Page 28 of Faster

Chapter Twenty

“Mami, I don’t know why we’re not just staying at your house.” Ethan had paid off Cece’s mother’s mortgage during the first year of his marriage with one paycheck. But every time they visited Miami, Graciela wanted to stay at the hotel too.

Cece’s mother made a dismissive motion in her direction and poured another glass of champagne while the makeup artist touched up Cece’s foundation. “If I wanted to stay at home, I would stay at home and not even watch this stupid race.”

Graciela liked that Cece had found a man with money, but she also thought motorsports were stupid.

She’d once told her daughter she would have been better off tying herself to a race car driver with dinero viejo in the seventies, when they routinely died.

That way, she would have had money and wouldn’t have had to deal with a man.

On New Year’s Eve, Cece might have agreed.

But things were different now. Ethan had been different since Japan.

Maybe the ugly crash with Luca had made him see how precious life was.

The collision had mixed all of the feelings she had for both of them and turned them upside down.

It was like an amusement park ride she couldn’t seem to stop.

But Cece didn’t know how Ethan felt because he didn’t talk about any of it with her.

They hadn’t really had time. During the break, she’d been asked to pose for a Vogue Italia photo shoot with some of the other WAGs.

Although Jocelyn had seemed ecstatic to escape her husband and children for five days on the Amalfi Coast, Cece had wanted to be with her husband for a change.

Neither he nor Luca had been severely injured in the crash, but Ethan had been bruised up. He’d seemed vulnerable and sad when she’d told him she was leaving for her trip. It was the first time he’d shown her anything other than asshole mode in ages, and she’d wanted to stick around for it.

While she’d been away, he’d called her every night.

But he hadn’t talked about any of the hard stuff, he’d asked about her day and actually seemed to listen to her.

After the first night, she’d sent his favorite physio over, one who’d left the race circuit and started their own business, to check him over.

He’d thanked her for it—which was rare given how he’d always just expected her to take care of him—that night on the phone.

Today, he’d sent over a hairstylist and makeup artist to do up both Cece and her mother.

The moment her husband had met her mother, he’d clocked that a British accent, money, and charm were going to dazzle her.

Cece had been more difficult to pin down.

She didn’t trust he was for real. And she still wasn’t sure she could trust that Ethan was for real.

“How’s it going with Luca?” Cece sat, stunned for a second, by her mother’s question.

Did she know that Cece had an affair with Luca?

Was it written all over her face? Had she seen the way Luca had stared her down during the team dinner on Wednesday night?

Cece’s heart was beating so fast she almost didn’t hear her mother add, “You know? On the team?”

“Well, they crashed during Japan, but they both took the podium in China.” Cece narrowed her gaze. “Ethan’s racing pays for your whole life, and you don’t even bother to check the results?”

Graciela shrugged again and looked into Cece’s closet for something to wear.

They were the same size, and Cece always brought extra clothes for her mother to steal when they visited.

Cece had been so upset when they’d added Miami to the race calendar permanently because she wouldn’t have an excuse not to go home and see Graciela.

Before that, she could have gone two years without seeing her mother face-to-face.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love the woman who’d given birth to her. She just didn’t want to look into her future if she made all the wrong choices. She didn’t want to stay tied to a man who didn’t love her or a string of men who didn’t love her just to survive.

But Ethan was trying. And that was promising. “Could you get me some champagne?” she asked Graciela. “And tell me about the plastic surgeon you’ve been dating.”

Graciela was after a deep-plane facelift, and she could talk about her new beau’s qualifications for hours.

Luca watched Ethan pass his door, and he hesitated for a few seconds.

He knew they had to talk. Mostly ignoring each other during the China weekend had worked, because Cece had been in Milan modeling.

He didn’t follow her on his official Instagram account, but he’d made a fake one for a dog he didn’t have so he could see what she was doing.

Along with the Google alert, he knew it was creepy and obsessive, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.

But Cece was here this weekend. This was her hometown. And the tension during the team dinner had been so thick it had made the humidity seem non-oppressive. A feat.

They couldn’t have another crash like Suzuka. He was only a few races into his second chance at a career, and he wasn’t going to let Ethan or his own misguided feelings for Ethan’s wife ruin it.

So, he stood up and walked next door to Ethan’s room. He didn’t bother to knock, which was a mistake. Ethan was changing into his fireproofs and was standing there without a shirt on.

Luca shouldn’t let himself look, just like he shouldn’t have let himself look at Cece during dinner the other night. And he didn’t know why he was having any sort of feelings about Ethan. He’d made it clear that neither he nor his wife was available for that kind of looking.

“Am I late for some stupid social media shit?” Ethan was annoyed. Of course he was. There was no reason for them to clear the air between them. They’d made it through a race without crashing into each other.

They were colleagues. Not best friends. Not even friendly acquaintances. Luca didn’t know why that bothered him so much.

“No, I—um—wanted to talk.” Ethan’s brow furrowed, and he put on his fireproofs.

“About what?” His question was harsh, but he didn’t slam the door in his face. He backed up and sat on the cot provided to the drivers for naps or relaxing before races.

Luca stepped into the room and closed the door. The walls in this temporary structure were thin, but it would give them some privacy. At least, the social media admin wouldn’t think they were entitled to capture and post this conversation.

“I don’t want it to be like this.” Luca didn’t know what else to say.

He just knew he didn’t want to feel this tension with Ethan anymore.

There was nothing he could do to go back and not sleep with his wife.

He definitely couldn’t travel back in time and not fall in love with her.

And he wouldn’t do that to himself. He might never be able to be with her publicly, but he knew he’d never feel like that about anyone else.

He wouldn’t take that away from himself, even if he could.

He’d never tell Ethan how he felt, though. He’d go back and find some way to hide his feelings from a man who knew him better than almost anybody else.

“You don’t want us to race?” Ethan chuckled. “That’s literally our jobs.”

“I love racing you, Ethan.” That was the truth. There was no one he loved matching up his skills against more. “Last week, I knew you were going to make that move at turn five. How do you think I knew?”

Ethan shrugged. “Because I made that same move on a similar turn at that karting track in Cologne.”

“Exactly. It’s like second nature to race you.

When I’m in that car, and you’re in my mirrors or just ahead of me, I feel like I can think seconds into the future.

I know what you’re going to do next, and yet you sometimes surprise me.

” It delighted him, really. Before this season, he’d been done with racing.

Or it had been done with him. He wasn’t sure which was truer.

His body had been tired, and he couldn’t have imagined dealing with the kind of pressure that came along with driving millions of euros’ worth of machinery and the hopes of thousands of people in a team.

When it wasn’t working out, like it hadn’t worked out the past two seasons, everything felt awful all the time.

That, along with the fans and the press and the drama, had left him empty.

Now, the racing part felt good. It felt like home. Except for that crash with Ethan, he felt like nothing could touch him when he was in the car. When he was wheel-to-wheel racing with his teammate, he could only think of a handful of times when he’d ever felt more alive.

But he couldn’t say all that to Ethan. They weren’t even friends, and the man knew that Luca was in love with his wife.

“I promise, I won’t touch her.” Luca knew that promise would strain every fiber of integrity he had.

But she didn’t want him. Couldn’t want him.

And he didn’t want the media circus that would come along with them trying to be together.

So, he could let it lie for the good of everyone involved.

It would hurt, but he could do it. It would make the situation easier if he could repair his relationship—his working relationship—with Ethan, though.

“I just want to race you like we did when we were kids. I want us to win the championship and be able to celebrate together as more than rivals.”

Ethan leaned back on his hands and looked Luca up and down, as though any lies he’d told might be written all over his body. “Why now?”

Because Luca couldn’t do this anymore. It would break him.

And that would be tragic. They might never be able to capture what they’d had when they were fifteen—something that had transcended friendship and even brotherhood.

But maybe they could have something richer.

At the very least, they could have closure.

Neither of them knew how long they had in this sport. The clock moved in only one direction. But they could have an ending that fit the bond they’d had when they were young.

“I might only have the rest of this season.” Luca motioned to a photo of Ethan hoisting a trophy during his first victory with the team above his head.

“You might only have the rest of this contract before they pull one of their junior drivers up and try to convince the fans that he’s better than either of us. ”

Ethan grunted in acknowledgment. “Yeah, so? The media loves the narrative that we hate each other. We might last longer if we keep it up.”

“But do you want that?” The idea of Ethan wanting that made his chest ache. “I don’t.”

Ethan shook his head. “I don’t know, mate.

I don’t know if I can put everything behind me.

Me thinking that you are going to try something with Cece when my back is turned is going to eat me up inside.

I know you. I know you don’t give up when you want something.

Is this all just so that you can get close and try to steal her? ”

It truly wasn’t, but Ethan thinking that revealed a lot about the current state of their marriage.

He’d fucked up, but he still loved her. And he couldn’t say for sure that—deep in his subconscious—he wasn’t trying to make it okay to be close to Cece again.

He craved her almost as much as he craved a win in tomorrow’s race.

“If you weren’t worried that I could take her, you wouldn’t hesitate to put our past in the past.” It was really a question, but they both knew it was true. If Ethan felt like his marriage was safe, he would be able to put his big-boy pants on and move forward.

“We can work together.” Ethan looked away from him. “Maybe we can all have dinner back home and see what’s what.”

That was likely all he was going to get from his friend right now. “No more crashes.”

Ethan pinned him with his gaze. “No more looking at my wife as though you know what she tastes like.”

Just him mentioning her taste had memories of her rushing over his tongue. He tried not to lick his lips thinking about it. He nodded and refrained from saying he knew what they both tasted like.

An image of all of them together clouded his brain for a split second, but he pushed it away. That wasn’t even close to what was on offer—a tentative peace between the two of them as long as he stayed away from Cece.

“Dinner in Monte Carlo would be great.”