Chapter 17 Gaining Tempo #3
But you like me. He’d said that at the gala, in so many words; I think the exact phrasing had been I can’t get you out of my head.
I must be a puzzle to him, too.
“Can I sleep here?” I ask. “I know Qualifying is tomorrow, so you can say no. You should say no.”
His head turns. I think he might press another kiss to my temple, he seems like he’s going to, but he doesn’t. “You can sleep here.”
“I won’t be in the way?”
“Arcadia,” Faust says bluntly, and again, chills. “I get up at four a.m. You’re the one who’s doing yourself a disservice.”
“Jesus. What time is it now?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
So, too close to midnight. I have so many more questions that I want to ask him, but I’ve already kept him up too late, and he’s already doing this for me.
Or with me, I guess. When I go to grab my toothbrush and a sleep shirt from my own room, the contentment on his face is impossible to excuse away.
He’s downright peaceful as he brushes his teeth beside me at the double vanity, the messiest part of his room by far—if you could call it that.
This freak has lined up his pill bottles under the mirror from largest to smallest, the labels cleanly turned out.
Nortriptyline. Excedrin. Ubrogepant, in that order. Faust catches my eye in the mirror. “Migraine medication.”
I wipe my mouth, surprised. “Sorry, I wasn’t…”
“It’s okay.” He touches my shoulder as he goes to the door. “I like it.”
When I change into my extremely oversized Vivienne Westwood shirt—a thrift-store find, embellished with the words Make history!
and a dancing fawn and the house’s trademark Orb—I start to feel like I’ve overstayed my welcome.
Faust sleeps in gray sweatpants, a plain white shirt.
There are reading glasses folded up on his nightstand.
If sex is too intimate for me, why the hell am I here?
He’s showing me so many details. He knows what I do, how I hurt people, and here he is. Vulnerable.
I linger by the front of the room, fingers knit together. “I really don’t have to stay.”
He’s already on one side of the bed—his side. Seated, he turns to look at me, wordless as usual.
At first.
“Do you want to stay?” The night’s made his voice deeper, like he’s five minutes from falling asleep.
And I should tell him that this is already more than I’d planned for, and I might kiss him again, and that this side of him is both exactly like how I’d pictured it and nothing like I’d thought he’d be.
And I should say that I have pictured him—us—going past this step.
That if I were to have sex with any strange rich man, it’d be him.
I’d date him. In another world, I could probably love him.
And I should say that, the first bit, because he needs to know that I’m incapable of allowing it here, when I have so much work to do.
But he’d asked what I wanted, and I do have a tiny, small want that feels okay. Permissible, in the grand scheme of things.
I want to see him fall asleep.
Ignoring the blush that has to be creeping over my face, I tiptoe to the other side of the bed, lift up the thick white duvet, and slip in.
He gets in, too, turning off the bedside lamp, then rolling to face me.
There’s space between us, his hand resting on the crisp white sheet.
His fingernails are neat, the back of his hand dappled with veins.
A brown wave of hair falls in front of his eyes.
They’re open for now, lit by the soft glow of a paper nightlight across the room.
He looks his age for the first time since we’ve met—since before then, even.
I’d never noticed how tensely he holds himself until now, when he isn’t.
If Imogen had paid me to hurt him… would I have done it?
Without a word, I lift my hand to his. Faust lets me trace the lines of his palm for a few minutes—heart line, head line, life line. After that, he spreads his fingers out, making space for me.
I slip my fingers in.
I don’t get what I want that night; I fall asleep before I can watch Faust do just that.
The next day, though, I get something better—Faust nabs pole position in Qualifying.
That puts him in first place on the grid for the Japanese Grand Prix.
A statistical advantage to win. And Christine’s not far behind him.
Mei sends me an article from the official Formula 1 website, with an eye roll emoji. Idiots + L + let’s make them weep w/ day gala.
The headline reads, Has Faust’s Luck Finally Changed?
I’d asked him about that when we’d woken up. His alarm blaring, the windows dark, my momentary panic before his hand curled around my back and I couldn’t regret any of it. “Remember when they tried to call you ‘Lucky’?”
He’d groaned and shifted me with him as he turned off the alarm. “Yes.”
“Do you think you’re lucky?”
“Now, or then?”
“Hm…” I’d set my chin on his shoulder, calculated ways to keep him from insulting himself. “Now.”
He’d thought about it, then swept my long bangs back behind my ear. “We’ll see.”