Chapter 4 Matteo #2
I ran a hand through my hair for the third time, fixing it again. I’d learned early on that people got uncomfortable when you weren’t smiling. They started asking questions. So I became the guy who filled the silence with jokes, with stories, with noise.
Laughter was easier than honesty.
Honesty was messy. It looked like 3 a.m. nights replaying races I should’ve won. Like the constant ache in my chest every time I wondered if I’d ever be enough—not just for the team, but for myself.
I’d made a name for myself in my rookie year. Fast, reckless, magnetic—the media’s favorite new toy. But the thing about being everyone’s favorite is that you can’t stop being it.
Can’t slow down.
Can’t mess up.
Can’t let them see the cracks.
So I smiled. I laughed. I told stories in interviews that made people think I was just some happy-go-lucky kid from the Italian countryside who lucked into speed and stardom.
No one wanted to hear about the stress or the insomnia.
About how, some nights, I woke up gasping from dreams of spinning out on a track I couldn’t escape.
No. They wanted charm. They wanted easy. They wanted Matteo DeLuca.
And maybe if I said it enough—if I played the part long enough—I’d start believing it too.
I grabbed my phone, keys, and sunglasses. Another day, another performance.
When I stepped out of the hotel, the cameras were already waiting. Shouts of my name, flashes, smiles I didn’t feel but gave anyway. I waved, cracked a joke with a reporter, did that stupid wink that always went viral.
The crowd laughed. The cameras loved me.
And somewhere behind all of it, I could still hear my heart pounding, whispering doubts of not being enough.
Lately, the only time my head was silent was around Nicola.
I was way too preoccupied trying to get her to like me.
After our drunken night together, I might have made that part even harder.
I spotted her the second I stepped into the paddock.
She was impossible to miss—blazer perfectly tailored, sunglasses too big for her face, and her walk fast enough to make a grown man sprint just to keep up.
Most days I’d call it a challenge. Today?
She didn’t even glance in my direction. It had been one week since the gala, a week of me dreaming of her screaming my name.
I adjusted the collar of my racing suit and grinned, purely on instinct. Catching up to her, I cleared my throat and lowered my voice. “Avoiding me doesn’t erase the fact that you moaned my name loud enough to wake up half the damn hotel.”
Her shoulders stiffened for a fraction of a second. Blink and you’d miss it.
But I never missed her.
She kept walking, fast and clean, ignoring me like I was a fly buzzing around.
I fell into step beside her, not bothering to hide my amusement. But I needed something from her, needed a reaction like it was a drug, so I kept poking. “C’mon, don’t be like that. You’ll hurt my feelings.”
“You have feelings?” she muttered, not even looking at me.
“Ouch,” I clutched my chest, feeling some type of way about the bite in her tone. “Right in the heart.” Some may have called me a masochist. They’d probably be right.
“I’m sure you’ll survive with your obnoxious positivity.”
A smile spread slowly across my face. There she was.
Still, she wasn’t flirting. No smirk. No sass beyond that sharp tongue of hers. She was trying to shut me down.
“You’re so grumpy when you repress our sexual tension,” I offered cheerfully.
She stopped walking. Whirled to face me. “Matteo.”
“Nicola.”
“Not now.”
I leaned in a little, voice dropping just enough to make her blink. “You’re going to have to stop saying my name like that, Princess. People might start thinking you like the way it tastes.”
Before she could throw something at me—clipboard, radio, small fire extinguisher—I heard my niece’s tiny squeal and my attention immediately pivoted to the little hurricane.
“Zio!”
A blur of blonde curls and red Moretti Racing gear barreled toward me.
I crouched and scooped her up effortlessly, tossing her into the air as she giggled.
Gianna was by far my favorite person to exist in the world, close second being my sister Lucia who walked up just as Gia curled into me, hugging me with her little arms.
“Look at you! You’re a proper team mascot now!”
Lucia strolled up behind her, sunglasses perched on her head, wrist with a collection of friendship bracelets, and one of my team shirts fashioned in a cut-off way with a skirt—very Lucia.
“Figured we should make an entrance.”
“Mission accomplished.” Lucia had been on the road with us for a bit now; I didn’t fully expect her to agree to my idea this last summer when I asked her and Gia to join us for the rest of the season.
But watching my sister wither and lose her spark after she had been through hell and back was my own personal hell.
I would do anything in my power to keep a smile on her face, to help keep her from that dark place from three years ago after she left her dirt bag ex.
It had taken some time, but since she came here with me and my best mate Alexander who raced for Belen’s Formula One team, she seemed to be finding herself again.
She and Nicola actually hit it off right away, much to my own delight because Nicola was around us more and more these days.
My eyes gravitated toward Nicola as she muttered an excuse to my sister and slid out of the moment like she was never here at all.
She disappeared behind the hospitality curtain, leaving my sister with a frown.
“She okay?” Lucia asked quietly, watching her go.
“No idea,” I answered, plastering on another smile for Gia’s benefit.
Lucia gave me a look, one only a younger sister can give, the ‘I know you’re fucking lying’ look.
I just shrugged and refocused on Gianna who started telling me about how after the race we were all getting ice cream.
I tried to focus on my family, I really did, but then I saw it, out of the corner of my eye.
Carlos talking to Nicola.
And not just talking—leaning in close, probably telling her something about his villa in Barcelona or how stunning she looked in navy.
And she was laughing.
Not polite. Not fake.
The kind that reached the corner of her eyes.
I felt the sudden urge to stomp over there, to rip something in half, it was like I’d been possessed.
Get it together, I told myself, shifting Gia on my hip. Carlos was my teammate. And Nicola was not mine.
Not my anything.
Except last weekend she was mine in every way that counted. And now she was letting him stand that close? I’d never been the jealous type, but something about Nicola made me lose all sense of sanity.
Carlos said something else, and she touched his arm.
Fuck this.
I sat Gia down gently, crouching to kiss her forehead. “I need to go get ready but cheer extra loud for me, okay G?”
She nodded seriously. “Oh-tay! Good luck Zio!”
“Hey, I saw your old manager is Theo’s manager now?
” my sister asked. I tried to hide the grimace.
My old manager, Matt, was the worst. Besides being a bad manager, he was petty and constantly doing things for his own gain.
Happy to throw me to the sharks to get a payday.
I hoped it was different for Theo. Alexander had asked Anna if she could double as mine after I fired Matt with no notice when I found out he was leaking my location to the tabloids.
“Uh, yeah. Guess so. Theo goes through them fast.” I shrugged, trying not to make it a big deal.
The last thing I wanted was to add to my sister’s stress.
It was in the past now. Theo hated basically every single manager he had and was not one to mess around.
He was known for his ‘I don’t give a shit’ attitude.
So all in all, I was not worried about it.
Matt could only fake being a good manager for so long.
My mama taught me that bad karma was bound to catch up to those who deserved it.
And, quite frankly, Matt didn’t deserve any space in my thoughts, let alone my sister’s.
So I brushed it off and muttered, “See you after,” to her with a hug goodbye.
“Try and beat Alexander today, hmm? He needs an ego check.” Lucia smirked and I rolled my eyes at her. The two had been awfully close lately, agreeing to some crazy fake dating scheme where they were both totally not faking anything, and they were both just idiots. But who was I to talk anymore?
“Sure thing, I’ll just jump ten grid spots, no problem,” I sighed. Today was not the best start after qualifying for thirteenth position today.
“I believe in you,” Lucia said simply, as if it was that easy. I waved goodbye to the pair and tried not to look over to the dark-haired siren of a woman that had obviously put a damn spell on me.
I retreated to the back of the garage. Everything was humming. Crew was moving like clockwork. Tire blankets were warming, radios crackling. It smelled like rubber, oil, and adrenaline.
I ducked into the quiet of my driver room, the one spot where I could breathe.
I closed the door, went through my rituals.
Tapped my helmet, then my gloves.
I sank to the floor, ignoring the couch and crossing my legs then putting my headphones on.
Three deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. One for calm. One for focus. One for every stupid, messy feeling I had no room for right now.
The rituals helped. The stillness before the storm.
I reached into the duffel by the wall and pulled out the same silver chain I’d worn since karting—my nonna’s medallion. I tucked it under my suit, hiding it since we were not supposed to wear any jewelry while racing. But hey, it was my good luck charm.
I pressed play on my playlist. Same first song every time. Something that reminded me to move fast, stay loose.
Still, all I could see when I closed my eyes was her laughing at Carlos’s joke.
She looked happy.
I clenched my jaw, stood, rolled out my shoulders and let it all slip away as I got into the car and rolled out into formation.
Helmet on.
Visor down.
Emotions out.
The lights above the grid ticked down like a heartbeat.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
Lights out and away we go.
I slammed the throttle. Gripped the wheel tighter than I should’ve.
The roar of the engine was the only thing loud enough to drown out the buzzing in my skull.
The car jolted forward. Wheels worked hard.
I cut inside on Turn 1, threading the needle between P12 and P11—two rookies too soft on the brakes.
I wasn’t. Two positions up before we hit Sector 2.
That’s more like it.
My engineer’s voice crackled in my ear. “Great start, Matteo. Let’s settle into pace.”
But I wasn’t there to settle, I was going to score some damn points today. Every corner was sharper today. Every overtake, just on the edge of clean. I was driving like a man trying to prove something. Trying to chase a ghost in a navy dress with a wicked mouth.
Lap 4 — P10.
Carlos was a few seconds ahead, just visible in the dirty air, his rear wing flashing our team logo like a dare. I pushed to close the gap.
My engineer’s voice sounded again, “Head down. Tires looking good.”
“Copy.”
I didn’t tell them my jaw was aching from clenching it. That my gloves felt too tight. That every time I blinked, I saw Nicola’s smile when she looked at him.
Lap 9
I was ahead on Turn 7, snatched P9 from a veteran who didn’t see me coming. He tried to fight back, but I owned the inside line and squeezed him just enough to shut the door.
P9.
Clean. Aggressive.
Controlled chaos—my specialty.
“Nice move. Let’s cool the tires a bit.”
I didn’t answer. I just breathed.
The rest of the race was steady. Couldn’t crack P8 without sacrificing tire life, and Carlos finished P4—not a podium, but higher than me. Again.
Still, I clawed four spots up in the midfield. No penalties, no damage, and some good points for the team.
Back at the garage, the crew clapped my back, offered water, high-fives. I went through the motions, smiling where I should, nodding at the right people.
And then I saw her.
Arms crossed, lips tugged up with Carlos who was standing next to her, his track suit pulled down around his waist, running a hand through his hair. He leaned in and said something. She laughed again.
I swore I’d rather DNF than see that twice in one weekend. Someone handed me a bottle. I pretended to drink it. She finally glanced my way and our eyes locked. A flash of something I couldn’t read—guilt? Tension? Defiance? I smiled, wide and slow, all teeth. She didn’t smile back.
But she looked, for a second too long.
And that’s all I needed to keep the shit-eating grin on my face.