Chapter 21 Ravenna, Italy
RAVENNA, ITALY
SAGE
I make it three miles before my stupid fucking tears make driving unsafe and I have to pull over.
I’m overwhelmed. When Sandy mentioned telling a woman he loves her…
shit, the last time I was that scared was when I had a big crash at Interlagos in the wet and got T-boned.
The second before contact, it was like I could feel myself being fatally crushed, and…
well, the L-word thing wasn’t much different, even though Alexander wasn’t technically declaring it.
I still don’t know why he said that. Was it a warning: I’m incapable of love, so don’t hold your breath?
Was it an overture for a dialogue about our respective hopes for whatever the fuck we’re doing?
Or was he test-driving how those words feel?
Because this has gotten serious whether we wanted it to or not.
And worst of all, I think I actually might want it.
I turn off the engine and start doing breathing exercises.
The car’s top is down, and above me a huge laurel tree is shrugging in the breeze, making shadow patterns on me, and I focus on that because I have to stop thinking about turning around and going back to the villa.
There are screechy bugs trilling off in the distance, so I switch to concentrating on that as I take five more measured breaths.
Oh, fuck it…
Snatching my phone from the console, I tap the top of my text thread with Alexander and call him. It rings four times and I get nervous and almost hang up, but then there he is.
“Salvi? Are you all right?”
It’s all warm and nice in my chest, because for one thing I’m hearing his voice, and for another, he’s obviously concerned, and…
the continuity of that fact is pleasing.
I don’t hang out with sex partners enough for them to have an investment in what I’m doing from one moment to the next, once we’re not in bed anymore.
But something here feels comfortingly unbroken, real, like there’s a string tied between us.
I have to swallow hard before I can speak.
“Yeah, there’s no crisis,” I tell him. “Like, not with the car or anything.” The lump in my throat strangles me and tears leak out along with a sort of emotion-hiccup.
“Oh, pet,” he says quietly.
Through the phone I hear a noise I recognize, the plink of a single piano key, and it makes my heart ache even more, because I know that sound, and things about Sandy are getting familiar and that both elates and terrifies me.
“Are you crying?” he asks.
“Of course not,” I snap.
He chuckles, and I love the sound in my ear. “No, because you’re ‘nails,’ wasn’t it?”
I sniffle, reaching for the glove box to see if I can find tissue.
There’s a cocktail napkin from some Italian bar, and I swipe at my nose with it before realizing there’s a girl’s phone number on the back.
Who the hell writes their number down anymore?
I hope it wasn’t important to whoever used this car last. This time it wasn’t me.
Thinking about it makes me realize that I don’t want to meet people in bars anymore. I just want to lie in bed with Alexander and talk and have sex.
Goddammit, I fucking like him so much…
“Sandy,” I start tentatively, “I’m sorry I was bitchy about Julian this morning, and it’s not true that I don’t want to talk to you about it.
I majorly do. But I’m not good at talking to people I sleep with.
I mean, most of the reason I stick to hookups is so I don’t have to talk.
It’s like, ‘I don’t speak Greek, and you don’t speak English, so let’s just get down to business,’ y’know? ”
After a pause, he sighs. “I do know. All too well.”
I’m not sure if he means me or himself, but I press on. Now that I’ve started, I need to say it all, or I might never be brave enough again.
I take a controlled breath. “As for how Jules is doing, I don’t know because we aren’t allowed to talk with him, and…
I was relieved about that, because it means I don’t have to.
I think I’m a big coward that way. But also I’m really trying to understand what he’s going through.
I got some books and I’m learning a lot.
Truth is, the day he was supposed to go in, he went AWOL and had a junk bender in some Swiss hotel room. I’m worried.”
“Fuckin’ hell.”
My throat cramps, and I tip my head up to look at the tree.
“And I haven’t told Jules I love him, no.
Which I do. But… I also hate him, because he let me almost die once and I can’t forgive him.
” I pinch my nose with the napkin again.
There’s a long enough silence that I look at the phone.
“Um, Sandy? Don’t be disappointed in me. I know it sounds shitty—”
“It’s not that. I just wish I could hold you right now. You can’t be that far away. Could you come back? And tell me more about this?”
“No,” I say miserably. “I have to go to work.”
“Understood.” He sighs again. “I very much want to see you though.” He does a little throat-clear. “There is another race before Spain. I could come to Miami. A plane ride is a plane ride, and… frankly, the thought of not seeing you for a month has me wretched.”
Now I go quiet, because I don’t know if I can say the next part.
“Salvi, love?”
“I… I need a month. Because I’m feeling sort of, um, too attached.”
I can hear the smile in his voice. “Truly?”
“Yeah, but don’t get all pleased with yourself. I don’t know how this is even happening. You’re, uh… you’re way less of a dick than I thought, I guess.”
“Damning with faint praise, but cheers,” he returns, amused.
I roll my eyes. “Why aren’t you just an asshole? It’d make things so much easier if you were still the ‘yourself’ I thought you were months ago.”
In a sort of pensive tone, he says, “I’m unsure if I even know the ‘myself’ I thought I was months ago.” His next words are lower, and I strain to hear them over the insect-shrieking noise. “I find I’m a person I like a lot better when I’m with you.”
It’s so similar to what I thought about myself last night, while we were talking at the restaurant, that I’m stunned. To stop from confessing it, I switch to teasing him.
“You know, your douchebaggery is so legendary that Cosmin does a hilarious impression of you. He told me about one time before he and Phae were official and you tried to give him advice about women, and you were all, ‘Let her see you with some hotties! Make her jealous! Chicks dig it!’” I laugh at the bad, confused mashup of accents I’m trying for—a Romanian guy trying to sound like a British guy trying to sound like an American frat boy.
“He told me he threatened to give you a beatdown.”
Alexander laughs, and it sounds like both relief and embarrassment. “Guilty as charged. I was trying to impress him and ended up looking like a twat. Which… well, historically it’s a thing I do far too often, and I’m not proud of that. It’s not who I want to be.”
For a half minute, we’re silent, just being with each other. I swear, if he coaxed me a little, I’d point this fucking car east again…
“You really prefer to wait until Barcelona?” he asks softly.
No! I don’t even want to wait until tomorrow.
“Yeah, definitely. Sorry.” My eyes sting, and I rub them with a thumb and forefinger.
“I’ll be counting down the days.” After a pause, he adds, “And as long as we’re making confessions… erm, regarding what I mentioned when you were in the shower… I may never have said those words to a woman—not yet—but I absolutely have thought them of late.”
My heart hammers, and I put my hand on my chest, wondering if I’ll be able to feel it right through my sternum like a cartoon.
I force a carefree laugh. “Clear air, smooth track. Let’s just not fuck it up.
” I start the car’s engine and rev it loud to drown out the wobble in my voice when I say goodbye, then whip back onto the road in a spray of dust and gravel.
MIAMI
Home race is always a big deal, not only because you want to do well, but also the added pressure is you want specifically to not suck. There have been so many drivers who completely stink up the track at their home race, and the media are rarely kind about it.
Florida is just about as far as you can get from my actual home and stay on the same landmass, but it’s still a home race.
Definitely couldn’t have Sandy tagging along, making me all scatterbrained and puppy-lovey.
Also my mom is coming to stay with me and Priya in my suite, and I’m super stoked to hang out.
The morning she’s scheduled to arrive, early in the race week, she sends a message that makes me nervous: Your dad isn’t coming along and I have something we need to talk about.
Um, fuck.
I didn’t expect my dad to come to Miami, because he’s usually too busy with work.
The fact that my mom explicitly mentioned it, along with the vague “something we need to talk about,” doesn’t bode well.
And it must be serious—a thing she’s afraid I’d find out anyway if she didn’t deliver the news—because otherwise she knows not to stress me out before a race.
Pri goes to pick Mom up because I’m in a bunch of back-to-back training sessions, then a team meeting, and won’t be able to see her until early evening.
When I open the door of the suite, I smell her presence right away, but it’s nice, not one of those lady perfumes like a sickening fog of flowers.
Mom uses this berry-scented hand lotion, and her normal person smell is a little like bread baking, so there’s that too, and I’m tired and sore but I relax immediately, before I even have the door closed.