Chapter 18 Blunder #2
He chuckles, still behind me. Still not touching me. “I did, too.”
But he doesn’t want things to slip in the heat of the moment. Is it that clear to him after two days that I’m prone to slipping? I bite at the inside of my cheek, self-conscious and grateful at the same time. “Okay, rule accepted. What’s the other one?”
“I’d like to work out how I can help you while you’re gone. With your job.”
I turn, and seeing him this time is less painful—partially. The feverish, freshly kissed Faust from earlier is gone, though he doesn’t look any less steadfastly interested in me. Maybe he only experiences emotions intensely. Intensely aroused, intensely devoted.
“Okay, yeah. We probably should’ve started there,” I say with a smile.
Intensely happy. Faust starts to smile, too.
Then there’s a knock.
And then—after approximately two bone-chilling seconds—the beep-beep of a hotel key card opening the door to Faust’s room.
I turn to ice, my limbs and fingers and mouth frozen into place, like I’m in a cartoon and whoever’s coming in has magic-wand-tapped-me into a living snowman.
Faust, on the other hand, springs into motion.
Running his fingers through his hair, smoothing his new shirt down, then turning to the person walking into his room, with a frown that could decimate small moons if concentrated into a laser point.
“Hey!” Eddie spins the key card in his hands. “Cat! Faust! Morning!”
“Eddie,” Faust breathes out, his tone shockingly flat. “What are you doing?”
Turns out, all of Faust’s iciness is concentrated in his voice.
Which, yay, good for me, I’m not alone, but bad for us as a collective.
Eddie blinks, then sulks into a pout. “We have that thing. Uh—that—meeting? We talked about it yesterday?” His brow furrows.
“They sent me to grab you. Sorry, did they not message you?”
Without replying, Faust stalks over to where his phone is sitting on his nightstand and thumbs through what must be a pile of notifications. Partway through the scroll, his chest hitches. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s now?”
“Yeah.”
I don’t even think they’re talking in code.
I think Eddie just forgot what they’re doing and was sent upstairs anyway, and Faust doesn’t care enough about it right now to give me more context clues.
Before I can ask, though, Eddie’s talking to me.
“And Cat, Mei actually told me to tell you if I saw you that we’re in, wait.
Hold on.” He pulls out his phone to read from, apparently having written this particular detail down. “ ‘Defcon 1 and come here please.’ ”
Shit. It’s so early, and the race is today. “Did she mention why?”
“I think your flight got bumped? Which I said was stupid because you’re going to miss the race, but then she was like, ‘I did not ask, none of the travel coordinators are calling me back.’ ”
Eddie does a shockingly good Mei impression, and I wish I could giggle at it but there’s an ache wrapping around me like I’ve dislodged a small and very important internal organ.
I’m being sent back to New York. Now. Before the race.
I don’t get to see Faust drive, and I won’t get to see the next three races, either.
I turn to him, and he’s already turned to me, and the disappointment is clear on his face. He doesn’t try to hide it at all.
“I know,” Eddie sighs sympathetically. “Like, okay Daddy-Benzin, harsh. I’ll be in the hallway?”
I force a smile once we’re alone. Fake it until you make it. “You’re going to do so good today.”
Faust’s eyes lift to mine, then drift to my smile.
A second ticks by. My mouth falls. This is how it’s going to be.
For as long as I date a Formula 1 driver that isn’t Faust, we’ll be interrupted by my busy life and his busier one.
After that, too. There’s always another awful man in need of a comeuppance, another meeting for minor celebrities like Faust.
I imagine how we’d part ways for three weeks if this were a movie.
Eddie would step into the hallway, and the moment his shadow was gone, Faust would be grabbing me and kissing me like he did earlier, lips crashed together and his hands in my hair and my lipstick on his face, evidence I’d wipe away before anyone saw it.
But having Eddie around has reset us into our earlier selves, like, way earlier.
Right when we met, with my forced cheer and Faust’s simmering frustration.
He buries his hands in his pockets. “Ready?”
“You don’t want to finish changing?”
“I will later.”
I glance at his running shorts. Hold back a comment about meeting etiquette. “Sure, yeah.”
I check my phone on our quiet elevator ride downstairs.
I have three missed calls from Mei and a message from Bernard, asking if we can meet before the race.
Better to wait until I’ve gotten the full details from Mei to break the news that our ramen date is off.
Downstairs, Faust and Eddie peel away with a chipper goodbye and a solemn glance my way.
I start toward the coffee shop where Mei said she’s squirreled away, then stop.
Three races. Three weeks, at minimum. Ending on this note.
I turn and cup my hands over my mouth. “Hey!”
Faust is by the large front doors, the glass behind him lit with the early morning sun. Even though we’re miles apart—that’s how it feels, at least—I can see his surprise.
“Make your own luck!” I yell.
Formula 1 drivers don’t have catchphrases, per se.
They aren’t superheroes. But they do have branding and specific poses and colors people associate with them, and years ago, when Faust had first been asked if he thought his name and driver number would give him luck, that’s what he’d said. It’d caught on.
Fausto, from the Latin name Faustus, or fortunate. His driver number, eight, when combined with his first initial—fate.
I make my own luck as a driver.
He lifts his hand, slowly, shoulder-height. Then higher, waving back at me. Smiling.
I pull my hands back down and breathe in that look. That man is starting first in the Japanese Grand Prix this afternoon. Hundreds of millions of people will watch him drive. And I kissed him. He’ll have the taste of me on his mouth today, and no one will know but us.
This secret might have perks, too.
Grinning, I head to the coffee shop with the head rush of inhaling a whole bag of Skittles. Mei’s by a corner table, and I smile when she looks up. “Hey, sorry, I like that bag.” I nod at her oversized Telfar. A working woman’s tote bag. “Eddie said my flight was bumped?”
“It wasn’t. I just needed something to tell him.” Mei’s eyes are so sharp, her glasses slide down her nose. “We have a bigger problem.”
On some weird primal level, I know what’s about to happen. Her tone gives it away. “What’s wrong?”
Frowning, Mei gestures at the line at the coffee shop’s register. Standing there, in a pale pink Chanel two-piece skirt suit that screams take me back, is Imogen Baldwin.