She shook her head, biting down a laugh, and raised her left hand to show a sparkling engagement and wedding ring. “You forget who you’re talking to.”
The roar of bikes sounded in the distance as the warm-up lap started, my attention stolen by the large screens opposite the track.
Zolt, in first place, zoomed along the track ahead of everyone else.
“If I were to move you now, you’d be on the backbench for your entire placement,” she continued, the loud revs second-nature to her . “Every other team already has a translator. And you’re better than that. I need someone who speaks Hungarian and Italian for your team.”
“Zolt doesn’t need a translator,” I argued.
Her eyes narrowed. “He does.”
“He speaks it well. He understands nearly everything that’s said to him.”
Even as I said it, I recalled how he thought Livie had said I could ask him to remove his shirt. But knowing what I did now, that could have been a wind-up.
Her expression didn’t budge. “No, he doesn’t. When I meet with him, it’s painful. And he can’t talk back very well. For the press, and with the potential he has, he needs to understand perfectly.”
I shrugged. I supposed.
“And he reminds me of my husband,” she sighed. “The pre-me him. He wants to push every boundary until itbreaks. And with you translating… I know you’ll go to certain lengths to ensure he doesn’t make himself look like a tit.” She paused, laughter teasing at the edge of her lips. “What with him being family now.”
I slapped her arm lightly, and she laughed, exclaiming how she was joking.
On the screens, the racers had all returned to the starting line, poised and ready to go. The second the lights went out, they were off, and, even though we were half the track away, I winced before pulling my headphones out of my back pocket.
Livie chuckled, then abruptly stopped when she looked over my shoulder at my phone. “No. Please tell me you don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
She shook her head, eyes intent on the screens. “You listen to Nix’s commentary for the race?”
I laughed, one earpiece already in. “Sorry, I can’t hear you over your husband’s hilarious one-liners.”
She rolled her eyes with a fond smile. “Just don’t tell him that. He’ll never stop gloating.”
Zolt had handled the first three corners with ease, his bike almost taking off, it was so weightless. He’d managed a gap of 0.5 seconds in no time, and I understood the cockiness of him wanting me in the winner’s box. We weren’t even a minute in, and I knew it too: He was going to win.
And he wanted me as his prize.
My whole body clenched at the idea, at the forbidden need in my core. I leaned against the barrier again, crossing my ankles, hardly listening to Nix and his co-commentator, just focused on Zoltán’s leathered soul on that bike, eating the ground like it was nothing.
He’d won MotoBike. I knew he was good.
He’d just never raced on most of the StormSprint tracks.
And with all of those injuries he was still recovering from… he shouldn’t be pushing himself. I didn’t even think he should be racing .
Everything I’d learned about his crash throughout my translations made me want to protect him. On impact with the ground, his helmet had cracked open. He’d broken ribs, had multiple small bleeds on the brain, and was in a medically induced coma for a week. He had to have surgery on his collarbone and spine to put himback together.
And that was just the physical damage.
But I felt guilty even thinking about the rest. It delved deep into his psyche with the therapy that accompanied his treatment, the anxiety he felt, and the continuous pain he couldn’t escape in the months after.
And yet two years later, here he was, on a bike like it had been nothing. Winning a race inStormSprint.
Even Nix sounded impressed in my ears, and he didn’t know the half of it. “The man rides like the finish line owes him money. He’s slicing through those corners like he has something to prove today.”
His co-commentator laughed and briefly explained how Zolt’s racing in the four previous races wasn’t spectacular, but there was excitement in the air.
