Page 75 of Over the Limit

“I will.” I gather my items off the display case, a little sad that this conversation couldn’t have gone better. When I go to move past him, there’s an unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach.

He blows out a breath. “Blair.”

I turn to look at him over my shoulder and for the first time in a long time, I see the teenage boy I met at the track all those years ago. The one with the crooked glasses and hair in need of a haircut. The one who used that space and this sport to erase the chaos from his home.

My chest constricts and that grief I’ve been waiting for finally hits me. But it’s not grief over us not being together. It’s grief because I miss my friend.

“I . . .”

“I know.” I smile softly at him. “I know. You’re still one of my best friends, Oliver. I hope we can be that again to each other one day.”

He drops his head for a beat, his eyes on the ground before he meets my eyes. There’s honesty in them. Gone is the bad boy persona of Rossi, the reckless driver. Instead, it’s Oliver Rossi from Vicenza who just might actually miss me.

He nods his head subtly with a melancholic smile on his lips.

But he doesn’t say a word. Rather he just watches me walk out the door, and I swear I can feel his eyes on me way past turning the next corner.

I keep glancing over my shoulder the entire way back to Lachlan’s place. Rossi lives the opposite way and yet . . . this town is too small, with too many F1 drivers and people I know. How did I think I could stalk into Lach’s apartment and not be seen? That I could keep this under wraps and remain discreet?

Talk about going from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows.

Change is hard. Didn’t I just say that to Rossi? Then why am I struggling with it? Why am I wanting to rush back to Lachlan while my heart is hurting for the man I just walked away from?

Fuck.

I’m lost in these thoughts and my naivete over how this would go with Rossi and exhaustion over a very active night is showing as I quietly push open the door to Lachlan’s place.

I’m met with a very stoic Lachlan when I enter. He’s sitting in an armchair in nothing but the sweats he had on last night. He has one ankle resting on the other knee, his elbow bent and finger on his lip, and he’s staring at me with an undecipherable expression.

“Hi,” I say as I shut the door behind me. “Everything okay?”

“I thought you left.”

“Left?” I ask as I hold up the coffee and pastries in my hand.

“Yeah, as in you woke up, thought we made a mistake, and ghosted me.” I’m stopped in my tracks by his intensity.

But I know how I am, Blair. I know I’m an all or nothing.

His words come back to me.

I set everything down and move toward him. Toward the bronzed skin taut over corded muscle. Toward the unshaven jaw and the confused eyes. I straddle him, digging my knees into either side of his hips and frame his face.

“I didn’t ghost you. I woke up and wanted to do something nice but in doing that, I realized I don’t know anything important about you.”

“You know the most important things,” he says, leaning his cheek into one of my hands.

“No. I don’t. I know how you make me feel, but I don’t know how you take your coffee. What you eat for breakfast. Do you shower at night or the mornings? Are you an over the sheets or under type of guy?”

He chuckles. “That was what you were thinking when you were looking at my naked body in a nice warm bed?” He quirks a brow. “Clearly, I didn’t do my job good enough last night.”

I lean forward and press a kiss to his lips. The simple action erasing that mini-panic attack I had. “I kind of freaked out. I didn’t want to open your cupboards to find coffee. I didn’t want you to think I was snooping. I didn’t want to . . . I don’t know what your boundaries are and, when the barista asked me for your coffee order, I didn’t know it.”

He grabs my hands, pressing a kiss into my palms. “This is a side I haven’t seen from you yet. Relax, Tink. I’m an open fucking book to you. I have nothing to hide. No skeletons in the closet that might jump out. No ghosts who’ll jump out of my cupboards when you open them.” He links his fingers with mine and sets them in our lap. “I take my coffee with milk. Any kind, I’m not picky. Sometimes I eat breakfast. Sometimes I don’t. It depends when my workout is, and so if it’s early, I drink a protein shake. They’re in that fridge over there.” He lifts his chin to show me. “But something else is bugging you. Regrets, then?”

“No. God, no. I’m here, aren’t I?” I try to joke.

“Something else is bugging you.”