Then the network cut away to a pre-race montage: crowd shots, kids with homemade signs, couples in Copper Moon Cup T-shirts. The camera lingered for a few seconds on the north grandstand, packed from end to end, a slow wave of people fanning themselves in the sun.
Something in her chest pulled hard.
She could almost feel the heat coming off that many bodies; hear the rise and fall of real voices instead of the tinny echo through hotel speakers. She imagined the smell of hot asphalt and fried food and salt, the way the engines would vibrate underfoot.
Here, in the room, the air conditioner hummed steadily. The carpet was soft. The curtains, drawn mostly shut, turned the day outside into a pale blur.
Safe, she reminded herself. You promised. This is safe.
Safe felt a lot like trapped.
Her brain flashed an image so sharp she had to close her eyes. Plastic chairs. A narrow waiting room. A TV turned to a channel no one watched. Bryn somewhere beyond a set of double doors, unreachable. Every sound distorted, every minute stretched.
She had waited then, because there had been no other option. She had waited and waited until the waiting ended in the worst possible way.
Now she was supposed to sit and wait again, while someone she loved did something dangerous out of sight.
Her hands went cold.
She set the sketchbook aside and stood, pacing once between bed and dresser.
On the screen, the cameras were on Hank’s pit; the sound was off, but she saw him clearly. Helmet dangling from one hand, he listened to Brian, nodded once, then looked up, straight into the closest lens. The director cut to a wider shot, but not before she saw it, the tiny tilt of his head that said he knew she would be watching.
He was down there, sealed in his world of torque settings, tire choices, and brake markers.
She was up here, staring through glass.
Her gaze slid to the hat on the back of the chair. Wide brim. Neutral color. The sunglasses she had bought on her first day in Copper Moon sat beneath it, folded neatly.
You’re not a child, she thought. You are not helpless. You know how to be careful.
She walked to the door and checked it again, deadbolt, security bar. Both in place. She picked up the hat and glasses and hesitated, listening.
Somewhere outside, far below, an announcer’s voice rolled over the speakers toward the boardwalk. The words were indistinct from here, but the excitement in them was clear. The engines that had been idling during warmups had shifted; more focused now.
“Twenty-four riders on the grid,” the commentator said a second later as the broadcast sound rose. “All eyes on local favorite Hank James, starting from pole in his Copper Moon Cup repeat.”
Bree’s heart knocked into her ribs.
The safest place for him is on a bike, he had told her. The safest place for you is behind a locked door.
Both statements could be true. So could the bone-deep need in her to see him fly with her own eyes.
“I’ll stay away from the pits,” she said quietly. “I can live with that.”
She grabbed her room key and slid it into her pocket with her phone, and tucked her hair under the hat. In the mirror, she looked like one more tourist who had underestimated the sun and overcompensated with accessories.
She paused one last time, palm pressed to the door.
“I am so going to tell you the truth about this,” she told the empty room. “Please still want to kiss me after.”
Then she opened the door and stepped out.
The hallway felt cooler than the room; the carpet muffled the sounds of her sneakers. A couple in matching team shirts walked past, debating tire compounds like it was a normal conversation, which, here, it probably was. She kept her head down, brim low, and moved toward the service stairwell at the far end.
Yesterday, she had noticed that door on her way back from grabbing ice; a plain gray exit with a laminated sign that said staff access. No one had yelled when she used it then. No one yelled now.
Inside, concrete steps and stark lighting greeted her. The air was warmer, tinged with detergent and grease. She moved quickly, trusting memory to guide her: down two flights; out through a nondescript side door that had opened, last night, onto a small service lane between the hotel and the first vendor tents.
