It just did not feel heroic from this side.
She went back to the bed, picked up her pencil again with fingers that trembled a little less.
On a fresh page, she sketched the rectangle of the Red Dragons’ pit; the open frame; the small cylinder in a gloved hand. She drew Einstein as a shadow at the edge, his face half-turned away. Then she added a tiny figure at the far margin; herself, sketchbook clutched to her chest; nothing more than an outline.
Underneath, in small letters, she wrote: Caught.
Her phone buzzed again.
Mac just thanked whoever tipped him, Hank texted. I told him I’d pass it along. So consider yourself officially appreciated by the safety gods.
A laugh bubbled out of her, surprised and wet.
Safety gods, she wrote. That sounds like a terrifying pantheon.
They’re cranky but fair, he answered.
The commentators announced that qualifying would be pushed back to account for “ongoing discussions with team representatives.” The graphic at the bottom of the screen was updated with a new start time and a little note about schedule adjustments.
So you’re still racing, she typed. After all that.
Yes, he sent. Tech did their job. Bad variable is out of the equation. Honestly, the safest place for me is on a bike I trust, doing the thing I know how to do. Knowing you’re upstairs and not walking past Einstein helps.
His honesty wrapped around her like a blanket.
Okay, she wrote. I’m here. TV on; sketchbook out; chewing my nails as we planned. Bring Julie home in one piece, James. I’d like another chance to kiss her rider.
A beat, then, Planning on it, he replied. On both counts.
Heat bloomed low in her belly; her gaze unfocused for a second as she remembered the angle of his mouth, the way he had tasted, the quiet, stunned “wow” she had breathlessly offered when they finally broke apart.
She flipped to a new page without even thinking, and her pencil started tracing lines: the curve of his jaw; the slope of his nose; the little dent in his left eyebrow where some old scar had broken the skin. It felt like a prayer in graphite.
There was a knock at a neighboring door; someone laughing loudly in the hallway; a child’s voice squealing about race bikes. Life went on around her; hotel noises, the clatter of people who had no idea they had come within inches of watching a disaster later that day.
She paused, listening to it all, and then went back to her drawing.
Her phone buzzed again, shorter this time.
They’re impounding Marcus’s bike, Hank wrote. There’ll be hearings and sponsors and a lot of yelling somewhere with air conditioning, but from a tech standpoint, they’re off the table for now.
So you’re safer? he sent.
We’re all safer, he answered. You, me, every rider out there. That’s on you as much as anyone.
Tears pushed at the back of her eyes again. She blinked them away; she didn't need them spilling onto the paper.
All I did was watch, she wrote.
Sometimes watching is the part that saves people, he replied.
She set the phone on her knee and stared at those words until they went a little blurry.
Outside, a distant announcer’s voice floated up through the glass when she muted the TV for a moment, amplified by speakers on the boardwalk. Inside, the air conditioner hummed; the curtains shifted a fraction in the barely-there draft.
She took a deep breath.
“Okay,” she said quietly. “I can do this.”
