I forced a laugh. “Just making conversation.”
“Right.” He didn’t push, but his eyes said he wasn’t buying it.
We mounted our bikes again, setting off toward the reservoir. The sun was fully up now, the temperature rising with it. Sweat beaded on my forehead, but the discomfort was a welcome distraction from the conversation.
Thiago pulled ahead, clearly done with our heart-to-heart. Liam matched his pace, leaving me riding alongside Nico.
“The press stuff was the easy part,” Nico said after a while, “I could control that, but being a father? That’s the part I couldn’t script.”
“How do you do it? Be away twenty-four weekends a year and still be a good dad?”
“You redefine what being a good dad means,” he said. “Because you can’t be there for everything. You’ll miss important things. First words, school plays, random mornings when they just need you.”
My chest ached. “How do you live with that?”
“You make the time you have count. When you’re home, you’re present. Fully present. Not checking emails, not thinking about the next race. You’re on the floor playing, doing bedtime, making breakfast. You soak up every second.”
“And when you’re not home?”
“You stay connected. FaceTime before bed every night, no matter what time zone you’re in. You send videos. Stupid voice messages about nothing. You make sure they know you’rethinking about them even when you’re halfway around the world.”
I nodded. “Does it ever feel like enough?”
“No,” Nico said honestly. “Never. You’ll always feel like you’re failing at something.” He glanced at me. “But my daughter knows I love her. She knows I’d drop everything if she needed me. That’s what matters.”
“Even with the career impact?”
He smiled. “Turns out having something more important than racing makes you a better driver. When your whole identity isn’t wrapped up in lap times and podium finishes, the pressure eases. You drive cleaner, smarter.”
I turned that over in my mind. I’d spent my whole life believing racing was me. My identity, my purpose, the thing that made me worth something. Every choice I’d made, every sacrifice, had been to chase this one thing: lap times, podiums, titles.
And then Hazel showed up.
And suddenly, it wasn’t just about me anymore.
The shift had been slow, creeping up in quiet moments. Holding her bottle at 3 AM, watching her tiny fingers wrap around mine, the way she blinked up at me like I was someone important. Like I mattered because I was her dad, not because I was Griffin Michaels, two-time world champion.
And fuck, if that didn’t unnerve me more than any race ever had.
I couldn’t keep going like this. This state of limbo was driving me insane and it needed to end. I just had to decide if I was brave enough to end it on my terms.
Because if Nico was right, if controlling the narrative meant controlling my future, then maybe I could actually do this. Maybe I could be the father Hazel deserved and keep my career intact.
Or maybe I’d crash and burn trying.
Either way, at least it’d be my choice.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
VIOLET
Downward dog was supposed to clear my head. That was the whole point of yoga.
Breathe.
Stretch.
Let the tension bleed out of tight muscles and leave me calm, centered, capable of dealing with Griffin bloody Michaels for another day without murdering him.
