13. Chapter 13
13
Chapter 13
FINN
T hey pack up slowly, tiredly. I know the look well, it’s exhaustion. Camille’s golden curls are a crow’s nest, her cheeks red from a day in the sun. Her freckles have become more prominent, dusting her shoulders now too, after all these months filming in the sun. I had prepared to meet her furious gaze when they arrived, but her grey eyes were resigned.
Embarrassed.
It gutted me. I had hurt her. I had hoped to spare her from more pain since I had already crossed that line between us that day in London.
But her obvious resignation stirred something in me. Something that screamed out for redemption. I buried the thought immediately.
She had made up her mind about something and I was curious about it. She avoided me like the plague. It relieved me and bothered me more than I would have guessed.
She scoops up her backpack, shoulders it, and stands looking around the room while the crew all head towards the door. She’s making sure they leave the place as they found it. A small frown appears when she spots the wooden box on the fireplace mantle.
It contains the Celestia collar.
Before she came over to film, I had this overwhelming urge to make her take it. A type of atonement. Maybe if I got rid of it, I could stop thinking of her wearing it, wearing nothing else but the collar. But when she walked over the gravel towards me, tired and resigned, I knew she wouldn’t take it.
She’s had enough, and, maybe, so have I. It’s time to get over it.
She’s looking at me again, lost in thought, grey eyes brewing up a storm.
“Why?” she asks.
I sigh. “I thought I could…make you take it.”
“Changed your mind?”
“No. I just don’t think you want it.”
“I absolutely don’t want to take your most valued piece of jewelry from you, no.”
“It isn’t.”
She cocks her head, surprised. “You own more expensive pieces?” she asks curiously.
Ever the journalist.
I shake my head. “Not more expensive, but definitely more valued.”
I can tell she’s curious now.
“I could show you?”
Jay pops his head through the door. “Ready, Cam?”
She startles, turns to him, gives me an uncertain look.
He looks between us .
“We’ll only be a minute.” I jerk my chin at him.
He nods and disappears into the night.
Hesitantly, she follows in my wake when I ask her to follow me.
To my bedroom. In the walk-in closet, I open a drawer and type my code into the keypad. A drawer springs open and glides open noiselessly.
I have some watches, some gold, cash, an antique collection of coins. I pick out what I’m looking for.
It’s a silver ring. Two hands holding a black stone, shaped like a heart, a silver crown atop. My mother’s claddach ring.
“Love, loyalty, and friendship.” She smiles, stepping over to inspect it.
“Oh,” I say, surprised. “I know it another way.”
She raises her eyebrows at me.
For some reason, I can’t say it. It’s a sacred thing. She’s waiting patiently.
The longer I’m quiet, the worse it gets.
The air grows thick and sluggish between us. It’s hard to breathe and I can’t take my eyes off her face, but she looks down at her feet, her cheeks flushed.
Her embarrassment eats at me. Makes me furious.
“Cam?” It’s Jay’s voice, calling down the hall.
It startles us.
She swivels and makes to leave, but instinctively I grab her arm.
She turns on me vehemently.
“What do you want from me?” she asks. There are tears in her eyes, and she drags a hand over her cheeks angrily, wiping them away.
I want you to walk away from me without pain .
I say nothing.
She scoffs at me and walks away.
If she leaves now, I’ll never speak to her again. The thought is unbearable. I catch up to her and Jay when their feet crunch over the gravel on the way to the car.
“Passatelli in Brodo,” I say.
“What?” She turns to me, crossing her arms.
Jay is hesitant to get in the van, waiting for Cam.
I don’t know why I’m doing this. But I just can’t accept this is the last time.
I need a chance to make it right between us, then I’ll walk away. When I’m gone and she thinks of me, I don’t want her to be embarrassed.
“I promised you Passatelli in Brodo, that day on the plane.”
She’s standing there, speechless.
“Monday.”
“You aren’t available on Monday,” she says sardonically.
“Not for filming.”
“What?”
I shake my head.
“Finn!” She’s angry, confused. “I have to go.”
She walks round the van and jumps in the front, slamming the door. Jay doesn’t linger. He sets off immediately, gravel spraying in the wake of the van.
I watch them drive away.
So this is how she will remember me. I deserve it. I watched her in my house, the place I come to shut out the world, and she stepped into every room, trailing her fingertips over the soft linen on my bed, stepping out onto the terrace to have the breeze tug at her curls, soothing her sensitive skin from the day outside. She had taken a sip of wine and swirled it around in her mouth absentmindedly as she breathed in the herbs on the evening air and she had been respectful, reverent of everything in this house.
It had driven me wild, the ease with which she stepped into this place.
I spend the rest of the night doing my new pre-race ritual, the one where I think of Camille until I’m furious. Until I’m nothing but tethered fury and despair.
* * *
FINN
Cameras flash from everywhere. I can’t help but scowl, and when I hold up my hand, it dies down. After a podium finish, you have to give an interview in the media room.
The room is packed with journalists; a small sea of microphones have been placed on the table in front of me. From the back corner of the room, Evan is filming. The other guy is with him, the sound guy. He pins a lapel microphone on me the moment I step through the door.
An Australian sports presenter waves eagerly at me and I nod at him.
“Congratulations, mate,” he says, and I nod. “Can you walk us through your strategy on those final laps?”
I had been bold at the start and climbed positions steadily. Rheese managed to hold me off for three full laps. His driving was illogical. He had sacrificed gaining positions just to hold me off. It was personal, and it showed.
“Knox was defending from the front and made it hard to pass. Eventually we bunched up behind him and the pressure of keeping off the many must have gotten to him. ”
Actually, it had been Lucien Rousseau. I let him pass me, thinking Rheese would let him pass and our struggle could continue, but Rheese was being a real prick about it. In his rush to block off Rousseau, he had clipped Lucien’s tyre. They almost spun out. I passed them while they were regaining control in the critical seconds after their tiff.
“That was a pretty crucial overtake. What was going through your mind at that point?” a journalist from Singapore quips.
I give my standard answer. “Things can change fast. I try not to think beyond the car in front of me.”
I try not to think at all.
I nod at a black woman with a British accent. She gives me a grateful nod. She’s new on the scene. Her hair is in a short, well-maintained afro style that brings out the length of her neck and the freckles on her nose remind me of Camille.
“Placing third again today, you racked up some more points for Delta Victor. What changes have you and the team made to show such a drastic improvement in your placements this season?”
I don’t like this question because it hits close to home. It gives me this nagging feeling at the back of my mind that I’ve been struggling with these last few races. I answer it in part.
“We had some issues with our handling of the car the last few seasons that we managed to identify. Improving the alignment on the front wing made all the difference for us.”
What I leave out is the part where they should have replaced me years ago. If I can drive like this, with the car being what it is, and still with so much room for improvement on it, if they could manage to fund it, they could have climbed the ranks years ago.
The amount of money I must have cost Delta Victor in losses these past few years.
The woman nods enthusiastically.
The gossip journo is here too. He’s been eager to get a sound bite, but I have managed to avoid him. Unprofessionally, he interjects when I give another journalist the go ahead. He jumps up, challenging me.
“There have been rumours that your strategy has been paying off, and that Delta Victor might have a contract renewal in the works for you. Do you and Erik Lindqvist have an agreement on reinstating you based on your placement in the manufacturer’s league this year?”
I fucking hate this guy. The way he phrases it makes is fodder for the gossip rags, no matter how I answer.
“No comment.”
He’s fastidious. “If another team were to offer you a contract for the next racing season, would you be open to negotiations?”
“No comment,” I say with finality.
A fresh burst of flashes goes up as people take pictures of my scowl. The Delta Victor media relations team is going to be up my ass about it tomorrow when it hits the press.
It winds down from there and I’m relieved when they dismiss me to interview Ollie Blythe.
It’s half past seven in the evening when my tyres crunch on the gravel road up towards my house.
She’s sitting on the front steps of my house. There are brown paper bags at her feet.
It’s a peace offering.
* * *
CAMILL E
When he gets out of the car, he’s guarded. He nods at me, and I nod back as I stand up, dusting off the seat of my pants. I’m wearing my usual t-shirt and jean shorts. I had put on three different dresses before ripping them off angrily. I didn’t want to dress for him. My hair is washed and loose, the curls soft and springy, a mess.
I shouldn’t be here. It’s not for work. And yet, here I am, despite my best intentions.
When he walks up, he crouches to scoop up the paper bags at my feet.
“You’re not surprised to see me,” I state. It’s obvious from his casual demeanor.
“Groundskeeper notified me. Thought I had a stalker.”
“Does that happen often?”
“You’d be surprised.”
When he’s on the bottom step and I’m on the top step, we’re eye to eye.
His eyes are deep brown and riveted on mine.
He raises an eyebrow.
“Not a stalker,” I declare.
I can tell he wants to make a joke, but it’s so fragile between us. He shuts his mouth and steps up beside me.
It startles me and I step aside, so he shoulders past and turns his back to the door, shoving it open.
“It’s unlocked?” I follow in his wake.
He grins over his shoulder. “It is, for me.” He shakes his keys and there is a prominent electronic tag dangling from a chain. The keys to the kingdom, so to speak.
In the kitchen, he puts the paper bags on the counter and turns to me. He has that look on his face again, the one from last night. His mouth is slightly open, and he’s breathing hard .
Again, I wait for him to speak.
“What are we making?” he ends lamely.
“Your bread soup.”
He laughs.
“Passatelli in Brodo?”
I nod.
“It’s bread noodles in soup.”
I shrug.
“Where did you get the recipe?” He pulls celery, carrots, and onions from the bag.
“Online.”
He shakes his head in mock disappointment. Pulls out a chunk of parmesan and sniffs it. Satisfied, he puts it on the counter.
He pauses to pour me a glass of crisp white wine and I stand with my hip against the counter, watching him cook.
We don’t talk, yet. It’s not companionable silence, but we’re working towards it.
He shakes his head when I make to help him chop the vegetables and I retreat to nurse my glass of wine. He fries a carrot, celery, and an onion in copious amounts of olive oil in the bottom of a casserole and adds fresh garlic and spices before he tops it off with chicken broth.
Then he steps out to open all the doors to let in the night air. I follow him to the terrace where he picks fresh herbs. The smell from the bruised plants intensifies, wafting inside.
Back in the kitchen, he grates off a large piece of the parmesan and washes his hands under the faucet.
Now and then he takes a sip of his own glass of wine, fingers splayed over the bowl of the glass.
He upends the plastic container with breadcrumbs on the countertop and mixes in a fistful of the parmesan. With a grater, he zests a lemon over it and some nutmeg.
He mixes it with his hands and then adds three eggs, mixes them in with his fingertips until it gets doughy, then kneads it in earnest.
The silence has become a sacred thing. To break it would be to break the spell of him. He’s lost in thought and working with purpose. His shirt sleeves are pushed up to above his elbows and I watch his forearm muscles flex as he kneads the dough.
When he turns back to the broth, his eyes lock with mine. They’re brown and soft. The corner of his mouth jerks up in a smile.
It makes my heart skip a beat.
Unbidden, I think of him in London, black eyes and warm mouth and his weight on top of me.
He slows down as he watches me, then gives a slow blink, turns to the casserole, and busies himself with straining the vegetable broth. He pours the clear liquid back into the casserole and keeps his back to me.
He takes a potato ricer and tears off half the dough, putting it inside. He presses down and long tendrils of dough snake down through the fragrant steam and into the broth. He repeats the process with the other half of the dough and stirs the noodles with a wooden spoon as they boil away. When the noodles rise to the surface, he pulls bowls and spoons from a drawer and serves big scoops into each bowl.
He jerks his head at the bottle of wine, and I grab it as I follow him out to the terrace. I fill our glasses and he holds his up in a toast after we both take our seats at the small round table .
I touch my glass to his and it rings out softly in the quiet of the evening air. The terrace is heady, with soft light spilling out from inside and the smell of the herbs. I can hear crickets and the sound of Finn’s throat as he takes a big gulp of his wine.
The aroma of the dish rises up to meet me.
I can’t do this.
I set down my glass carefully, push out the chair. Stand up.
I look at him with regret. When our eyes meet, I can’t make out his expression. The light behind him casts his face in shadow.
He rears up from the table, his chair tumbling to the ground behind him, and he takes two steps to close the distance between us, but it’s not happening fast enough to his liking. He grabs me by the arm and tugs me to him.
I stumble against his chest and look up at him and his black eyes are roving over my face with a scowl.
The wine on his hot breath when he exhales heavily is heady and I breathe it in.
“Fuck,” he says in a thick voice, and then he tips my chin up and pours himself into me.