Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Emerson
Meeting Sawyer last night threw me for a loop.
I never expected her to be a woman. Matteo still says he said ‘she,’ but we both know he’s full of shit.
The hard part now is that I want her. She’s mine, and from what I saw, it’s just her and River.
I don’t know their story, but I know they’re both mine.
I head downstairs and join my family for breakfast. They’re all smiling at me and it’s a little weird.
“Why are you all looking at me like that?” I frown at them.
“Sawyer was a surprise last night,” Elias says.
“A nice surprise, I like that there’s a woman in the family now,” Easton says as I squint at him.
“She’s pretty too.” Ezra grins.
I turn my glare to my baby brother.
“I told you he likes her.” He laughs.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. She’s part of my crew and that’s it.”
“Yeah. Sure. So you won’t mind if I ask her out?” Ezra stares at me with a grin.
Assholes. All of them. I look over at our da and I know he’s laughing behind his newspaper because it’s shaking.
“You stay away from Sawyer and River,” I growl at my brother.
“Whoa. You were right, Ez.” Easton laughs.
“Fine. I do like her. A lot. But—”
“But what? She’s part of your crew? It’s not like you’re her boss.
She doesn’t really work for you, she works for Desmos.
In fact, you both work for them and they’ve never said that we can’t date within our teams. I mean there’s not a whole lot of women in GP, but there are some.
And no one’s ever said that it’s forbidden,” Elias says to us.
I hate that my brothers know me so well. But I like the point Eli’s making. Maybe I won’t have to hide how I feel about Sawyer. It’s not like I was hiding it last night anyway. I’m pretty sure she knows how I feel.
We finish eating breakfast and grab our stuff to head to the track. Testing days are just as tiring as race days. But there’s a lot less pressure, which is nice. The first person I look for is Sawyer. I see her working with Matteo and all I can do is smile.
“I think she’s a good match for you,” my da says as he comes up behind me.
“Not you too.” I laugh.
“We can all see how you look at her. And how she looks at you.”
“I don’t have time to devote to anyone.”
“I thought that too. Until I met your mam. Everything changed the day I met her and I knew that I would make the time. No matter what.”
I look at my da. From the day I met him, he was always there for me and never made me feel less than my siblings. I also don’t remember hearing either of my parents say anything mean to each other. I’m sure they’ve gotten into fights. But not in front of any of us.
My cousins that have found their soulmates have said they knew the moment they saw each other. I always thought they were joking, because how would you know just by looking at someone? But hell, I get it now. When I saw Sawyer and River, I just knew.
“You’re staring at Sawyer.” Ezra laughs.
“Shouldn’t you be in your own garage?” I roll my eyes at him.
Easton and I are on the same GP team and Elias and Ezra are on another.
We’re all backed by Desmos Motors, just on different teams. Every manufacturer on the grid has two riders to a team.
My brothers and I were lucky enough to get contracts together.
There are two other brothers that are in GP, they like to joke that they’re just like the O’Connors.
I walk over to Sawyer and Matteo.
“Good morning,” I say to both of them.
“Morning.” Matteo smiles as he backs away slowly. Yeah, he’s not being obvious. I shake my head at him.
“How was the rest of your night?” I ask Sawyer.
“It was good. I must have been more tired than I thought. I was watching a TV show and the next thing I knew, my alarm was going off.” She chuckles.
“I’ve had days like that, mostly on race days. I’m good until after dinner, then all of a sudden I’m down for the count.”
She laughs as she listens to me. I wink at her as I leave and head to my trailer. It took all my willpower not to grab her and kiss her. As I’m getting ready, my da joins me.
“Do you think that Sawyer and I could be together without the rest of the crew thinking differently of her?” I ask him.
“I think it’s a tricky situation. You’ll need to make sure that you treat her the same way as all the others during races or testing. But I do think you can make it work.”
“Maybe if I talk to the guys and let them know first? Make sure if any of them have any issues, they can tell me.”
“But they may not say anything, for fear of losing their jobs.”
“I’d never fire someone for voicing their opinion. And I’d like to hope that they’ve all been with me long enough to know that by now.”
My da nods. “I agree. And I think talking to them first is a good idea.”
“I’ll do it tomorrow. Maybe I’ll call another team dinner. Thanks, da.”
He comes over and hugs me. “You’re a great man, and your mam is going to love Sawyer and River.”
“I think so too.” I smile as we head back to my garage.
Sebastiano: I hear Emerson has a woman now. When do we all get to meet her?
Emerson: WTF. How do you even know about her?
Ezra: …
My brother has a big mouth.
Celestino: Who is she?
Giovanna: PICS OR IT DIDN’T HAPPEN
Emerson: I have testing. You all need to shush
Ares: Did you just shush us?
I laugh and put my phone away. I have a feeling that I’m going to come back to a lot of texts from all of them.
Sawyer
I’ve been to GP races back in the States.
I was fortunate to get a pit pass and race tickets from a professor I had in college.
He made it a group trip with the class. And because he knew that I didn’t have extra money, he even helped me raise the funds for my plane fare and hotel room.
That was when I knew my dream was to work for a GP team.
I’ve been really lucky when it’s comes to work, that same professor helped me get a job on a local dirt bike racing team.
They were the ones to help me apply to Emerson’s team.
They wrote me letters of recommendation and sent videos of me while I was working.
They all knew what my goal was and I love them for helping me get here.
With my last team, we had to sign papers saying that we wouldn’t date another team member.
But when I got here, I never had to sign one.
I wonder if it’s just something that you know not to do.
I did have to sign an NDA, we’re not allowed to share information with anyone outside of our team.
All our information stays within Emerson’s team and Easton’s team.
I’ve heard that they also share information with Elias and Ezra’s teams. But until I know for sure?
I’ll just stay with my team, it’s safer that way.
Now, Emerson. Holy fuck. I’m so screwed.
All I think about is him, and last night?
I dreamt of him. I dreamt that he came back and professed his love for me.
It hasn’t even been one whole day and I’m already dreaming that he’s in love with me.
And then the way he was acting this morning?
I thought he was going to kiss me. But I have to admit, I wouldn’t have said no to him.
Watching him during testing is amazing. The guys are all showing me the data I need, and they also said that I don’t have to get it all on my first day.
That most of them took months to learn what was needed.
I love that there’s no competition between us.
No one’s trying to be better than the next person.
Everyone’s goal is for Emerson to be the best rider on the grid.
Testing goes smoothly, and everyone is closing up shop for the day.
We have one more testing day tomorrow. Matteo suggests we all have dinner together and relax for the night.
I want to join them, but I have River and I don’t want to keep pushing him on the crew.
I head to the trailer we have for the kids.
That was a huge help when Matteo told me that they will provide child care for me.
He said sometimes the other guys need to bring their kids too, so they have someone there for all testing and race weekends.
“Hi, Mama!” River smiles as he sees me coming.
“Hi, baby, did you have a good day?”
“Sì. That’s ‘yes’ in Italian.” He giggles.
“I hope it’s okay, I was teaching him little words,” Lucia says as she smiles at River.
“I don’t mind at all. In fact, I love it.”
“I will see you both tomorrow,” she says as she hugs River and then me.
“Thank you so much,” I say as I take River’s hand.
“Where we going, Mama?”
“Well we need to figure out what we want to do for dinner. We can order in or Mama can cook something.”
“You’re not coming with us to dinner?” I hear a voice say behind us.
I jump a little and turn to face Emerson.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
I laugh. “You didn’t scare me. And no, I have River and I don’t want the crew to feel like he’s always around.”
“He should always be around. And no one will mind,” he says as he takes River’s other hand.
“Where we going now?” River asks him.
“We’re going to have dinner with everyone, if I can convince your mama.”
“Can we, Mama?”
How can I say no to them? They’re both looking at me with puppy dog eyes. I sigh.
“Are you sure? I really don’t want to make anyone mad.”
“I promise, you won’t,” he says as he picks River up and then takes my hand.
“Maybe you shouldn’t hold my hand? The guys might see it as favoritism,” I whisper to him.
Emerson stops and looks at me. He waves Matteo over.
“Can you take River for us? I need to talk to Sawyer.”
Matteo looks at me and I nod. Shit. Am I about to get fired? Emerson takes my hand again and leads me to his trailer. I see some of the crew smiling as they watch us. Do they know I’m about to be fired?
Emerson motions for me to sit and he brings me a cold water.
“Thank you,” I say as I watch him. I’m so worried about what he wants to talk to me about. He finally sits down next to me. And takes my hands in his.
“First of all, my crew would never judge you for anything you do. We’re a family and you’re a part of it now. And second? I need to know if you’re with someone, or if River’s father is in your life.”
I don’t know why he needs to know about River. But I don’t feel the need to hide anything from him either.
“River doesn’t have a father,” I say as I watch the expression on his face.
“What do you mean? Did he hurt you? Is that why he’s not around?”
“No.” I take a deep breath. This could go one of two ways. Either he’ll understand, or he’ll think what my parents thought. That I couldn’t find a man so I had to go the route I did.
“I chose to have River by myself. I chose the donor I wanted to use, I know things about him. But I’ve never met him and I don’t plan to.”
“Do you know his name?”
“Nope.”
“Well, that makes this part a little easier for me.” He smiles.
What the hell is he talking about?
“I want to be with you. You and River.”
I’m still confused.
“What do you mean? You are around River and me.”
Emerson chuckles and moves closer to me.
“I don’t think I’m explaining myself well. I want to be with you, in a relationship with you.”
“But you don’t even know—”
“I don’t know how I know, I just know. And before you say anything about my crew, they’ll be happy for us. If you don’t believe me, I’ll show you tonight. But I want to know if this is what you want.”
I nod slowly. I’m afraid if I get too excited, he might change his mind. He leans forward and kisses me. And when I say the kiss changed me? It was a kiss that I doubt anyone could top.
“Are you sure?” I whisper as I pull back.
“I’ve never been more sure about anything before. We should go and join the others. I’m starving.”
I laugh as his stomach grumbles at us.