CHAPTER 20 - CELERY STICKS
celery sticks
CHAPTER twenty
A few days later, David hefted his backpack higher on his shoulders as he approached the private jet waiting on the tarmac. The flight crew took his roller bag and invited him to board, and when he stepped into the jet, he saw all the usual faces for an Oxbow charter. Hugh sat with Benjamin, their head engineer, and Oxbow board members chatted with the PR team as David headed toward the private area in the back of the plane. He pulled the privacy curtain aside to reveal Jacob reading a book about war and chewing on a celery stick. Caroline sat across from him, staring out at the tarmac. She wore a soft-looking jacket and a shirt with ruffles that hid her stomach well.
“Morning,” David said in greeting as he plopped his stuff on the seat next to Jacob. “How are you guys?”
Jacob looked up from his book and smiled with teeth full of celery strings. “Doing swell, Jochmann. Want a celery stick?”
“Sure,” David said as he sat down. Celery had negative calories—it took more calories to digest than it provided. David had been drinking celery juice for the past few days and tripled his mileage on the incline treadmill to counteract all the extra calories Noah was giving him with his dinner meals. So far, his new diet strategy was working.
He took a bite of celery and nodded to Caroline. “How are you feeling?”
Caroline turned to face him, and David noticed dark circles under her eyes. “A bit sick,” she said. “I took some medicine, but the baby is not happy about waking up early.”
David frowned. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Caroline shook her head. “Thank you, though. Where is Noah? I thought he would be with you.”
David buckled his seatbelt and checked his watch. Twenty minutes to takeoff. “He’s not allowed on Oxbow flights. We tried to fight it, but as long as this is a team charter, he has to fly himself or go with Cobalt.”
“Hm. And which did he choose?” Caroline asked, twisting one of the rings on her fingers.
“His flight leaves in an hour. I’m going to wait for him at the airport, and then we’re going to the hotel together.”
Jacob crunched on another piece of celery. “So he can’t come on the charter, but he can stay in your hotel room?”
David shrugged. “Silly, I know.”
He already missed Noah’s arms around him. They’d woken up too late to have sex before they left the apartment, and it left David unsettled, even if he still had the taste of Noah’s tongue in his mouth.
Thankfully, the flight to Austin was short, and he would see Noah again in just a few hours. He fully planned to make up for missing their chance to be together this morning.
“I’m going to try to sleep, then can we talk?” Caroline asked, snapping David from his thoughts.
He’d hoped she’d forgotten about their planned conversation. Pretty much nothing had happened since Caroline announced the baby’s gender to her parents. Noah told his parents the same day, but after a few congratulations and a story about Noah as a baby from Noah’s mother, they moved on to other topics.
“Sure,” David said. “Whenever you’re ready.”
******
Hugh pulled David to the main cabin to talk through the weekend plan while he finished off the celery. They had a lot of promo filming to get through, and the schedule had a complete lineup of interviews, track walks, and VIP schmoozing.
“Any thoughts?” Hugh asked, glancing at their head of PR, a severe woman who didn’t look like she even knew what Instagram was, let alone how to control a social media narrative.
David looked over the schedule again. Media day was going to be a huge undertaking, and currently he wouldn’t be back at the hotel until late. He wanted to spend more time with Noah, but he was well aware that Hugh would pounce on any indication that he was putting his relationship over work.
“I don’t want to have any commitments after the dinner on Thursday,” David said. “You can take out my lunch break and move those interviews there. You can also take out breakfast, and we can do the track walk first thing. I’ll eat something on the way in.”
He wouldn’t, but he’d keep this copy of the schedule so Noah thought he had meals built in.
“Should be easy enough,” the PR lady said.
“And I’ll do the toast for the dinner and say hello to everyone, but I want to get back to the hotel to sleep,” David added. “I’ll leave around eight-thirty, not ten.”
“Sponsors won’t like that,” Hugh said.
“Then don’t schedule a late dinner the day before practice,” David retorted. “We have a lot of things to figure out on Friday.”
Like how his weight was going to affect things. He’d only lost four pounds, which meant he had three pounds of deadweight to try to lose in the next thirty-six hours. The hotel had a sauna that Kyle had already booked out for him, and he planned to sweat out as much weight as he could before the race.
Hugh rolled his eyes but didn’t argue. The PR lady cleared her throat, and after a brief silence, she narrowed her eyes at David. “We also need to ask you a few personal questions, Mr. Jochmann.”
David shivered at the title. “Just call me David. Mr. Jochmann is my dad.”
Hugh glanced at the PR lady, and she offered a wan smile. “Understood. Usually we don’t ask these types of questions, but given the extra scrutiny on your relationship and its proximity to the company, we have to ask: Are you in a relationship with Caroline Rousseau?”
It took a moment for David to understand the question. “No, I’m in a relationship with Noah Caparelli. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” Hugh muttered sarcastically, looking at his phone.
The PR lady made a face. “Well, your proximity to Caroline is being noticed. It seems particularly… fond.”
Alarm bells blared in David’s head. He had to remind himself that Oxbow had no idea about the pregnancy—he was so wrapped up in Caroline’s texts and photos throughout his work days that he’d forgotten those were limited to his phone.
“We’re not together,” David said. “We’re very good friends, and she’s Jacob’s cousin. We’re all on good terms.”
“So there’s nothing you need to tell us?”
David stared at her, willing himself to calm down. Maybe this lady had picked up on Caroline’s pregnancy somehow, or maybe Caroline had said something that tipped them off.
David shook his head. “What, you think I’m cheating on Noah? Is that what this is?”
Better to play dumb and go for the jugular.
“I’m merely pointing out that the proximity to Caroline is raising some eyebrows,” the PR lady said. “I have no interest in judging your activities, David, but if the general public thinks you’re having an affair, that could have monetary impacts with sponsorship and brand deals.”
David let out a snort. It was always about money with these people. They didn’t care about Noah’s potential heartbreak or David’s relationships in general; they only cared about him maintaining the money he brought in as champion.
“Noah is the love of my life,” David growled. “You and everyone else must not be paying attention if you think I’m cheating on him because I’m hanging out with my ex. I’m gay.”
Hugh flinched at the word. David still felt a jolt of unease every time he said it out loud—his image of a gay man didn’t fit the person he was. Everyone looked at him differently now, more than they did Noah. Noah was still half “right” with his bisexuality and his track record with beautiful women.
“Maybe if you let Noah come around Oxbow, I could put those rumors to rest,” David added. “He’s going to be with me at every race.”
“Noah poses a risk to our intellectual property,” Hugh said, locking his phone. “We’re already at risk because you two are living together.”
“Fuck off, Hugh,” David snarled. “Noah’s a professional. We don’t talk about trade secrets. We’d rather fuck each other.”
Hugh and the PR lady both winced at that. David stood up from his seat and left without another word, pushing past the partition and back into the VIP area where Jacob was watching onboards from last year’s race at COTA, preparing for the weekend.
Caroline looked up from her romance book and shut it as David turned to Jacob and said, “Jacob, out. I need to talk to Caroline.”
Jacob dragged his eyes from the iPad screen. “Can it wait ten minutes?”
“No, it fucking can’t,” David snapped.
David didn’t look at social media often, but Noah did. If people were talking about him and Caroline, Noah had probably already seen it, and David didn’t want him feeling any kind of insecurity. Maybe he was a shit boyfriend in a lot of ways, but he refused to allow anyone to think he would cheat on Noah.
Caroline hissed something in French, and Jacob grumbled something back before slinking out of his seat and out into the main cabin.
Once David pulled the partition curtain shut, he sat down across from his ex-girlfriend and folded his hands on the table. “People think we’re having an affair.”
Caroline put her book back in her bag, unfazed. “I know.”
“We need to stop people from thinking that. Noah has been through enough.”
Caroline’s jaw twitched. “Right. Noah is the one going through things.”
Shit. David let out a sigh in an attempt to diffuse. “Sorry. I know you’ve been through a lot too.”
“That is an understatement.”
Another step wrong. Klaus was probably sitting up at whatever bar he’d decided to haunt today, smirking to himself at what a failure his son had become without him.
“You wanted to talk,” David said, trying to restart the conversation. “Let’s talk.”
Caroline nodded and looked down at her stomach. “Well, there are many things I want to talk about, but I feel like I can’t because you’re so busy all the time. It would be different if we were together, of course, but we aren’t, and I don’t want to take away from your focus on the championship.”
David had been so focused on his diet, his training, Noah, and Caroline that he often forgot a championship was even his true goal. Most of his decision revolved around getting problems off his back. Last year, he’d been the one creating all the problems, so he supposed that was deserved.
Guilt twisted up in him. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way. Yes, I have a lot of things going on, but the baby is really important to me—and so are you.”
He added the last part too quickly, and Caroline definitely noticed.
“See, that is what I mean,” Caroline said. “Some days I feel like you only see me as the thing… Damn, what is the word? Incubating. You only see me as the thing incubating your son.”
David didn’t know what to say to that. Judging by his past few responses to things, he’d probably say the exact wrong thing and make Caroline even more upset. He didn’t see her as an incubator at all. If he thought that, he wouldn’t have flown out to France to visit her so many times over the season break. He genuinely liked spending time with her—she was one of the few people he could be himself with.
Be honest , he reminded himself. Lying would only snare him later—it always did.
“I’m very cautious because I’m trying to be respectful to Noah,” David finally said. “Rebuilding trust with him is a fragile process. I don’t want him to think there’s anything romantic going on between us, so that’s probably why I seem distant. I don’t see you as an incubator, Caroline. You’re one of the few people I consider myself close to.”
To his surprise, tears jumped to Caroline’s eyes. She took a shaky breath and shook her head. “I really did think you loved me, David. Then you pulled the rug out from under me over a weekend. One moment you were looking into my eyes and saying you loved me, then you’re telling me that Noah is the love of your life and you have to go be with him.”
David looked down at his hands. His thumbs were all torn up on the sides, spotted with scars and torn skin from picking at them when he was hungry. Those few weeks were a blur in his memory thanks to the severity of Klaus’s beating, but his skin prickled with guilt every time he thought about how blunt he’d been in breaking up with Caroline. Noah’s accident changed the course of his life. One moment, he’d been ready to live a happy lie with Caroline, and the next he physically hurt at the thought of not being at Noah’s side.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen that way,” David said quietly. “Noah was in the hospital. I couldn’t imagine one more second away from him, but I didn’t want to cheat on you.”
“Don’t expect me to thank you for that,” Caroline growled.
David winced. “I know. The whole thing was… I was very horrible to both of you.”
“Well, I’m worried it will happen again,” Caroline said. “You completely stopped talking to me until I told you I was pregnant. So what about when the baby comes? Will you just pick him up and leave and not even talk to me?”
She had every right to think that way. David would think the same if the tables were turned. He cleared his throat. “No, that’s not what I want,” David replied. “I want to raise him together. Noah and I, and you and whoever you end up with.”
Caroline shook her head again, muttering to herself in French. She drummed her nails on the armrest and looked at him as she said, “I still have feelings for you, David. You never gave me a chance to stop feeling them.”
The words hit David like an electric shock. He sat frozen, flashing through all the memories of his time as Caroline’s boyfriend. She’d been flirty and touchy and always gave him looks of complete adoration—nothing like she’d treated him since their breakup. She was so professional now, reserved, and womanly, in direct opposition to all of her girlish antics before.
“You… You love me?” David asked, and the words flopped around in his mouth on their way out.
Caroline blinked her tears away. “I don’t think you can love someone who did what you did to me, but I suppose it’s something close to that.”
David didn’t understand. He couldn’t think of one quality about himself that anyone would love—certainly not two people. Definitely not two people like Noah and Caroline.
“Caroline, I’m gay,” David said gently.
“You did not seem gay when we were in bed together,” Caroline said.
Blood rushed to David’s cheeks. He still didn’t know how he’d managed to have sex with Caroline as many times as he had. Or that he managed to have fun during most of them. Compared to Noah, all sex seemed so dull. Of course, he couldn’t say that out loud. He didn’t want to hurt her more than he already had.
“I didn’t just lie to you. I lied to myself too,” David said softly. “When the alternative was my father trying to hurt me, it was easy to embrace good things. We were a good thing, but I don’t love you the way I love Noah. I thought I could at the time. I really, genuinely did.”
Caroline gave a minute shake of her head. “That’s what I worry about. Noah does not want a baby. What if he asks you not to be involved?”
“He won’t do that.”
“Babies are not fun when they are not yours,” Caroline said. “He is willing to ruin his sleep, deal with baby messes, tantrums, constant crying?”
David bristled. “If we include him in things, he’ll have a connection to the baby. He’ll love our son—he’ll be Noah’s son too. Noah is really trying, Caroline.”
He still couldn’t wrap his head around Caroline still having feelings for him. It made sense, in a way, but seemed so out of place at the same time. Noah was going to be upset with him; he could feel it. Noah would tell him not to hang out with her and to distance himself… exactly like Caroline was saying.
“What do you see this looking like?” David asked, trying to get the bad thoughts out of his head. “Us as parents. Forget about me and my career. What do you see when you think about our future?”
Caroline worked her jaw, warring over her next words. David softened his gaze, even as guilt clawed up his throat.
“I would like to live in Europe,” she said quietly. “You… You and Noah living nearby, as I assume I don’t get what I really want in this dream, which is you and I together.”
“Sorry,” David said by way of answer. His heart felt bruised. He wished he could give her and Noah what they wanted, somehow.
Caroline nodded. “I want our son to grow up with both of his parents. I want him to be happy, and I want you to be happy too. I know you’ll be a good father, but you have to be present to be a father. There is a reason most drivers don’t have children until their careers are over.”
David wanted to be a present father, too. He wanted to see his son grow up, to show him how loving and supportive a dad could be—something he rarely had growing up. Even now, he didn’t blame his father for disciplining him so harshly as a child. He still thought he deserved it. Every day, he proved he did.
“I’m at the beginning of my career,” David said. “I have twenty more years of driving, if I want. Probably ten in the open-wheel series. If I go to WEC, I can be an endurance driver until I’m fifty.”
“So, what do you see in your dream world, then? Driving?” Caroline asked, folding her hands over her stomach.
David opened his mouth to reply, then stopped himself. The first vision that popped into his head was the one his father painted for him: a luxurious life with a beautiful woman, raising a son to take on his legacy. Fast cars, beautiful houses, and a baby boy who adored him. A normal, acceptable life.
His reality was so much different. The future he really wanted seemed like a sinful one—the wrong answer on a test. He swallowed hard.
“It’s not real,” he admitted.
Caroline let out a laugh. “Neither is mine, David.”
Hunger gnawed at his belly, reminding him just how fucked his future could be if he kept messing up. David cleared his throat again.
“I’m with Noah. We’re happy, and he’s won his championship. I’m happy too, and whenever I’m done racing, you and the baby are in the garage waiting for me. I can hold our son and explain car things to him. And my dad is there, and he’s proud of me—and there was some explanation for what he did. Like, maybe he was sick, but now he’s better. And we’re all a big family.”
Clouds obscured the sky outside the plane window. Sitting inside a metal tube in the sky made it seem like maybe when they landed, everything would be different.
Fat chance.
“And when we go home, it’s Europe, but it only takes a second to get there. And we live next to each other, so our son can go back and forth and see us. And Noah loves him, and his parents love him and me,” David continued, unable to stop himself. “His parents and my parents get along. Everyone likes each other so much that we all decide to spend the holidays together as three families. Nobody gets mad at anyone.”
It felt good to put it out there, just once. He hadn’t even told Noah that stuff. Noah would kiss him and smile and say that it was a great dream, but they needed to be realistic. His father was never going to be near him again. Klaus isn’t sick , he would say, he’s just an asshole.
Caroline smiled fondly, then jolted. David snapped to attention as she ushered him over. David all but leapt across the seats to sit beside her, watching her face for signs of pain. Did they even have a doctor on board? Holy fuck, why didn’t they have a doctor on board?
Caroline grabbed his hand and put it on her stomach. David furrowed his brow—then felt pressure against his palm.
“Is that—?”
“I think he’s stretching,” Caroline said. “Wow, that feels so weird. Much more uncomfortable than I thought.”
David gaped down at Caroline’s stomach, gently pressing back against what he assumed was his son’s foot. He felt a little kick and gasped in time with Caroline.
“I think he knows it’s you,” Caroline said.
“Is this the first time?” David asked.
She nodded, rubbing the other side of her belly. Her smile flickered at the edges. “We have to tell people, David.”
Fear curled around David’s spine. His father’s finding out spelled danger for everyone, especially if he found out during a race weekend in a place where they didn’t have complete control.
“I’m just scared about my dad,” David murmured, gently thumbing Caroline’s belly. The pressure disappeared, but he didn’t take his hand away in case the baby could somehow feel it.
Caroline folded her hand over his. David shot her a look, but her gaze was concerned, with no hint of romance.
“I think I should go home,” Caroline said softly. “If I announce from France, your father has no ability to get to me. There will be less photos, and people won’t be able to find us together.”
David shook his head. “You should at least stay for this weekend.”
“I was only staying for you,” Caroline said, and this time he heard the aching fondness there.
They were close enough to kiss, he realized. Unease crept up the back of David’s neck, and he turned his attention back to the baby.
“People are going to know the baby is yours right away,” Caroline said quietly. “Everyone is going to think you cheated on Noah, even when they find out the timeline doesn’t match up.”
David closed his eyes. “I know.”
Caroline patted his hand. “So be with him, and only him, this weekend. I have a lot to think about, and you have a lot to discuss with him. I want to be with my family when I announce on social media.”
David tongued the inside of his cheek. Finally, he nodded and met her gaze. “Let’s not leave it up for debate,” he said. “Post the pictures of the ultrasound and a photo of us. Maybe the one from the first ultrasound that your mom took. We can do one of those posts where it comes from both of us.”
Caroline’s shoulders relaxed—he hadn’t noticed how tense she was. “Really? You want to do that?”
“I’ll talk to Noah to make sure it’s okay with him, but I think this is the best way,” David said. “I don’t want anyone making up stories. And my father is going to find out regardless, so I would rather control when.”
“And what about your maman?”
Pain lanced through David’s heart. He shook his head. “She doesn’t want to speak to me.”
Caroline looked like she wanted to argue, then nodded. “Okay. We will talk schedules, but I think the next time we see each other will be when you come to Paris for the shower, yes?”
David frowned. He had three races until then—a triple-header. Caroline would look so different the next time he saw her in person, but he couldn’t ask her to come stay. It was more important to work things out for when the baby was here anyway.
“I guess so,” David said. Caroline lifted her hand and smoothed his hair back the way his mother used to do on the rare occasion when she comforted him after a beating.
Caroline returned her hands to her lap. “Now that we both know what we want, we can start on the future for real this time.”
“Yeah,” David said, offering a smile as he finally took his hand off her belly. Too bad his future was impossible. He glanced at Jacob’s empty plate. “Can I get you anything to eat? I think I’m going to have more celery.”
Caroline leaned back in her seat. “I’d love a sandwich. With pickles. Please.”
David smiled. “Coming right up.”