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I leave Jacob’s family alone for almost two hours. I tell myself I’m being generous, giving them time alone with him, but

really I just need the time to regroup. Now that I’ve had it out with Jacob’s father, I expect Paul and Lily will be next.

I’m especially frightened of Paul. Not because of what he might try to do to me—I’m in way better shape than him, and if push

came to shove, he wouldn’t stand a chance—but because I don’t want Jacob to know we’re fighting. I don’t want to make him

look the way he did before, when Paul and Lily were snapping at me. So panicked, so confused. Like Dr. K said, he needs calm

right now.

I make my way to the hospital cafeteria and buy a coffee and one of the French granola bars Dr. Martin always brings me. I

find a table hidden away in a corner and pull out my phone. There are six missed calls and two messages from Brian: Bro, Harper just fucking fired me, WTF!!!! Then, Call me now, you need to sort this shit out!!

I delete both of them, then block his number for good measure. Next is a text from Connor, Harper’s travel coordinator: Stefan told me you’ll be unavailable for a few days. Please call if you need anything.

Then, the last one, from Matty, who must’ve noticed my absence at today’s team meetings: Shit man, are you sick again?

I stare at it for about ten minutes and then slowly start to type.

Not sick. Back in France. Dating Jacob Nichols.

I stare at my own words for another ten minutes before I hit Send. I’m tempted to add something like Feel free to delete me from your phone now , but that would be too pathetic. I probably shouldn’t be telling him the truth, but I’m just so sick of lying. Stefan knows.

Jacob’s family knows. Matty might as well know, too.

I don’t expect him to answer straightaway—or at all—so I’m stunned when three dots appear. He’s read it. He’s typing something.

The coffee I drank turns to battery acid in my stomach as I wait for the words to appear. A few seconds later, the dots disappear,

and with them, my hope that Matty might react well.

But then my phone rings.

“Dude!” Matty’s loud voice echoes through the phone the moment I answer it. “My girlfriend owes me fifty bucks.”

“What?” I say hoarsely.

He laughs—actually laughs —and the knot in my chest loosens by a fraction. “Last week I bet her fifty bucks you were dating Nichols. She thought I was

nuts. But I told her, I said, babe, listen to me, I’m intuitive as hell.”

“Matty...” I start uncertainly.

“So, how’s he doing?” he interrupts.

I swallow hard and try again. “Matty, look—”

“Oh, fuck off, Keeping,” he says. “I don’t give a shit that you’re dating a guy. My older brother is gay. Which you’d know, by the way, if you ever talked to anyone on our team.”

A hot feeling spreads through my stomach, something like shame.

“So?” Matty says again. “How’s he doing?”

I have to swallow twice before I can get the words out. “He’s... a little better,” I manage. “They took his breathing tube

out last night.”

“That’s awesome,” Matty says. “Is his family there, too?”

“Yeah, they are.”

I can actually hear Matty grimace through the phone. “Uh-oh. That doesn’t sound good.”

“Not good, no.” I take a breath. “They... didn’t know we were dating.”

Matty whistles. “Shit. That’s awkward.”

“Yeah. They aren’t thrilled.”

“Well... it’s probably a pretty big shock for them,” Matty says. “I know my parents freaked when they found out about Eric.”

I hesitate. “That’s your older brother?”

“Yeah. I think my parents were mostly upset he didn’t tell them sooner. Well, that and he was dating this crazy fucking cokehead

at the time.”

I breathe out a humorless laugh. “I think Jacob’s parents would prefer a cokehead.”

“Fuck off. You’re a super successful F1 driver slash millionaire. What the hell else are they looking for?”

I crack the tiniest smile. “I don’t know. I guess they’re worried it’ll get out in the press.”

“Hm.” Matty’s silent for a moment. “I suppose that’s fair. How did your parents take it?”

“They’re both dead.”

Another beat of silence. “Grandparents, then? Or siblings?”

I shrug, before I remember he can’t see me. “Nope.”

“You don’t have any family?”

I open my mouth to answer, then close it again. The truth sounds stupid, even in my head. But again, Matty surprises me.

“Jacob’s your family,” he says, answering his own question. He lets out a low whistle. “And now he’s in the hospital and his

family’s furious with you. What the actual fuck, Keeping? Why didn’t you tell me any of this shit?”

I don’t answer him. I’m not sure what I would say.

“I’m going to get my mom to call you,” he says. In the background, I hear someone talking to him. “Ah, fuck, man, I’ve got

to run. But I’ll call you later, alright?”

“You don’t have to—” I start, but he’s already hung up. I put my phone down and stare at it for a while. I feel cold and jittery,

like I’ve had too much coffee.

That didn’t go at all like I thought it would.

I put my head in my hands and take several deep breaths. When I look up again, Paul and Lily are standing twenty feet away,

holding trays of food and glaring at me. Lily says something to Paul and then they both stalk off to sit at a table far away

from me.

I swallow hard and push myself to my feet. I can’t stand the idea of skirting around those two for days, but I’m too exhausted

to approach them right now. Their narrowed eyes follow me as I slip out of the cafeteria. I head back up to the USI, but when

I press the buzzer, the same scowling nurse who snapped at me about the water opens the door. My stomach sinks.

“I’m here to see Jacob Nichols,” I say.

The nurse scowls. “Only family may visit.”

“I’m... his boyfriend,” I force out.

I think the look that crosses her face will probably stay with me forever.

When I worried about people finding out about me and Jacob, I’d worried about things like the media fallout, the annoying questions at press conferences, the awkward silences at work.

I’d never actually thought about things like this. Blatant disgust from a total stranger.

“Only family may visit,” she repeats, and then closes the door in my face.

I retreat to my hotel room, struggling not to feel completely defeated. I’m not usually a quitter, but this entire day has

worn me down.

When I open the door to my room, I’m enveloped by a warm, homey smell. Heather is cooking in the en suite kitchen, while her

laptop plays some TV show I don’t recognize. She jumps when she sees me.

“Holy shit, you scared me.” She presses a floury hand to her face. “I just came up to use your kitchen. My room is about a

tenth the size of yours.” She waves a spoon to encompass the vast, modern-looking suite. “Let me just pop this in the oven

and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“No problem,” I say quietly. After an awkward beat, I step farther into the kitchen. Every gleaming countertop is covered

in plates of food—curried chicken and rice, a lasagna, a plate of Rice Krispies squares.

“I got bored,” Heather says, following my gaze. “Please, eat some of it. You look like you had a shitty twenty-four hours.”

I scrub a hand over my face. “Fuck. Have we really only been here a day?”

“Mm-hm.” Heather kneels down to put a tray of cookies in the oven, then briskly begins cleaning up the kitchen. “How’s your boy doing?”

I freeze. Your boy , she said.

“Well?” she says impatiently.

I turn to the counter and pick at a Rice Krispies square, just to have something to do with my hands. “He’s awake,” I say

quietly. “But he still looks really bad.”

She pulls a face. “That sucks. Do you want a hug? I’m not really a hugger, but I could give it a shot.”

My mouth twitches. “I’m fine.”

“Thank god,” she says. “That would’ve been awkward as hell.”

As I fight a tiny smile, she waves me away from the counter and motions for me to sit down. She loads a plate full of food

and sets it in front of me.

“Eat,” she orders. “I assume you’re running back to the hospital soon?”

“Not for a while, no.”

She raises an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

I take a bite of chicken. I’m not used to talking to people like this, and if I’m honest, talking about it feels a little

too much like whining. Still, I actually like Heather, and Matty’s words about me not talking to people are ringing in my

ears. “His family doesn’t want me there. And his nurse right now is definitely not okay with it.”

“Fuck that bitch,” Heather says vehemently. “And his family... well. Have they always been like that?”

“They didn’t know until today.”

“You told them?”

I hesitate. “Jacob sort of... reached for me, I guess, when they were taking his breathing tube out. They all saw.”

“Hm.” Heather sits down opposite me and takes a thoughtful bite of a Rice Krispies square. “That must’ve been hard for them.”

“I guess,” I say skeptically.

“Not just finding out he was dating a guy,” she clarifies. “How would you have felt, if he’d woken up and reached for someone

else?”

I open my mouth to argue and then shut it again. I let myself picture it—Jacob coughing out his tube, pale and scared, and

then reaching out for his mother or father instead of me. Even in my imagination, I feel a pang of distress.

“Yeah, I guess,” I repeat. “But his father made it pretty clear they want me away from him. He said something like, it’ll

be his whole narrative.”

Heather pulls a face. “Well...”

My chest tightens. “You think he’s right?”

She holds her hands up in defense. “Try to think of it from their point of view. Their son worked his ass off through karting

and junior racing and F3, then he starts winning races in F2 and getting some serious interest from F1 teams—oh, don’t look

so surprised, I Googled him after the crash,” she adds, seeing my face. “And then he gets in this huge, horrible accident,

and it looks like his whole future’s been derailed. There’s maybe this tiny, minuscule chance he’ll ever make it back to where

he was, and they’re clinging to that idea... but then, bam! They find out about you.”

I look at my hands. “I don’t want to wreck his career.”

“Of course you don’t. But think about what happens if this story breaks. The media freaks out when you have a migraine, for

Christ’s sake. You’d be F1’s first openly gay driver, and Jacob’s name would be dragged into the spotlight right along with

yours.”

I stab a piece of chicken with my fork. I don’t want to admit it, but I’m starting to see what she means.

“That label would follow Jacob everywhere, you know it would. If he got back out racing, the news reports wouldn’t say ‘Jacob

Nichols gets back into racing after tragic crash,’ they’d say ‘Travis Keeping’s boyfriend returns to racing.’ And an unfortunate

amount of people are dicks, and they’ll be ignorant and hateful. And then if he ever gets into F1, what are people going to

say?”

I swallow hard. I’d never thought of that. If everyone knows we’re dating... people might say I pulled strings for him.

Never mind the fact that’s not at all how F1 works. People will still whisper.

Heather sighs. “I’m just saying, it’s fair that they’re worried.”

“Yeah.” I exhale heavily. “I guess. But what am I supposed to do? He’s... he could die.” My chest spasms as the fear resurfaces.

“I have to be there.”

“Of course you have to be there,” Heather says. “But you might want to talk to his parents again. Reassure them that you won’t

do anything to hurt him or his future.”

“I’m not great at talking to people. I’d fuck it up.”

“Maybe.” Heather shrugs. “But you have to try. Plan out what you want to say to them, and then ask them to hear you out.”

I nod once, then again. She makes everything seem so straightforward, somehow. “I guess I could do that.”

“You can definitely do it,” she corrects. “But not right now. Right now you need to shower and change and sleep a little.

Seriously, you look like hell.”

I crack a smile. “I can clean up the kitchen after,” I offer, as she starts running water to clean the dishes.

“Nonsense,” she says briskly. “Get your ass in the shower and don’t come out until you’ve been in there half an hour. I’m sick of looking at your mangy face.”

“Thanks,” I say quietly.

She shoots me a tiny wink. “Don’t worry about it. We’re in this together now, babe.”