This way I can tell myself hecan’ttext, rather than he just doesn’t care to.
But yeah… I miss his voice, his scent, his freckles, the scar on his eyebrow. I miss the thing he’d unconsciously do with his mouth—tilting his lips and biting the inside of his cheek—just before saying something that made him nervous, like admitting an embarrassing secret or a vulnerable detail. I miss the way he’d put one ankle between mine when we’d fall sleep, and how later when he’d change position, he’d kiss my shoulder and whisper, “Salvi…” before turning away, like he was reassuring me that he was still there.
I even miss how after we’d get a coffee, he’d chew on the stir stick and make me nuts and I’d have to tell him,For fuck’s sake, knock it off—stop chewing on wood like a beaver.
I guess I’m not okay.
And I don’t want to sleep with anyone else. Like,ever. How lame is that?
So my heart got broken, something I never thought would happen to me. But this race week it’s eyes on the prize, no distractions, no regrets. Physically I’m in fighting form again, and best of all, Julian is getting out of rehab—two weeks early, but he swears he’s ready—and is coming to England to stay with Pri and me and attend the race at Silverstone.
I’msoready to hit the reset button on years of pointless feuding. All I can think about now is how great he actually is, and how dumb I’ve been. He’s transformed, in my esteem, from a shiftless, pampered fail-son slutting around the globe rock climbing and draining his trust fund to… well, I guess how everyone else has seen him all along (especially Pri): a generous, good-hearted golden retriever who’s a skilled climber and a curious, adventurous person.
Flawed, yeah. But aren’t we all?
It’s Thursday, and I’ve just finished the press meeting, feeling as close to “on top of things” as I’ve been since the bust-up with Sandy. Julian flew in this morning and Pri drove down to London to pick him up. I’m looking forward to seeing them both tonight. Phae is lending us her family’s house in Towcester, and Pri and Jules probably arrived there hours ago. After, uh, “catching up” with each other (not gonna think about that one, but I wish them well), they’re gonna cook a big dinner for us all.
When Pri calls me in late afternoon, I’m assuming it’s to ask me to pick something up on my way to the house—a bottle ofwine, dessert, whatever—but when I open the call, the sob in her voice stops me like I’ve run face-first into a wall.
“What the fuck is going on?” I demand, my scalp prickling. “Why are you crying?”
She sniffles, and in the pause, I hear an unmistakable soundtrack: the background noise you hear in a hospital.
“Oh, Sage—it’s Julian,” she chokes out.
I detour into an empty meeting room and sag into a chair, my legs suddenly so weak that I almost miss it completely and slide onto the floor. “Is he…?” I rasp.
“He’s alive,” she says quickly. “But we’re in St Thomas’ Hospital and you need to get down here. He—”
“What happened?” I interrupt, too loud.
“Sage, don’t be mad. Not at him and not at me. I only lost sight of him for a little while,” she explains in a rush, her voice breaking.
She’s phrasing it like someone talking about a toddler who’s dashed into the street. I suspect what’s happened, but I don’t want to believe it.Not now, after months of progress. Not now, when we’re going to be a family again.
“We stopped for breakfast in a café,” she continues, “and he told me he needed to go get gifts for me and you, and I should hang at the coffee place and read or whatever, that he’d be back soon. But then it’d beenthree hoursand he wasn’t answering texts. I thought maybe he’d lost his phone, and couldn’t find his way back? Then I got a call from him and… it was actually someone I didn’t know on his phone and they said Julian was at St Thomas’ and he’d overdosed.”
I roar down the M1 in the Mercedes, keeping it around 145 kph anywhere possible, slicing through traffic like a scalpel. I’ve always thought it’d be a little fun to get caught speeding and pull an Ayrton Senna, who when stopped by police while speeding was asked, “Who do you think you are—Nigel Mansell?” and replied, “No, I’m faster.” But today I can’t afford the delay just for the sake of being a quippy sass-box.
When I approach the hospital, I groan at the sight of press, milling around just outside the range where they could be shooed away. How did they get wind of this so fast?Fuuuuuuuuck.There are only three of them, but it’s three too many.
I park and hunt around the car for anything I could use as a half-assed disguise. There’s a rumpled hoodie squished between the seats, but it’s Emerald F1 gear, so obviously that won’t help. My sunglasses are useless too. How many blue-and-green-haired, neck-tattooed girls are going to be walking into St Thomas’ right now? I’m pretty much fucked.
I’m desperate to get out of the car and hurry to Jules and Pri, but I take a minute to collect myself, since there won’t be any avoiding the press. I’m so frustrated and overwhelmed that I almost dissolve into tears. The only thing stopping me is knowing that pics of me crying in the car would be media gold.
I rub both hands over my face, releasing a slow, shaky sigh. At a tap on the window, I jump. I’m expecting some journalist vulture has spotted me, but when I look up, it’s Alexander.
Holy shit, he looks different. He has a short beard, brightas a shiny new penny, but it’s the only thing about him that’s shining. His gray eyes are smudged with shadows and he’s lost probably ten or fifteen pounds. His hair is longer—it’s gone fromI paid a fortune for this dotoI live in a cave and hunt woolly mammoths.
We stare at each other for a long moment, then I open the door and he steps aside while I climb out of the little sports car.
He opens his arms. “Salvi,” he murmurs simply.
I allow the hug, both comforted and disturbed by how right it feels to have his arms around me again. “How’d you find out?” I ask against the lapel of his blue plaid suit.
“Alerts on my mobile.”
“For me?”
