that how it happened? Was that what Athos had been trying to tell him?
In the rare moments when Clarke was honest with himself, he knew it wasn’t just Ceci Rivers and Ian Anker that were responsible for his poor showing the last few seasons.
Because he could feel them—Naomi and Niles—in the car with him, much as he did his best to deny it.
That day when Niles was airlifted off the mountain in Aspen never left him.
None of it would have happened if Clarke hadn’t jumped at the chance to do something reckless and stupid, if he’d had enough character and resolve to swallow Tilney’s taunting and turned that switch off.
Ceci shrugged, sighed, and wrapped her hand around her glass.
She was about to pick it up when he reached across the table and placed his hand on hers.
He felt a flicker of a tremble like the sudden appearance of a firefly—here and gone.
Her hands were so soft he couldn’t stop himself from running his fingers up and down hers.
Her eyes were glazed, but she wasn’t hammered.
Just drunk enough to have told him what she did and possibly not remember any of it tomorrow.
She would see right through any suggestion that they order coffee, and she would reject it.
“Can I have a drink?” he asked. “Just a small one. I want to get the taste of that swill out of my mouth.”
When she pulled away, the back of her hand stroked his fingers and palm. That firefly returned fluttering over his flesh, heading south. He held his breath.
“Go ahead,” she said.
He took a long swallow, leaving barely a thimbleful in the glass.
“Thank you,” he said, handing it back to her.
She stared down at the contents and lifted her gaze without moving her head. “It won’t matter. There’s always more bourbon. Somewhere.”
She threw her head back and finished what little liquid was left.
When the waiter came up with the check, he handed it to Clarke.
“Could you wrap this up to take home?” he asked as the waiter took his plate.
“Certainly, sir,” the waiter said before walking away.
Ceci leaned over and snatched the check from him.
She smiled triumphantly. “They do say race car drivers have quick reflexes.”
Crossing his arms, he sighed. “So you keep telling me.” He held out his hand. “I’m paying for this.”
“No, I am. You can pay for the next quote-unquote date.”
It was perfectly reasonable, so why did it make him so uncomfortable?
When the waiter returned with a to-go bag, Ceci handed her card to him without taking her eyes off Clarke. “Why does that make you so uneasy?”
He shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “I’m not uneasy.”
She grinned. “Yes, you are.” She placed her elbows on the table and leaned over it, peering at him. “The question is why. I think it’s because you like to be in control.”
That firefly had now summoned his friends—dragonflies, hummingbirds, buzzing bees, and even a herd of thundering elephants to convene in one location.
Fuck.
He shifted in his seat.
That waiter’s going to return any minute for her signature. How long is it going to take my cock to stop saluting her this time? And I don’t have Boudica here to help me out.
The doggie bag!
He breathed a sigh of relief.
He lifted it, feeling how heavy it was. “Do you think Boudica would like some of this? Holly will never be able to eat all of it.”
“Okay—Hey how do you know I have Boudica with me?”
He felt his cheeks begin to prickle. “Well, don’t you?” he asked, knowing full well she did.
He’d gone walking around the paddock back at the racetrack, stealing glimpses of her. He’d seen Boudica.
“Yes.”
“Okay, I’ll get another bag and we can divvy up. I’ll put more in Boudica’s bag. Holly doesn’t eat much.”
Ceci smiled. “That must be how she stays so slim.”
Clarke chuckled. “Right.” He paused, looking back at her intently. “What’s your secret? How do you—I mean—where do you put all that? You finished almost everything on your plate.”
“I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with my body temperature. It runs higher than normal. Maybe I burn calories at a faster rate.”
“How much higher? What’s your normal temperature?”
“A little over ninety-nine degrees.”
He reached across the table and touched her hand. She flinched and was about to pull it away, but he took hold of it, rubbing his index finger along her palm.
She just shivered.
He bit his lip to keep from grinning.
“You don’t feel particularly hot; a bit warm, but not feverish.”
She pulled back but he didn’t let go.
She rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s not like it’s a high temperature. I mean if you were ninety-nine degrees, you probably wouldn’t even feel it.”
“I’m sure I’d feel something.”
“It’s not like being feverish.”
“Maybe not. But it’s interesting.”
The waiter returned with her card, and he let go of her hand.
After they’d gotten a second bag, he’d divvied up the ribs, and she’d signed the check, she stood up. “Ready for what’s next?”
He followed her out of the restaurant.
Ready as I’ll ever be.
Translation: When Ceci Rivers is involved? No, not ready at all.