21 England

21

ENGLAND

COSMIN

After I climb into my hire car, I message Phaedra that it will be another hour before I’m cleared to leave—I want to surprise her with takeaway from the shop that has her favorite Indian food.

I stop and get palak paneer, chana aloo, and pakora, then drive the few remaining miles eager to be home with her after this emotionally fraught day. I ease the door open and nudge off my shoes. The only light is in the kitchen and as I walk to its doorway, I hear her sniffle.

She’s bent over something at the table, turned away from me. The movement of her left elbow implies writing, and an empty glass sits near her right hand beside a bottle of scotch.

The takeaway bag crinkles as my hand shifts, and she startles with a yelp, whipping around.

“Fuck!” Her hand slaps against her chest. “Oh shit, I…” She twists back to the table and folds a sheet of paper in half, tucking it between some books. “How are you home already?”

I chuckle and move toward her, lifting the bag in offering.

“It’s been a difficult day for us both. I felt it would be a relief not to cook.” Setting the food near the scotch, I lean to kiss her lips, which respond to mine a beat too late. “You seem almost disappointed to see me,” I tease. “Should I check the closets for hidden Romeos?”

Phaedra rushes to her feet and flings her arms around me.

“Of course not. I just didn’t know what—”

“Hush, sweet one. I understand. I was frightened too. I had a moment where I was certain I wouldn’t survive the crash.” I kiss her, relaxing into her familiar scent. “We needn’t speak of it.” My hands splay over her cheeks, which have the sticky feeling of dried tears. “I’m sure Reece scolded you for wearing your heart on your sleeve, yes? But I’m relieved we are done hiding.”

“Cosmin…”

I press another kiss to her forehead. “Let’s talk over dinner—I’m famished. I will go change clothes.”

I take the narrow stairs two at a time and enter the bedroom. My feet trip to a stop when I see Phaedra’s large suitcase open on the bed, untidily half-filled as if the clothes have been thrown in.

The unease in her posture comes back to me, and I recall her hiding a sheet of paper.

I walk down the stairs and into the kitchen, going straight for the stacked books and pulling the paper free.

She springs up. “Cosmin—no, give me that.”

When she tries to snag the edge of the paper, I lift it over my head. “Why so unsettled, mmm?” I ask coolly.

She makes a small jump, attempting to reach what I’m holding, and I wheel my arm away.

“Please don’t read that,” she begs. “I’m… it’s not…”

“?ncerci s? m? ?n?eli?” I murmur, eyes narrowing.

Hers are wide and glassy with tears.

“ Are. You. Deceiving. Me? ” I clarify, my tone frosty.

“I don’t want you to read it like that, with me here .” Her face is a map of grief.

With those words, her meaning connects indisputably: she was going to leave.

Icy anger floods me, and I stride out of the kitchen and into the powder room beneath the stairs, locking the door.

“Stop!” She knocks hard. “Not like this—I’m doing it all wrong!”

I lean against the door, unfolding the page.

Cosmin,

Please don’t be mad at me, but we can’t do this anymore. We ignored reality because of our attraction. It’s time for us to do the thing that’s right for the team and call it off.

Of course I like you very much. I’ve never had this much fun with anyone (and I don’t just mean the sex). I’m going home for the next few races to be with Mo and the family. By the time I come back, this probably won’t hurt anymore. You’ll find some gorgeous German girl at the next GP, and that’ll ease the sting, haha.

I hope you

The letter stops there, apparently because I walked in.

I read it a second time, then open the door. Phaedra’s not in the kitchen, so I go to the parlor and find her silhouetted in the shadows, framed by the leaded glass window overlooking the garden. My footsteps creak on the hardwood, and she turns.

I continue toward her, a hundred sentences tangling in my mind—angry, sad, pleading, sarcastic. I extend the arm holding the letter, crumpling the page and dropping it.

“This is bullshit,” I tell her.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice is wooden.

In the moonlight I see her cheeks sketched with fresh tears. My hands ache to cradle her face and brush them away, but I can’t let myself.

“I don’t accept this.”

She gives a slight head shake. “You don’t have a choice.”

“‘ Of course I like you very much ’?” I all but spit the words of her letter. “What the shit is that? Is this like the teenage romance movie we watched—the one that was your favorite as a girl? Now you will offer me a pen so I can write to you?”

“Please,” she whimpers, trying to take my hand. I yank it away, and she puts her palm over her mouth with a stifled sob. “I thought you wouldn’t be home for hours, and—”

My hands wrap around her upper arms, and she gasps. I wonder if she thinks I’ll hurt her. The image of Uncle Andrei leaps to my mind—his dark outline in the doorway of my room, a belt hanging from one hand. My fear, because I’ve disappointed him again.

I relax my grip and walk Phaedra backward to the wall. “That you planned to leave me a letter… I don’t know if you understand how much worse it is.” I search her face, which is half in shadow.

Tears spill unblinking from her eyes. “I do understand,” she whispers.

“Then why ?” My voice is as cracked as my heart.

“I was scared.”

“Of me?”

She looks down. “Of me . I was afraid if I saw you, I couldn’t follow through.”

“Don’t you love me? Only days ago—”

“Please don’t ask me that.” She shuts her eyes tight.

I give her a small shake, and her eyes fly open.

“Pe dracu! I’m asking, dammit. Ce naiba zici!” I let go of her and cover my face.

“Don’t curse at me in Romanian!”

I gather her against my chest. “My apologies. I’m frustrated.” Leading her to the stiff Victorian-style sofa, I pull her onto my lap. She tries to struggle away, then settles against me.

“I should go. I’ll leave you the key.”

But even as she says it, she softens in my arms, fitting her head into the crook of my shoulder. We sit like that for a few minutes, our silence measured by the ticking of an antique wall clock.

“You do love me, Phaedra Morgan.” My fingertips stroke the soft hair at the back of her neck.

“You’re a smug, self-congratulatory egomaniac.”

“And you’re the brilliant, beautiful, ill-tempered minx who’s in love with me.”

She scoots off my lap and walks to the window, staring at the moonlit garden.

“Cos, I don’t want you to be resentful and have it impact team dynamics, but everyone feels I need to step away and take an inactive role. At least until you and I can—”

“Not ‘everyone,’” I assert, getting to my feet. “ I don’t agree. And you can’t either. If anything, our communication at work has been better , owing to our relationship.”

She says nothing.

“Or do you agree with them?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“No.”

She puts both hands over her face and then slides them off. “Cos, they’re right . This thing won’t ultimately be good for anyone other than us. It’ll implode. We caught it early, when it’s still manageable to—”

She makes a gesture like cutting something out and discarding it, and it occurs to me that perhaps she’s excising us because it was impossible to do the same with Mo’s cancer.

I try another approach.

“If you could be satisfied with an inactive role, we’re free to have a relationship. Or maybe…” I hesitate to say it, knowing how she feels, but offer the thought anyway. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if Klaus did buy Emerald. Then the problem is solved.”

She shoots a murderous look my way. “For you, or for me?”

I lift my hands in concession. “I misspoke.”

She stalks off to the kitchen, and I follow. Seeing the food sitting in the steam-softened bag gives me a jab of pain, thinking that not even an hour ago I was picturing a relaxed dinner together, likely followed by a shared bath and making love.

Phaedra pours out another splash of scotch, lifts it, then sets it down untasted with a look of disgust—I’m not sure with whom.

“You may not be used to hearing this, but just being your girlfriend wouldn’t be enough for me. I’m an engineer, not a driver’s bargain-bin arm candy. And Emerald is the ‘family home’ I grew up in. It is my family. I need you to understand that.”

I tend to approach problems like a race. I excel at making instantaneous adjustments to respond to changes in the situation, finding the weak spot in someone’s defense and pressing my advantage. But in this moment, something occurs to me:

With Phaedra, using this strategy feels dishonest.

I was about to say to her, We can spend time apart while you’re in the States but are still committed to the relationship. We will just be more discreet in the future.

Instead, the next words to leave my mouth are guided by the memory of what she told me on Wednesday, when we discussed my sister.

“Phaedra.”

She looks up.

“I won’t tell you how to feel, my love. Instead, I am asking .”

She studies me, gnawing her lower lip. “Really?”

“Yes. Whatever you want, I will comply.”

“Okay. Good.” She holds my gaze soberly. “I want to break up.”

The last time I cried was when one of the children at Vlasia House died of leukemia. The sensation overtakes me now. My eyes burn, my chest feels as if crushed by a boulder.

“That’s not what I’d hoped to hear,” I manage.

“I know.”

“You’re certain?”

She pauses long enough that it gives me hope. Finally she speaks: “When Emerald signed you, Mo told me, That’s the boy who’s gonna haul our butts outta midfield . I’m not going to shit all over his dreams, like, I know it could tank everything the team have worked for the past eight years, but the sex is really great . This is bigger than you and me. Yes, I have feelings for you. But I owe my father everything—”

Her voice cracks. I take a step toward her, but she holds up a palm to warn me off, swiping at her tears impatiently.

“And the only gift I have to offer him,” she continues, “is the security of knowing Emerald would be in good hands if he chooses to have me succeed him. Does that make sense?”

I lean against the sink, holding the edge in a death grip. “Yes.”

She sighs so hard it’s as if she’s collapsing, deflating. I’m not sure if she’s relieved or as brokenhearted as I am. I don’t dare ask.

“I hope it was more than just ‘the sex is great,’” I say, meeting her eyes. “Because it is for me.”

“Absolutely,” she agrees, her voice a rasp. “And I know it’d be more satisfying to end this with shouting—anger’s easier than sorrow. You had my number in Bahrain on that: anger is my default. But more often in life, things end with a whimper, not a scream.”

I give an anemic smile. “You’re setting me up for a wicked joke about making you scream.”

To my relief, she smiles back, equally wearily.

She picks up a napkin and pinches her nose with it. “We’re not having goodbye sex, Cos. I couldn’t do that and not break down. This is agonizing enough.” She stands and tips a sideways nod toward the stairs. “I’m gonna finish packing. I need to be alone right now.”

She walks out before I can reply, and I watch her slip around the corner. Creaking footfalls go up the stairs.

It’s painful to be this far from her when I’m feeling so much—like a rubber band in my chest, stretched to its limit. But as I admit defeat and allow tears to flood my vision, I am glad to be alone too.

When she comes out of the bedroom, I’m sitting on the top step of the landing.

“I’ll carry your suitcase.” I push to my feet.

She lets me take it, then follows me down the stairs to the entryway.

I meet her eyes. “Did you…?”

“I called a car, yeah. It’s a couple blocks away.”

Our helpless expressions are mirrored. I draw in a breath to speak, and she takes a quick step toward me and puts her fingers over my mouth.

“No last words. This isn’t an execution or something. Let’s be friendly about it.”

There’s little as frustrating as a thwarted declaration. I take her hands in mine, and she allows it.

“Promise me something?” she ventures. “Let’s make this sacrifice useful . No moping. Put everything into racing. I want you on the podium as much as you want to be there.”

“I will make you and Mo proud.” The words feel like sawdust in my throat.

She takes a ring of keys from her bag and slides off two, pressing them into my hand.

I shove them in my pocket. “Can we still call?”

She shakes her head. “I’ll see you during remote meetings—it’s as much as I can handle.” Her phone chimes, and she glances at it. “Car’s here.”

My heart twists, and my head is packed like crowded stands at a race—thousands of voices, blending into indistinguishable noise. I take her chilled hand. Grief is nearly undoing me.

“When you asked on Santorini,” I tell her, “about my greatest fear and the missing scale on the dragon… this is it.” I yank her hand toward me and crush it against my heart. “You shot the arrow, draga mea. Your aim was perfect.”

My hands go to her waist, and she gets only one word in, “I’m—” before my mouth claims hers. I lift her and take the last few steps to the wall, pressing her against it.

Our lips are feverish, hungry, open to the shape of our loneliness and trying to fill it with each other. Her hands clench my hair, and she moans against me.

After a minute we part. My face is wet and I’m not sure whose tears they are. She fumbles for the door and flings it open, grabbing her suitcase handle—pushing my hand away roughly when I try to help—and dragging it onto the walkway before pausing to look back.

“Like you promised in Barcelona,” she chokes out, “you wrote your name in every room of me—it’s indelible.” Shaking her head, she directs, “Close the door, Legs. Don’t watch me go.”