“I’m never the guy in front of a camera or microphone,” I remind him.
Louis smiles. “That changed when you had a midnight commitment ceremony with my son.”
“It was more like three a.m.,” Gabriel clarifies and smiles coyly as he gets nothing but glares from all of us.
Fuck. The idea of being interviewed makes my skin crawl. Louis is on a roll and he continues barking out ideas as he paces. “Gabe, that ring never leaves your finger. I know there’s no jewelry during races but put up a fuss about it, like you don’t want to take it off. I’ll pay a fine if I have to. People will swoon over your sentimentality. What is that thing made out of, anyway? Tin foil?”
“I think maybe aluminum?”
"It's definitely going to turn my finger green," I say and shrug because honestly, it could make my finger fall off and I wouldn't care.
“I’ll get my assistant to look into new rings. Nothing flashy or expensive,” Louis says. "Oh, I wish I had a jewelry line."
“It’s definitely an area to look into,” I say and Damien tries to melt me into the carpet with his beady eyes.
Gabriel presses a fleeting hand to my back and then moves toward the door. “I have to be at the track in an hour. Can you guys go so I can get ready? We’ll talk about this more after qualifying and press.”
“But—” Damien starts.
“Yes. We will see you there,” Louis says, cutting off the disgruntled employee and gently pushing him to the open door.
I glance around the room but can’t see the other sock so I decide I’m just going to have to do the walk of shame without it. But when I pick up my shoes and start toward the door, Gabe reaches out and grabs me by the bicep, rooting me in place. The door closes behind Damien and Louis, leaving us alone again.
His gaze heats. “You don’t have to go. Unless you want to.”
“I don’t want to, but you need to get ready, right?”
He smiles and moves my hand toward the front of his pants. "First I need help with this." He presses my palm into his hard cock. "Have you ever tried to drive over two-hundred kilometers an hour with a rock-hard cock? It's nearly impossible."
I laugh and he reaches up and kisses my neck before growling into it. “Wanna take a shower with your husband?”
“Yeah. I do.”
22AXEL
There isno way to deny the change. I was able to walk around the race tracks before without much more than a few curious glances. Now, I’m being flat-out stared at. No one is even pretending not to notice me. It’s creating a ball of anxiety in the middle of my gut. And the phone buzzing repeatedly in my pocket isn’t helping.
It's my sister. Mostly. She's messaged me nine times and called me twenty-four times. I have yet to answer, or even look at the texts. There's also a few hundred—yes, hundred—emails from news outlets, reporters, and even the freaking docuseries crew that follows the drivers around. They have never, in the history of ever, interviewed a wife or girlfriend of a driver before. Technically, they have interviewed a boyfriend, but only because two drivers are dating. Cristian Rivera and Jasper Nord. Oh, and I think they interviewed Ben Carpenter but he's an engineer and so even though he's dating a driver, it's different. I'm nothing. No one. And I'mnotcalling them back.
I watch Gabriel suit up from my now favorite corner of the garage. The ring on my finger feels like a neon billboard, I swear to God there isn’t a set of eyes in the place that hasn’t stared at it for at least a few seconds since I got here. I keep twisting it around my ring finger with my thumb. The movement gives me comfort, especially when I catch Gabriel doing it too. Until Bob Johnson comes over and has what turns into a heated, heavily whispered debate with him. By the time it’s done, Bob is sweating more than normal, his face flushed as he stomps over to his seat on the pit wall. Gabriel shoves his hands in his gloves and looks over at me before pulling on his helmet. The ring didn’t come off.
I wonder about the fallout from that. I know drivers aren't allowed to wear jewelry. It's been deemed a safety hazard. Billy once explained to me it’s the only reason he doesn’t have a Prince Albert. A piece of info I did not need to know about my bestie.
Anyway, now I spend the entire qualifying worrying about whether that ring is going to burn through Gabriel’s finger if he crashes or something on his car catches fire. And then I stop worrying about the ring and just worry about everything else. This is a dangerous sport. He could be seriously hurt or killed at any moment. I can’t believe Louis lets his son do this. I can’t believe Gabriel wants to risk his life weekly. Sure I’ve worried about Billy on-and-off through the years and I’ve watched him have some crashes, but he’s always walked away. And even when they happened it didn’t feel as sickening as thinking about it happening to Gabriel. Am I the worst best friend ever?
I didn't intend to fake marry, or fake commit, or whatever, to Gabriel, but now that the world thinks I did it, I don't want to have to fake mourn him either. Only it wouldn't actually be fake. Because my feelings for him are real. I start to pace in my little corner of the garage, my fists balled up by my sides. Gabriel makes it through the first round of qualifying, finishing eleventh, and then he ups his game and finishes the Q2 in ninth. Both very solid and respectable. In Q1 he finishes in fifth. Fucking fifth!
I breathe a sigh of relief followed by a hoot of victory, and one of the mechanics high-fives me. Another slaps me on the back and Louis hugs me tightly. “I like who he is becoming,” Louis whispers in my ear.
I just nod, not knowing what the hell to say to that. And now Gabriel’s rushing through the garage and he’s making his way to me— uninterrupted. Only one mechanic, the same guy who high-fived me, but other than that, no Mayflower staffer is congratulating him. No one is celebrating. I realize the garage is fairly empty.
“Where is everyone?” I ask.
“Sterling is P1 so they’re off to watch his interview and congratulate him over by the pit lane,” Gabriel says, smiling as he yanks off his fire retardant balaclava and his sandy hair sticks up every which way.
I step closer and smooth down the left side, then the right. It’s not for him and his interviews, it’s because I love the feel of his hair in my hands. “All of them?”
“As Luke says inStar Wars, he's their only hope," Gabriel replies calmly. In fact, he's so resigned to the fact that I'm bothered by how unbothered he is.
