“Fucking pain and poetry, mate,” Marco remarked from behind me.
I ignored him. “You started as my rival. The woman I watched through a screen and knew would change the grid. I’ve known this for more than ten years. Wondered about you, respected you, hoped that one day we’d meet and you’d notice me, even when I couldn’t find the courage to speak.”
Auri smirked, and I paused, glancing up from my vows, the sting of tears fading.
“You did have a problem with that at the start. You’d just… stare.” I blinked at her, and she grinned wickedly. “Ouais, just like that.”
I huffed an amused chuckle. Shewouldsay that right now. “And somehow, with impeccable timing, you prove my next statement. I didn’t know joy until you. I never laughed like this, or you’re being your usual charming menace who forgets how to speak English halfway through a sentence but remembers every word I’ve ever said.”
Marco sniffled and stage-whispered, “Le big dick, le big dealis still the best thing she’s ever said.”
“Les twisty-est viragesis cinema, thank you very much,” Kimi said.
Ivy hissed, “Stop talking. I’m crying.”
I rolled my eyes, and Auri giggled. I fucking loved that sound.
“I never breathed like this, never lived like this, neverhopedlike this. You didn’t just give me happiness, Auri. You gave me myself.”
The wind rustled the olive trees, like a hushed applause that was perfectly timed.
“I never knew fear until it meant losing you. When you walked away from me in Italy, I thought that was it. When you showed up at my flat after the crash, furious but still choosing to love me instead of destroy me, I knew I’d never stop fighting for us. In Silverstone, when you hit that wall, you showed me that my mental health wasn’t something broken inside me. It was something to understand, tame, and trust.”
She sniffled. I felt the tears slip free before I could stop them.
“But the worst moment was finding you bleeding our life out onto the floor and thinking it made you unlovable. You are not. You never were. Whether or not we ever expand this family, Aurélie Camille, you are my family. You are it for me. And I promise… I promise to keep loving you when it’s easy, and love you harder when it’s not. When we’re laughing, and when we’re not speaking. When your hands shake and when mine do. I’ll be there. Every time. No matter what.”
I reached out, brushing her cheek with the back of my knuckles.
“You’re the only thing I’ve ever been absolutely certain of. You’re the start and the end of every sentence I want to write. And if I ever forget to say it out loud, just know this?—”
I took a breath.
“Being yours is the only win I’ve ever cared about.”
Auri smiled at me,all angelic and bridal and perfect. “You’ve always been pain and poetry, Callum Fraser. You break things open just to let the light in.”
Somewhere far away, the sea murmured against the rocks—a hush, a promise, that the earth itself was listening.
“Occupational hazard,” I murmured, unable to fight a grin.
Tears glittered in her golden-green eyes. “Ouais, and this is why you’ll always be my favorite kind of trouble.”
The words hit like sunlight through glass, shattering and beautiful all at once. For a moment, everything around us just… stilled. The air, the sea, the breath between us.
Trouble?Maybe. But what we really were was transformation. We’d collided, yes, but what came after wasn’t ruin. It was rebuilding. It was everything I didn’t know could survive the crash, the chaos, and the havoc we’d wreaked on the way to each other.
Colette’s voice was soft but steady when she spoke again. “Your vows have been spoken, and your promises made. Now, you’ll seal them with a symbol that holds no beginning and no end, just as love should. May the rings be brought forward.”
Out of the corner of my eye, Marco moved first—fumbling toward my side, trying and failing to look composed as he pressed a small velvet pouch into my palm. Ivy mirrored him across the aisle, the picture of elegance despite her blotchy cheeks, tugging a silk ribbon loose from Auri’s bouquet to reveal its twin pouch. They shared a knowing glance before stepping back again, both sniffling far too dramatically for people who’d sworn they wouldn’t cry.
“Don’t drop it,” Marco whispered loudly.
“Don’t ruin the moment,” I shot back.
Auri laughed through her tears, shaking her head. That sound was light and unguarded, hitting me square in the chest.
She looked down at my hand, at the platinum band resting against my skin. Sunlight flared across it, dazzling and clean. I had it engraved for her, a hidden message on the inside:Racing 101 - Since Spa.The moment I first saw her and have since been hers. She couldn’t see that inscription, and she didn’t yet know the significance of it. But she would soon, when the time was right.
