Page 121 of Over the Limit

Then I remember the jolt of being hit. I feel the dizzying spin across the gravel, and I question myself for trying to reason against the evidence.

Wrecking is racing, but . . .

“What did Johann say about it?” McElroy asks.

I purse my lips and nod. “That it was bullshit. That it’s twice this year in a very short fucking period that both of the Apex cars have touched and are out of the race. That too much money is being wasted and not enough answers are being provided.” I shrug. “As far as what they’ve said to Rossi, I don’t have a fucking clue, but there have been several meetings behind closed doors that I’m not privy to.”

“And your thoughts on all of it?” Riggs asks.

“I think a lot of shit went down,” I say carefully. Do I want to share with them everything? Fuck yes, it would be great to get it off my chest. But one random comment from one of the guys to another person and then there’s a headline story in the media. People are digging into our pasts. Blair is identified and thrown to the wolves. It’s not worth the fucking risk. I bite back all the words I want to say. “The FIA looked at it. They made their decision. And whether I think it’s right or wrong, it’s what it is.”

“Neutral as fuck. Really?” Navarro asks. “That’s all you’re going to give us?”

I glance around at the eyes of all my friends. “You all have rides next year. I don’t, so fuck yes, I’m going to be neutral as fuck. Wouldn’t you be?”

Quiet murmurs arise as another hand is being dealt. They know how it feels to be on the bubble. They know how not having a contract causes uncertainty to own you and allows doubt to creep in. Doubt over if you really are as good of a driver as everyone thought you were. As you thought you were.

“So,” Laurent says as he groans when he sees his cards and tosses them back to the dealer, folding, “then we’re back to the woman.” Everyone laughs. “You have to give us something. Who is she? Where’d you find her?”

I throw two cards into the pile and get two new ones. Shit. That didn’t help my hand any. “Come on, guys, I don’t kiss and tell,” I say.

“God, you’re so full of shit,” McElroy says and throws his cards in and folds his hand. “When you slept with that model for however long it was, we all knew.”

“Then there was the actress from Bordeaux. God, she was smoking hot,” Finnegan says and takes a sip of his drink. “We all knew about her even though you said there wasn’t shit happening.”

They were my past. And none of them were as hot as Blair—my future.

“But this one,” Riggs says. “There’s something different about this one.”

“Because I’m not telling you guys shit so there’s something different?” I toss in poker chips for my ante. “Are your sex lives so boring you need to know more about mine?”

I get middle fingers from three of the five sitting around me.

“Nice deflection, asshole,” Laurent teases.

“He’s in lurve,” Cruz says, drawing the word out ridiculously, and then motions to the pile of poker chips in the center of the table. “I bet this whole pot that that’s what’s going on here.”

“Like you would know,” I scoff.

He raises his eyebrows.

Shit. He does know. I forgot. The man is madly in love with his fiancée. “How fast we’re all falling when we all swore we’d stay single forever,” I joke.

“Not I,” says Laurent, hand in the air and scooting back from the table. “I am having too much fun playing the field. Different women in different cities.” He does the chef’s kiss motion. “Not happening for a long-ass time.”

Riggs leans back in his chair and eyes me over the rim of his glass, the platinum band on his left finger blaringly obvious to the rest of us. Proof that we do fall. “Hey, Lach? Don’t look now but you just said how fast we fall and we all caught it.” He pushes all his chips into the center of the table. “I’m all in. Are you?”

Motherfucker.

I nod my head and chuckle. “I’ve been all in. That’s the only way to be.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Blair

“It’s been great having you home,” my mom says as we sit on the porch swing. The one constant that has moved with us from house to house during deployments.

But it’s been here for the last ten years. Italy has become the Carmichael’s second home, and it’s always good to come back to it.