Chapter 7 Alekhine’s Gun #2
And this dress is white, and dry-clean-only. Worry darts over Faust’s face. “Here—can I?” His fingers hover by my chin, like he’s thinking about turning my face to inspect for damage before thinking better of it. His hand drops. His throat bobs. “No. You’re not.”
I don’t stop pinching my nose. “Is it bad? Like, is it red?”
He shakes his head. Then, a full second later, tacks on, “Red-ish.”
Damn it. My eyes are watering, too. I flick away the tears before my mascara is completely trashed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to come charging out. Did I hurt you?”
He gives me a look like that’s the most ridiculous question in the world—my nose injuring his professional-grade shoulder muscle—and I suppress an eye roll. “What? I could’ve.”
“Mm.”
My eyes narrow, but I let it drop. Probably shouldn’t insist on my ability to maim my talent. “What are you doing down here, anyway?” I ask.
His eyes narrow back. In this lighting, this close, his eyes are almost black. “That’s my room.”
I look over my shoulder at the tall brown door only a couple of feet to the right of mine. My room is number 243. His would be 244.
And there are no other rooms at this end of the hall.
“Oh.” My brow furrows, sending a small sting down my nose. I’d assumed that Faust would be on a different floor than anyone else. Possibly with his own private chef, and masseuse, and door attendant? “I guess that makes sense, since we’ll be meeting in the mornings you head to the circuit, right?”
Faust hums. He’s looking at my face—or really, the middle of it. “Hold on,” he says quietly.
My heart drops as he goes to the only other doorway near ours: an alcove housing the clunky hotel ice machine. “I’m fine, seriously. If I’m not bleeding, then it’s not a big deal,” I insist, trailing after him. He ignores me. This seems to be his style. In one ear, out the other.
He scoops far too many ice cubes out and wraps them in one of the towels from next to the machine. “You should go to a doctor.”
“No thanks.”
“No doctors?”
I blink. How did he notice that? “It’s not broken. Unless it is and you haven’t told me yet.”
Scowling, Faust holds out the anti-nosebleed device. I guess it isn’t broken. I also feel like he’s not going to let me say no to this, so I bite back a sigh and take it. The cold makes me wince, but after a few seconds, it sinks into my skin, comforting.
“Thanks,” I say begrudgingly. “We really have to stop meeting like this.”
I meant it as a joke—how this was weird, and meeting him around Bernard was weird.
Not as a reference to the white-knight wedding run-in that didn’t happen.
Only, in this ice-machine alcove, that particular memory feels bigger than usual.
Heavier, since there’s less space around us to offset it.
Or maybe that’s just Faust? He’s so intense, so severe, that being in a small room with him feels vaguely claustrophobic.
When his eyes flash to mine, my body is keenly aware of the two feet between us, as if I have a measuring tape pinned from his chest to mine.
“Remind me,” he says, studying me. “Where did we last meet?”
“Ha-ha.”
His eyebrows rise. “Something funny?”
The desire to echo back something funny like a petulant middle schooler is almost too strong. “Nope. Nothing at all.”
“Nothing. Really.”
“Just—” I shake my head. “Forget it.”
He huffs, a quick, exasperated noise, and the measuring tape between us slips another inch. It’s kind of fun, making him huff. But then he’s staring at me, and the ice in the towel cracks ominously in the silence, and then I crack, too.
“You didn’t say hi.” Oh my God. I’m saying this. I’ve said it. To a professional athlete who clearly doesn’t like me. “At that restaurant. In Surrey. That’s where we—would’ve last—oh, shit.”
Speaking has not helped the nose situation, and now, I’m bleeding.
Without another word, Faust takes a step toward me, and there must’ve not been that much space between us to begin with, since he’s here with just that one step.
In my bubble. With his hand out and—“Sorry,” he mumbles as he takes my chin, tilting it up.
His skin is rough, but the way he moves me is gentle. “And stop talking.”
My face burns and my nose hurts like hell and his eyes are definitely cool-toned.
There’s no orange, or green, or yellow, only inky midnight-in-a-forest brown.
It’s kind of… stunning? In a dart gun kind of way.
“I bet you really like saying that to people, don’t you?
” I taste copper when I giggle. Distantly, I hope I’m bleeding on his hand.
My laughter seems to bring out a new feature on Faust’s face. A small smile line, running parallel to the dipped corner of his curved lips. “Maybe,” he murmurs, his deep voice lower than before. Softer.
Intrigued.
And the measuring tape between us slaps against the tile floor.
Metaphorically speaking, of course. We’re still standing here, stemming off a potentially hazardous medical event, when footsteps echo around the alcove’s corner. “Faust, you ready?”
I don’t recognize that voice. Faust’s hand drops as we turn to look at the newcomer, both of us awkward and quiet for God knows what reason.
Because nothing is happening here. Nothing bad.
Other than me acting really not normal in front of the one person I need to act normal around.
“Hell-lo there,” says the newcomer, his confused hazel eyes shifting between Faust and I. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No,” Faust answers cleanly, stepping toward the doorway. He stuffs his hands into his pockets, too, and I’m so distracted by that. Hands, gone. As if us being in an alcove, alone, touching, red-handed, wasn’t already questionable. He had to jump away, too.
“Bummer!” The shorter brown-haired man points at me, his smile back up and running. “Oh, hey—you’re Cat! I’m Eddie, the new reserve driver. Also, do you know you’re bleeding?”
More towels are wasted, more of Faust playing doctor, though I notice that he doesn’t touch me again now that this new guy is here.
Which—okay. I made it weird when I brought up the restaurant and also laughed while bleeding, I don’t know why I did that, but he’s making it weird now.
Weirder. Why? It can’t be that my nosebleed triggered a memory of Bernard’s wedding, as horrible as that night had been for all involved.
And Faust can’t have been flirting with me, either, when his voice went all syrupy and velvet.
Flirting takes effort, and that had been…
easy. Fast. Not over the top. I’m an expert at flirting. I know how it goes.
“All better,” Eddie announces when I’m clean and largely unscathed. He has a run-of-the-mill Midwestern accent, though there’s nothing average about his grin. It’s infectious, young and playful and slightly devious. “About time we met, Cat. I’ve been trying to get on your schedule for ages.”
“Oh. Sorry, I’m, um—they’re probably still working out schedules.”
“Yeah, maybe.” He’s clearly down to follow whatever white lie I need to soothe his ego, but he doesn’t let it get him down. “Hey, let’s meet now! Faust and I were just about to go grab a bite. With—”
“Holy shit.” A new woman’s in the alcove doorway. Pale, so young, with a mess of brown curls. “You look like you just got mauled by a bear. Faust, what did you do to her?”
Christine Fay makes three. Faust looks from me to his new teammate, taken aback. “She ran into me.”
“Reflexes, dude,” she tuts, with a scowl that almost rivals his. “Cat, you’re coming out with us? Can I buy you lunch? Or dinner. I don’t know what time it is. Or how much that dress cost.”
My eyes dart to Faust, who’s currently staring at my shoulder and my shoulder alone.
I wait to see if he’ll meet my eyes and blink out the Morse code for do not accept this invite, I don’t want to be around you, this is a meal for Formula 1 drivers only.
But he doesn’t. So I smile and say, “I was actually supposed to make Faust meet with me about work stuff, but maybe over food is better? And I don’t really know anyone in Australia, so my dinners were going to be a bit solitary. ”
“What? No!” Eddie gasps. And with that, he launches into a tirade about how he’s going to introduce me to “everyone,” while Christine’s insisting they let me change, and Faust continues his close examination of the hotel artwork.
Ten minutes later, I’m in a new gray dress that might hide stains better, Christine has followed me on Instagram, and Eddie’s linked his arm with mine as we all take the elevator downstairs.
“I think we were supposed to run into you today,” he says confidently.
“I have a feeling. I can always tell these things.”
“Can you, now?”
“Oh yeah. Totally. You and I were supposed to become friends.”
Faust stands behind the three of us in the elevator, squeezed into one mirrored corner. Silent again.