Page 4 of Heart of the Race

FOUR

T he season ended in Valencia in November. I informed Varro I would stay until Thanksgiving, and if he was going home to New York to see his folks, I would fly there with him.

But he was going to Paris for Thanksgiving—there was a new girl—and then he was going to some chateau in the Alps for the holidays. I promised to convey all his love to his family, hugged and kissed him and everyone else, and took the first flight out. I could breathe once the plane left the ground.

We were friends, but even though I had made it clear in my head that I no longer had any feelings for him, my heart didn’t know that. I could do it, just be his buddy, but it took a lot out of me. It was nice to not have to look at him anymore.

The best part was that I’d figured out what I really wanted: to open a shelter for kids. Not the kind where they just came to sleep or stay when they were on their way from one foster family to another, but the kind where they could learn some skills for life, sort of like Job Corps. But if they were artistically inclined, I would have ways to help with that, as well.

Basically, Chameleon—which is what I named my business—helped you fit in wherever it was you decided you wanted to be. You wanted to learn how to fix cars? I had an apprenticeship for that. If you wanted to go to college, we had programs to get school figured out and help you with financial aid and all the scary parts of preparing to get a two-year or four-year degree. Whatever you needed, we could provide. And once you registered with Chameleon, if you stumbled—drugs, alcohol, pregnancy—we would be there for that too.

I was stunned to find out how many programs out there wanted to partner with me, how many schools, private businesses, and rehab facilities. We had wonderful donors with charitable dollars to spend and write off on their taxes.

People I met when I slummed around the world with Varro remembered me, people who had money to burn that I was more than willing to take off their hands. Things ramped up so fast, for the first six months I had no time to think or worry. I had big plans, and what I thought would take time instead moved at light speed.

Mr. and Mrs. Dacien didn’t understand why I chose Long Beach, California. But it was a mix of a smaller city cusping on an enormous one, which was perfect for me.

When I had visited a friend there during college, I had fallen in love. Before, I had always worried about Varro, about where he wanted to be, but I had come to realize he was a nomad, living out of his trailer because that was his life. It wasn’t mine.

I loved my little house close to downtown, a block from a really great Japanese restaurant. My business was close to 1st and Pine, close to the Transit Mall, which made it easy for the kids to get there on the train. I walked every day from my place, and on the very few nights when I actually got out at a decent hour, the friends I made—from going on art walks, being involved in community activities, and attending gallery openings—and acquaintances from the chamber of commerce would show up to meet me. I was building my life; things were good. I even started dating my real estate agent.

So of course, right at that one-year mark, when I was on track and together, was when Aidric Barnes showed up on a Saturday. It all made perfect sense.

“Uhm, Bri, do you know this guy?”

Graham Easley, the very handsome, very kind, very understanding new man in my life, was not looking at me but instead behind me at whoever hovered there.

Turning in my chair, I looked up at the scowling Scot who had been on my porch earlier in the day, trying to leverage himself into my home. “Oh, for crissakes, Aid, what the hell?”

“I’m needing to speak with ya.”

I shook my head.

“Would you like to sit down?” Graham offered. And of course he would offer. Aidric Barnes was a mountain of hard muscle with the face right out of a romance novel. The man was stunning. Much like Varro, everyone looked at him.

“He doesn’t want to sit down,” I said firmly.

“I would love to sit, thank you,” Aidric said in that overly solicitous way he had when he was being a real ass.

Six people sat at the table, not counting me or Graham or now Aidric. They all leaned forward, riveted by the rugged-looking Scotsman suddenly in our midst.

I waited.

“He needs you to come back.”

I leaned my chin on my palm and stared at him.

“He does,” Aidric insisted.

“Who are we talking about?” Graham wanted to know.

“My foster brother.”

“Oh, the motorcycle racer?”

I nodded.

“Motorcycle racer,” Aidric scoffed. “Is that what you’re callin’ him, then?”

“Try and not be a total wiseass right now.”

“That canna be helped.”

“What does he need?” I questioned Aidric. “’Cause you guys did a whole season last year without me. You actually just finished it, like, last month. Aren’t you off? This is December. You should be home with your wife on the farm in—where is it again?”

“Netherbrae.”

“That’s it,” I said wistfully. “It sounds lovely. You should be there.”

“Don’t tell me where I should be, wee man.”

“And where is your liege? On Lake Como with—what was her name? I got a call when you guys were in?—”

“You didn’t call him at all last year.”

“I did, I tried. It’s hard, though, with the change in time zones and… but we emailed.”

“He got hurt.”

The simple statement slammed into me like a fist in the gut.

“Brian?”

“It must not have been very bad,” I quipped, trying not to let anyone see how much the words had affected me. “No one called.”

“It was verra bad.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Now tell me why I didn’t.”

“We were forbidden.”

“And why’s that?”

He cleared his throat. “Shall everyone be hearing, then?”

I exhaled sharply. “Why don’t we do this… come see me tomorrow and we’ll go to breakfast and talk.”

He nodded. “Varro doesn’a know I’m here.”

“Okay.”

“He’s plannin’ to run the Isle of Man TT again next year.”

“That’s in May, right?”

“Aye.”

“But he’ll do the MotoGP again.”

He was silent.

“Aid?”

He shrugged.

“Listen,” I said softly. “I know he got hurt really bad in the TT last time, but he’s a better racer now, and?—”

“No.”

“No?”

He shook his head, and I finally got it. “What’s wrong with him? Is he sick?”

His dark reddish-brown brows pinched together, and he shook his head slightly.

“Okay, not sick. Then what?”

But whatever it was, he didn’t want to say.

“Come over tomorrow whenever you get up,” I directed. “I’ll be there.”

He rose and left without a word.

“So tell us all about your boyhood friend,” Graham prodded after Aidric left.

I played videos from YouTube on my phone for him and everyone else at the table instead. They could see him, but the last thing I wanted to do was talk about Varro.

On the walk back to my place, Graham bumped me with his shoulder.

“What?”

“You never mentioned that your pal, the guy you always make sound like a giant pain in the ass, is drop-dead gorgeous.”

I looked at him. “What?”

“And you made the racing sound so benign, so small-time. You neglected to say that he participates in a huge international competition where the bikes cost more than my house.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter, because this guy Vaughn?—”

“Varro,” I corrected.

“Varro,” he repeated, “is the kind of cool I can’t compete with.”

“Graham—”

“Those videos, Brian, the wail of the bikes and the—people are standing there watching these guys just for a glimpse of?—”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“It is. And the videos from that Isle of Man race are insane! And he rides in that and he risks his life just to participate in a dangerous sport and?—”

“Why do you care?”

“Because your buddy, the one you say you don’t care about, well, he looks like a pirate or something, and he’s beautiful, and he does this amazingly sexy thing for a living, and he’s rich and?—”

“Not rich,” I corrected.

“Okay, not rich.” He chuckled.

“It really doesn’t?—”

“What he does is really scary, and he’s larger than life. How am I supposed to compete with that?”

“You don’t compete,” I scoffed. “There’s no competing. He’s my friend and not even my best one anymore, because he doesn’t know anything that’s going on with me. He doesn’t know about my business or my plans or my life or….” I trailed off, thinking. “He’s just gone. He’s got his life, I have mine. That’s it.”

“Yeah, but?—”

“No, Graham,” I promised with a sigh. “There’s nothing.”

“There’s something.” He stepped closer, lifted his hand under my chin to tilt my head back.

“We’ll always be friends; we grew up together. If it wasn’t for Varro and his family, I would have gone from foster home to foster home, bouncing around the system, and who knows what would have happened to me. I owe them a lot.”

“Yes,” he said, his eyes on my mouth.

“It’s what I was thinking of when I started Chameleon, the debt I owed and that I should give back. The whole pay-it-forward thing, right?”

“Sure.”

“But really, me and Varro, we’re not close anymore. We’ve barely spoken since I left a year ago. Our lives are so drastically different. I mean, like, polar opposites. It’s crazy that we could even know each other, really.”

“You’re rambling.”

I was talking too much about something that was supposedly no longer the most important part of my life.

“Brian.”

But so many things had changed in a twelve-month period, and Varro had no idea. “I just don’t want you to think that he’d ever be anyone?—”

“Okay.”

“I probably won’t ever see Varro Dacien again.”

He nodded.

“It’s true, you know, even though you’re looking at me very dubiously.”

He appraised me. “You wanted him.”

“Of course I wanted him, he was my first love.”

“But?”

“But he couldn’t love me back, and you can’t be an idiot forever.”

“No,” he agreed before he sighed. “You can’t.”

“What?”

“It’s lucky that you two never got together.”

“Why’s that?” I teased, beaming as he bent toward me.

“Because he’s stunning and so are you. Not fair to the rest of us mere mortals.”

But I knew what I looked like, and even though blond hair and green eyes were appealing on other men, I had never been able to stop traffic, myself. I was more of the plain brown-wrapper variety, nothing like Varro, who turned heads wherever he went. I had often wondered when I was growing up what it was like for him to be that beautiful, what it was like to see the world through Varro’s eyes. It was nice to finally be in a place where it didn’t matter.