FOR LUCK
BILLY
When I wake up the next morning, she’s gone. I lie there a second and try to pretend I hallucinated the whole fucking thing. But the scent of her perfume along with the deliciously achy feeling in my body of a night well spent under and on top of her makes that impossible. Also the feeling in my chest she caused last night. That warm, deep, satisfying ache. I was her person last night. Her partner. And in those moments, taking care of her needs in every way possible, a revelation occurred. I’ve always wanted to be that. I saw with blinding clarity that I was never just in this for sex and was always in it for the emotional connection. The way she makes me feel: happy, whole, bonded. I have been fooling myself.
But then she said Lucia racing again was a cold comfort and that warm feeling she always gives me turned sour like day old milk. Because I can’t be with someone when there’s a very real threat I will leave them destroyed like my mom was. Like Frankie almost was yesterday. I don’t want to be the next person to put that shattered look on her beautiful face. So this thing with her can’t continue. I can’t fall in love with anyone. Not until this life, my career, is in the rearview. And I’m not close to giving it up.
When we talked of Lucia’s crash as we ate and I saw the look of anguish on her face, I realized what I’ve known all along. I can’t be the reason someone looks like that. If I let her in and then I have a crash like Lucia’s or worse…
I pull myself out of bed. That ache from a sex-a-thon that usually makes me smile, makes me frown. It’s just another reminder of all I’ve got to give up. I get ready, and as I’m throwing on my clothes, there’s a tentative knock at the door. I open it and find Clara, right on time. Her deep brown eyes dart around the room as she takes a hesitant step inside. Her eyes land on the rumpled bed. “Are you alone?”
“I am… now,” I admit because there’s no point hiding it from her anymore. I wasn’t doing a good job, and it’s over now anyway. “Frankie disappeared a few hours ago.”
Clara nods slowly. “How is she?”
“Better. I think. I mean it was rough,” I say, but my brain is filling with not just the visuals of last night, how warm and tight and welcoming her pussy was, but also the desperate, vulnerable look in her eyes when I kissed her. The expression of love I saw reflected back in my own face in the bathroom mirror as I hugged her after we came.
“You look freaked out,” Clara observes flatly. “What are you not telling me? Is Lucia really okay?”
“Yes. I mean, she’ll need help with her hand. It’s burned. Somehow, the fire-resistant glove failed. But she’s good,” I reply and hold her gaze for a second.
“So it’s Frankie that has you looking like a bear in a trap who needs to gnaw off his own leg to survive?” Clara drops her bag onto the floor and drops onto the chaise by the window in my room. She gives me a small, superior smile, like she knows something I don’t. “You realized you love her.” I twist my face up like I just smelled a fart, which makes her laugh. “I knew this would happen one day. I just didn’t know it would happen with Frankie.”
“What would happen?”
Clara lies back and laces her fingers behind her head. “Someone would get you by your heart, not just your…stick shift.”
“Please stop.” I shudder at her veiled reference to my penis.
“So the question is, what are you going to do about it, Billy?” Clara wants to know.
“I have to focus on the rest of the season, and she has to focus on her part of the season too.”
“Uh-huh.” Clara nods, but now, as I come out of the bathroom, she’s looking at her phone. She pauses and types something quickly before looking back up at me. “So you two stop knocking boots and focus on the season. And when the season is over? Then what?”
“I go back to…” Where was I going to go again? Paris? And watch sunsets in Montmartre without her? That sounds depressing as fuck. The longer I remain silent, the bigger Clara’s smile gets, and I’m about to tell her to fuck off when she glances at her phone again and she shakes her head, her smile dropping. “Who are you texting with?”
“No one,” she mutters.
“Clara.”
She puts her phone down and looks up at me and sighs. “I went out last night. I needed to blow off steam after I found out Lucia was alright. Basically drink and dance away the thoughts about dad and stuff that a crash always brings up. Anyway, I ran into Lady Ava What’s-her-face. Remember her?”
“Lady Ava Markham. Twenty-seventh in line to the throne. I’ve seen her naked, so yes I remember her.” It was last season, when she was a VIP guest at the London GP. I won and after flirting all night at an after-party, she made it clear she wanted to give me her own little victory party, no strings attached, in her words. And so who am I to turn down royalty?
“Anyway, now she’s pestering me for a pass for today.”
“So give her one.”
Clara’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really? But like… won’t it be awkward?”
I shrug. “It was a year ago. A good time was had by all. She hasn’t been weird about it since. I mean she hasn’t called or texted or anything, so let her come to the race. I don’t care. She’s got connections, so if we don’t give her a pass she’ll get one anyway.”
“Okay…” Clara seems to think it’s a bad idea, judging by her tone and her face, but whatever. A couple minutes later as we head down the hall to leave the hotel for the track, Clara finally shoves her phone in the pocket of her track suit. “I put Lady A on the pass list and let her know. She told me to tell you she can’t wait to celebrate another win with you.”
“Oh.” A bowling ball of dread has been dumped into my gut.
“Yeah. I saw that coming a mile away.” Clara steps into the elevator and I step in beside her. “I don’t know how you can be so successful at driving a car when you’re clearly blind.”
