Dominic
Chapter thirteen
Iwon. Obviously. Anyone who acted surprised hasn't been paying attention to the data for the last few years.
The season opener was a clinic—a masterclass in late braking and tire management that left the rest of the grid fighting for scraps in my rearview.
The headlines called it a "statement win. " I just called it Sunday.
Now, days later, the desert is a memory.
I’m back at the practice track, the engine of the test car ticking as it cools inside the bay.
It’s a sharp, clipped rhythm, the only sound in the garage besides the distant, high-pitched whine of an air wrench.
I strip my gloves off, tossing them toward the workbench without looking.
Lifting the helmet free, I let the sweat dry fast against my spine.
There’s a particular deadness that comes after a session like this.
Not exhaustion, just a quiet transition where the track finally lets go of you.
I roll my shoulders, letting the cockiness settle back into place like a second skin. Familiar. Useful.
I flex my right hand, but the tips of my index and middle fingers are dead weight—a dull, humming numbness that refuses to spark. I give them a sharp shake, waiting for the jitter to fade.
"You were late on the apex of turn four for six laps straight," Landon’s voice cuts through the silence.
He’s hovering by the screens, his face tight. He hasn't been in my ear long, but he’s already mastered that grating, paternal tone—the one that assumes his stopwatch knows more than my gut.
"I wasn't late," I say easily, scrubbing a towel over my neck while discreetly rubbing the pads of my fingers against the rough fabric. "I was taking a wider line to see how the grip held on the exit. The tires liked it."
"The tires hated it. You were scrubbing speed for the sake of a feeling. If you trust the line I gave you, you won't have to chase the car on the exit."
"I'll trust the line when it stops feeling like a dead end," I mutter, shoving my hand into my pocket so he can't see the slight tremor in my grip.
Tension locks across Landon’s face—that familiar look of someone who’s about to dig in his heels. "A dead end? The data shows—"
"The data doesn't feel the asphalt," I snap, my voice rising. The numbness in my fingers is moving up toward my palm now, a dull, crawling sensation that makes my skin feel like it belongs to a stranger. "You want a robot, go build one. You want a winner, let me drive the damn car."
"That’s enough."
Luka’s voice is quiet, but it cuts through the tension. He’s been leaning against a stack of spare tires watching us with that unnerving, observant stillness. He doesn't look at Landon; he looks straight at my right arm, his eyes tracking the way I’m gripping the fabric inside my pocket.
"Let’s take a break, Dom," Luka says, stepping into the space between us. He places a hand on my shoulder—a gesture that looks like brotherly support to Landon, but I feel the subtle pressure. A warning. "Go hit the showers. Cool down, get the sweat off. We’ll regroup afterwards."
"I’m not finished," I growl, though the buzzing is so loud in my hand now I’m worried I’ll drop my helmet if I try to pick it up.
Luka’s grip tightens just a fraction. His eyes are hard. Insistent. "Shower. Now. I’ll walk Landon through sector three."
I hold his stare, the silence stretching until the pride finally gives way to the physical necessity of getting out of sight. I let out a sharp breath. "Whatever.”
I turn and stalk off toward the tunnel that leads towards the more private units.
My boots ring out against the concrete, the rhythm matching the frantic thrum of my pulse.
I round the corner, my mind already halfway under a stream of water and nearly plow straight into a wall of papers and folders.
"Whoa—watch it!"
I steady myself, my hand instinctively reaching out to catch her shoulder before I can remember I’m supposed to be avoiding her. Carter. She’s clutching a stack of technical diagrams to her chest, her hair hanging down the middle of her back, looking far too attractive for my liking.
"What are you doing here?" I demand, my voice still rough from the adrenaline.
She recovers her footing, adjusting the papers with a pointed look at my hand on her arm. I pull it back as if she’s gone incandescent. "It's a track, Dominic. People work here."
"Not you."
"My dad forgot some reports at the house," she says, her voice flat, professional—which is its own kind of insult after the other night.
She tries to shoulder past me, but I shift, cutting her off. I’m still wired from the track, that reckless electricity under my skin making me want to provoke something. "Since when did you become your Dad’s errand girl? You usually treat this place like a biohazard zone."
Carter pulls the stack of papers tighter to her chest, her eyes narrowing. "He was stressed because his lead driver thinks telemetry is a suggestion. I was helping. Move."
"Let me see them," I say, my voice dropping into that arrogant, demanding tone I know she hates. "If they’re about my car, I don't need Landon filtering them first."
I reach out to snatch the folders from her—a quick, aggressive move meant to assert a bit of dominance. But as my fingers close around the edge of the heavy cardstock, the hum in my hand turns into a total blackout. The signal just… stops.
My grip doesn't hold. The folder doesn't even move; it just slides through my useless fingers and hits the concrete with a dull thud, diagrams scattering across the floor like confetti.
The silence in the hallway is deafening.
I stare down at my hand. It looks normal, but it feels like a piece of wood attached to my wrist. My heart hammers against my ribs—not from irritation, but from a crawling panic.
Carter freezes. She looks at the mess on the floor, then her eyes flick up to my hand, then to my face.
She doesn’t laugh. She doesn't even look annoyed anymore. There’s a flicker of genuine confusion in her expression, a silent 'what was that?
' that feels more invasive than if she’d actually asked.
"You're losing your touch," she says quietly, though the bite is gone from her voice. She reaches down to gather the papers. "Maybe the race took more out of you than you're admitting."
The irony of the comment lands square in my chest and doesn’t miss. She has no idea. She’s standing there thinking she’s landing a blow on my image, completely unaware that I’ve literally lost the feeling in my hand—that for a second, the connection between my brain and my grip just... severed.
I stare at her, forcing myself still through the surge of emotion clawing at me. I want to tell her that I haven't lost anything, but the dead weight at the end of my arm says otherwise.
"I’m fine," I snap, the word coming out like a snarl.
I don't help her. I can't risk trying to pick up a single sheet of paper and failing again.
I shove both hands deep into my pockets, the pressure behind my molars building into a dull throb.
"The humidity in here is trash. My grip slipped. Don't make it a thing."
"I didn't say it was a thing," she says, standing up and tapping the papers into a neat stack. She gives me a final, hard look—one that feels less like a memory and more like a warning. "But if you’re done trying to break my father’s information, I’d like to drop it off to him now."
"Then do it," I mutter, side-stepping her. "Just stay out of my line of sight."
I walk away before she can say another word, my feet heavy as the tremor starts to take over my entire arm.
By the time I reach the shower, it’s no longer subtle—it’s a full, traitorous shake I can’t hide, not from anyone, not from myself. I crank the faucet anyway, shove my face beneath the stream like I can force it still.
The cold water didn’t do anything.
If anything, it only made the memory thicker.
I stood under the spray, eyes closed, but I wasn't in a shower unit at a practice track. I was back in my bedroom, the wood grain pressing into her back while Carter’s hands were tangled in my hair.
I could still hear the ragged catch in her throat—that high, breathless moan she made when I finally stopped talking and just took what I wanted.
It had been frantic, desperate, and exactly what I needed before the opener.
Now, it was a haunting.
I leaned my forehead against the tile, my numb fingers finally stinging as the hit of the spray forced the blood back into them.
I should have been thinking about the track.
I should have been thinking about turns.
Instead, I was wondering if she still had the faint mark, I’d no doubt, left on her hip.
I dressed quickly, my mood darkening with every snap and zip of my clothes.
When I stepped back into the garage, the familiar scent of burnt rubber and high-octane fuel usually acted as a sedative.
Not right now. My chest tightened the second I saw her.
Carter was still here. I’d expected her to drop the reports and vanish, but she was anchored to a tool chest, her posture relaxed in a way that set my teeth on edge as she laughed at something Luka was saying.
I veered away, cutting a path toward where Marco was elbow-deep in the rear suspension assembly.
"The high-speed damping felt soft on the transition through the chicane," I muttered, staring at the floor.
Marco grunt-laughed, wiping hydraulic fluid onto a dark rag. "Nice to see you too. Yeah, we’re looking at the shim stack now. If we increase the compression, you might lose some compliance over the kerbs, but you’ll get the mid-corner stability you keep bitching about."
“Fine. Adjust it,” I snapped, my eyes already flicking back toward the tool chest. “Why is Carter still here? I thought she was just dropping papers off.”
Marco didn’t even look up from the dampers, his hands steady as he worked. “Her dad is your coach. She’s allowed inside. Relax.”