Chapter 19
Hutch
Qualification day—or quali day as the pit crew likes to call it—is always hectic in the paddock, no more so than in the team’s garage.
Mechanics shouting torque numbers, engineers waving tablet screens at anyone who’ll stand still, tyres lined like soldiers ready for battle.
It’s barely managed mayhem, the kind you only survive by keeping your head down and your nerves in check.
Only today, mine aren’t anywhere close to being in check.
Because I’ve spent the entire week and a half between returning from Shanghai and heading off to Imola pretending nothing happened between me and Kip.
Pretending I don’t notice him every time he walks into a room.
Pretending I didn’t make a complete idiot of myself trekking up to the PR office three times a day for excuses even I didn’t believe.
And now he’s avoiding me. Not aggressively. He’s too polite for that. But with enough distance to tell me he’s hiding behind it.
So before I’m knee-deep in soft compounds and assaulted by air guns screaming in my ears, I catch him.
He’s at the back of the garage, half-wedged between a merch cart and a stack of spare nose cones, flipping through a briefing packet like it’s the most fascinating thing in the world. It isn’t. He’s avoiding my eyes before I’m even close.
“Kip.”
He freezes. Doesn’t look up.
I step closer, enough to smell his shampoo. Minty-clean and unfairly distracting. “We’re not doing this. Not today.”
He exhales. “Doing what?”
“This.” I flick a hand between us. “Pretending we’re fine when we’re not. Pretending last week was—” My throat tightens around the words. “Nothing.”
He finally looks at me, and the flicker in his eyes nearly knocks me off my feet.
“If it was just the road,” I say, keeping my voice low so no one else can hear us, not that anyone’s paying us a lick of attention with all the race prep going on, “tell me now.”
The garage noise swells behind us—air guns, chatter, the rising bustle of everyone getting ready. I silently plead for him to answer quickly, give me something I can walk away with before qualis so I can concentrate and not muck up the team’s chances for a spot at the front of the grid.
He doesn’t, so I press him again.
“If it was situational—caught up in the heat of things, long drive, whatever excuse makes you sleep at night—say it. Say it and I’ll let it go.”
His jaw works, and he grips the briefing packet hard enough to wrinkle the edges. “Hutch, I—”
Something tightens in my chest. “Just tell me. Please.”
He shakes his head once, abrupt. “I can’t.”
Everything in me goes still.
“Because it wasn’t just the road,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “And you know it.”
For a second, the garage might as well fall silent. The noise drops away, the world drops away, and it’s just him and me and the truth he’s finally stopped running from.
I catch my breath, trying not keep the sudden rush of relief from lighting me up like an idiot.
“Right,” I murmur. “Good.”
His brows lift slightly. “Good?”
“Yeah.” My voice comes out rough. “Because I thought it was just me going mad.”
His eyes melt in that way that drives me insane. “It wasn’t.”
I take another step closer, but he doesn’t back up. And suddenly qualis feel far away, and the only thing I can think is that it’s about bloody time.
“It wasn’t just the road for me,” I admit, inching a bit closer. “And if it wasn’t for you either—”
“Hutch!”
The shout cracks through the air, making us jolt apart.
It’s Mason, waving a socket driver like he’s summoning a dog. “Tyres are staged and we need you on guns in thirty seconds, mate. Thirty. If you’re not at your station before they line up for the warm-up lap, I swear to God—”
“Got it, boss,” I call back, but my voice has a ragged edge I can’t hide. “On my way.”
Mason narrows his eyes. They flick from me to Kip and back, calculating and far too perceptive. It should bother me more—the rumours, the gossip, the whole circus that’s sure to follow when people find out Kip and I are together—but surprisingly, it doesn’t. One way or another, we’ll figure it out.
“Everything good here?” Mason asks.
“Peachy,” I answer.
Kip coughs into his fist. “No worries.”
Mason looks like he absolutely does not believe either one of us but has too much work to do to care. “Brilliant. Thrilled for you both. Hutch, let’s move.”
He disappears into the garage bustle, leaving a vacuum of noise behind him—air guns, comms chatter, engines rumbling awake.
I drag a hand through my hair, trying to pull myself back into work mode, but Kip’s still standing there, eyes wide, breathing uneven, and it does something awful to my ribcage.
“You need to go,” he says, quietly but not coldly. “They need you.”
“I know.” I hesitate just long enough to look stupid. “We’re not done.”
His throat bobs. “I know.”
I feel the words press on me, and for a second I seriously consider staying, consequences be damned. But then Mason shouts my name again, twice as sharp.
I step back, heart hammering, adrenaline doing double duty for entirely the wrong reason. “Later.”
It comes out rough, a promise.
Kip nods, holding the briefing packet like a shield. “Later.”
Then I turn and jog into the noise, my heart full with the knowledge that, for the first time all week, he didn’t run from me.