Page 143 of Off the Grid

My heart doesn’t stop racing and for so many more reasons than just the physical.

I stare at the ceiling and try to process the past thirty minutes.

Hell, the past few days.

The incredible highs. The stomach-churning lows.

And then the way I felt when I finally saw Riggs. The all-encompassing need to make things right again. To apologize, even though he was in the wrong. To clear the hurt and anger and something else I couldn’t quite place from his eyes.

His hand finds mine and he laces our fingers together. It’s the simplest of actions but the quiet reassurance—that we’re okay—relieves the pressure remaining in my chest that the sex didn’t ease.

“My dad,” I say and then hesitate.

“Those are definitely two words no man wants to hear after having sex.” He chuckles and presses a kiss to my shoulder.

He shifts in the bed, his head on his hand, but the silence only exacerbates the weight of his stare on me.

“Talk to me, Moretti,” he murmurs, his lips still pressed on my skin.

I struggle with the start to my confession and the words that normally would follow.

I can’t break my promise to my dad. I can’t be the one to tell his secret. But at the same time, Riggs means enough to me that I need to make him understand. I need him to see that what happened in the garage wasn’t a power play on my part.

That there was a reason behind it.

In the same breath, the last thing I want to do is lie. I opt for a partial truth. Enough to try and mend this fence but not enough to tear the one down that’s protected me my whole life.

“My dad had a health scare,” I say. “It was enough that he realized he needed to start thinking about Moretti Motorsports beyond him.”

“And so he called you back home,” he says quietly.

“In so many words. Marketing is my focus, but he’s also determined to teach me every aspect of the business.”

“As in reprimanding drivers.”

“As in he wanted to teach me a lesson.”

“What lesson would that be?”

“That sometimes it’s hard to be friends with employees. That there are a whole lot of people depending on their paychecks.”

Riggs flops on his back, his sigh emanating through the entire room. His silence eats up the space but there’s also resignation that I’m not sure I understand.

“I was faster. My sector times. My overall lap times. Erikkson was fading. I could see Halloran in the distance, and he was within my realm to reel in.” He pauses. “I’ve had to prove myself my whole life. Prove that I am Ethan Riggs’s son, that I drive like him, but that I’m not him. It’s a constant balancing act. I know it wasn’t right in terms of Team Moretti, but I saw a lane to prove this and I took it. Did I fuck up? Yeah. Reprimand made, but point made on my end too. Moretti wants their crew to know the team backs them, but I deserve the same.”

I don’t speak. I don’t approve or condemn his reasons for what he did.

Personally, I understand them, but this is the part where I listen without action. Being a driver on an F1 team means you listen to your engineer. Period. They know what they’re doing. They see the bigger picture. They know the cars inside out. But I suspect I don’t need to tell him this. Hopefully, he’ll see past the reprimand, past the podium, and see the bigger picture. That will take him from being a great driver to being an exceptional F1 driver.

“I got word from my agent before the race that Maxim is looking better than expected. That . . . my time might be limited.”

“I’m aware. I found out just before the race too,” I say, not wanting him to think I was hiding it from him—although I do have every right in my position to do so.

“I don’t know, Cam. Maybe what I did was a desperate attempt to prove to everyone that I deserve to be at this level.”

I squeeze his hand and shift so that my head is on his shoulder, my hand on the steady beat of his heart, and my leg hooked over his. A silent show of support without betraying the lines in the sand my last name has drawn for me.

We settle into a comfortable silence, our confessions our apologies.