Chapter 72
Niki
Senna strides into my office early Tuesday morning.
I run a hand down my face and struggle to look at her hunched shoulders.
My eyes are painfully sore from lack of sleep.
I squint at my phone. I’ve messaged Rosie several times over the last day and a half, asking how Tabi is and if she needed anything, but there’s still no answer, not even a middle finger emoji.
We’re over, and it’s my fault.
My heart speeds as I check my watch. She should be at her desk soon.
“Morning,” Senna says, pursing her lips. “Are you ready for Hungary? Last race of this half of the season. You’re flying tomorrow, so you’re at practice in good time, right?”
“Yep.” I cock my eyebrow. “Are your shoulders okay? You’re standing like a robot.”
“I’m fine.” She grits her teeth. “Connor should be fully healed in the next couple of weeks, so we’ll be busy during summer break.”
“Good.” A sour taste clings to my throat.
I’ve lost the woman I love, and it’s like my soul is repeatedly yanked through my belly button, dragging my innards with it. I didn’t know I could feel this empty. Walking away should’ve set her free, but she didn’t look free when I said it.
“Connor’s taking me to a water park and then acrobatic horse riding on the beach.”
“Cool.” I recheck my phone.
“And we’re doing a naked skydive.”
“Each to their own.”
“Niki!” Senna stamps her foot. “I’m trying to get a reaction out of you.”
“No shit. Why are you really in my office?”
“Will this be your last race, or are you driving for Vessa next year? Connor tried to get the information out of you yesterday, and I made Mum call you to find out, but you didn’t say.”
I lean back in my chair as she paces. “I haven’t decided.”
She drops into a chair on the other side of my desk. “Why?”
“I’ve had a lot on my mind,” I concede, “and I don’t know what I want anymore. I loved my first race back in Austria, but Silverstone was different.”
“Because you didn’t get as high a position?”
I shake my head. “I loved racing, but it wasn’t like before. I chatted with my counsellor yesterday, and he said something I can’t stop thinking about. He said maybe I needed to race in Austria to prove I could be the guy I used to be, but that I’d moved on, too, and I was a new version of me now.”
“Therapists, eh? Sneaky mind fuckers. What does that mean for now?”
“It means I love racing, I’ll always love it, but it doesn’t feed my soul like it used to.”
Senna strokes her thumb across her best lap time tattoo. “I get that. I love racing, too. That’s why I go to the aerodrome. I’d race in other competitions, too, if I had time.”
“Like Le Mans 24?” An unexpected thrill zips through me when I mention the French twenty-four-hour race I didn’t have time to compete in while driving in Formula One.
“Like Le Mans, but others, too. There are lots of options. And I had an idea for Coulter Racing. It’s one of those things I haven’t got around to, but…”
I steeple my fingers and rest my chin on them. “But what?”
Senna twists a pen, making the silver stars embedded in her nail varnish catch the light with each spin.
“There’s still the advisory role, which you were excellent at.
The way you’ve helped Tawny made me consider something else.
I want to scout young drivers. Formula One is full of drivers from rich families or people whose dads raced.
But there are other kids out there, ones like Connor who only get lucky if they’re sponsored early on.
I want to find those we can fund, and one day, I’d love a Coulter Racing Academy that focuses on future drivers. ”
As Senna talks, my heart beats faster, and I get a rush that used to accompany my pre-race rituals.
I search my drawers for a pen. “I’ve got an idea, but I need to make notes.” Rosie would have a pen ready for me. I check the clock. She should be arriving any minute. I hold my hand out. “Pen.”
Senna passes hers to me, and I make notes.
“You took my pen,” she stutters. “You didn’t put on sanitiser first.”
I shrug. “Some things have improved. My health anxiety isn’t gone even though I’m low as hell today, but I’m also not the man I was a year ago. I’m still finding who I am.”
“Why are you feeling low?”
Because I pushed away the most incredible woman in the world.
“We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about the future.
” She purses her lips, but I continue regardless.
“So once we’ve scouted these drivers, I’d train the teenagers who wouldn’t normally get a chance.
I’d bring my knowledge and insight to help others.
We’d involve people like Jacs to teach them about the mechanics of the car, and we’d discuss why strategies are picked. ”
“Go on.”
“And young people could apply to a summer or winter camp. We run it here, but with plenty of track time at the aerodrome. Rosie could help with the mental health side and bring her sports psychology knowledge to help performance once she’s completed her master’s—if she wants to.”
“Your eyes are shining, bro. I haven’t seen that for a while—except when you look at Rosie and Tabi.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “If I did this, I wouldn’t need to travel as much as I would if I returned to driving. Being away from Rose and Tabi for at least five or six days every fortnight or week doesn’t have the same lure. I want to be home for them…if they want me.”
“Why wouldn’t they want you?” Senna fixes me with her stare.
“I sort of broke up with Rosie.”
“Why?” she shrieks. “You worship that woman.”
I hold up my hand to placate her, and she glares.
“Because Scott is Tabi’s dad. He doesn’t have issues with his health, and Tabi doesn’t need to put on sanitiser to hold his hand.
He doesn’t freak out when she’s sick.” Pain replaces my earlier excitement.
“I’m a burden to her, and I always will be.
She’ll realise the accommodations she must make for me aren’t worth the effort.
I’m doing well, but there will still be drops.
Rosie won’t want to be around me when she could have Scott. I’m not old Niki.”
I lower my gaze, but Senna bangs my desk to get my attention. “Rosie adores you. You’re not a burden. Do you agree it’s great Tabi will know her dad?”
“Obviously. I’ll never be her biological father, but I love that she has this opportunity.”
“Then what is your problem? Tabi loves you. And so what if you’ll always have health anxiety?
It’s helped you respect other people’s nuances and struggles.
Rosie told me you helped Tabi with her fear of the dark and made her cinema experience lovely.
Would old Niki have been able to do that?
So what if you’re not a badass man sleeping around and showing no understanding of danger anymore? Is that who you want to be?”
“I love it when you’re like this,” I whisper. “You’re like a supportive dragon.”
She rolls her eyes and pushes my comment away with a sweep of her hand, but the twinkle in her gaze tells me she liked my compliment. “Who do you want to be?”
I take a breath and grip my desk. “I want to be the guy who turns up for the woman and child he loves when they need him and when they don’t.”
“You’re already that guy. That’s who you’ve been for months. All those gestures that meant the world to Rosie were you turning up for her and Tabi. They weren’t showy, which you could’ve done. They were from the heart and what she needed.”
I sit back and stare at her as I remember Rosie’s reactions to the bubble bath I made her, her beaming smile whenever I add something to her desk fridge, Tabi’s glow stick, and the way Rosie gets teary when I read Tabi bedtime stories.
She loves me despite, or in addition to, my problems. She told me as much.
“I’m such a knob.”
“Yes, you are, and I want to flick you so hard on the forehead right now. I still love you, though.”
“Love you too, Sen.” I check my phone. “But if I’m the guy she wants, why hasn’t she called or messaged me since she left the park Sunday night?”
I recount the conversation to Senna, who bangs her head on my desk. “You remind me of Connor when you do stupid shit like this. She wants you to have a future and doesn’t want to get in your way.”
“But she is my future.”
Senna leans her head back. “I know that. Why didn’t you?”
“Oh. Yeah. I fucked up.”
At my sister’s slow hand clap, I grunt. “The only reason I’m not planning a prank on you right now is because Rosie is ten minutes late. She’s never late for work.”
Senna’s brow furrows as my phone vibrates against my desk. “Is that her?”
“No. It’s Sasha.”
“Answer it then,” Senna snaps.
Sasha’s retching twists my stomach.
“Sasha, are you okay?”
“No.” Sasha gulps and groans. “Rosie and I got Tabi’s bug. Tabi’s better, but it hit Rosie last night, and mine started three hours ago. She’s already out of it. I’m meant to sit Tabi for her, but I can’t like this. Someone needs to care for Tabi and Rosie.”
Ice cold chills sliver down my back. “And Rosie’s parents went on holiday yesterday.”
“My mum only has room for me, and honestly, she’s crap with kids. That’s probably why I’m a preschool teacher, to make sure no one ends up as fucked up as me.” She retches, and the colour drains from my cheeks.
I flip my cap backwards. “Can’t Scott look after them?” I need to step up, but I don’t want to get in the way, and I’m not Tabi’s dad.
Senna stares with her eyebrows raised.
“Are you a fucking knob?”
“Well, yeah, I just called myself that, so—”
“Scott gave a bit of sperm in the most unfulfilling sexual experience of Rosie’s life. That doesn’t qualify him to care for Tabi and Rosie. Maybe he and Tabi will have a relationship one day, but he spent half an hour at a park with her. He’s already back in Australia.”
“Oh.” I suck in a breath. Rosie is sick, and I must show up even if that means hiring a hazmat suit. “I’m coming around.”
“You could ask your parents to do it. I know about your anxieties.”
“I’ll make it work.”
“If it helps, my auntie’s a doctor, and she said Rosie shouldn’t be contagious anymore. How soon can someone be here?”
I need to grab my stuff and Graham and collect all the cleaning supplies and PPE I own. I try not to fixate on the fact that I’ll be stepping into a sick house.
“An hour.”
“Text me when they’re outside, and I’ll leave so we don’t meet, just in case. Tabi should be okay for the sixty seconds it takes me to get out and for someone else to go in.”
Sasha really doesn’t think it’ll be me. That makes me certain it will be.
As I hang up the phone, I grimace. “Shit. Hungary.”
“Yes?” Senna replies.
“Rosie’s ill. I must look after her and Tabi, but I am flying to Hungary tomorrow. I need to be here for her. Nothing matters like she does. Can someone else drive?”
I’d give up my last race in Formula One for her.
I’d give up everything if she asked, not that she would.
Senna’s eyes soften. She and Connor would give up everything for each other as well.
“It’s Tuesday. As long as you’re in that car in Hungary on Saturday for qualifying, we’ll make this week work. Mum and Dad could take over on Saturday if she’s still unwell. Go to her,” Senna tells me. I grab my stuff. “This is your gesture.”
I skid as I bolt through the door. I turn to Senna. “Can I try hugging you?”
Senna nods, her lips trembling. It’s not quite a hug like the old days, but I wrap my arms around her tentatively. Her chest shakes as she weeps.
“I’ve missed this,” she says between sobs. “I love you.”
“It’s not the bear hugs I used to give you, but it’s progress. I love you, too.”
“Now go to Rosie, and don’t forget the masks in your kitchen cupboard.”