Page 2 of Heart of the Race

TWO

T he Isle of Man TT was a race I never saw coming. It was not part of the races Varro normally rode in, not part of the MotoGP, the motorcycle racing world championship circuit he competed in. Normally there were barricades and fencing between him and the bystanders, and he was used to a track. Everything about the Grand Prix events he normally rode in was similar. But there, on the small island, the race was run on almost forty miles of public roads, roads used by regular people on a day-to-day basis. You could study the route but nothing else. Everything was so tight; you could scrape a house, a tree, take a wrong turn and be in the middle of a pub or in someone’s front yard. At any time, a rider could hit an uneven patch of road, and another rider was right there , closer than normal, and the result was a collision with walls, hedges, or gardens. For Varro it had been a simple matter of taking a turn just a little too tight.

The bike couldn’t hold the angle, and down he went.

The call for me to get there came from Nico. Varro was unresponsive; the doctors weren’t sure when he would wake up. I arrived a day later.

Varro’s staff was there. I met them all: his assistant, Georgia Penny; his chief mechanic, Aidric Barnes; his publicist; some of his friends; the current socialite he was dating; and his manager, Kyle Tokunaga. Mr. and Mrs. Dacien were there as well, and Nico and his wife, Fiona.

Everyone looked scared. I wasn’t. I was pissed.

They were quiet. I yelled.

“What the hell?” I barked at Varro.

Nico was shocked. “Brian, what are you?—”

“Oh!” The doctor on the other side of Varro’s bed, beside the monitor, was startled not by my outburst but something else.

“What?” Nico asked worriedly.

Apparently the monitor had made a very promising sound.

“That was… unprecedented,” he answered Nico before he glanced at me.

I squinted.

The doctor’s eyes got big, and Nico, being an attending physician at his own hospital where he worked, looked at the same monitor and knew what it meant too. He turned and kissed me on the cheek.

“Yell at him some more, Bri. All of us talking to him didn’t do a damn thing, but apparently your anger just woke the asshole up.”

“Nico!” Mrs. Dacien scolded.

But he hushed her as I leaned down next to Varro’s ear and whispered something I thought would get his attention:

“If you don’t open your eyes right now, I’m telling your folks that you screwed a crapload of girls on their bed.”

The monitor whistled and whined.

“And,” I husked, “I’ll tell your mom that her mother’s quilt, dear Grandma Esther’s quilt, was on the bed under you when you deflowered all the cheerleaders in the eleventh grade.”

The growl surprised everyone.

“Open your eyes, dickhead.”

A collective hush followed everyone’s gasps when Varro’s gorgeous brown eyes, fringed in long, thick, feathery black lashes, fluttered open.

Mrs. Dacien broke down. “Varro,” she said on a sob.

“You wouldn’t dare,” he whispered.

I arched an eyebrow for him, which I hoped conveyed the assurance of yes, of course I would.

“Fucker,” he muttered.

A whole second round-robin of startled chirping filled the room.

“Don’t do this again,” I said, turning to go, just needing to be out of the room for a little bit, shocked that my brave face had stayed on, overwhelmed that he was both awake and lucid.

“Wait,” he rasped, and I heard all the effort that took.

“I’ll be back when it’s quiet,” I promised over my shoulder. I walked out as I glanced back and saw everyone surging around him, and waited down the hall for Mr. and Mrs. Dacien to come out of the room and greet me.

I felt like crap because they were both so thankful. If they knew what I really wanted, needed, was dying to claim and could barely breathe around… they would be sick. I was a fake, a phony, masquerading as their son when I yearned to be a son-in-law instead. Only Nico’s vigilance kept me from bolting. He sat with me in the hall.

“There’s a race through the Atlas Mountains in Morocco,” he said absently.

I had no idea why he was telling me that.

“That’s where he’s going next.”

“He’s brilliant.”

“That’s what I said,” he scoffed, sipping the coffee he’d gotten out of an ancient machine.

We were quiet for a bit.

“They want you to call them Mom and Dad, but you never do.”

I turned from staring at the wall to meet his gaze.

“You’re not blind. You know why I can’t.”

“Because if you do, if they really are your parents….” He sighed. “Then you’ll really be his brother.”

I didn’t even have to agree. We both knew it was true even though neither of us ever gave the secret voice.

“But if you were with him, wouldn’t they be your folks anyway?”

“That would be different.”

“I guess. But he misses the hell out of you, he tells me all the time. It’s not fair the way you punish him for your weakness.”

“I know,” I retorted irritably and went back to staring at the cracks in the wall.

Later, Mrs. Dacien, the only mother I had ever known, stood with me.

“You love your job so much?”

It was an odd conversation to start. “I’m moving up,” I explained. “That’s good, right?”

“Yes,” she agreed, her eyes clouded. “That’s good.”

There was obviously something on her mind. “What?”

“The time when anyone else could take your place,” she said, “that’s long past. Even Ancel and I… our words carry little meaning.”

“What are you?—”

“Varro. We’re talking about Varro.”

“Yeah, but what about him? I don’t?—”

“Only you, Brian, not us,” she stated.

“Wait, you’re saying you don’t think he cares what you and Mr. Dacien think about the racing? That’s not true. He?—”

“Not just about the racing. About anything.”

“No—”

“Stop.” She held up a hand. “I’m not a fool. There’s only one person he believes and listens to and heeds.”

“ Heeds .” I snorted out a laugh.

“It’s true,” she insisted. “You’re the one he saw in the window and invited into his life. You’re the one who never said stop, only go. He’s used to looking over his shoulder and seeing you there, and now you’re not.”

“He has his life and I have mine.”

“No.”

I shook my head. “I can’t be his shadow for the rest of my life.”

“That’s not what he needs.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“Only for a little while, one season only.”

“But I’m working and going to school and?—”

“You can work for him, and school can be done on the Internet, Brian.”

And of course his sponsor would pay me, and yes, I could do my coursework online, but why should I have to?

Why did I always have to follow him?

“It’s not fair of you to ask me for anything.”

“Isn’t it?”

Shit. The guilt card.

“Brian?”

My gaze locked on hers. “You don’t know what you’re really asking.”

“I do. But understand this, for him, for you, for Nico—it would be the same request. It’s not you for Varro, or because I saved you, now you have to save him.”

“Are you sure?”

Her eyes blazed in that way that I knew, from years of shared space, that she was furious. “If the roles were reversed, and Varro needed you—this would be the same conversation.”

“Yes, but that could never happen, right? He’s the one who’s scary, not me. Not Nico.”

She nodded. “This is true, so we will never be able to test this.”

I was going to say something, anything, to wriggle free.

“But,” she said softly, but somehow thunderously at the same time. Her voice blew right through me, “that doesn’t mean that you can use that to say no.”

Everything froze. I could feel my lungs constrict. “You don’t get it.”

“I do.” She nodded. “And I don’t care what sacrifices you need to make right now because, again, I would ask the same of Varro, or Nico, if the roles were reversed.”

Would she? Or was she asking me because I wasn’t hers, and she loved Varro more? She would use me to make sure he stayed in one piece.

“He loves you best, Brian, that can’t be changed. And because of that, this is all on you.”

It wasn’t fair.

“Please, Brian,” she entreated, squeezing my hands.

I wanted to ask: Do you care if by some miracle your son falls in love with me? Do you care if it physically pains me to be near him and not be his? Am I so expendable? And more… it was like returning to my childhood.

I was again a foster kid whose life was constantly unsettled, who was displaced over and over, and whose whole world had been one giant upheaval. I craved stability, and I wouldn’t get it. More than anything I wanted a home, and that dream too would have to wait. All in ruins because of this, because of what Varro needed.

“Brian,” Nico said at my ear, suddenly there.

I couldn’t tear my eyes from Mrs. Dacien’s dark-brown ones, the ones she had passed on to her son.

“Brian.”

The first time my name was spoken, it was Nico. I’d been conditioned to ignore him by years of close quarters.

But the second time, it was Mr. Dacien, and she commanded too much respect for me to not give him my full attention. I met his gaze.

“He’s asking for you.”

I was furious because they all expected me to do the right thing. I was just supposed to go in there and give up my life because Varro needed me? How was that fair?

“Brian?”

Mrs. Dacien squeezed my forearm gently before she put her hand to my cheek. I covered it briefly with my own and then made my way down the hall. Moving at a clip, I passed the socialite and the crew and the assorted entourage until I was standing again in the doorway of his room.

“Come here,” he said tiredly.

I stayed where I was. “Are you going to get better?”

“Of course—” He winced, shuddering with pain. “—I always do.”

“Nico says you’re off to Morocco next.”

“The next race is in two months. It’s gonna be a rough one.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” he explained. “Lots of bad turns, and there’s a huge gorge that—” He sucked in a breath. “Come push this button for me. I need more drugs.”

I remained still. “You can get it.”

“Yes,” he hissed. “I can. But I don’t fuckin’ want to! I want you to do it. I want you to come here and give a damn that I almost?—”

“Shut up,” I mumbled, letting my head thunk back against the doorframe. “You know I care. Don’t be so dramatic.”

“Please come here.”

I levered myself off the wall and crossed the room, stood over him and looked down at his bruised and swollen face, at his eyes, both with blood in them, the subconjunctival hemorrhaging which Nico had explained to me, looking and sounding worse than it was.

“I missed you.”

What was I supposed to say?

“Just hug me already.” His voice broke.

I felt horrible. He just needed comfort, and I was keeping that from him because of what was going on in my head, in my heart.

“Brian?”

His voice was so full of heart-tugging need it took everything in me to stay where I was.

“Hey, which one of the women out there is your girlfriend? I can go get?—”

“No. I only want you here.”

He was saying everything I wanted to hear, in completely the wrong context.

“Could you hold my hand?” It was a request, and the trembling made him clench his jaw.

“You need to be more careful.”

“Come watch me—” His voice hitched with the roll of pain through his body that made him twitch. “—then you can make sure.”

“Give yourself some more drugs before you stress your body.”

“You do it.”

The button was in his hand. “Just press it already.”

“You.” He insisted like a child.

“Don’t be an idiot, you could go into shock.”

“Promise to come with me. I know you’re not afraid,” he whispered.

And he was right, I wasn’t. I couldn’t explain it. Getting busted up with fractured bones had happened to him so many times in the past, I was used to it. But having him die never entered my realm of possibility. I’d never worried about that.

“If you’re there, I’ll be okay,” he said as tears started to well in his eyes.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Varro,” I huffed, grabbing the button that pushed the meds and then pressing it quickly.

He was so hurt, just broken, but still he managed to take my hand before I pulled it back, and slid his fingers between mine.

“Let go,” I ordered lamely, since it was the last thing I really wanted.

“Why do you hate me now? What did I do?”

“You didn’t do anything,” I said softly. “I promise.”

“Then how come we don’t talk like we used to?” He tensed in pain. “And how come I never see you?”

“People grow up, V.”

He whimpered in the back of his throat. “Just come with me so I can feel like me and not somebody else.”

“I’m not this important.”

He tried for a grin but winced instead. “Isn’t that for me to say?”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“I don’t think so,” he said, staring up at me with wounded, blood-filled eyes. “You know, you used to pet me when you thought I was passed out and wouldn’t notice.”

I had no secrets from this man.

“I liked that, and I liked listening to you breathe.”

God.

He was quiet for a minute, and I saw how hard he was fighting sleep. “Close your eyes.”

“You have to give me your word first that when I open them, you’ll still be here.”

“I could just lie.”

He almost laughed, but the attempt must have felt like someone punched him in the gut and stole all his air. “You—” He gasped. “—never lie to anyone, least of all me.”

I was done at age nine, him at ten, the day we met. The minute our eyes locked—that very first time—the bargain had been struck.

Look at me!

I see you!

Without my eyes on him, whatever he was doing wasn’t real. I got that because I was the same exact way. It was just that watching him was a full-time job and my life only happened in spurts.

“Bri?”

“I’ll come for a while. I don’t know how long.”

“Okay.” He exhaled, obviously relieved. “So you’re not mad anymore?”

“I was never mad.”

His relief over that fact made my heart drop.

“I’ll pay you to babysit me.”

“Yes, you will,” I guaranteed drolly.

He nodded, lifting his right arm. The left one was too mangled to move, broken in five places, with pins holding it together. “Bend down.”

I leaned over, and he put his right arm around my neck, buried his face in the hollow of my throat, and held me tight as he inhaled.

“You’re gonna like watching me race.”

“I really doubt it,” I muttered. But when he turned his head and touched his lips to the spot on my jaw right under my ear, I forgot what else I was going to say.

“I don’t.” He sighed deeply, so obviously content. “Promise to stay with me.”

And I would, until it hurt too much.