She smiles at the progression of pics. “He’s got a boyfriend?”
“Fiancé. Laurent. He’s French, and a bit of a tosser, but Badrick adores him.”
“Huh. Gotta admit, at one time I’da thought you were the type of guy who’d be too insecure to have a gay best friend.”
I chuckle. “Again, my seraph, thank you ever so much for the left-handed compliment. But who Badrick dates is the least relevant factor. The truth is, he’s always been cooler, smarter, and more talented than me—he’s a brilliant jazz drummer—and I’m lucky he’s put up with me for eighteen years.”
She narrows her eyes at me with a speculative smile. “Y’know, you’re way less awful than people assume. Glad I finally met the real you.” Setting my mobile aside, she folds the towel she has draped over her naked shoulders and places it on the counter, then hops up to sit on it, bobbing her eyebrows playfully and reaching for me. “We should take advantage of all these mirrors. Whaddya think?”
In thirty-one years that most would already classify as shamefully privileged, I find that this week in Barcelona is the happiest of my life. Sage returns to me every evening, full of chatter and lust and the mosaic of tiny details that make her who she is. My sweet Salvia officinalis, my dream-I-didn’t-know-I-had, myfuture.
We can barely get through a meal for how abundantly the talk spills out of us, making up for years that no longer seem merely “before” the other person, but more “without”… as if we knew each other, were already conjoined at the soul, but cruel circumstance had kept us apart.
And so the week stretches out, generous and surprising and electric. We eat, sleep, go for walks, good-naturedly disagree only to make it up with epic sex. We half watch, half make love to the backdrop of several movies. We organically develop a repertoire of inside jokes and phrases instilled with private significance. One night she sings me the entirety of a parody version of “American Pie” featuring the plot of aStar Warsfilm in her touchingly off-key voice, and I relish every minute. (By the end, I’m singing along to the choruses.)
She tells me about the decade-long misguided feud with Julian. Her parents’ troubles and impending divorce. Her friendships and frustrations. The month at age fourteen when she nearly gave up racing because she decided she wanted to be a blacksmith.
I tell her about my bizarre family dynamics. The perennial adolescent unpopularity that clung to me until I grew into my rangy limbs and got decent-looking and went to university. My loss of virginity to an older girl—a singer in a club—during a family trip to Portugal, and how it engendered a lifelong debilitating attachment to fado music.
Then, on Friday night, a seemingly unparalleled blessing is dispensed when theone fucking thingthat was still a nagging source of dread washes away with a single text exchange.
As I await Sage’s late arrival after a busy day at the paddock, including Free Practice sessions, the thought intrudes with a jet of anxiety that CJ Ardley is still awaiting my intel. I pluck up my mobile and send her a message.
Will have something impressive for you soon but need more time.
To my surprise, a reply is typed and sent immediately:
No need, hunny bunny. I have my sights set elsewhere. You’re off the hook.
Fuckin’ hell, I could dance. After sending back a small,Thx, good luck to you,I delete the text thread and her contact, tossing my mobile onto the sofa, tension draining out of me as I rub my face and laugh for plain joy.
She’s moved on. Bloody marvelous! I suppose she found another “nemesis” on whom to fixate—maybe a rival for the affections of Gavin Yates, with whom she appears to have successfully cooked up a romance, if the gossip sites are to be trusted.
I no longer need suffer the guilt of never mentioning this to Sage. It took care of itself.
I feel as if I’ve been freed from the jaws of a steel trap.
How did Sage put it?Clear air, smooth track.
Our future starts in earnest tonight.
23
BARCELONA, SPAIN
SAGE
When I come through the door, Alexander is there, barefoot and scrumptiously shirtless. He sweeps me into his arms and spins me around before I have time to warn him not to, and it isn’t until he leans me against the wall and kisses me and I sort of hold my breath and whimper that he realizes I’m in pain.
“Salvi…” He deposits me gingerly on the floor, pulling back. “Are you all right?”
“Uh, not a hundred percent. More like… sixty?”
An old back muscle injury (from that crash in São Paulo) has chosen the worst possible time—with quali tomorrow and the grand prix the day after—to flare up. I downplayed it to Dagna, got a massage and a little acupuncture from Himari, did a soak… but there’s a spot in my back that’s still spasming, contracting like the legs of a dead spider.
“My back’s kinda fucky,” I explain as I shed my clothes and drop them on the floor en route to the bed, then sink down, flat on my stomach.
“Are you well enough to race?” Alexander asks.
