Chapter 31
Max
“First it was Shakespeare, and now books on OCD?” Edwin asks with a raised eyebrow, holding up the book on OCD I was reading once my most recent interview finished.
We’re in the main hotel where most drivers and staff are staying this weekend for the Silver Stone Grand Prix.
“Need something to entertain me,” I reply. “Listen,” I say before he can make a comeback, “my mum will probably be here this weekend. Keep her away from me.”
I arrived in Silverstone a few hours ago, dropped my belongings in my room, and have already done two interviews. I’m hungry and pissed that I haven’t found Annalise yet. The last thing I need to worry about is my mum showing up and putting a damper on my already low mood.
“What’s got your knickers in a twist?” Edwin asks. “You’re not usually this cranky until Italy,” he says off-handedly. Apparently, he doesn’t notice the way I flinch at the mention of my most dreaded race of the season because he keeps going. “Anyway, what do you expect me to do about your mother?”
“Keep. Her. Away. From. Me,” I say through clenched teeth. “I don’t want to deal with her this weekend.”
I haven’t had much contact with her since Monaco, but it hasn’t been for lack of trying on her part.
Mainly, she texts to ask for more money.
When I don’t respond to her texts soon enough, she resorts to calling and once showing up at my flat.
Luckily, I wasn’t there, and since I had a code put on my door that I did not give her, she wasn’t able to waltz in.
She must’ve gotten the hint because she wasn’t at the Barcelona or Austria races—both of which I came in second and third, respectively.
But now we’re back home in the U.K. and it’s a certainty that she’ll turn up.
On the other side of the closed door, I hear what oddly sounds like a baby crying.
“Right. I’ll take care of it,” Edwin assures me. His phone rings and he frowns. “Christ. These blokes again.”
“Who is it?”
“The guys from Brazil. They’re really on about you doing that thing in Sao Paolo this year. No matter how many bloody times I tell them to back off.”
I don’t have to ask what that thing is. It’s the same thing I get asked to do every year since I signed my first Formula 1 contract.
“What did you tell them last time?” I ask.
“Same thing I always say. He’s not interested,” Edwin blusters.
I’m familiar with his dramatics, so I don’t tell him to tone it down.
“You’d think they’d get it by now. You know what it is, mate?
” he says, getting closer as if he’s about to let me in on a secret.
“It’s because you’re in the lead this year.
I don’t think you’ve ever been this high up on the grid so early in the season.
” He nods at the book on the table. “Maybe that new reading habit you’ve picked up has improved your driving. ”
He chuckles like his joke was the funniest thing in the world.
However, I barely hear him because the sound coming from the opposite side of the door captures my attention. The crying noises I’d heard earlier have dulled to a murmur but they’re distinctly that of a baby.
The female lilt accompanying the baby’s voice brightens my mood immediately.
“Take this.” I thrust the book into Edwin’s hand.
He looks at me sideways.
“Should you be somewhere else?”
“Oh,” Annalise says a beat later after pushing through the closed door. Her gaze falls on Edwin first. “I’m sorry. I assumed the conference room was empty.”
She finally glances over at me, and her smile catches in the sunlight streaming through the window behind me.
My heartbeat stutters as I watch her standing in the doorway, a smile I know she’s not even aware she’s wearing on her incomprehensibly beautiful face while holding her nephew in her arms.
“Hi,” she breathes out.
“Annalise,” Edwin says, interrupting what’d felt like a private moment. “Max just finished his interview. Do you need the room for Travis’ interview?”
She shakes her head, a few of the curls she’s left out of the tight bun moving as she does. Lucky spots the movement and latches onto it with a chubby fist.
“No,” she blurts, trying to extricate her hair from her nephew's fist. “Lucky, we’ve been over this. You can’t eat my hair.”
He fights her as she tries to pry his fingers away.
Laughter fills the room.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Edwin look my way, but I ignore him as I stroll closer to Annalise and Lucky.
“Hey there,” I coo with a finger to Lucky’s round tummy.
He loses focus on his aunt’s hair and looks at me. He pauses as if trying to figure me out.
“I don’t think hair is the treat you want, little guy.”
He narrows his eyebrows suspiciously and it’s not lost on me how much he looks like his father. That said, I also see some of his aunt in his features. The shape of his eyes, similar nose. My smile broadens at the same time his does.
He holds out a hand in my direction, and I give him my finger. Something slightly dizzying winds around my chest when he wraps a fist around it.
“You remember me,” I say. Lucky is a regular around the pit during race weekends. Along with his mother and Travis’ entire family. Though his father isn’t my biggest fan, Alyssia, Travis’ wife, has never been anything but kind and inviting toward me.
“No, not his finger either,” Annalise suddenly says when Lucky tries to tug my finger into his mouth.
I gently pull my finger away.
“He’s teething,” Annalise looks up and says, something sparkling in her eyes.
“I know.”
The space between her eyebrows narrows.
“Alyssia told me a few weeks ago in Barcelona when he wouldn’t stop crying,” I explain.
“Teeth giving you trouble, mate?” I ask Lucky.
A line of drool drips from his wet lips when he grins up at me.
“Aw man, Lucky, you’re a real charmer,” Annalise teases, hoisting him up higher on her side. “Remember what I said about all of this drool? It’s not cool.”
“I doubt he cares about your definition of cool.”
She raises her brows at me. “He should. I’m the coolest aunt he’s got.”
“I suspect Chloe would beg to differ.”
Her lips part, but then she closes them, shrugging. “As much as I want to argue, it’s probably true. Chloe is cooler than me. It’s true,” she says as she tickles Lucky’s belly.
Lucky’s giggles bounce off of the walls of the conference room, and alight the space with the type of infectious joy only a baby’s laughter can bring. Annalise’s gaze catches on mine as we both grin from ear to ear.
Just that quickly the laughter inside of my head fades to the background, leaving only her smiling features behind. It reminds me of why it’d felt so urgent to speak with her alone earlier.
“Right,” Edwin says, making Annalise break eye contact with me.
I frown at the intrusion.
“Anyway, the next time they call I’ll tell them to bugger off.”
For a beat, I’m confused as to what the hell he’s talking about. Then I recall the conversation we were in the middle of right before Annalise walked in.
“Sorry, was I interrupting something? I can go.”
“No.”
“We were leaving.”
Edwin and I say at the same time. He looks at me, confused.
“We have dinner tonight with Randy, Scott, and his family.”
My frown deepens from being reminded of the dinner with our friends from school and some of their business colleagues.
“I’ll meet you down in the lobby,” I tell him before turning back to Annalise. I haven’t told Edwin about my seeing Annalise only because I know she’s leery of anyone finding out. And by anyone I mean her brother.
“Okay,” Edwin says with hesitation in his voice. “And thi—”
I cut him off as he’s about to raise the book I shoved at him, into his chest. “Drop it off in the room. I’ll see you later.”
I give him a look says ‘leave’. He tilts his head as if to say ‘there will be questions about this later.’ I ignore the look and turn back to Annalise.
She watches Edwin leave.
“What was that about?”
“What?”
“Tell who to bugger off?”
I grin at her fake British accent.
“It’s about the Sao Paulo race.”
She cocks her head. “Wait.” There’s a pause as she bounces Lucky on her hip.
He’s found a new interest in playing with the diamond and gold pendant that hangs from the necklace she always wears in the days leading up to a qualifying. For qualifying and race days, she switches to a tear drop diamond necklace.
“Is this about you driving your father’s car?”
I drag my attention from the scant amount of exposed skin of her chest back up to her eyes. An instant punch to the stomach. One I can’t get enough of.
“What was that?”
“You heard what I said.”
I did. But I don’t want to talk about Brazil or my father’s old Amato car.
“What are you doing after the race on Sunday?"
That question puts her back on her heels, which I suppose, is what I was aiming for. Cocking her head, Annalise narrows her eyes at the same time Lucky sighs loudly.
Both of our gazes fall on the baby in her arms. His eyelids have visibly lowered, and I’m pretty certain if he could walk, he’d be a hazard to himself if he tried to at this point.
Soft, slightly husky laughter fills the air as Annalise laughs, staring at her nephew.
“He’s finally losing the battle with sleep.”
“I’m certain he fought hard,” I comment, then frown. “Though, is this his way of saying we’re boring him?” I press an affronted hand to my chest.
A ghost smile flashes across her face before casting her gaze her nephew’s way again. “Probably. I mean, you’re not as entertaining as my necklace pendant.” She briefly touches the pendant Lucky was enthralled by only minutes earlier.
“Perhaps. Or maybe he got bored waiting for you to answer my question.”
Her eyebrows narrow.
“Sunday? What are your plans after the race?”
She takes a beat. “Post-race press, of course. Probably an early dinner with family, and then heading back home.”
I ignore the ache that seizes me at the mention of dinner with her family. The pang of loneliness that assaults me whenever she mentions a family dinner or event, leaving off an invitation for me to attend, is becoming more and more common.
As soon as that feeling arises, I smother it like one would put out a spreading fire by tossing a blanket over it.
“Or you could stay.”
“Stay where?”
“Here.”
Her eyes zoom in on mine, widening. “Here?”
I nod. “London. Big city in the South of England. Also, the capital and one of the world’s economi—”
“Yeah, I’m familiar,” she deadpans. “Why would …” Faltering, she shifts Lucky from one hip to the other.
His head lolls until it comes to rest against her shoulder. By now his eyes are fully closed and he sighs again.
I don’t even realize how quiet we both become watching the tiny miracle in her arms. Until recently, I hadn’t thought much about having kids of my own. I’ve always known I wanted them at some point, but it seemed so far off in the future that I didn’t pay it much thought.
For reasons I won’t attempt to put into words right now, it doesn’t seem like something so far off in the future any longer.
“I was afraid to touch Alyssia when I found out she was pregnant with Travis’ baby.”
Her words don’t make sense to me. Not even after the second time I run them through my mind. My confusion must show on my face.
“My fear wasn’t based in logic,” she hums. “None of the obsessions are. But I kept thinking what if I hurt her or the baby somehow? My germ obsessions came back, and I thought what if I didn’t wash my hands thoroughly enough and I contaminate her and the baby? What if they get sick because of me?”
Her eyes meet mine, an imploring look in them.
The book I was reading before Edwin came in earlier helped to explain how intrusive and compulsive these thoughts can be. It’s helping me better understand what must go on inside of Annalise’s mind when an obsession starts, though I’ll never know exactly.
There’s only one other person in my life whose pain I wished to take away from them. Annalise is the second.
“Your OCD,” I say as a statement rather than a question.
A quick dip of her head.
“I made extra appointments with my therapist in the States and considered upping my medications.” She smiles down at Lucky. “I didn’t want the happenings in my head stealing any more than it’s already taken from me.”
When Annalise looks up at me, her mouth drops open, as if she’s shared more than intended.
“I—” We both go erect when a male voice fills the hallway, seemingly right outside of the door. “Travis,” she says more to herself than to me.
Lucky startles awake and begins whining.
“I have to go.” Her voice is little more than a whisper.
My chest tightens almost to the point of agony.
I stop her before she can get through the door with my hand on her arm. She looks back at me with alarm in her eyes. I know what she’s thinking. Her brother, possibly only a few feet away from us, shouldn’t see her with me like this.
Not looking at her with what I know is a tenderness that could only mean one thing, in my eyes.
The teammate who hates me would have questions about seeing his beloved sister and son in a room alone with me, the air charged with an energy that says we’re more than rivals or just passing acquaintances.
“Wait,” I say, unable to stop myself. “Sunday, you’ll stay?”
Her lips press together, thinning into a line that indicates she’s spinning the idea over in her head.
“For how long?”
I’m surprised by the question, so I say the first thing that comes to mind.
“Two nights … three.” I want more, but I have to return to Monaco for work after that.
She rubs her lips together, and the sight is enough to pull a small groan from me. The left side of her mouth pulls up into a smirk as if she’s well aware of her impact on me.
“Maybe,” she answers. “If you win.”
That’s the last thing she says before disappearing behind the door. It’s easy to discard the sound of her brother’s voice as he tells her he was looking for her.
I’m too busy doing something my father told me to never do: celebrating my win before it happens. Because there’s no way in hell that I’m losing now.