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P3, an impressive feat in a midfield car. He doesn’t look very happy about it. In fact, he looks as miserable as I feel, and

I remember he was friends with Antony.

“Good drive, man,” he says, offering me a thin smile.

All the anger rushes out of me as I look at his face. “Yeah, you too,” I mutter. “Sorry about Antony.”

He shrugs stiffly. “I guess Jacob’ll be next.”

I can’t think of anything to say to that. James Riley beckons him forward for his own interview, and I melt away, grateful

to be out of the cameras.

Somehow, I get through the press conference afterward, then Heather the PA drives me to my hotel and escorts me up to my room.

I’m annoyed at her presence, until it occurs to me that she’s the one who kept people away from me all day.

“Thanks,” I say before she leaves, trying to inject some gratitude into the word.

Her mouth crooks into a smile. “I’ll come get you tomorrow morning. Get some sleep.”

It’s good advice, but I don’t even try to follow it. Instead, I sit on my bed and watch F2 videos on YouTube. There are some

tribute videos for Ellis and Antony, and I watch all of them, even the poorly made fan videos. F2 is not as publicized as

F1, so a lot of the videos use the same clips. There’s one of Ellis Parrot getting a second-place trophy on the podium. Jacob’s

standing next to him in first place, and even though the clip only lasts about two seconds, every time I watch it my heart

clenches.

Dawn arrives, and I still haven’t slept. I watch the sun rise, sipping coffee from Jacob’s mug, heavy-limbed and empty of emotion. When Heather arrives, she looks at the bed, my clothes, and my face, and grimaces.

“Come on,” she says bracingly. “We’ll get you a coffee on the way.”

She hands me off to Brian at the track, who’s back from his brief illness looking like someone who’s been lying on a beach

all day, and who raises an eyebrow at my coffee and tells me caffeine isn’t good for me. Somehow, I manage not to punch him

in the face.

He and I join Matty at a table in the Harper cafeteria. A murmur of whispers follows us to the table, and Matty looks up a

little guiltily from his cell phone.

“Did you see this?” He slides the phone toward me. It’s open to some trashy-looking news site called The Weekly Starz . There’s a grainy picture of me leaving H?pital Nord below the caption “Star F1 driver Travis Keeping—mourning secret lover’s

death?!”

My blood runs cold—I think it might actually stand still in my veins—then a sickly heat spreads over my flesh as I read the

poorly written, sensationalized article claiming I was dating Antony Costa.

“It’s just some garbage tabloid,” Matty says. “None of the legit networks are running it. I think Stefan’s already on top

of it.”

I scrub a hand over my face. “It’s fine,” I mutter.

“That’s such bullshit,” Brian says, pulling the phone toward him. His face creases in disgust as he reads it. “You should

sue them or something, seriously.”

Matty frowns at him but says nothing. When Brian gets up to get more food, I look up and find Matty watching me with an uncharacteristically

thoughtful look on his face.

“Keeping,” he says.

“What,” I say, flatly.

“I don’t want to pry—”

“Then don’t.”

Matty drums his fingers on the table, watching me. The silence stretches out until my palms start to prickle.

“I wasn’t dating Antony Costa,” I say finally.

He nods slowly. “Okay.”

Just as he takes a breath to speak again, Brian reappears and pushes some noxious-looking green drink toward me.

“Let’s go,” he says, without looking up from his phone.

For the next hour, I’m stuck listening to Brian brag about his diet while I do some strength training. Every time I think

about the article, I go cold all over. For all that Matty called it a garbage tabloid, some of it hit disturbingly close to

the truth. They mentioned my poor performance in the race after the crash, called out my crappy migraine excuse the week after...

they even had a picture of my stormy face from yesterday’s moment of silence, and quoted some nurse who saw me helping Antony’s

mom carry food up from her car.

It’s all so insane. A full year of worrying someone will find out what’s been going on with me and Jacob, and now this.

About five minutes before the race, just as I’m about to get into my car, Brian grabs my arm.

“There’s some French chick on the phone for you,” he says, waving my cell phone at me. “Iness or something. Sounds hot.”

For a moment, I stare at him blankly. My first thought is that he really shouldn’t be answering my fucking phone. My second

thought is that it’s some reporter trying to get information after that stupid article. Then something clicks into place.

“Ines Martin?”

Brian shrugs. “Yeah, maybe.”

I almost trip as I scramble out of the car and snatch the phone from him. My race engineer, Freddie, gives me an incredulous

look as I sprint past him into the hallway.

“Hello?” I say. My hands are shaking, and my heart is thundering in my ears.

“Oui, Travis? C’est Ines Martin.”

“Yes, hi,” I say urgently. “Is everything okay?”

“I am sorry to be disturbing you, I only wanted to give you good news,” she says. I press the phone harder to my ear, my pulse

doubling. “Jacob’s breathing tests went very well today. Dr. Kajetanowicz thinks of removing the breathing tube tonight.”

“Tonight?” My voice breaks on the word. “Does that mean he might be awake tonight?”

“Keeping!” Freddie appears around the corner, giving me an impatient glare. I wave him away. The race is nothing compared

to this.

“Oui, maybe,” she says. “I thought you would like to know.”

“Yes, thank you,” I breathe. “I’ll try to get there.”

“Keeping!” Freddie roars.

“I’ve got to run, thanks,” I say quickly, then hang up, chuck my phone to one of the engineers, and hop into the car about

half a second before I’m waved out onto the pit lane.

For the entire formation lap, I keep breaking out into stupid, nervous laughter. I feel lightheaded with hope, almost drunk

with it.

Jacob might be awake tonight.

It feels dangerous to hope, especially after Antony, but I can’t help it. Ines has never given me hope before. That means

it must be real.

I’m grinning as the starting lights turn on, one after another. In the second before they go out, I take a deep breath and let it out. When I see Jacob tonight, I don’t want him to think I’ve been falling apart. I want to have something positive to tell him, something to make him smile.

A race win will do just fine.