Page 15 of Green Flag (StormSprint #2)

“I’d willingly go to the ground with you,” Cesari said and grinned, his eyes glazed and unfocused. Somehow, for someone who rarely spoke English day to day, after a few drinks, he became much more confident. Annoyingly confident.

Gently, I took the drink he’d managed to scavenge from someone and downed it.

His mouth fell open with a slow blink.

“I’m cutting you off,” I said. “The bar already did so. Now I am too.”

In true dramatic body language, Cesari style, he poked out his bottom lip.

“Nope,” I said with a shake of my head.

“It’s a shame,” Everly said, changing the topic. “You probably won’t be able to teach me to punch. It’s my last night.”

I placed the glass down beside her empties. “Is that confirmed?”

A sad smile and a stare into the distance accompanied her shrug. “I gave it my best shot. Did you see Livie when she listened to my song? She walked out of the pit box straight after. There’s no dismissal quite like it.”

“I’ll talk to her,” I said, ignoring Ces going back to the drink I’d confiscated. There had to be a mix-up. Livie was smart and always thinking of ways to push the Ciclati brand into a positive spotlight. Surely, she wouldn’t waste an opportunity like Everly for our team? She was a viral sensation.

“No, don’t,” she said, shaking her head and reaching for my hand. “If she doesn’t want me, she won’t fight for me. And it means my dad can dismiss me whenever he pleases. I need to fight for this.”

She could still follow the championship if she wanted. Her dad would pay for her to join us.

I’d pay for her to join us.

Though that would look like some romantic proposal, I didn’t know if I had that in me.

Because would it look romantic? Or creepy?

Or desperate? I didn’t have a father to know what a solid, loving relationship looked like.

Alv’s wife had been cheating on him… and if someone could do that to him, love might not be in my future.

“Where’s Nix?” Everly asked, looking around the bar. “You two are close, aren’t you?”

I shrugged. Sometimes I thought he hated me, sometimes he was the best teammate I could ask for. “He doesn’t often join us for nights out.”

She frowned, a smile of disbelief on her lips. “That’s not the Nix I know.”

The bikers and the grid girls at the surrounding tables got up, seemingly deciding to go to the next place together. I hadn’t heard it, and neither had Everly. Her eyes narrowed in confusion as she looked around.

It was then I knew my night was over. My time with her too.

Maybe she didn’t want me or Cesari. Maybe her goal was Nix all along.

Cesari turned to grab his coat, but I stood and placed my hand on his chest and said in Italian, “ Don’t go getting any ideas. With the state you’re in, no one is letting you into any club or bar. ”

He widened his eyes, trying to get sympathy somehow.

“ Let’s go back to the hotel, ” I said. “ I don’t even think you’ll make it to the track. ”

He was swaying, the shaking of his head so erratic, it might topple him over.

Everly picked up her leather jacket and placed it over her shoulders, looking at the others as they grabbed their bags.

I was losing her.

The next time she came — Florida, by the sounds of it — it would be in two months, and she’d forget I even existed. Maybe her ex would reappear.

But Cesari was in no fit state to get himself sorted.

The Uber was already driving to our location.

In the ring next week, he sure would get it from me.

I pulled him outside, hoping it would sober him up enough to let us in the taxi. He went through phases of getting so drunk he could hardly stand.

His selective English was also dependent on the alcohol he’d had.

“ You best know what this is costing me, Ces ,” I grumbled in Italian.

He shrugged and nodded, signalling behind me. “ Don’t think it’s costing you much .”

The group were all laughing and smoking as they came out of the bar, waving goodbye to us and heading further down the road. But as they dispersed, Everly Bacque stood in her heeled knee-high boots, not walking away but towards us.

“Home time?” she asked, pulling her jacket tight around herself. “We haven’t tried this hotel bar yet.”

My frown would not budge. “Are you not going out with the others?”

She shrugged.

Cesari stepped back to the wall, groaning before hunching over.

“Don’t you want to go out with everyone?”

“If you’re not going, no,” she said with a cocky smile.

I blinked harshly, completely unexpecting that response as the taxi I’d ordered pulled up.

“I owe you a shot of tequila,” she said nonchalantly, stepping towards the taxi but glancing back at me over her shoulder.

“ Now we’re talking, ” said Cesari in Italian, stumbling to the car.

“ Not you ,” she said with a roll of her eyes before opening the door for him to get in.

He huffed before scooting along.

“You speak Italian?” I asked as she followed suit.

“A little,” she said, tugging me by the hand to sit beside her.

She didn’t let go as we put on our seatbelts.

“65% of the riders are Italian. And I am my father’s daughter.

I happen to be trilingual, but I wouldn’t count Italian within that.

My parents hired a Spanish nanny for me when I was younger so I could learn. ”

Her expression faltered, brows creasing slightly.

“Wow,” I said. Of course she was a beautiful, talented musician with multiple languages up her sleeve.

My mother would be ecstatic if I took home a woman who could speak Italian.

But not even that would counter her last name. My family despised her father, and probably her by extension.

“You should meet my sister,” she laughed. “She’s fluent in five and she’s only sixteen.”

Still holding my hand, she guided it to her knee as before.

Her tights were cold from the dark night. I rubbed her knee to warm her up, and she smiled at me before dropping her head to my shoulder.

“ Cosy, ” Cesari said, brows raised.

“Shut up and start blacking out, Ces,” she snapped, placing her hand on my thigh. “Before I really give you something worth remembering.”

“Like?” he taunted, eyes twinkling, brows high.

He was so smashed that I doubted he’d remember in the morning.

“You like to watch, do you?” she asked, leaning away from me to him. “Because you never get to touch?”

I kneaded my thumb into her shoulder, a light massage, because I wanted every ounce of her attention. Because he didn’t deserve it.

Sharing wasn’t in my nature.

The rough brushing of my thumb had to be enough to tell her I was there right beside her. Ready.

My other hand squeezed her thigh.

“I’m good at touching,” he said, eyes roving over her and snagging on my gentle caress.

She looked over the shoulder I was massaging to roll her eyes at me.

“Ces, it’s too bad I’ve got someone I know can touch me well,” she laughed. “And we’ve got a date with a tequila shot at the bar.”

She shrugged off her jacket and, when I stopped working her skin, she frowned at me. “Don’t stop.”

With her coat hanging inches past her shoulders, I massaged her back as she leaned into me. I pressed kisses down her neck as she relaxed and let out a sweet ‘mmm’ that weakened my knees.

Cesari’s hungry eyes swallowed her up and I wanted to punch him and make them so swollen that he wouldn’t be able to look at her at all.

So I massaged her harder, her eyes fluttering closed as she leaned further into me.

Cesari’s eyes met mine as I kissed the hollow of her neck and she made the slightest noise with her shaky breath.

He pursed his lips together in an ‘o’ and released a deep, silent breath, releasing some of the sexual tension she carried around with her in buckets.

Yep, I was hard over her too.

And he needed to know I wasn’t playing.

So did she.

I bit into her shoulder and she groaned a “yes” before wiggling back, her hand reaching to grab at my hair.

What did she want here? Did she want us both? Or was she teasing the two of us?

As the car slowed, she sat up and gave me a soft smile with a mischievous glint in her eyes before whispering a thank you and I knew she’d got whatever she wanted from me.

“Bedtime, Cesari,” she said, not taking her eyes from mine as I helped her out of the car.

He was standing next to the hotel doorman but nodded eagerly. “Yeah, I’m good with that.”

“Alone,” Everly and I said at the same time and her grin was enough for me to lift her over my shoulder and take her to her room and ravage her there and then. Without Cesari watching us.

He sank against one of the pillars as I snaked my arm around Everly’s shoulders. “Yeah, to be fair, I doubt I could play properly. Probably couldn’t get it up.”

She screwed up her nose. “Dream on, Ces.”

He shrugged and sighed whimsically. “ A girl can dream .”

Everly laughed but it was muted.

“You want help getting to your room?” I asked Ces.

But it was Everly who replied. “Yes.”

My chest warmed and I kissed her on the forehead, pulling her closer as we walked to the reception desk and I booked Cesari a room. Our trailers were another hour away from the city, and I wasn’t about to leave him in a taxi or Everly in this hotel, completely unsatisfied.

He fell face-first onto his bed, and when I asked him if he was okay, he merely lifted a thumbs-up over his shoulder.

“He’s a handful,” Everly laughed behind me, leaning against the wall in the corridor.

“ You ’re a handful,” I said and stood over her. I pressed my palm against the wall just above her head. She stopped breathing and looked up at me with those big, hazel eyes.

“I bet you’re the handful,” she said, and between the few inches of our bodies, she pressed her two index fingers together before drawing them apart, brow cocked at me in question.

Her brows rose higher as her hands got further apart and her mouth dropped open with a shocked laugh.

“Surely not… come on, Luca… no, you can’t be—”

“Guess you’ll just have to find out,” I said with a shrug and stood straight again. “Tequila?”

“I have something else in mind,” she said with an innocent shrug. Her glance was loaded with intention and desire as she took my hand and led me to her room.