Page 14 of Green Flag (StormSprint #2)

Luca

The press behaved, so Everly didn’t have to throw a bad punch. I didn’t want to draw attention away from the injustice my cousin suffered, but I also didn’t want to talk about it anymore, so when they questioned me on the last race, I was more than enthusiastic with my answers.

I’d proven myself in Austria.

And Everly was grinning from ear to ear, nodding along on the tarmac.

So I started the race as calmly as I usually did and managed to place seventh. Which wasn’t my best, but far from my worst. Nix came fourth which was unheard of for him. He either came first, second, or in the back of an ambulance after crashing out. There was no in-between for him.

When it came to celebrating, he was nowhere to be seen. Neither was our media manager.

Ces had to fly back to Bosa for his sister’s birthday the next day, so he shouldn’t be out. Georges and Saliha were bickering up in his room and Frank was entertaining the grid girls, glowing after his win.

As the season wore on, I noticed the distance between me and my Sprint3 friends. We had different schedules, and now that I was in my trailer and they were still in the hotels, I hardly saw them.

I’d been neglecting my social duties a bit.

But that wasn’t an excuse when we were only three months away from the end of the season.

With most of the contracts for next year being ironed out in the next couple of months, I might even have some of my old friends joining me in StormSprint, promoted from Sprint3 to Sprint2 and then to my league.

There were other riders in StormSprint I was friendly with, but none close enough to call a friend.

Sometimes, I really needed a friend. In the last few weeks, I’d really considered just going off the rails and losing everything — if I got caught with drugs, no doubt they’d have to replace me.

But I’d disappoint my family and become someone I wasn’t. They were the ones I was trying to leave for.

Because, in the fleeting moments I could switch off from the pressure and the turmoil my family were going through, I loved my life. I adored StormSprint. I hadn’t lied to the press; Ciclati had been my dream.

On nights like this, I needed that reminder.

We started with drinks in the hotel bar, but it didn’t take long for us to move on to the strip of bars in Valencia.

Ces was chasing down his third shot with a beer when the bartender gave him a look of disgust, suggesting he was cutting him off by shaking his head. He gave me a knowing look, casting judgment up through his brows.

Ces leaned against the bar with a satisfied sigh, his eyes half-crossed. Going back home was hard for him.

Yeah, he should be cut off.

“ I’m going to sit, ” he said in Italian. “ You’ll bring me more, ok? ”

“Ok,” I agreed, half-shooing him.

As he shoved his entire body into one of the tables that the grid girls sat beside, Everly and Arabella walked in.

And I stopped lifting my shot to my mouth.

She was inescapable.

I’d been around beautiful women before, but I’d never gravitated to one as strongly as Everly Bacque. She was laughing as she came in, her tiny skirt showing even more skin with the slit in it. So damn high. I despised the tights she wore for getting to hug her skin.

Her hair was back in loose curls that were so shiny in the low lights of the bar that I wanted to thread my fingers through the strands, tug her head back and kiss up her neck. I would cover her neck in pretty bruises. And her chest.

Her dress had similar straps to the one I’d brushed off her shoulders just those weeks ago, exposing so much more skin for me to stroke and salivate over.

Damn, Everly Bacque.

Despite the loud bass thudding in the bar, her cowgirl boots were loud enough to reach me on the other side of the room, a call for me to come forward and follow.

The real noise I craved was her laugh—unmuted, unleashed, mine—but the music swallowed it.

She sat at the table Ces had just barged his way through and gave a polite smile to the other girls.

Her lips were painted a dark red.

I wanted that colour all over my cock.

Since when did I only think with my cock?

If Cris got his way, this was her final day on the job.

It might be the last night I’d get to see her like this. The last night we could raise a little hell. The last night I could prove I lasted longer than a cuddle.

Tonight, I’d let her come to me.

I might just give a nudge first.

The bartender didn’t even look up when I ordered shots of tequila for her table. They were whisked away on a tray and when they were plopped down before them, they all looked up and cheersed me with their tiny glasses.

As they were distracted by taking theirs, Everly dipped her fingertip in the shot glass and sucked it clean, winking at me across the room before necking hers too.

If that was the only thanks I got from her tonight, that was enough. I’d cherish her cheeky wink, sucking on her finger and imagine it was me she had between her lips.

My nudge affected every other girl more.

Because they came over, noticing me alone at the bar, and wanted to mollycoddle me, asking if I was okay, saying how well I’d done in the race.

But she didn’t.

And she was all I cared about.

Not this bar. Not my friends. Not the fact I’d placed seventh. Just. Her.

She laughed with her friends, but it was quiet. Her eyes didn’t sparkle. Her smile was soft. It wasn’t wild and free, not excited—not like the one with me.

“Hey, stranger,” a sweet voice said beneath me.

I dragged my eyes away from Everly, now talking to Cesari, to look at Hollie, a mass of white-blonde, curled hair beneath me.

She was so short. Everly was shorter, though.

I’d thrown Hollie about in all kinds of positions, but with the height difference between Everly and I — maybe that would stop us from—

“Earth to stranger,” Hollie sang-song, eyes wide in faux concern. “How many have you had?”

I raised my beer in my hand. I wasn’t even a third through. And this was the only drink I’d bought for myself in this bar.

“Not many,” I laughed and cheersed my bottle into her glass.

“How have you been?”

I shrugged, leaning back against the bar, letting my gaze wander to where Cesari was now slurring next to Everly. He was grinning and leaning into her space with his drunken swagger, hardly talking, but nodding at whatever she was saying. “Same as always. How are you?”

She didn’t answer. “You know me, always up to trouble. Went shopping with some of the girls today. Bought this dress. What do you think?”

In my peripheral vision, I caught her twirl and curtsy.

The dress was pink and shiny.

“It’s…” I started, mind disjointed as if I’d drank all the shots I’d bought.

She wasn’t asking about the dress. She was asking about her and every word I would have typically called her was no longer available.

Hollie was attractive. There was this shy yet confident quality in her that had made me seek her out time and time again.

But every word I could think of was already owned by Everly.

Beautiful. Stunning. Cute. Charming. Graceful. Funny. Calming.

There were no words left for Hollie.

“It’s… pretty.”

She nodded, her lips in a tight line as she leaned over the bar to get the bartender’s attention and order another drink. Her parting words were, “I get it, I should have stood up against those guys on the tour the other week. I let you down.”

She had my full attention. “What?”

“I get it,” she repeated, taking her drink and stepping away.

“Wait,” I called, and she spun around with a sad smile. “It’s not that. I’m sorry. You couldn’t have done anything else, Hollie. I just… don’t want to be here.”

I was simply going through the motions most weekends when we celebrated each race. The motions were getting drunk and going out.

“So why are you here?” she asked.

And I cringed deep within my damned soul because she wanted the answer to be her when it was someone else.

Telling her that wouldn’t be helpful to anyone, so I shrugged.

She nodded. “See you later, Luca. I’m here if you need me.”

The issue was that I didn’t know what I needed. To talk? To move on from StormSprint? Or was that just what my family wanted for me?

Ces dropped a stool that he tried to sit on and Everly helped him up, shaking her head at him.

Even with his drunk ways, maybe she’d think more of him. He was a ladies man. Something about his lack of English really turned women on.

But she wanted fun, not conversation.

And she probably thought he’d last a lot longer than I would. I couldn’t blame her.

Fuck my cock for being so eager.

I was mentally calling my dick every name under the sun — gaunt, geriatric groin gouger, perverse pork sword, quick to the hustle love muscle — and wallowing in self-pity with another whiskey when Cesari pointed over to me, in some form of conversation with her.

Her gaze lifted to mine.

With one finger, she made a ‘come hither’ motion and, as if she lassoed me, I was walking mindlessly to her side. No questions asked.

“I could take you on now,” she said with a smile to the racer. “He was going easy on you.”

Cesari slammed his chest with his palm. “You wound me.”

“What are you talking about?”

She leaned back to look up at me standing behind her, the back of her head nearly knocking into my chest. I was so desperate to press into her, but I kept my distance. Of an inch.

“Cesari was talking about your training session the other day,” she said. “When you two were boxing in the gym’s ring.”

“Oh really?” I asked, trying with all my might to be casual. I knew she’d watched me train — and taken great joy in the fact — but that had been a day when Ces wasn’t there…

Cesari was grinning, brows slightly higher as his lips turned. Ah, he was drunkenly testing the waters between us.

“I was telling Cesari here that you’re going to teach me to punch and I’ll have no problem taking him to the ground.”

A little optimistic on her part there. But I nodded with conviction.