Page 9

“My mom died of leukemia when I was a baby,” I said. “And my dad had a heart attack a few years back.”

He winced. “Shit, I remember reading something about that. Sorry. That was before you started F1, wasn’t it?”

“Mm. A few months before.”

“Fuck. That sucks. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I said automatically. Then, when he made a doubtful face, “I mean, it sucked, yeah. I miss him.” I fiddled with

my soda can for a moment. “I don’t know. It happens.”

He tilted his head. “What’d you mean?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Plenty of people have lost a parent, right?”

Something in his face changed, then, and I felt a rush of nerves, certain I’d said the wrong thing. But it was true, wasn’t

it? Most people lose their parents in their lifetime. It’s not like what happened to me was unique. It’s what I told myself

after my dad died. It was natural to be sad, natural to miss him, but throwing myself a pity party wouldn’t do anything to

change it.

“What about your grandparents?” Jacob asked, after a moment.

I shook my head. All four of them had died during my childhood, when I was too young to understand death, or be upset by it.

“I have an uncle,” I offered. “My father’s younger brother. He hung around for a few weeks after my dad died.” I grimaced

at the memory. “He’s a prick.”

I left it at that, because Jacob was looking at me with pity and faint alarm, and I didn’t think he’d enjoy hearing about

my uncle’s brief but contentious struggle to get more money out of my father’s will, or the restraining order I had to take

out against him to put an end to it.

I cleared my throat. “What about you? Do you have a lot of family?”

He stared at me for another second before he nodded. “Yeah. Parents and grandparents and all that, and an older brother and

sister.”

“That’s cool. Are you close with them?”

He shrugged. “Oh, you know.” He took a sip of beer and added, “They put me through racing.”

“Yeah, that’s what my dad did for me.”

Jacob hesitated. “What was he like?”

I blinked. I don’t think anyone had ever asked me that before. “I don’t know,” I said, stupidly. I thought for a moment. “He

was a good dad. He loved cars. He raced a bit when he was younger.” I paused, then added, with a rueful smile, “I don’t think

he was very good. He always said he started too late. He was too poor growing up to do karting and stuff. But the company

he started got really big in the nineties, and he put, like, all his money into my racing.”

“He must’ve been really proud of you getting into F1.”

I smiled again. “Yeah, he freaked out.” I was quiet for a moment, remembering. I hadn’t thought about it in a while, that

day when my F1 contract was officially announced. We’d known about it for weeks before the actual press release, but my dad

was kind of a nervous guy, and he was convinced that something was going to go wrong at the last minute. He said we couldn’t

celebrate until the official announcement, so we wouldn’t jinx it. “I wish he’d lived long enough to see a few races.”

“Was he sick for a while?”

“No, not at all. He just dropped dead at work. Massive heart attack.”

“Fuck,” Jacob said. “That really sucks.”

“Yeah.”

For a moment, I thought about the phone call, the one from my dad’s ER doctor. I was in my apartment when she called, just

getting out of the shower. The first thing she said after she introduced herself was, “Are you driving right now?” I thought

it was a weird question—did she know I was a race car driver, or something?—but then I realized she was asking because she

was about to tell me something horrible, and she didn’t want me driving off of the road in shock.

I shook my head against the memory. There was no point reliving it. It wouldn’t change anything. I stared at the fire for

a few moments, casting my mind around for something else to talk about.

“The friends that were here with you,” I said. “You know them from racing?”

“Mm.” Jacob was quiet for a moment. Then he took another swig of beer and said, “I’m really sorry about your dad. That’s really

shit.”

I shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

“Still.”

I shifted in my chair, slightly uncomfortable under his steady, dark gray gaze. “Thanks,” I said finally. “It’s nice to talk

about him.”

It was true, and slightly surprising. I hadn’t thought I wanted to talk about my dad. But I suppose no one had ever asked.

“You can talk as much as you want,” Jacob said.

The firelight flickered over his skin as he spoke, and I had a sudden, overwhelming urge to reach for him. I licked my lips

and took a brave stab. “Yeah,” I said. “Or we could go inside.”

His lips curved into a smile, and a heat stirred low in my stomach. “Or we could do that,” he agreed, and rose to his feet.

If I’m honest, I think I fell in love with him that week. It sounds stupid, I know. But being with Jacob... it was like

coming alive. I had never considered myself an unhappy person, but up until that weekend, my whole life had been consumed

with racing. Even when my dad was alive, all we talked about was cars, and racing, and getting into F1. And honestly, I wouldn’t

have had it any other way. But that weekend in Scotland, it was like a door opened, and suddenly I could see there was this

whole huge world outside of motorsport.

I’d never been a chatty person, but it was easy, somehow, to talk to Jacob. We talked while we went hiking, and while we drank

coffee in the mornings, and while we lay on the empty, white-sand beach a few miles away.

There were silences, too, but they never felt awkward. At the top of a mountain hike, we sat for an hour in silence, watching

the sunlight shift over the island. I noticed him shivering about two minutes in, and when I shucked off my jacket and gave

it to him, he smiled and shifted closer to me, and I remember thinking something like, What the hell had I been doing all

this time? What had I been wasting my life with before him?

We were only supposed to stay for three days together, but on the night before we were supposed to leave, Jacob came into

the bedroom where I was reading and chucked his phone down before settling in beside me.

“I told the owner we’re staying a while longer,” he said, shifting the bedsheets so he could slide his legs underneath them.

“Unless you have somewhere else to be?”

A strange, shivery sort of warmth spread through me. “No,” I said, trying to match his offhand tone. “I don’t.”

“Good.” He shifted even closer. “I have so much more to teach you.”

His hair was damp from his shower, and his shampoo smelled like sandalwood. “Oh yeah?”

“Mm. We’ve already done mountain climbing and selfies and hand jobs.” He counted them off on his fingers. “Tomorrow we’ll

get you an Instagram account and teach you what YouTube is.”

“I know what YouTube is,” I retorted. “And I don’t want an Instagram account.”

“C’mon,” he wheedled. “People would love it. Throw a few car pictures on there, add a shirtless pic from the beach, and voilà—you’ll

be drowning in followers.”

“I don’t want an Instagram account,” I repeated. “What else’ve you got?”

His smile shifted. “Well, now that you mention it...” The subtle change in his tone made my heart beat differently. “I

haven’t taught you anything about blow jobs, have I?”

The words worked their way over me like a warm wave of water. “You’ve taught me a little,” I said, as he leaned close and

pressed his mouth to the soft patch of skin below my ear.

“Please.” His dismissive breath shivered over my neck. “One quickie in a hotel room does not an expert make.”

I put my book down and turned toward him. “I’m listening.”

He grinned. “Oh, silly boy,” he drawled, pushing the comforter aside. “I wasn’t going to teach you by talking .”