Page 112 of Out of Control

“I tell myself every time that I’m over it. That I don’t care, and then she pops back up and I’m left scrambling to salvage everything she doesn’t ruin. It’s my status quo. It’s how I keep my family whole despite the cavity she caused.”

“Scars are scars, Bellissima. The ones you can’t see are often the worst.” I rest the side of my head on the top of hers. “You’re nothing like your mamá. Those scars? The pain they caused? Your reflex to protect your brother at your own expense? Those guarantee that.”

“I have a ton of them.”

“All I see is beauty in them,” I say.

“I love you, but are you sure you want to do this? I mean, you’ve experienced three of my family members and none of them have been exactly kind to you.”

“And yet, I’m still here.” I chuckle. “Trying for the first time ever to play by the rules.”

“You? Play by the rules?” She scoffs.

“That’s how you know I’ve got it bad for you.”

She looks up at me and smiles. “You do, don’t you?”

“I do.” I shrug. “I might be out of control on the track, but when it comes to us, to you and me, I’m completely under yours.”

“You didn’t leave,” she whispers.

“No. You’re stuck with me.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Rossi

I’m riding a high.

It’s been a great week and I have a feeling that today’s going to be a good day. My car is on pace. My team is in sync. Sofia snuck into my driver’s room and gave me a good luck kiss.

I mean, I’m riding a fucking high.

“So we have the drivers’ parade and then a team meeting,” Carina says as she waves to someone down the way. “And then—”

“Oliver!”

I hear the voice and stop dead in my tracks, my gaze immediately laser focused in the direction of it.

It takes me a second. My heart is in my throat and the smile I want to smile withheld. Am I hearing things?

And then I see them. My parents. They’re nestled halfway up the friends and family section, their orange and yellow shirts standing out in a sea of them. They wave like lunatics. Like I’m a little boy at my first race and they want to make sure I see them and know they’re there.

My chest constricts and all those little-boy feelings I choose to ignore time and again flood me with a vengeance I can’t even comprehend.

It’s hard to swallow.

I blink a few times behind my sunglasses.

And I finally let that smile come.

They came.

They finally came.

They finally showed up for me.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT