“Exactly,” he said. “Both require containment.”
As he shifted, his sleeve rode up just enough for the torchlight to catch on a flash of ink at his wrist—black lines disappearing under fabric.
I squinted, wondering how the fuck I’d never noticed this before. Probably from all the ogling of his teammate who I was about to marry. “Wait. Since when do you have tattoos?”
Marco froze for half a heartbeat, then tugged the sleeve back down, too casual. “Since I was seventeen and very stupid,” he said. “And then eighteen and still very stupid. And then twenty-one and very drunk in Austin.”
My jaw dropped. “You’ve been hiding them from me?”
“From everyone,” he corrected. “My Nonna would drop dead if she saw them. My mother would resurrect her just so they could tag-team the lecture. The Bianchi brand is very ‘clean-cut golden boy,’ remember? No visible ink allowed.” He gestured at his clothes. “So. Long sleeves and strategic necklines. Mystery preserved.”
Ivy snorted. “Clean-cut golden boy, my arse. The last three years of your life have been nothing but you being a fucking party animal, you chaotic little tosser. I’m sure you’ve disappointed your Nonna plenty without the tattoos.”
Marco rolled his eyes, but there was a flicker of something softer underneath. “Once I won my first championship, I was… content,” he said, eyes tilting back up to the sky. “Fraser started winning, and at that point I didn’t want the first seat anymore.Fraser’s a better driver, I’m a better defender, and while winning is always the goal, I just… started chasing something else to give me that thrill.”
The group went quiet for a second, the waves filling the space.
“Have you found it yet?” Kimi asked, voice low and suspiciously curious.
Marco’s gaze dropped from the moon to the circle. For the briefest moment, his eyes snagged on Ivy—sharp, fond, a little wrecked—before he looked away again.
“Don’t know,” he admitted lightly, but the grimace tugging at his mouth said otherwise. “I could be staring it in the face and still be too chickenshit to do anything about it.”
Ivy’s mouth pressed into a line. “Tragic,” she sighed. “All that talent, no follow-through.”
“You want to know real talent?” Marco said, rolling onto his side to point straight at me. “Little Miss Frenglish Fuck-Up over here. It takes some real skill to get it as wrong as she does.”
Everyone burst into laughter. I made an offended noise and scooped a handful of sand to fling in his general direction; it fell short by a good half meter, which only made them laugh harder. Callum squeezed my waist behind me, his shoulders shaking with barely contained amusement.
“Traîtres,” I muttered. “All of you.”
“The tattoos should be the least surprising thing you’ve heard all night, Frenchie,” Ivy muttered. “Remind me to give you a full inventory of them later.”
“Get me drunk enough and I’ll give everyone a tour.”
Kimi made a low, unimpressed noise, pushing himself up and reaching for his wine glass. “Please don’t.”
Marco waggled his brows at Ivy. “What about a private one for you, tesoro? Since we will be sharing a bed.”
Lucy giggled, tucking her knees up to her chest. “This is already the weirdest vacation I’ve ever been on,” she said. “And I’ve done writing camps in the woods with thirty songwriters and one bathroom. That’s a story for another day, though.”
“How did you two even end up here?” I wondered, tipping my head toward her and Kimi. “Together, I mean. I thought you were on tour. And this guy is usually off gallivanting doing God knows what in cousin-fucking country Finland.”
Lucy’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Is Finland like our Alabama back home?”
Marco groaned. “I’ve heard scary things about you Americans.”
Lucy arched a brow at him, the picture of sweet, lethal Southern charm. “That’s rich coming from the man who almost got us kicked out of the airport lounge for yelling about double penetration at the Prosecco bar,” she said. “Pretty sure we’ve all earned our little horror stories, honey.”
Marco slapped a hand over his heart. “Et tu, Harper Rose?”
“We met in Monaco this year,” Kimi said simply, like that explained anything. “At your victory celebration, Ray. Then we ran into each other yesterday.”
Lucy rolled her eyes fondly. “Translation: he crashed my post-show drinks and very rudely asked why I wrote a song about a crash I didn’t understand the telemetry for.”
“It was inaccurate,” Kimi said.
“It was a metaphor.Andco-written with that big Formula 1 movie that came out a couple months ago,” she countered, then sighed. “We’ve messaged off and on since we met. I was in Europe doing festival dates, my team scheduled a few days off so I wouldn’t combust, and I said I wanted an actual vacation somewhere no one would bother me.”
