Page 66 of Off the Grid

“Looks like I’m not the only one who hates race day, huh?”

“No. Yes.” I close my eyes momentarily and see the urinals to the right of me and realize I walked into the men’s room. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Camilla.” His voice stops me and forces me to look up at him.

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” He nods and then walks out and back to his crew.

The man beside me is no doubt facing something like I am. Earlier today I was convinced it was just pre-race nerves, but then later as I watched him call his mom before he got in the car, as I listened to commentator after commentator remark about his father, I came to the realization that he could be struggling with confronting the memory of his father. The man who had a reputation as a wild and reckless driver. The driver who had been warned numerous times, black flagged by a few others, and who had lost his life in the most horrific way. And Riggs had only been nine years old.

Yes, I looked him up. His faults. His accomplishments. The criticisms and the accolades. And the pictures of a grieving widow and a little boy who is his spitting image then and now.

If my assumption is true, the reason I’m up here pales in comparison to the gravity of Riggs’s, but if I’ve learned one thing over the years, it’s to acknowledge that everyone battles something. Even if they’re not equal in scope, they’re still just as poignant.

“Why am I here?” I repeat. “It’s been a while since I’ve been at a race. It was a lot for me to be here today. To be in the paddock. The garage. Much like you, I’m just giving myself a moment to let it soak in.”

“That’s why you were having a panic attack in the bathroom?” He narrows his eyes at me.

“I wasn’t. I—”

“Save it, Camilla. I’m highly acquainted with what they look like. I know them firsthand because of my mum. You were having one. No explanation needed.” He shrugs. “All I need to know is if you’re okay now.”

I study him and wonder who this man is. Cocky one minute. Crass the next. Sweet the moment after. Curious constantly.

“Yeah. I am.”

He nods. “Good. So why’d you walk away from the family business? The racing side anyway,” he asks.

Wow. That was a subject change I didn’t see coming. Rather than stutter through an excuse, I go with being vague. “So many reasons.”

The silence eats up the space and when I turn to finally look at Riggs, he’s taken a step closer, but it’s the look in his eyes that arrests me. Curious. Inquisitive. Concerned.

“I think there’s one reason in particular, but I won’t push you on it.”

“Why do you say that?” My back is up instantly.

His shrug is indifferent but the expression on his face is anything but. “Because we all have that one secret we keep close to the vest. The one we think might ruin us but hope it won’t. The one we hide in bathrooms having panic attacks over. And then add another layer of hope that maybe one day it’ll get better.” He sounds like he’s speaking from experience and for some odd reason, that makes me feel less isolated.

“Perhaps,” I murmur.

He turns to face me, leaning his hip against the desk, and studies me intently. “Does yours have anything to do with the paddock, that every time you enter it you look like you’re afraid the boogeyman is going to pop out of somewhere? Is that why you hid in the men’s bathroom?”

My heart jumps at his words, but I temper my expression to avoid giving anything away. “I don’t think you have any clue what you’re talking about.”

“Huh. The prized and only child of the Moretti family. The one who was at every race, all the time, like one of the crew. Then she wasn’t. Gone like a ghost. Now she’s back.” He narrows his eyes at me. “A casual observer would think something might have happened to push you away.”

Is this not his version of pushing?

“That something being university to make a name for myself?”

“A name for yourself but you came back to work for the family olive oil business?” he asks, expression smug. “You’re not the only one who can google search someone, Cami.”

“It’s Camilla.”

He shrugs. “Maybe I like both.”

“Maybe I don’t want you to like . . . never mind.” It’s not even worth the argument. And even worse, is it weird that I oddly like the fact that he took the liberty to use my nickname?

“Why’d you come back to the family empire?”