Page 25 of Break My Heart

In the car, everything makes sense—my past, my current fuckup. I know my focus should be exclusively on the road, inputs, and outputs.

Still, even while I’m doing laps, one thought cuts out everything else, including my steering problems.

Is it even possible to fix things with Christin?

9

CONSISTENCY: ABILITY TO MAINTAIN LAP TIMES

The bell over the door gives an off-key jingle the second I push inside. The familiar scent of yeast and garlic hits me. The lighting is low in that not-quite-on-purpose way—a mix of old pendant lamps and neon beer signs.

Nothing matches. It never has. There’s comfort in knowing I don’t need to adapt to be here. After all, the novelty of seeing us together wore off for the regulars well over two decades ago.

My shoulders relax a fraction when I spot him in the back corner booth.

After all these years since his retirement, my father is perpetually revved up. It’s the same way most people who spend their careers living on the edge are. Even retired, whether in a plain black Henley or a fire suit, there’s something about my father that draws attention.

When he spots me weaving through the tightly spaced tables to get to him, he grins. “Pumpkin! You made it.”

I lean over and kiss his cheek before sitting down across from him, ignoring my childhood nickname. He and my mother called me that ever since I dressed up as one when I was four. It was one of the few times he was home during his time on the circuit for Halloween. “Hey, Dad.”

Immediately, a Diet Pepsi is placed in front of me. Before I can take a sip, I know he’s reading the tension in my shoulders when he asks, “Rough day?”

“Rough week. That obvious?”

“Only to me.”

“Great, the one person I wanted to fool,” I tease.

“You gonna lie about it, or you wanna tell me what’s going on?”

Before I can answer, an order of fried zucchini lands in front of us. We’ve been here thousands of times. Not once have we changed our order. The routine of it relaxes me enough to admit, “I was assigned a new client.”

“That’s a bad thing?”

I hesitate before sharing, “It’s Apex Orion Racing.”

He leans back slowly, eyes narrowing in thought. I can practically see the gears turning. Decades of racing knowledge slip into place with everything he knows about me—including my work, my life.

My heart.

“That’s high stakes with the way they’ve been performing. What are you working on? Telemetry? Predictive modeling? A team that visible will want results yesterday.”

“I’ve been brought on to completely rewrite the interface. There’s lag under certain high-load conditions—corner entry, mostly. It’s translating into unnecessary driver corrections.”

A slow smile spreads across his face. “That’s my girl.”

Warmth blooms in my chest. It always does when he says that—like I’m still the kid in pigtails sitting on the hood of his car, listening to him explain lines and braking zones while I pretended I understood everything.

“When do you get access to the live data?”

“Just under a week. They won’t expose me to the full data unless I’m on site. For now, I’m building a simulation based on logs and prior race outputs.”

“What feels right on paper doesn’t always hold at speed.”

“I know.”

“Vegas?”