His dad snorted. “That boy was driving before he could walk.”
His mother let out a soft laugh. “And giving me heart attacks before he could talk.”
Cal just grinned, relaxed in a way I rarely saw. At peace, so much so that it made my chest ache.
We talked about his childhood, about the endless hours at the karting track, about the way he would study races on TV, murmuring strategies under his breath like a little professor. His father beamed with pride. His mother scoffed with fond exasperation.
And then, as the conversation drifted, they turned tome.
“To be honest,” his mother said, reaching for her wine glass, “I wasn’t sure what to think when Cal told us he was seeingsomeone. He’s never been much for… sharing that part of himself.”
I blinked. “Really?”
She nodded, shooting her son a look.“I’ve met maybe one girlfriend in all the years he’s been racing. And he was just sixteen at that time. That didn’t last more than a month or so.”
I turned toward Cal, arching a brow. He just shrugged, smirking. “Haven’t met the right person until now, have I?”
God help me.
His mother sighed, a soft, affectionate sound. “But when I saw ye try to get to him in that wrecked car—” She shook her head. “When I heard the fear in yer voice, Iknew.A mother always knows, and my dear, I knew even then that there was something special between the two of ye.”
Her voice wavered slightly, and she reached for my free hand across the table, squeezing, her blue eyes twinkling in the soft light. He looked so much like them. A perfect combination of two people.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “For making sure our one and only baby walked away from this sport when he did.”
My throat tightened.
“You have no idea how badly that crash scared us,” she murmured. “And celebrating another one of his birthdays tonight—” She let out a breath. “It’s the greatest blessing we could have asked for. God answered every prayer I ever had for him.”
Something lodged itself in my chest. I looked at my husband then, at the way he was just sitting there, watching his mother with that unreadable expression he’d perfected.
And I wondered if before me, he ever truly let himself understand how loved he was. I gave his hand another squeeze. And when he turned to me, I just smiled.
He smiled back.
Cal’s childhoodbedroom was small and cozy. Perfectly preserved, like a time capsule frozen in the moment he had left home at seventeen. The full-sized bed. The shelves lined with trophies, old race programs, stacks of books. The faded posters on the walls, of drivers he once admired, of circuits he had dreamed of conquering.
My heart ached as I stepped inside, taking it all in.
“Didn’t change much, huh?” Cal’s voice was soft behind me.
I turned, watching him lean against the doorframe, his hands stuffed in his pockets.
My fingers traced over a stack of journals on the small desk against the wall.
“I didn’t know you journaled,” I murmured.
His lips twitched. “Used to. It helped to make sense of everything in my head. I could probably still benefit from it.”
I met his gaze. “Why don’t you?”
His shoulders lifted in a lazy shrug. “Life got too busy.” He paused, then added, “And I’m just now slowing down.”
My throat clogged with all the emotion I’d been pushing down tonight.
After a moment, he pushed off the wall, crossing the room toward me. He reached for the top journal in the stack—the least worn, the one that looked barely touched—and flipped through it, stopping at a page that had been dog-eared ages ago.
He turned it toward me. I took the book, my eyes scanning the messy scrawl, the handwriting younger, rougher—a seventeen-year-old boy’s thoughts captured in ink.
