Page 35 of Off the Grid

“Everyone at work is going to be sick of hearing me announce it,” she says of the assisted living facility she works in. “But I don’t care. My baby finally made it,” she sings out loud and then whispers, “I can’t wait to see grumpy ol’ Maude’s face when I tell her. She thinks the only sport worth wasting your time on is cricket. She’s going to be pissed when I decorate the activity room with checkered flags every race day.”

“Poor Maude,” I say.

“Spencer Riggs,” she says softly, and I know she means business when she calls me by my full name. “I am so damn proud of you.” Pride brims in her voice and tugs at my heart in every way a child wants their parent to love them. “He would be too.”

My chest aches in the way a child who yearns for their parent can.

“I hope so.”

“I know so.” And as if she can feel the need to break the tension herself, she laughs crazily. “This is so exciting. I have to go back to work. I’m sure you have to go too. I mean . . . yahoo!”

“You’re crazy.”

“You wouldn’t want me any other way.”

“Very true.”

“I love you, son.”

“I love you too, Mum.”

I end the call, shaking my head and feeling sorry for the earfuls she’s about to give everyone. And no doubt, she will.

I start the engine and begin to head home. The track’s silhouette is laid out before me, the sky and clouds slowly beginning to turn the colors of the sunset.

But there is one stubborn cloud that hasn’t turned colors yet.

One stubborn cloud that looks like a fluff of blue candy floss.

I love you too, Dad.

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CHAPTER NINE

Camilla

I stare at the outside of Moretti Motorsports.

It’s a monolith of glass and stone that stretches for what looks like forever with a huge man-made lake along its front. The lake is framed by rolling green grass with a replica of one of our original F1 cars placed on it.

My nonno was determined to look out of his office and be reminded of where he grew up in Italy. His small house sat near a lake that he’d visit every day with his brothers.

He brought the lake here with him to the town of Wellingshire when he decided to make Moretti’s headquarters here in the UK. It’s been that way ever since.

I stood here a little over two weeks ago thinking I was just stopping by to have a casual lunch with my dad before heading back home to Rome. I thought he’d give me the usual, you should move here spiel. What I didn’t expect was for him to ask me to take the helm of the other family business. The Moretti passion project of sorts.

Olive oil made our name a household one. It also gave my grandfather the capital to fund the one thing he loved almost as much as my grandmother—F1 racing.

Fifteen days ago, I left this building confused and unsettled. Twelve days ago, I sat in a pub with Isabella and Gia, rejecting every possibility over this new glow-up plan before heading home to pack up my things to return for my “new adventure.”

Now I return, my life in complete upheaval, my new apartment a mecca of unopened boxes and disarray, and my mind determined to make the best of this.

Caution dances with anticipation before melding with the rumbling excitement of starting something new.

But there’s something more to it than that as I stare at the symbol of a racing icon that once was the envy of the industry.

There’s the list of promises I made to myself. The list I swore I’d work toward and accomplish when my feet stepped over that threshold for the first time as an employee.