“Well,” Autumn said, tapping the counter lightly, “from where I’m standing, it looks like tons of progress. You love her,” she said, her eyes soft and big. “That part is more than clear.”
“I really do,” Sloane said.
When she imagined returning to a race weekend, she imagined doing it differently. Not proving anything. Not forcing herself through moments her body wasn’t ready for yet. Choosing presence when she could … and honesty when she couldn’t.
Every few days, she texted Reese. Nothing heavy. Nothing evasive.
Thinking of you.
Hope the weekend went okay.
I love you.
I’m here. Hopefully, we can talk more soon.
Reese always replied. It wasn’t always right away, but she got there.
That mattered.
Reese
I love you. Thank you for checking on me.
At night, Sloane stood barefoot on her balcony, ocean air cool against her skin, and practiced staying present, which meant neither retreating into the past nor racing ahead to a future shewasn’t ready to inhabit yet. She wasn’t fixed. She wasn’t finished. But she was closer than she’d been.
And for now, that was enough to keep going.
CHAPTER 30
SIXTEENTH
The next race weekend felt wrong from the start. And it reminded her of the last.
Reese noticed it in the small things first—the missed braking point she never missed, the hesitation in a corner she usually trusted without thinking. The car was fine. The track was familiar. She wasn’t. Her lap times hovered close enough to respectable to keep anyone from panicking outright, but the stage was set, and the data was adding up.
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” she told Shanelle, as they sat in her office later that day. “Other than I’m in my head a little more than usual.” She couldn’t argue that part. She missed her girlfriend immensely and walked around on autopilot, hollow and worried and second-guessing everything she’d done and said up to that point. But when she got behind the wheel, she focused, she executed, and none of it was paying off the way she was used to.
“Here’s the thing. The change in your driving is small, but those quarters of a second add up,” Shanelle told her. “A tiny shift in your mindset makes incremental differences lap after lap after lap until you’re finishing three seconds behind your competitor.”
Reese nodded. “Fewer hesitations. I have to process quicker.”
“Do I look worried?” Shanelle said, sitting back in her chair like a woman waiting patiently on a martini. “I know who I hired, and she’ll be back. Let’s see how you do in your practice session today and come up with a workable race strategy with Geoff.” The new engineer she was working with, now that Damon was back with Ezra, was patient and smart, but they had yet to develop a rhythm.
“Okay, let’s hope for a good session.”
Shanelle’s confidence was helpful, the way it always was. Reese left the office, telling herself to simplify. Brake later. Commit sooner. Trust the muscle memory that had carried her this far.
The practice session was cleaner. She hit her marks more consistently, stayed out of trouble, and finished without incident. On paper, it looked like progress.
Inside the car, it felt like holding something together with both hands.
When she climbed out, Delaney, Marissa, and Cassidy were waiting near the back of the garage. There was no academy race that weekend, no overlapping obligations—just three familiar faces she’d invited as guests, guest passes clipped visibly at their waists. They stayed deliberately out of the way, like people who knew the rhythm of a paddock and respected it.
Delaney didn’t bother easing into it. “You’re late on turn-in.”
Reese gave a tired half-smile. “Cool. Hello to you, too.”
“Sorry. Hi. But, I mean it,” Delaney said. “You’re not committing when you should. You hesitate, then overcorrect.”
