Chapter 206 Callum
callum
He’s the only reason I didn’t break completely during our hardest moments. –Aurélie
Ivy’s hand flew to her mouth. Marco went very, very still. Lucy’s eyes filled so fast it was like someone had turned on a tap. Kimi tugged his hands through his hair and looked at the floor, jaw working.
“It’s okay,” Aurélie said quickly, hands coming up in a calming gesture. “You don’t have to… react a certain way. I’m not telling you so we can all cry together. I’m telling you because I don’t want you guys to hear it from someone that isn’t us. Because you’re our family.”
Technically, they shouldn’t have been able to.
Her medical records were supposed to be private.
But “supposed to be” didn’t mean much when you’d signed an FIA super licence and a Luminis contract that bundled your body into “performance assets.” On race weekends, every trip to a circuit doctor, every hospital visit got piped to the team’s medical liaison in the name of “duty of care.” And now here we were.
I slid my palm against the small of her back and rubbed once, slow.
“When?” Ivy asked hoarsely, pushing the blanket down so it rested around her shoulders. Her hair stuck up in every which way. “Aurélie, is this what I thought it was at Silverstone? The sore boobs, the nausea. You said it was nerves and you’d take a test after the race.”
“Ouais. I did,” Aurélie explained. “I tried to tell myself it was an endo flare and a bad period. But… I knew the pain was something else. It was early, and it was messy, and Cal—” she tipped her head toward me, “—took care of me and kept everyone out.”
The kitchen went very quiet.
No hiss from the machine, no clink of mugs.
Just the low roll of the sea through the slightly open doors and the tiny, uneven sounds of people trying to remember how to breathe.
Under my hand, at the small of her back, every muscle was tight as wire.
She’d cracked herself open for them and was waiting to see if the pieces stayed put.
Ivy’s eyes were already glassy from the hangover; now they shone for a different reason.
“You should’ve told me,” she croaked, voice rough but not accusing.
“I kept texting you to take a test. Then you went quiet and vanished into the French countryside and Fraser freaked the fuck out that he hadn’t heard from you.
Once he said he was with you, I told myself it was a horror-movie period and you didn’t want an audience. ”
Aurélie’s mouth wobbled once before she caught it.
“I could barely stand up,” she said, gentle but firm.
“And Callum was there.” Her fingers slid down until they found my wrist and hooked in, like she was pinning herself there.
I grabbed her hip and pulled her back into me.
“I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t think, I could barely breathe.
All I could see was his face and the ceiling.
I didn’t have room in my head or my heart for anyone else yet. ”
Something hot and ugly twisted deep in my chest at the thought of some team doctor or Henric himself reading that chart before the people standing in front of her now. Before the ones who loved her. I forced it down for later. She didn’t need my anger right now. She needed me steady.
Ivy let out a breath that sounded scraped raw. “I understand,” she said quietly. “I’m glad you had him.” A beat. Her shoulders squared, blanket sliding further down her arms. “But you don’t have to do the next parts without us.”
Lucy sniffed, wiping under her eyes with the sleeves of her hoodie. “I know we just met,” she said, voice wobbling, “and I’m the weird runaway, but if you ever want to scream into a pillow about all of this, I’m very good at harmonizing with other people’s trauma.”
That pulled a broken little laugh out of Aurélie. “Merci,” she said. “I will add you to my list of designated scream partners.”
The atmosphere eased a fraction.
I cleared my throat and reached for the villa landline mounted on the wall.
The concierge had left us a number the morning after we arrived, all smiles and assurances that we could order anything we wanted with a simple call.
“I’m ordering breakfast,” I announced. My voice sounded more firm now, anchored in something I could do with my hands.
“If we’re going to have a fight about doctors and contracts and bodily autonomy, we’re not doing it on empty stomachs. ”
“Get the big spread,” Ivy said immediately. “Carbs help me strategize.”
“Eggs,” Kimi added. “Many eggs.”
“Fruit,” Lucy said weakly. “Vitamin C. For my feelings.”
“And bacon,” Marco croaked. “If we are going to confront systemic misogyny and corporate overreach, I require bacon.”
“And croissants,” Aurélie said. “If I’m going to let strangers poke at me, I deserve pastry.”
“Yes, baby, I know, ” I replied, punching in the number, “I would never forget your emotional support carbs.”
As the line rang and I started negotiating an obscene breakfast order in slow English with the sleepy concierge, I watched them out of the corner of my eye.
Ivy already had her phone out, thumbs flying as she drafted talking points and contingency plans.
Marco leaned his elbows on the island, listening, unusually quiet.
Kimi stood steady as a pillar, the one unshakeable thing in the room.
Lucy’s shoulder leaned against Aurélie’s, small but solid, like she was lending whatever strength she had left after last night.
And Aurélie—bare legs, my shirt, ring, hangover, grief—stood in the center of it all, blinking against the morning light and still, somehow, ready to fight.
Resilient and so fucking radiant.
And I couldn’t wait to call her my wife.