“What?Really?”I’m stunned by this.“Why?Is it...are you nervous about—”
“Matt, I’m older than you,” he says.“I was ready to move on a while ago.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Stavros pushes himself up, wincing a little as he does.“Hip gives me hell,” he explains.“But it’s getting better.I just think an old man needs to accept when his time is up.”
I stand too, unsure what’s happening.
“Come on.Let’s go open a bottle of something,” he says.“You got nowhere to be today, right?How many days until Vegas?”
“Twelve.”
“Great.Tell your car to go.”
“Is that it?”I say, unable to move.“You have nothing else to say about what happened?”
“What happened?That’s racing.That’s the gig,” he says, a hint of sadness in his eyes.
“But it was my fault,” I say.“I did this to you.”
“It’s always someone’s fault.In a different circumstance, maybe it’s my fault.”
I squeeze my eyes shut.“Stavros,” I say weakly.
“Is it easier for you if I don’t forgive you?”he asks.“Were you getting used to feeling terrible?Does it make you feel like there’s been some kind of justice in the world, if you live in agony?Sorry, old friend, I’m not going to hold your hand in purgatory.”
I laugh bitterly.“I guess maybe I thought I deserved it,” I say.
“Well, if you hadn’t got off your ass and come to me, I’d still hate you,” he says, turning to me.“Do you still play very bad chess?”
“I do,” I say.“Terrible.”
“Great, because I’d like very much to beat you,” he says, pushing the door to the villa open onto a large lounge room, plushly decorated in whites and cool blues.He drops himself down on a rattan chair, wincing again and touching his hip.And then he begins to rearrange the chessboard.“Sit, sit.”
I join him, still a little stunned by everything, still watching him intently, hardly daring to believe I’m really here.And hoping—just pure hope—that I can have him back in my life for good.
“I want to hear about Arden.I read the little hit piece inF1 Dailyfrom that prick you hate.Jack Sheppard, right?”Stavros grins.“I suppose youhadto come after that was published.”
“Reading in the paper that I had abandoned my friend certainly gave me the shove I needed,” I say, feeling the heat in my cheeks.“But yeah.It was quite the character assassination.”
“Did you really say I was burned-out?That was so cold I nearly laughed.”
“Of course not.”
“And your new codriver.Is he really shit?”Stavros puts his king down on the square and glances up at me.“You should be mentoring him, you know that?”
“Noah’s brilliant.And I didn’t say those things.”
“Then your team principal made all of it up?”
When Stavros puts it that bluntly, I know it isn’t true.“I don’t think so.Some of it was definitely made-up.”
“Then itwasJack?”
“Chloe is friends with Jack,” I say, trying to unscramble my own thoughts on it all.“That’s where it’s confusing.Iknow she said at least some of it.I know she probably called me arrogant.”
“Even I call you that,” Stavros says, pointing a rook in my direction, before placing it on the square.The board is set, so Stavros reaches across to the sideboard and pulls the cork out of a bottle of red wine with his teeth and fills two tumblers.
