Page 8

Zoey

“Where are we going?” I ask, looking out the window at the unfamiliar scenery. Though the unfamiliarity is hardly surprising. Since arriving in Valor Springs, I’ve only been to Annie’s bakery and Zach’s house.

My eyes shift to the man seated beside me in the driver’s seat, and I chew on my lip, unsure how to bring up the topic of the interview. Things have shifted between us—I know this, but I can’t exactly forget the one thing that brought me here.

Zach reaches over and grasps my hand, making my heart melt into a puddle. “There is something I want to show you.”

“What is it?”

He glances at me, humor written all over his face, but there is something else in his eyes, a worry that makes me push thoughts of the interview to the backburner. Wherever it is he’s taking me, it’s obvious that he’s anxious to get there.

“You’ll see when we get arrive,” he finally says, giving me no clue about what’s going on in that gorgeous head of his, so I sit back and let him drive. A lot of things have happened in the past few days, from watching Zach lash out at a reporter to actually meeting the man and falling into bed with him. If someone had told me this was how my week would unfold, I would have called them delusional, but here we are.

I feel my stomach flutter with nerves as Zach drives through a quiet neighborhood, the tires crunching over gravel, and I lean forward, peering out the window as he slows down. He parks outside a modest two-story house, its faded blue paint peeling a little at the edges, revealing the wood beneath. The white shutters hang slightly askew, giving the place a worn, lived-in look that only adds to its overall charm.

“Where are we?” I ask again, turning to Zach, who pushes open the car door and steps out. I do the same, climbing out of the car quickly. I smooth my hands over the dress Howard’s girlfriend let me borrow. I was nervous when a girl I’d never met offered for me to pick one of her dresses to wear, but I didn’t exactly have much choice. Accompanying Zach to his hometown had been an impulsive move on my part, and his brother’s girlfriend was gracious enough to let a stranger pick something from her closet to borrow. I remind myself to send her a thank-you note.

Zach takes my hand once more when we meet at the front of the car. We both turn to face the house with its garden that spills over the low picket fence. The home looks well loved, but it’s clear that whoever lives here hasn’t done much to the place over the years. At least not on the outside.

“This is where I grew up, where generations of Westwoods did,” Zach says, and my head whips back to the man in surprise. “First my father, then my brother and I were raised in this home. My grandfather built the place himself.”

I have questions, but I shove them back, letting the man speak. I tighten my hand on his as we start forward, the steps creaking under us when we walk up the wooden steps. “You have no idea how many times my father tried to fix this porch to stop the creaking, and it seems the current owners couldn’t fix it either.”

“Current owners?”

“Yeah,” he says, reaching down and grabbing a key from under the welcome mat. He slides it into the keyhole and pushes the door open. “This was my family home. My parents sold it years ago shortly after my grandfather died from heart attack. Howard joined the military, and I went to live and train with my uncle.”

Something in the tone of Zach’s voice when he speaks about his family has me on alert. I know of his uncle, I’ve seen the man at all of Zach’s races and always thought he was the only family that Zach had. His parents and brother have never come to see him race that I’m aware of. Learning this other side of him breaks my heart. I want to wrap my arms around him and hug him, but before I can, he walks into the house, leaving me no choice but to follow.

“I’m buying the house,” he says as we step through the worn front door, the hinges protesting softly. We are immediately enveloped by the musty scent of aged wood, and the air feels thick with something I can’t place. It’s almost like with each breath, we draw in the essence of a life once lived here. The foyer opens up into a spacious living room with faded floral wallpaper peeling away in places, revealing patches of bare drywall beneath.

I glance around, taking in the dim lighting filtering through the dusty windows, casting soft shadows across the empty rooms. “How long has it been empty?” I ask as we move deeper into the house.

“It’s been on the market for a year, but it’s been empty for much longer.”

“How is it that no one has bought it for so long?” I ask when the kitchen comes into view, its cabinets dulled and chipped. The countertops are bare, and I can almost picture a Sunday morning filled with the clatter of pots and pans, the smell of fresh coffee wafting through the air. The space is large, and I immediately fall in love with it. I can’t help but picture little dark-haired kids running around the space, their laughter echoing off the walls. The house could use some renovations, but it makes no sense that it’s been empty for as long as Zach claims. “It’s so beautiful.” Under all the dust, I can still see the charm that must have existed when Zach’s family lived here.

“No one in Valor Springs would buy it.”

“What, why? Is there something wrong with it?” I ask, a chill running down my spine at the thought.

“Other than needing some updates and freshening up, no. It’s well-built and in excellent condition considering its age. No one in the town will buy it out of respect for my family, for my grandfather. I think everyone assumed that I’d come back for it someday.”

“Why you and not Howard?” I ask. His brother already lives in Valor Springs, after all. He has a life and a career here. To me, it would make the most sense that he would want the family home.

“We all adored my grandfather. He was the family patriarch in every sense of the word. He lived here with us when Howard and I were growing up. My grandmother had passed away before we were born and my parents needed the space for their two rowdy boys and my grandfather needed the company.” Zach’s eyes have grown heavy and sad with the weight of his memories. I want to comfort him, but I don’t dare interrupt, so I simply place a hand on his back and lean into him. He smiles at me softly before continuing, “My grandfather was a car guy. My uncle and I both get our love of racing from him. I spent nearly every day with him in the garage out back tinkering on old car parts. We even built a car together when I was in high school. I still have it, though it’s in storage now.”

“He sounds like he was a wonderful man,” I say quietly.

“He was my best friend. Howard adored him too, of course, but he wasn’t interested in cars the way I was. When he died so unexpectedly, it rocked my entire world. I couldn’t stand to live here among the memories anymore, so I fled to my uncle’s. With him, I could still pursue my love of cars, but through racing. I felt like it was a way to honor my grandfather’s memory without feeling like I was being torn apart. My parents and Howard could stand the loss either, so they decided to sell the house. I think they regretted it almost right away, but it was too late. The deal was done.”

“Oh, Zach, I’m so sorry,” I say, wrapping my arms around him and squeezing tight, like I can somehow protect him from his grief. “But now you’re able to buy it back? Will you move here?”

He nods. “Yes. I plan on moving back to Valor Springs, but I won’t stop racing. I don’t plan on hiding from my memories anymore.” He looks around the space, and I watch as the worry I read earlier in his eyes slowly disappears. I never imagined being close enough to the man to witness this, and now, I can’t look away. “Valor Springs —this house—is the only place that’s ever really felt like home. Since the day I left, I’ve been drifting, unmoored. I want to come home.”

My chest tightens at the emotion in his words. “Will you renovate the place? Blend the past with the present and make it your own?” I ask, following his eyes around the space. “That would make for an amazing story, one you could share with your fans.”

“Why would I do that?”

It’s not his words that make me turn around, but the hardness in his voice. “W-what?”

“I’m sharing this with you, Zoey. It’s no one else’s business.”

Okay, that took a turn. “I mean, you just said you’re done running from your memories. Isn’t that why you’ve kept your life such a secret this entire time?” I ask, squeezing his hand. “It helps to talk about it, doesn’t it?”

“I am not sharing any of this with the rest of the world, Zoey. They don’t need to know.”

“Maybe not all of it, but—”

“None of it,” he grinds out firmly, and I feel like I’ve been slapped as the impact of his words lands. I release his hand from mine, my eyes locked on his hard face. “I am not sharing my life with the world. My fans don’t need to know anything outside of what they see on the racetrack.” I take a step back, my heart racing as his words set in. He must read something on my face because his features soften, and he reaches out to me, but I evade his touch.

“You never actually intended to give me an interview, did you?” I ask shakily. “Were you just stringing me along this whole time?”

“Zoey…”

“You were,” I whisper, backing up another step. He doesn’t need to say anything else. The truth is written all over his face. The ghost of a conversation we had filters in, and my heart cracks in pieces at the memory of it.

“What are you now? Are you a journalist trying to convince me to give her an interview or a fan trying to have their way with their favorite driver?”

“Do I have to choose for you to kiss me back?”

“Yes.”

I chuckle sardonically at the remembered conversation, the sound dry as sandpaper even to my own ears. He all but told me flat out that he was never going to let me interview about him. Hell, he tried to establish a boundary so I wouldn’t think having sex with him was some kind of exchange for an interview.

It wasn’t. I didn’t for a moment think it was, but in the face of things, he must have felt the need to make that bit clear.

“Zoey, everything I’ve shared with you is because I want you to know me. My feelings—”

“Stop,” I demand, unwilling to hear anything else he has to say. I brush a hand through my hair, laughing at my own foolishness, and I realize for the first time since knowing Zach that I don’t want to see his face. In fact, I don’t want to be around the man at all. “You promised to give me an interview, but it’s obvious you didn’t mean it. You told me what I needed to hear to help you make your mistake. It’s my fault, really. You said it yourself, I kidnapped you.”

“Zoey—”

“You could have at least told me the truth before sleeping with me. Oh God, I gave you everything and you were lying to me the whole time!” My stomach lurches, and I think I might be sick.

“What’s so goddamned important about this interview? What changes if I share my story with the world?” he asks, his hard eyes locking with mine. “You’ll get a couple thousand clicks on your story, some new subscribers to your blog, and then people will move on to the next big thing, and so will you!” His eyes darken, and a vein pulses at his temple as he stares at me inside his beloved childhood home. “Do you even want to tell my story, or was I just a convenient target for you to get your foot in the door, a way to prove yourself? What bigger fish to land in NASCAR celebrity news than the elusive Zach Westwood!”

His words sting. Perhaps because there is some truth to them, but I didn’t have malicious intentions when I approached him. He is the one who led me to believe I stood a chance of getting his story. How am I the villain for acting on that false promise?

He lied to me! And for what?

They always say never to meet your heroes, and at the moment, I almost wish I’d listened. Zach Westwood should have remained an alien to me, a man whose face I saw on my screen and fangirled over, never wanting more than to watch him race. I should never have come to Valor Springs. No, I should never have jumped behind the wheel of that car!

But I did. And I did far more than accompany the man to Valor Springs. I exposed parts of myself I never have with anyone else, and now, I will be leaving Valor Springs with a broken heart and a bruised ego.