CHAPTER 11 - RAW ALMOND
raw almond
CHAPTER eleven
David reminded himself every few seconds that he was driving a real car, not a simulator, as he tore over the bumps and dips of the Los Angeles street circuit. His tinted helmet visor darkened the road ahead as he picked through each apex, avoiding slippery curbs on some corners and going right through others.
He knew this track better than most. Beating Noah here on his debut with Oxbow had been David’s first breath of relief in his career. His father had worked him to the bone to be ready for it. He prepped that whole winter in the same building as Noah, but barely caught a glimpse of him until that day in Los Angeles when Noah entered Oxbow hospitality, flushed and sweaty in a way that had made David’s mouth go dry.
His crush on Noah went back much further than that, though. The first time David saw Noah was during his rookie year, in the pit lane on media day. Noah had been standing with Finlay Black and Robert Kessler, his two best friends. They were known as the Titanium Trio among the younger drivers and the Three Musketeers to everyone else. Nobody breached their circle. One look at him, and David was convinced he’d never see a more attractive man in his life.
David’s chassis slammed against the asphalt as he made the turn onto Rodeo Drive. The impact went straight up his spine, rattling the vertebrae all the way up to his skull as he floored it into the downhill and moved to the outside for a better turn-in angle.
“Sorry about that,” Aiden said over radio. “Extra fuel load hurt us a little. Too much weight.”
Too much weight. David gripped the steering wheel tighter as he fought through the corner. He’d done about twenty laps, testing qualifying setups, fuel loads, and various engine settings. Twenty laps was the driver equivalent of a stroll around the park, but pain radiated from his collar bones, hips, and even his ribcage from the tightness of his belts.
He’d lied to Noah once about belt bruises. He’d tried to claim the fist-sized marks on his torso were from a prototype car he’d driven in Germany over summer break. At the time, he didn’t want Noah to know the truth. Noah had seen him as a strong, confident driver who did everything it took to win—what champion driver allowed himself to be punched by his own father?
“Traffic behind,” Aiden said in his ear. “Cobalt on a fast lap.”
David’s heart jumped to his throat at the sight of the bright blue Cobalt Racing livery in his right mirror, immediately thinking of Noah. But Evan Faris’s ugly, lime green helmet ruined the dream—a far cry from Noah’s thoughtful designs.
Evan’s car cut up the inside, flying off down the next straight. David stomped the throttle and gave chase.
“David,” Aiden warned. “We need race pace data.”
Evan’s rear wing glimmered like a fish underwater before slipping away around the next corner as David slowed down to his race pace.
“You’ll have plenty of chances to beat him tomorrow and Sunday,” Aiden said.
David flicked down the gears into the corner and said nothing.
The first time he actually met Noah was at an autograph signing session. Nobody had wanted David’s signature back then, except for bandwagon fans who thought maybe his autograph would be worth something some day.
He heard that Noah showed up before he saw him. The crowd roared when they glimpsed Noah Caparelli and Finlay Black entering the fan zone, and half the people in David’s line sprinted over to the Oxbow booth, even though Noah and Finlay had twenty minutes until their allotted signing time. David had dutifully signed every last driver card and memorabilia piece without once looking over at the Oxbow booth. Once he went into the PR tent to grab his stuff to go back to his hotel, he saw Noah standing there with Finlay, talking about Finlay’s new Porsche.
David could still remember the way Noah’s fingers had traced the invisible line of the Porsche 911 as he spoke. He also remembered being overcome by the sudden desire to have those same fingers trace his body.
“ Lookie at the rookie, ” Noah said. “ Your name’s David, right? ”
David had never been attracted to someone so intensely. He’d been so nervous about saying something stupid that he ducked right out of the tent without saying anything—so it technically didn’t even count as a meeting.
“Thanks, David. We have the data we need. Let’s preserve the engine as much as possible so we can go hard tomorrow. Come on in,” Aiden said over radio, snapping him out of his thoughts.
David made the final turn and moved over to the inside to let cars by as he slowed down for the pits. The ache in his bones returned, dull and throbbing. Taking headache medicine made him sick now, so he would have to take an ice bath and hope it helped the irritation and inflammation.
He smiled to himself as he pulled into his pit box, rolling back through the memory of how his heart had soared the second Noah made eye contact with him at close range. He knew what Noah’s fingers felt like now. Before David ever dared to hope for a championship win, he’d hoped for that.
*****
The ice bath only succeeded in making him feel worse. David ate half his dinner and curled up on the couch in his apartment to call Noah. His stomach begged for more food, so he allowed himself a few raw almonds to suck on to dull the roar.
“Laguna Seca was fine,” David was saying as he tilted his head back over the arm of the couch. “But today just hurt. The circuit is so bumpy.”
“Did you tell the mechanics?” Noah asked. “Maybe your ride height was too low.”
David sighed. “They had me too low for the high fuel run, but the whole session hurt. I bruised up really bad.”
“Really? Can I see?” Noah asked.
“They’ll still be visible on Sunday,” David replied, sidestepping a video call. “I’m all bundled up on the couch right now. My ice bath hurt, too.”
“That’s not good. Regular driving shouldn’t cause bruising like that.”
“It can when the car is too heavy,” David muttered, suddenly feeling guilty about the almond stuffed in his cheek. “How did Evan and Finlay do?”
“Finlay was getting picky about tire wear, but Evan had a good feeling about the car,” Noah said. “They both seem happy with it so far. Normal stuff. Tweaking the balance and everything, y’know?”
David let out a hum. “I was still faster, though.”
“You were,” Noah agreed with a chuckle. David languished in the sound. He wished he could hear that voice in his ear without the tinniness of a phone conversation.
“How is the show thing going?” David asked.
“Crazy,” Noah replied. “I thought car people could be a pain in the ass, but fashion people are worse. With cars, we have data to prove what’s going on, but for these runway shows, everyone’s critiques are speculation. They make stuff up about bad fabric flow, and then people listen to them, and suddenly your show is a nightmare.”
“Did that happen?”
“No. Some guy with a fashion blog made a comment, though, and Lucy had to step in to wine and dine him. Well, she sent me to do it, since he’s gay.”
David swallowed hard. He pictured a gorgeous man with the right amount of muscle and no pesky fat on his hips and thighs. No stupid shoulder bulges that wouldn’t go away.
“So you went to dinner with him?” David asked quietly.
“What?” Noah squawked. “No! No, babe, it’s a figure of speech. I just buttered him up and pretended I cared about his blog.”
“Oh,” David said, relieved. Noah was good at making people feel special. The guy probably fell in love with him right then and there—a smart move on Lucy’s part.
“He was a weirdo,” Noah said. “He’s definitely not getting invited to next year’s show.”
David couldn’t even think about Sunday, let alone next year. Next year, he would have a baby to take care of, and he had no idea where he and Noah were going to fit into the parenthood equation with Caroline, especially if she insisted on raising the baby in Europe.
“I had breakfast with Jacob and Caroline this morning at your place,” David said, changing the subject. “It was hard to be there without you.”
“Jacob hasn’t wrecked my stuff, has he?” Noah asked. Avoiding all mention of Caroline, as usual.
“He changed some decorations and added some dumb posters, but that’s all,” David said, grimacing as the pillows poked at his shoulder bruising. “Caroline is finding out the baby’s gender right before Texas. We’re going together to the appointment, and I’d like you to be there.”
Silence met him on the other end of the line. David’s heartbeat kicked up in his chest.
“Is that okay?” he asked, terrified of the answer.
“I love you,” Noah said. “And I want to be there with you, but you’re not having this baby, Caroline is. She didn’t want me around for the last ultrasound, and it wasn’t nearly as important.”
“But I want you there,” David protested. “Caroline has to accept that you’re part of this and I don’t want that to happen after the baby is already walking around.”
“I know,” Noah soothed. “Maybe I can wait in the lobby or something. You two should do this one on your own.”
“Well, that brings up another thing,” David said, too stung to think about Noah sitting in a doctor’s office lobby by himself while he and Caroline had a life moment. “Caroline booked the venue in Paris. We’re talking about invitations. I wanted to invite your parents.”
“This isn’t a conversation we should be having over the phone,” Noah said delicately, and David’s heart dropped through the floor.
Noah’s parents wanted nothing to do with him—that’s what that response meant. How could they? He was Noah’s fat, mean ex-teammate who had taken their son away from them for Christmas for the first time ever, and he was a complete downgrade from the models Noah used to date. David should have known they would be insulted by the insinuation that they would care about his baby.
David’s phone buzzed with another call, but he ignored it. “Is it because you don’t think you’ll be with me after the baby is born? Is that why you barely acknowledge this?”
“Barely acknowledge? David, we talk about the baby every time we talk,” Noah said sharply—not angry, but not happy either. “And no, I want to be with you forever.”
“So why are you trying to be involved in only some parts of my life? This is my child, Noah.”
“Babe, Caroline doesn’t want me there, okay? It’s really obvious. She wants you there, but not me. I’m not stupid. I don’t want to cause problems between you two.”
David squeezed his eyes shut. “She just doesn’t know you, that’s all. That’s all, Noah. When you’re here and spend some time with her, she’ll be more okay with things. I’m gay. I don’t want to be with her, and this isn’t changing that.”
“I wasn’t saying that it would,” Noah said in that soothing voice of his that always put David more at ease. “Things get complicated with babies, though. There can be a lot of legal problems if Caroline gets pissed and goes scorched earth.”
“She wouldn’t do that,” David protested. “I’m friends with her. We like each other.”
“Babies change things,” Noah repeated gently.
Frustration burned through him, igniting his father’s rage. David clamped down on it, gritting his teeth. He cracked the almonds in half, and suddenly they became food, not a calorie breath mint. David spit them out into his empty water cup before he threw away more calories on his nutrition journal.
“I imagine a family with you all the time, Davey Jones,” Noah said into the silence. “Yeah, this part is weird for me, but over the past few months I’ve been thinking about co-parenting a lot, and there’s no one I’d rather do it with.”
The rage in David ebbed away. He sighed the last of it out. “You really think about it?”
“Yeah. I mean, I think about all that sleep I’m about to lose more than anything, but I think you’ll make a really good dad. You’ve gone through a lot of changes in the past few months, and you’re handling it really well, all things considered.”
“Only because of you,” David said, his cheeks going hot under the glow of Noah’s praise. His phone buzzed with a text. He checked the message. It was Hugh.
About to send an email to the powers that be. Klaus is attending the race. He has a general admission ticket. We can enforce no paddock entry and he won’t be allowed anywhere near you, but since this is a street race in a public place there isn’t much we can do to enforce attendance. FA will be boosting security as a result.
The blood drained from David’s face. His father was probably a few blocks away, watching him. Tomorrow, he would be waiting for the precious seconds when David was alone to change or take a piss. He’d done it easily at Road Atlanta last year.
Did gate security look for baseball bats?
“Babe?” Noah asked. “You there?”
“Yeah, sorry,” David said absently. “Got a text from Hugh about the race. I have to deal with this.”
“No worries,” Noah said, dipping fully into his Aussie accent. “Top secret race info, I’m guessing?”
“Uh-huh,” David replied. He was going to throw up if he thought about Klaus any longer. “Um, but I can still talk for a bit. Just give me a second. Tell me more about the show.”
Klaus wouldn’t wait until race day to strike. If he did something before qualifying, the team had time to claim he was sick. Or maybe Klaus would go to catering and actually make him sick. He’d mentioned David’s sensitive stomach to the chefs before.
The catering staff probably didn’t even know Klaus wasn’t allowed to see him, and the catering trucks were outside of the paddock. He could easily see Klaus asking one of the chefs to add something to David’s lunch with some lie about family tradition.
“—makes me really think about my design,” Noah was saying as David hurried into his bedroom. He locked his bedroom door and went into his closet, shaking all over. “Lace is really difficult to work with, though. I’d like to challenge that it’s not a women’s fabric. I mean, historically, that’s already true, but, you know.”
If Klaus decided to go the violence route, he would try it tonight. David set his phone down and grabbed his championship helmet from the display case in his closet. The plexiglass casing fell to the carpet, narrowly missing his bare feet. Shit.
“—so adding a few pieces of fabric at the cuffs and at the collar on the right shirt could be a cool statement,” Noah said.
“Yeah,” David said. “I can imagine you in something like that.”
“Oh really?”
“Really,” David said, squeezing his hemet as hard as he could between both hands. No give. “Hey, I have to go now. If you make that shirt, send me a photo?”
“I’ll do one better and bring it for Sunday night,” Noah said. “That’ll give me motivation to get it done. Go get ‘em, killer. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” David said. “I love you a lot, always.”
Make sure he knows, just in case.
“Mushy-gushy,” Noah teased fondly. “Can’t wait to kiss you on Sunday. Love you. Have a good sleep, baby.”
The call ended, and David shoved his helmet on. The scent of stale sweat met his nose as sound muffled and the thick padding squeezed his cheeks. He clutched his head, taking rapid breaths.
Calm down. You’re burning calories for no reason.
His stomach let out a long growl for emphasis, and David sank to his knees. The helmet was safe. The helmet was always safe. When he was a kid, he used to stay in his karting helmet for hours after a bad race. That didn’t stop Klaus from punching him in the head, but at least it didn’t hurt.
A baseball bat was nothing to a helmet.
David curled into a ball, hidden under his hanging clothes, with his back pressed against the wall. He’d be safe in this. If he slept in the closet, he’d have enough time to call for help while Klaus broke the bedroom door down.
It was decided, then. No food from catering tomorrow or Sunday, and no sleeping without a helmet.
His stomach twisted in pain, but he ignored it. He’d won races in tougher conditions. This would be nothing.