Chapter Five
THREE DAYS.
That's how long I manage to keep my armor intact.
Three days of "good morning" with a smile that doesn't reach my eyes. Three days of "more coffee?" in that careful, professional voice. Three days of taking his order and bringing his food and not once—not once—meeting his eyes for longer than necessary.
Three days of being invisible again.
And I'm good at it. I've had twenty-one years of practice.
He comes in every morning at seven-twenty-three. Same booth. Same routine. But something's different now. He watches me more carefully. Studies me like I'm a problem he's trying to solve.
I don't give him anything to solve.
Day one, he tries to talk to me. "Thea—"
"The omelet today?" Professional smile. Order pad ready.
He pauses. Then: "Yes. Thank you."
I walk away before he can say anything else.
Day two, he changes tactics. When I bring his coffee, he says, "I would like to explain—"
"Anything else I can get you?" Still smiling. Still professional. Still not looking at his eyes.
"Thea, what she said—"
"I'll put your order in."
I'm gone before he can finish.
Day three, he doesn't try to talk at all. Just orders. Just eats. Just leaves a twenty percent tip exactly, not a penny more or less.
Just like the first thirty-six days, except now we both know what we're not saying.
Jolie notices, of course.
"You're doing the thing," she says on day three, leaning against the counter with Wuthering Heights tucked under her arm. She has it open to Page 46. Huh? Wasn’t she on page 58 the last time?
"What thing?"
"The invisible thing. The smile-that's-not-a-smile thing. The 'I'm-fine-everything's-fine' thing." She sets her book down. "What happened?"
"Nothing happened."
"Thea—"
"I went hiking. We ran into Kimberly. She said something. I came home. Nothing happened."
"What did Kimberly say?"
I busy myself with wiping down the espresso machine. "It doesn't matter."
"If it doesn't matter, why are you avoiding him?"
"I'm not avoiding him. I'm working."
"You're avoiding him while working. There's a difference." She's quiet for a moment. Then: "Did he do something?"
"No."
"Did he say something?"
I shake my head. “I really don’t want to talk about it. I just need time and space to think about things.”
She studies me with those dark, too-perceptive eyes. "Okay. But Thea?"
"Mm?"
"John 8:33.”
It’s all she has to say, and I nearly break down and cry. The truth. The truth always sets us free. I know that. Believe that. But what if the truth is just too terrifyingly painful to bear?
DAY FOUR STARTS THE same way.
Seven-twenty-three. Corner booth. Coffee, black, no sugar. Omelet. Twenty percent tip.
Except this time, when my shift ends at six, I'm the one closing.
Gail asked me to stay late because Rhea called in sick, and I said yes because I always say yes, and also because staying busy means not thinking about frozen overlooks and coat collars and the word slumming echoing in my head.
By six-thirty, the café is empty. The last customer left fifteen minutesago, and I'm wiping down tables and counting chairs (fourteen) and trying not to think about anything except whether we need to order more napkins.
We probably need to order more napkins.
I'm behind the counter, doing the register count, when I hear the door swing open.
I look up, ready to say we're closed, and—
Santino.
Snow is melting off his jacket, turning dark spots on the shoulders. His hair is damp. His hands are in his pockets. And he's looking at me with an expression I can't read, which is nothing new, except this time there's something else underneath it.
Something that might be exhaustion.
"We're closed," I say automatically.
"I know."
"I was about to lock the door."
"I know." He doesn't move. Just stands there with the cold air coming in behind him and snow melting onto the floor. "May I come in?"
I should say no. I should tell him it's late, I need to finish closing, I have homework, I have literally any excuse that would make this easier.
But since I remember Jolie’s gentle and well-meaning words about the truth...
I force myself to nod, and my heart starts pounding against my chest as I watch him step inside. The café suddenly feels smaller. Quieter. Just the two of us and all this space that somehow isn't enough space at all.
I go back to the register. Count bills I've already counted.
Twenty-three ones. Fifteen fives. Eight tens.
He doesn't move from the door.
I can feel him watching me. Can feel the weight of his attention like a physical thing. My hands are shaking slightly as I stack the bills, and I hate that he can probably see it, hate that I can't even count money without my body betraying me.
"Thea," he says finally.
I don't look up. "I need to finish closing."
"I know."
"It'll take a while."
"I can wait."
"You don't need to—"
"I have been trying to talk to you for three days."
"I've been working."
"You have been avoiding me."
My hands still on the bills. "I've been working," I say again, but the words sound hollow even to me.
Silence.
"Please. Sit with me."
I do look up now. He's still by the door, hands in his pockets, and his expression is—I don't know. Open? Uncertain? Like he's asking for something he's not sure I'll give.
"I have to finish closing—"
"Please."
"Why?"
"Because I—" He stops. Looks away. Looks back. "Because I need to explain. And you will not let me explain while you are working."
I come around the counter. My legs feel uncertain, like I'm walking on ice. I choose a table by the window—not the corner booth, never the corner booth—and I sit.
He sits across from me.
And for a long moment, neither of us speaks.
The café is so quiet. No espresso machine. No Gail barking out orders in the kitchen. No customers. Just the sound of snow hitting the window and the heating system clicking on and my heart doing something complicated in my chest.
“Thea...”
Something about the way he says my name makes my breath catch.
“No more pretending."
I nod.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
I nod again.
“Why?”
“Because...” Just thinking of what I’m about to admit out loud makes my chest hurt. “What Kimberly said—”
“—is out of spite and jealousy,” he cuts in quietly. “And that’s why you should know none of it is true.”
“Is it?” I gesture at myself. At my coffee-stained shirt and my hair that's falling out of its
ponytail. "I’m not like her."
“If you were like her, I wouldn’t have had anything to count. I wouldn’t even care to count. And I certainly wouldn’t be driving across town every day just to have breakfast.”
Oh.
“Do you understand what I’m saying, Thea?”
I bite my lip hard. I think I do, but I’m still scared to admit this. “We’re just so different,” I say helplessly, and frustration flashes over his chiseled features at the words.
"I am not good with words. I am good with speed. With timing. With knowing when to
brake and when to accelerate. But this—" He gestures at the space between us. "I do not know how to measure it. How slow or fast you want me to move.” He rakes his fingers through his hair, and my heart stutters at the gesture. The lack of control in it is nothing like him.
"I grew up in a small village in Italy. Outside Modena.
My father worked in a factory that made car parts.
Brake pads. My mother cleaned houses for wealthy families who lived in the hills.
" He's not looking at me now. He's looking past me, at something I can't see.
"We had nothing. No money. No connections.
Just an old go-kart my father built from parts he found at the factory junkyard. "
His words break my heart. Because it made me realize how I’ve been so blinded by my own fears...that I failed to even consider if his heart also bears scars from the truth.
"I started racing when I was six. Local tracks. Small competitions where the prize was fifty euros and a trophy made of plastic. I was fast. Faster than the other children. Fast enough that by the time I was ten, people started noticing." He pauses. "There was a man. A scout
for one of the junior racing programs. He said I had potential. He said if I could get to the training facility in Milan, he could get me into the program."
"How far was Milan?"
"Four hundred kilometers. Too far for my father's car. Too expensive for a train ticket." He looks down at his hands. "My parents sold everything. Our car. My mother's jewelry—her wedding ring, the necklace her grandmother gave her, everything. My father took a second
job at night. My mother took on more houses to clean. All so I could go to Milan."
My throat is tight.
"I was eleven years old," he continues, "living in a dormitory with twenty other boys, training six days a week, eating rice and vegetables because meat was too expensive.
I would call home once a week—three minutes, that was all we could afford—and my mother would tell me about her day, and I could hear how tired she was. How much she was working. All for me."
"Santino—"
"I spent the next seventeen years racing.
Go-karts, then Formula 4, then Formula 3, then finally professional racing.
Getting faster. Winning more. Making money.
Enough money that my parents could stop working.
Enough money that my mother could buy back her wedding ring from the pawn shop.
" He finally looks at me. "I spent twenty-eight
years being very, very fast. And very, very good at it. And now I am thirty-four, and I am sitting in a café in Jackson Hole, and I do not know what comes next."
The silence stretches.
"My whole life has been about speed," he says quietly. "About knowing where the finish line is. About getting there first. But for the first time, I do not know where the finish line is. I do not know what I am racing toward anymore."
"Why did you stop?"