Chapter 2
OVERSTEER: REAR OF THE CAR SLIDES OUT
My gaze sweeps the master bedroom as if I didn’t spend last night wrapped around Christin. Am I seeing it differently because it’s likely the last time I’ll be here?
No, I’ll fix this. I have to.
Still, my movements are slow as I wander back and forth gathering the things I’ve scattered across the room—my duffel bag tossed in the corner, a jacket slung over a chair, my watch on the nightstand like I actually belong in this space.
My chest constricts when it hits me. I lost the right to be surrounded by her warmth when my brain unearthed something from my past without warning.
My hands move quickly, but my heart is lying dormant in her lounge.
“I love Christin, but she’d disappear on the circuit.”
Jesus. My mind spins helplessly as I replay the moment over and over.
My heart pushes back against my mind because of my casual dismissal that Christin wouldn’t be ready to handle life on the circuit. I recall the lame way I tried to tell her it came out wrong, but Christin didn’t accept it.
Why should she? With a few words, I lost everything.
Now she’s going to disappear from my life, and I can’t stop it.
An ache spreads through me because the last thing she has of me is that crap I spewed to Dario.
Christin is the person who melted my frozen heart.
I bark out a short, humorless laugh. “Brilliant job, you arse. You ruined everything, just like they said you would.”
I pace back and forth across the room to release tension.
To delay packing. To avoid leaving. It doesn’t help.
If anything, it clarifies the vision of what happened in the lounge—the regal way she sauntered in holding a teapot she’d prepared especially for me.
I fist my jumper as I recall what I said once about the way Americans brew tea.
It wasn’t even a complaint, just an observation.
“This is one area of my life where speed isn’t the ideal outcome.”
After she finishes laughing, she asks, “What is the outcome when it comes to tea?”
“A delicious beverage.”
She leans forward, chin resting on her fist. “Explain to me how pouring hot water over a tea bag is wrong?”
I grin. “You shouldn’t rush it. By using the perfect temperature water, the leaves do what they’re meant to do.”
“Which is what? Genuflect?”
“No, smarty. It allows the water to extract every bit of flavor they can give.”
She didn’t question my sanity or laugh. Then, being the amazing woman she is, she researched proper kettles, different brands of loose-leaf tea, and the best service.
The next time she made it, I remember taking a sip and stilling because it tasted like the kind my parents’ servants made me back in the kitchen at my family’s estate.
When I told her it was delicious, she beamed. Like my happiness mattered more than any inconvenience.
My grip tightens even as I try to rip the jumper clenched in my hands.
Flinging it down, my breath catches as it all clicks into place with brutal clarity.
You spoke about Christin with less respect than they did you.
Aloud, I mutter, “When you come from a family of bloody bellends, it’s no surprise you turned out to be a bloody wanker yourself. ”
Even speaking the words out loud, I know it’s not strong enough to describe my deplorable behavior toward the woman I’ve been falling for every second we’ve spent together. I cringe at my weak explanation. Lord knows, the very last thing I deserve is her forgiveness, but I need to apologize.
If not today, then soon.
Finishing packing, I toss my duffle over my shoulder as I prepare to vacate her home. After all, as much as I wish I could turn back time, I can’t. The only thing I can do is give Christin the space she requested.
The front door closes behind me with a soft click that echoes as loudly as a shot in the night.
Hitching my duffel onto my shoulder, I start down the long driveway to wait for my Uber. Halfway down, my legs betray me by locking up. Like, if I don’t move, the last hour will be erased by sheer determination.
Oh, to have that happen.
One minute, Dario was teasing me about whether Christin was going to have time to join us on the circuit, and the next, those vile words left my lips. I know deep down in my soul they are patently untrue.
But the lack of trust in anything lasting twisted everything before I could stop it. It’s what happens when you’re taught early on that affection comes with conditions. The perpetual silence and dismissiveness I endured meant I wasn’t worthy.
I failed Christin. I failed us.
But despite the crucial decisions I have to make regularly in a race car, I choked. I couldn’t explain to her what happened.
Until Dario reacted, I was operating on autopilot. Before my brain had a chance to move into the right position, Christin eviscerated me. I couldn’t find the words to undo the damage I’d done. Instead, I was thrown out with her believing I found her unworthy.
Dragging a hand down my face, I brush away the moisture building under my eyes.
I sweep the property like I’m searching for a reset button that doesn’t exist. I’ve driven at two hundred miles an hour with less panic than the idea of having lost Christin from my life.
I am finally able to force the words out with only the trees to overhear.
“I’m so sorry. Please let me explain why that happened. ”
I wish I could go back inside to try to make her understand, but that’s no longer an option. What does matter is how she felt. And it’s going to take a hell of a lot for me to show her I didn’t mean what I said.
It might even mean telling her the truth about who I am.
The idea causes me to sway where I stand, unsteady as I contemplate opening up a wound I tried to forge shut a decade ago. Thinking about my past makes my heart pound and my vision blur. Still, despite how I was once treated, I owe her an explanation. “I was wrong. So wrong.”
In my heart, Christin will never fade away. She’s my personal race blur. She’s what causes my focus to compress and time to distort—not the machine I drive at outrageous speeds. Everything unnecessary drops away because being with her is better than anything else in the world.
But I understand why Christin took the steps to protect herself by throwing me out. “You don’t get to berate me in my own home and then stay here.”
She’s hurt. I did that to her. Me.
For a second, something reckless surges inside me.
I want to throw my bag down and storm back in there.
Fix it; fix us. Say something—anything—to make us right.
But I stop myself because the only thing that matters is Christin’s feelings.
“She’s not obligated to listen to my explanation. She doesn’t owe me a bloody thing.”
I force myself to put one foot in front of the other and continue down her driveway. Even as incremental as the distance really is, it forces me to acknowledge I lost her. This. Us. All because of a past that has its grip on me. By saying those words, I forced the outcome in my direction.
As I reach the lower gate, I understand something with brutal clarity. I didn’t just say the wrong thing. I destroyed everything.
I just threw away what could’ve been my one chance at love.
I don’t know how to begin to repair this.