Chapter 27
Annalise
I pace back and forth on the roof of my apartment building, thumbnail in between my teeth while my tablet rests along my right forearm. I came up here to complete a few work tasks before going down to spend my evening with Chloe.
This is the third time I’m going over my weekend’s to-do list.
There’re too many details I want to pin down tonight before leaving work for tomorrow.
I’ve met with Norm, who’s in town for the weekend, and we’ve discussed two major brand deals that Travis already has in the works.
He’s introduced him to a few other, smaller brands who may be interested, and we’ve gone through the contract for Liam and Randy’s lifestyle brand to get Travis’ approval before he signs.
That was all between shuffling my brother from one sports journalist to another over the past few days. The thrill of race weekend hums in the air. While there’s always an electrifying energy in the air at every race, there’s something special about the Monaco Grand Prix.
Not only does it kick off the season’s European tour, but the already glamorous lifestyle of the country ratchets up an exponential amount, bringing in some of the world’s most elusive and wealthy names.
I also consider that Travis crashed in last year’s race, leaving him unable to finish, and I know he feels the added pressure to perform better this season. Mysteriously, that thought leads me to think about Max.
Traitorous thoughts run through my mind. A smile I don’t fully consent to makes its way to my mouth as an image of Max crossing the finish line, the checkered flag waving in his first place finish. It’s a horrible thought because I should want the champion of this weekend’s race to be my brother.
Yet, Max’s track record in Monaco comes to mind.
He’s never won a Grand Prix here or any other of the European races.
He tends to drift at this part of the season.
I always chalked it up to his partying reputation—the fact that he cared more about late nights with nameless and faceless groupies than actually focusing enough to win.
But the more I’ve gotten to know him, that version I once held of Max in my head doesn’t stand up to reality.
I shake my head and close my eyes, willing myself to refocus on the work I came up to the roof to do.
“Chloe’s waiting for me,” I whisper to myself with my eyes closed.
But when I open my eyes, he’s standing there.
My eyes widen, and for a split second I think I must’ve conjured up an even more realistic version of Max than the one that was already in my head. It’s not until a muscle in his jaw twitches that I realize he’s not a figment of my imagination.
He’s the real thing, standing in front of me.
Fisted hands at his sides, dark jeans covering his long legs, a short-sleeve polo that shows the veins of his forearms. A light breeze offers me the scent of the cedarwood with a hint of black current cologne he wears.
There’s a tug at that place inside of my chest, directly behind my ribs.
It reminds me of the longing I’ve felt over the past couple of days. It whispers in my ear that I’ve missed this scent.
No, not the scent. The man wearing it.
“Hey,” I say above a whisper. It’s a greeting and question at the same time.
It asks what are you doing here?
“I went out for a walk,” he says as if answering my unspoken question.
I look him over again, noting the baseball cap on his head and summarize that he’s wearing it low to disguise himself against the onslaught of fans and onlookers who’d be clamoring for his autograph or a picture with him if they found Max Ferreira wandering the streets alone.
“You shouldn’t do that,” I blurt out, realizing the type of danger he could’ve put himself in. “Wandering out by yourself,” I say when he raises a curiosity filled eyebrow. “You could get hurt.”
It sounds a bit silly as the words come out of my mouth but I won’t take them back. Nor will I acknowledge how suspiciously close my comments sound to what Max had told me that night in Japan as he pulled me out of that park.
I may refuse to acknowledge the comparison but the knowing smirk playing on Max’s lips says it all.
“Are you concerned about me, princess?”
His question is full of the typical smugness I’d come to associate with Max over the years, but there’s an underlying tone that calls out to me even more. Intrigue? Wonder? Curiosity?
I can’t put my finger on it.
Then there’s also the way he says the word ‘princess.’ The few times he’s called me that over the years, it was always with a snide, almost disgusted tone.
Now, it’s different, softer, a caress rather than a verbal jab. The worst part is I don’t even know if he recognizes the change. It’s almost as if he’s slipped into it naturally as a term of endearment.
The pit of my stomach warms.
“It’s okay if you are,” he says, reaching out and intertwining his fingertips with mine. I don’t know when he closed the space between us.
Looking down at my hand in his, I wait for the panic that should overwhelm me. Max Ferreira is standing in front of me, holding my hand and looking down at me like I’m the only person in the world.
The intensity of his heated haze should have my heart in my throat at the very least.
Not to mention the fact that my sister is only a few floors down and knows that I’m up here. My parents and brothers are within walking distance in their own apartments and I’m standing here holding hands with my brother’s sworn rival.
None of that even comes to mind though. The usual feelings of betrayal and deceit don’t make an appearance. Not when I take a second look into Max’s eyes and notice something I hadn’t seen before.
A look of loss resides beneath the heated stare. He doesn’t blink or turn his face away, shielding his gaze. Which means he wants me to see it.
“What’s wrong?” I place my tablet down on the table beside me, and with my free hand I cup his cheek, a slight lift of my heels brings me closer to his face. This stance is intimate. Anyone peering at the two of us would instantly know that there’s something deeper between us.
Max causes a tiny gasp to escape from my throat when he turns and kisses the inside of my palm.
His hold on my hand tightens as he steps back and leads me over to a spot at the edge of the roof.
He leans against the half wall and slides down, taking a seat on the edge, facing the inside of the building.
I sit next to him. He takes my hand into his.
For almost a full minute there’s silence between us as Max draws figure eights with the tip of his finger on the inside of my wrist. The touch is so light, almost imperceptible yet it causes waves of electrified currents to course through me.
“Did you know Monaco is where my father’s one perfect lap occurred?” he asks, surprising me.
It takes a second for my brain to come back online. When it does, I nod.
Everyone knows about Severino Ferreira’s one perfect lap. The one that those who were lucky enough to witness still talk about more than two decades years later. The qualifying lap that set the standard for races to come.
According to witnesses, Severino performed so well, not one slip, one slightly off corner and perfect mastery over a notoriously difficult car that season led to Severino shaving more than two full seconds off of his already first place finish to place pole.
It’s truly the stuff of legends in the sport of motor racing.
Unfortunately, at the time qualifying races weren’t filmed and no one who wasn’t there would ever get the chance to see it.
“You’ve heard about it.” Max chuckles.
“Is there a fan who hasn’t?”
He shakes his head. “He told me about it that night,” he continues. “He would always tell me about his races the night after. Even if I was in bed, he would sneak into my room and wake me up because he knew I would cry in the morning if he hadn’t.”
“You used to cry?” I tease.
He glares at me.
“I want pictures as proof.”
“I’ve got your proof,” he says, his voice resembling a growl.
“That almost sounds like a threat.”
He squeezes my hand.
“Monaco was always his favorite race of the season.” He pauses. “No,” he corrects. “Second favorite. Brazil was always his first choice. But here is where he had his perfect lap.”
“What did he tell you about it?”
Max glances down at me, obviously hearing the awe in my voice. No one can be a true fan of Formula 1 and not have heard about Severino’s perfect lap, and not wish to be able to have seen it.
Today races are recorded from almost every angle. I can pull up almost any race within the past fifteen years and rewatch at my leisure. Not Severino’s perfect lap, though.
“He said, for the first time, he knew what it was like to fly. When he described it, he said it was the second time he felt closest to his Creator.”
“What was the first?” I swallowed, snapping my mouth shut, wishing I could pull the question back. Sometimes my mouth runs before my brain has had a chance to catch up and stop me. My curiosity gets the best of me.
Max pauses, something taking over his face that I can’t name. “The day I was born,” he explains, voice thick with emotion.
It’s my turn to squeeze his hand.
“I remember being there at the race. I was too young to understand what was happening, but I remember a hush fell over the entire crowd. Something that never happens. Ever. But that day it was quiet right before everyone erupted into applause the moment he crossed the finish line, crushing his previous day’s record.
“I knew without understanding that even if he didn’t win the Grand Prix that year, he’d already won.”
A frowning wrinkle appears along Max’s forehead.
“We waited for him in the garage and the entire team swarmed him as soon as he was out of his car. He cut through all of them and lifted me high in the air, shaking me with a look in his eye that I don’t remember ever seeing.”
Max goes on to say something else but snaps his jaw closed with a slight shake of his head.
“Not long after, my mother took me by the hand and led me out of the paddock, saying we had to go home. I remember, for some reason she put me to bed super early, even after I begged her to let me stay up until Dad got home.”
I fight hard to keep the glare off of my face at the mention of his mother. I’ve done a great job of completely avoiding the woman in the past few weeks. Mainly out of my fear that if I do see her again, I would smack her.
I can guess why she didn’t want Max staying up for his father that night. And unlike most loving parents, I doubt it had anything to do with true care or concern for her son’s well-being.
“Years later, as a teenager I read an article of an interview with my dad. The journalist asked him about that race. He’d told them the same thing he’d told me. That he knew what it felt like to fly. That it was like his soul hovered above his body, watching everything and guiding him.”
He stops, again looking back at me as if choosing his next words carefully.
“That was the moment I started to feel jealous.”
“Of who?”
“Everyone,” he answers. “All of the journalists, fans, teammates who had a story about my father. All of the fans who wore his name on a piece of their clothing. The journalists who talked about a joke he made with them one time during a race weekend.
“It felt like everyone had a piece of my father. A piece I could never have because by the time I was seven years old, he was gone. They had years of memories and shared stories with him that I wouldn’t have. Parts of him that he had yet to share with me, but I had to share what I had with them.
“Every time I stepped onto a racetrack, I got the comparisons, the questions on if my preparation was similar or different from my father’s, what words of wisdom do I think he would have given me before a race, what do you think he would’ve said after that race,” he says in a mock journalist’s tone.
“I had to share him with the world. I hated it. I still do.”
“I hated it, too,” I say without thinking.
Max turns to me with a narrowing of the space between his eyebrows. The corner of my mouth quirks upward as I take the time to stare at him. I try to push away the breathlessness that overtakes me at the sight of the depth of emotion in his eyes.
A year ago, I would’ve said he wasn’t capable of this kind of emotional profundity, but even then I would’ve known that was a lie.
Pushing away the time I first noticed a similar look of anguish in Max’s eyes, I say, “Even though my dad retired from football while my brothers and I were still pretty young, there were times when we were out and fans of his would come up to him to ask for photos or an autograph. He went into broadcasting so he’s still pretty popular. ”
I give Max a small smile.
“One day he took me on a daughter-daddy day, and three different fans approached us for pictures. For the most part, he kept the interruptions brief and did his best to make sure I never felt slighted, but I was a daddy’s girl and I wanted him all to myself.
“That night I complained to my mom that ‘everybody gets daddy but me. It’s like he belongs to everyone,’” I say in my mock seven-year-old voice.
“My mom shook her head and told me ‘he’ll never be to everyone what he is to you. You have your own relationship with your father that no one will ever have. Not even Tristan or Travis or Chloe. All of the relationships we have with our babies are unique’.”
When I glance down, Max’s hand is wrapped firmly around mine, his thumb slowly stroking my wrist.
I meet his eyes again.
“A lot of people in this world may have called Severino their hero or their inspiration, but you were the only person to ever call him ‘Dad’. No one will ever have with him what you had. Short as it was, it was yours. And no one can ever take that from you.” I pause before letting the next statement pass my lips, but they push forward as if on their own. “Not even your mother.”
Max’s eyes widen.
My insides squeeze and my mind shrinks in on itself.
A reaction to the fear that I’d overstepped.
Max and I don’t talk about his mother. Neither of us have mentioned that day in Bahrain.
I haven’t because I know it would piss me off to think of how painful it must be to have such a bitch for a mother.
I’m also terrified of thinking about how frequently she speaks to him like that. When did she start? Had he been a child when she began berating him? A child who’d also witnessed the death of his father and while mourning that loss had to put up with an emotionally violent mother?
The thought begins to form a knot in the pit of my belly that attempts to work its way up to my throat.
But that’s where it dies.
The next thing I know, Max’s lips are on mine. The heat of his kiss is laced with an urgency or a desperation that I haven’t felt in any of our previous kisses.
Max wraps a hand around the back of my head, holding me in place even as he pulls back slightly. His lips brush across mine as he whispers, “Stay with me tonight.”