Carter
Chapter eighteen
I’ve lost the morning before it’s even begun.
The sunlight hitting the duvet is too aggressive, the ticking of the clock on the bedside table sounds like a countdown, and my body feels heavy—anchored to the mattress by the afterthought of cedar and steam.
I’m halfway into my jeans, hopping on one foot and cursing under my breath, when I realize my shirt is on inside out.
"Great," I mutter, yanking it over my head. My hair static-shocks my cheek, and I nearly take my own eye out with a stray button.
From the kitchen, a low, amused huff carries through the cracked door. It’s not a laugh—my father doesn't do anything that loud this early—but it’s the sound of a someone who realizes exactly how much of a disaster I am right now.
"With all that banging around, you’re going to wipe out," dad calls mildly from the distance. "And I’m not filling out the insurance paperwork for a concussion."
"I’m fine," I snap, shoving my laptop into my bag with enough force to make the charger groan. "I just... misjudged the time."
"Mhm." I hear the slow, rhythmic scrape of a spoon against a ceramic mug. He’s spooning sugar into his coffee with a level of patience that feels like a personal insult.
I bolt into the kitchen, reaching for my keys on the counter.
I stop for a heartbeat, my gaze snagging on an open notebook in front of him.
The pages are dense—neat diagrams of suspension geometry and columns of raw data.
A mechanical component is sketched in the margins in sharp, precise graphite.
My eyes automatically track a specific curve he’s drawn, and a familiar, unwelcome itch starts at the back of my brain.
"What’s that?" I ask, my hand hovering an inch above my keys.
My dad leans back against the counter, his thumb tracing the rim of his mug.
He looks tired, but his eyes stay locked on the page.
"Just a headache. We’re losing stability in the high-speed corners, but the data says the downforce is peaking.
The sim is giving me one answer, but the wear on the rear left tire is telling another story. "
He doesn't look at me. He just leaves the puzzle open, bleeding across the counter.
I don't realize I've moved until my finger is tracing the sketched line of the chassis. "It’s the rake," I say.
The words feel like a reflex, something pulled from a deep, dusty drawer.
"Look at the angle. If you’re running the rear that high to chase the downforce, you’re stalling the floor when the car bottoms out under load.
" My hand gestures toward the floor of the sketch, miming the airflow. "The air isn't moving. It’s choking."
He goes dead still, before he sets the mug down with a soft clink, his eyes finally lifting to mine.
"If I drop the rear, I lose the aggressive turn-in," he says, his voice dropping an octave. "Dominic won't like the understeer."
"Then compensate with the front flap angle." I don't think; I just do. I grab a stray pencil and point to the front wing on the diagram. "Give up a little bit of the initial bite to keep the car from snapping at the apex. It’s a cleaner exit. The tires won't scream every time he touches a curb."
He reaches for his own pencil. "And if we adjust the dampers to—"
I flinch.
I look at the writing instrument in my hand, then at the notebook, and suddenly the room feels too small. The memory of every dinner ruined by "aerodynamic trade-offs" and every holiday spent in a grease-stained garage crowds the air surrounding me.
The pencil falls from my grip. It clatters against the counter and rolls away.
"I don't know, Dad," I say, my voice turning brittle. I grab my keys, the metal digging into my palm. "I'm just guessing.”
He looks at the page, then at me. The professional spark in his eyes flickers and dies, replaced by a heavy, quiet sort of something I refuse to delve further into.
"I gotta go," I say, and the word is a wall. I shove my keys into my pocket and grab my travel mug. "I’m already late. I have a presentation."
He nods, sliding back into that unbothered, quiet version of himself. "You working at SHIFT today?"
"No. Just class. Then the practice course." I tug on my cardigan, smoothing the knit over my ribs as if I could hide the person who just solved a suspension crisis in seconds.
"So you’re coming in early," he says. It’s not a question.
I pause at the door, my fingers tightening on the handle. "Yeah."
He nods once, a short, mechanical movement. He doesn't look back at the notebook. He just picks up his mug and stares into the dark surface of his coffee, his shoulders dropping just a fraction.
"Good luck with the presentation," he says quietly.
The morning air is a sharp, cool reset. It smells like damp grass and sunshine. I’m moving fast, trying to force my mind toward derivative analysis.
I round the corner of the driveway, my head down, and that’s when I hit him.
I collide with a solid wall of muscle and expensive cotton. My coffee jerks violently.
"Shit!" I hiss. I watch, almost in slow motion, as a dark brown arc of liquid leaps from the mug and paints a disastrous, steaming stripe straight down the front of my cream cardigan.
I look up, my apology dying in my throat.
Dominic is standing there with a duffel slung over one shoulder. He’s wearing sunglasses, pushed just low enough that I know he’s watching. The light catches the hard planes of his face, his posture looking maddeningly composed for someone who spent the night being "selfish."
He looks at the spreading stain on my chest. Then at my face. Then back at the stain.
"Take off your shirt, Shortcut," he says. His voice is a low, unbothered drawl, completely aware of the weight of the words and entirely too comfortable with them.
I pause, my brain stalling. The memory of his hands on me the night before—the blunt, demanding force of him—flashes behind my eyes like a strobe light.
I cast a frantic look toward the main house. The pool house is right around the corner. Not to mention the grounds crew currently trimming the hedges fifty yards away.
"Absolutely not," I hiss, my voice low and sharp. "My dad is twenty feet away, the staff is everywhere, and you've clearly lost your mind."
He snorts, his gaze traveling down the front of me with a slow, clinical laziness that makes my skin prickle. He doesn't look concerned about the scandal; he looks bored by my hesitation.
"Suit yourself," he says, leaning back against his car with a shrug that says he couldn't care less. "But you currently look like you lost a fight with your own morning, and you’re going to smell like burnt beans and desperation all day.”
"I don’t have time for this," I snap, frantically blotting the coffee with my sleeve. It’s a lost cause; the cream color is drinking the liquid, the brown stain spreading into an ugly, scattered map across my chest. I let out a sound of pure frustration, realize the knit is already ruined, and shrug out of it with an aggressive tug.
I’m left in my camisole, the soft breeze biting at my skin, but it’s better than wearing a wet rag.
"I have a presentation in fifteen minutes and now I’m a walking disaster," I mutter, holding the sodden cardigan away from me like it's a dead animal.
Dominic’s mouth curves. It’s not a smirk; it’s the look of someone who has already decided how this is going to go. He doesn't hesitate. He doesn't even ask.
"Trade."
He reaches into his duffel and pulls out a black technical team jacket.
This isn't an item you can just buy at a sporting goods store; it’s structured, made of a silent, wind-resistant fabric with the team’s sponsors in matte-black embroidery along the sleeves.
Across the back, in sharp, silver lettering, is his name: Valerio.
It’s the kind of gear only the crew and the drivers touch. It’s a piece of the paddock, and it smells like high-octane fuel and the expensive air of a garage.
"I’ll get that cleaned," he says, nodding at my ruined cardigan. "Then I'll bring it to the track later."
I stare at the jacket in his other hand. It feels like a trap. "I can't exactly walk onto campus wearing your name, Dominic. People have eyes."
Dominic doesn't blink. Instead, he reaches up and slides his sunglasses slowly to the top of his head, baring eyes that are dark and dangerously focused. He leans in, meeting me at eye level until I can see the flecks in his iris’s, his mouth hooking into a slow, flirtatious curve that isn't quite a smile and isn't quite a dare.
"I could make us both much later than you already are," he says. His voice is a low, rough edge that brushes against my skin.
The air in the driveway suddenly feels heavy, saturated. His gaze drops from my eyes to my mouth, lingering there with a heavy, deliberate intensity that makes my stomach do a slow, nauseating flip.
For a split second, I’m right there with him, imagining some door locking and the world outside the driveway ceasing to exist. The logic of the morning—the data, the deadlines—all of it begins to blur at the edges.
He doesn't give me the chance to recover.
While I’m still lost in the pull of that thought, Dominic moves.
He shifts further into my space, the motion so fluid and fast it catches the breath in my throat.
Before I can find my footing, before I can even lift my hands to maintain a shred of distance, the heavy material of the jacket is already draping over my shoulders.
He doesn’t hand it to me; he ensnares me in it.
"Arms," he murmurs.
His voice is a low vibration I feel in my teeth, cutting through my trance like a command.
I freeze for a second, my pulse hammering in my ears, my brain finally catching up to the fact that I’m being dressed like a child—or a prize. The jacket is massive, the structured shoulders boxing me in, and the scent of him is suddenly everywhere, thick and inescapable.