Jacob’s dad nods, but honestly, I’m not sure if any of them have even heard me. They’re staring at Jacob again, just like me.
Then Paul looks at me, his phone still clutched to his ear. “No, it’s not the doctor,” he says impatiently. “I don’tknow, Lil.”
He stares at me again, his mouth twisting down, and I just know he’s going to ask me to leave. But before he can, the heart monitor starts going off.
I can’t understand any of it, there are so many numbers and lines, but the thing’s definitely going off, and there’s some sort of alert flashing on the screen. About two seconds later, I’m edged out of the doorway by a nurse, this one tall and female. She goes straight to the monitor and pushes a button. The machine starts spitting out a long strip of paper, and the beeping stops but the flashing alert doesn’t go away.
“What’s happening?” Jacob’s mom asks.
“His heart rate is a little fast, that’s all.” The nurse’s English is flawless and her tone is calm, but there’s something in her eyes that makes me sick to my stomach. The machine starts beeping again, and Jacob’s mom rises out of her seat. The nurse turns to the machine again and shuts the beeping off, but this time, when she turns back, the worry in her eyes is obvious. “I’ll be right back with the doctor. If you would like to go to the waiting room?”
“We’ll stay right here,” Paul says loudly. “We’re his family.”
The nurse nods and hurries from the room, and this time, when Jacob’s family looks at me, there’s something beneath their grief—something like hostility. I am an intruder in this deeply private moment.
I choke out an apology and fall back out of the way just as the nurse returns with an older woman wearing dress clothes and a stethoscope. There are two other nurses following close behind, and as they enter the room, the heart monitor starts going off again. The door slides shut and I’m left standing in the empty hall.
They only want family inside.
I’m the one who woke up next to him this morning. I’m the one who made him his coffee. I’m the one who wished him luck on his race, the one who kissed him and tried to work up the nerve to tell him I love him before chickening out for the hundredth time.
But I’m not family.
And so, while he dies behind frosted glass walls, I lock myself in the first bathroom I can find and cry until I’m sick.
2
Impress Me
I’d heard of him over the years, but only in the way that I’d heard about all the Formula 2 drivers. He was a name I’d hear every now and then on the racetrack speakers—“Nichols will take his first victory at Monza!” or “What a race for Jacob Nichols!”—without a specific face attached. We never really overlapped in the racing world. I was already in single-seaters when he started karting, and I moved up to F1 the year before he got a spot in F2. Even though some of the F1 and F2 races take place on the same weekends, the drivers don’t interact much. We’re busy with press, busy with training, busy with racing. I watched F2 now and then, out of interest, but even so, Jacob was just another driver in a car. Utterly uninteresting, until one Friday at the Austrian Grand Prix.
It was the last race weekend before the summer break, and it was supposed to be FP1—the first free practice session for Formula 1—but it was pouring buckets outside. Rain was bouncing six inches off the ground and the wind was howling through the grandstands. Even the most dedicated fans had left the stands an hour ago, and it seemed inevitable practice would be canceled.
F2 qualifying was scheduled to take place after FP1, but there was little chance that would be happening. Still, no one could leave until things were officially called off, and the stewards were taking an age to decide. Everyone was bored and waiting, and almost all the reporters and interviewers had packed up their gear or moved inside.
I was too restless to wait in my room. I did some weights with my trainer, Brian—an obnoxious, sleazy fellow I’d unhappily inherited from the previous Harper driver—and then ditched him in the cafeteria. I don’t think he noticed, honestly. He was too busy bragging about his gluten-free diet to one of Harper’s race engineers.
I put my headphones on, loaded up my usual pre-race playlist, and began wandering aimlessly, going over the track in my mind. I’d only been in F1 three years—two decent years with Torrent, a midfield team, then this year with Harper Racing, the second best team in the league. The car was a hell of a lot faster, and I was running third in the championship. Halfway through the season, the championship was still theoretically in my sights. Every time I thought about it, I felt this little shiver of excitement. Winning an F1 championship was all I had ever wanted. And with rain forecast on and off all weekend, the Austrian race was anyone’s game.
Secretly, though, I thought it was mine. Rain is the great equalizer of F1, a chance for drivers in objectively slower cars to snag a surprise podium or race win. I’d gotten my own first win for Torrent in a wet race three years earlier. For years, I’d made a point of practicing on rainy days. Not just in my F1 car, but in street cars, rally cars, anything with four wheels I could get my hands on. I’d torn up a few cars in the process, but after a while I got the hang of it. I knew in my gut, if it rained this weekend, I could win.
I bit down hard on my lip and forced myself to recite the track again. I passed a few people, mostly bored employees on their cell phones, but for the most part I was alone. Then I took a left turn and walked right into the middle of a TV interview.
It was for a smaller network I’d never heard of, and the interviewer was a dark-haired woman with a nervous smile. Her eyes lit up when she saw me, and the cameraman swiveled my way.
“Travis Keeping!” The reporter beamed at me. “Join us for a word?”
I reluctantly took off my headphones. Harper’s press team had rules about impromptu media—“Don’t talk to anyone without us” was their mantra—but the camera was already rolling and the reporter looked desperately hopeful. Still, I hesitated a moment, until the driver she was interviewing shot me a crooked, white-toothed grin.
I’ll admit, I felt it like a lightning strike. It’s stupid and cheesy and was in no way reciprocated—Jacob told me later he initially thought I was a dick—but that’s how it felt for me. He was just... god. He was every fantasy I’d never let myself have, wrapped up in dirty blond hair and gray eyes and strong forearms. I still remember the shirt he was wearing, soft gray cotton with his F2 team’s logo printed in black.
In the five seconds it took me to (1) imagine stripping the shirt off his back, (2) realize what I’d just thought about another driver, and (3) freak the hell out about it, the reporter came up with her first question.
“If you’re just joining us now,” she said to the camera, “I’m here with Formula 2 driver Jacob Nichols and Formula 1 driver Travis Keeping, both of whom are waiting impatiently, I imagine, for the rain to stop.” She smiled at us. “Boys, what do you think about this weather?”
“It’s nuts out there,” Jacob said, with another slanted grin. “Shame they won’t let us race in it.”
He was standing so close to me that I could smell his shampoo, something dark and earthy and masculine. My brain was going completely haywire at that point, but fortunately I was already known for being quiet in interviews.
