Page 27 of Green Flag (StormSprint #2)

Don was talking, but I stood in the pit box, blinking at my reflection in the helmet I was holding.

It felt so cold in my hands when the rest of my body was boiling.

I wanted to lug the helmet directly at Don for breaking the contentment in my mind as I’d pretended everything wasn’t happening; Alv wasn’t in the hospital.

How dare he speak Alv’s death into existence?

I wanted to shove him. Fist-first, teeth-rattling, guilt-flavoured rage.

Not just for telling me, but for acting like it wasn’t his fault when it all was.

I’d been doing so well. In practice this week, I’d been on it. My confidence had grown with Nix’s comments and the media — and other teams — mentioning how well I’d done when my bike stalled. In England, I’d come fourth; in Finland, I’d come fourth. This week, I was going for the podium.

That morning, Nix had chuckled to himself at my excitement, trying to calm me down as he told me details about the track and how to treat the curves.

Nix had my utmost respect. He was a grumpy bastard half the time, but when it came to the sport, he’d taken me under his wing.

Maybe it was due to his survivor’s guilt.

Often, we shared the same hellish mood because someone had mentioned Alv.

For me, it was because I loved and missed him. My guilt was that I had taken his saddle.

Nix’s was that he took Alv off his saddle. The accident wasn’t his fault. Alv had skidded along the track into Nix’s path. The helmet coming off was Ciclati’s fault. Don’s.

When I looked up from my blank expression, Nix was already gone. Somewhere in the last few minutes, I could remember a door slamming.

Tears were sitting just behind my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I had to be strong. I had to race.

“Keep it together,” I muttered to myself, but that weakened my resolve further.

Alv would want me to race. He’d been so proud when I told him I was going back to racing. His big, toothy grin was forever etched in my memory.

A smile he would never give again.

I turned away, trying to swallow the tears, trying to settle my breathing.

There wasn’t an ounce of shock within me. I’d known it was coming. As the weeks passed, with each desperate hospital visit, I’d seen the deterioration that my family dismissed.

This aching loss was not new.

It had just grown. Solidified. To a hole in my chest.

Cris was at my side, his arms around me and I let myself hold him back. I let myself squeeze him and take his comfort. Tears were in his eyes when I pulled away and he nodded with a wobbly smile that matched my own.

We’d both known.

Did he feel the shock? Or this quiet, niggling, awful relief that the answer was determined?

It wasn’t the answer I’d wanted, but it was finally some clarity.

And I felt guilty for so much as thinking it.

He patted my shoulder and said, “I’m here for you if you need me.”

Let me leave, I wanted to beg. Just let me go.

My family were going to sue. Rightfully. As they should.

And I was going to be smack bang in the middle of it all, unable to speak out because of my contract.

I clutched the helmet to my chest as Nix slammed open the door to the pit and made a beeline for his locker. “I’m going now,” he said, unzipping his leathers. “I’m getting the next flight. Livie is coming with me.”

Cris argued, but I was paying no attention, stroking the saddle of the bike that should have been Alv’s.

“I need to say goodbye,” Nix begged with tears in his eyes.

He wanted to say sorry.

In the beginning, I’d asked Nix if he wanted to come and visit Alv with me, but he’d awkwardly given excuses. I hadn’t pushed. He couldn’t face him. He couldn’t face the guilt.

Though it wasn’t his to bear.

Don stood looking at the floor. It was his .

“I’ll stay,” I said when Cris brought up the lack of points for Ciclati. “I’ve already said my goodbyes. I… I’ll ride.”

Abbé stood up from the sofa. “Are you sure you’ll be okay to do that when—”

“I’ll ride in honour of him,” I said, picking up my helmet and nodding to Sally who removed the wheel warmers.

But when I stepped towards the bike my legs didn’t move. My feet were made from lead.

The saddle was there for the taking, but I wasn’t… I wasn’t good enough.

‘StormSprint’s breakout rider’ was what Everly had called me.

On that first day.

She always had such faith in me.

And I got on his bike, imagining it would make her proud.

I treated Alv’s bike well, lap after lap, just as Nix had taught me earlier in the day when our worlds were very different—simpler, peaceful.

Not that I didn’t feel at peace on the bike. The clarity was safe within my stomach, soothing the edges of the growing hole of grief. When I picked up speed, I almost wanted to scream along with the revs, cry with the wind and the freedom.

But I kept quiet.

* * *

For the first time, Everly didn’t send me a video clip to communicate with me. She sent me a text.

EVERLY: So sorry. I’m here for you. Whatever you need, let me know. Even if you want a cheeky shot of tequila at the bar, or I could best you at your games if you’d rather.

I took myself to the hotel, an hour away from the track, and waited for her to come.

When she didn’t, I recorded myself there, lifting a shot of tequila to my mouth but then dropping a finger into the shot, licking my finger and winking awkwardly at her.

I laughed after, because it was one of the most horrific things I had ever done.

“Get your cute little ass down here, Everly.”

She was in the seat next to me, no less than five minutes later.

“My ass is not little, thank you,” she argued. “I train my fat ass every week.” She necked the shot. “And you’ll remember, you’ve had your dirty little paws all over my ass. So, you tell me, is it small?”

It wasn’t the greeting I expected, but a breath of fresh air. She wasn’t treating me like some fragile, decrepit version of myself that couldn’t function.

“Also, that video was so awful, I actually cackled so loudly, I think I gave myself the ick.” She pulled her phone out of her pyjama pocket. “But look what it’s become.”

She unlocked her phone to show my winking face had become her screensaver.

“No, no, no,” I laughed, reaching for it as she pulled it back. “You’ve got to delete that right now.”

“I think it’s more believable actually. Our relationship, I mean. Cute little inside jokes.”

My background was just the simple grey one it had come with. She rolled her eyes and took a selfie, lowering the shoulder of her silk pyjama top. “There.”

“Why don’t you laugh more?”

She frowned. “Huh? You’re meant to say I’m beautiful.”

“You are, but why don’t you laugh more?”

She shrugged.

“You do that often,” I pestered. “You stop laughing halfway through.”

“Maybe your jokes just aren’t that funny.”

I spent more than half my time around her laughing and every other second trying to get her to laugh. That wasn’t true.

“Someone used to take the mickey out of my laugh,” she sighed.

My hands balled into fists, imagining who this someone might be.

Pedro. “They said it was too extreme. Like I was trying too hard and drawing attention to myself. I am aware that my laugh is… er, not the same as everyone else’s. It’s a bit much.”

“I love it,” I admitted. “I try to get you to laugh all the time.”

“You’re doing such a poor job,” she sighed and took a sip of the pina colada I had ordered for her. “You hardly get a smile out of me most days.”

This is what I’d needed. Her.

She didn’t act as if I was breakable.

“I don’t know about that,” I said and gestured to my new phone screen. “That’s a beautiful smile if ever I’ve seen one.”

She laughed. “There you are, being the best again. I’m glad you’re here.”

I breathed in deeply. “So am I.”

“The trailer feeling a bit lonely?”

“Sometimes,” I admitted. “Ces checks on me almost every hour, though. I had to get out of there.”

“He adores you.”

I took a gulp of my drink. Ces had been tiptoeing around me all afternoon with the most pitying smiles. He was trying his best. “Yeah, a bit too much.”

“He cares about you. He’s not on his own either.”

I knew that. It was part of the reason I couldn’t do it much longer.

My family hadn’t reached out yet. Maybe Alv’s wife hadn’t told them; I couldn’t break the news to them. I knew I should, but I wanted to live in the in-between for a bit longer.

Because the Mendes’ were about to let all of their grief become anger and lawyers.

And I would be in the middle of it all.

“I’ve got to get out,” I told her, the humour and care depleting from the conversation dramatically. “I can’t do it. I can’t stay next year.”

Even as I said it, I hated the words. Everly was here permanently now. If I left… There would be no us. No fake relationship, no real friendship.

That reality made me want to reach out and force her to leave with me.

She breathed in deeply. “I know. I understand. We need to up our game.”

“I’d fuck you on this bar if it meant I could leave,” I told her.

She blinked, head rolling back. “Only to get out of your contract? Not out of lust and your painful need to get in my panties, Mendes?”

“Those things too,” I laughed and crashed my pinky into hers. “Of course.”

She hooked her pinky over mine and asked the bartender for another drink.

“You want to know a secret?” she asked.

“Always.”

“My dad could free you from your contract,” she said with a slow nod. “We both know it. We wouldn’t be in this pretend relationship if not. And I have something that you could threaten him with that would mean he had no choice but to let you go.”

“Do go on, Miss Bacque,” I begged.

She sipped on her drink, glancing around the bar before finally turning back to me. “Pedro wasn’t the one dealing drugs. It was my dad.”