24 North Carolina

24

NORTH CAROLINA

MID-AUGUST, EARLY SEPTEMBER

PHAEDRA

The first seizure is the hardest, at least for the family. We were peacefully watching Doctor Zhivago in the living room when Mama asked Mo Am I crowding you? because (she later explained) he’d suddenly tensed up, and next thing we knew he was in full-on convulsions and Aislinn was sobbing Daddy! Daddy, no! and Mama was begging Not yet, Bear—don’t you do this , and I was fumbling with my phone to call 911.

I hadn’t heard Mama call my dad “Bear” since I was a teenager and they were more affectionate, before life on the road started gnawing little holes in their marriage.

There’s a hospice nurse living with us now.

We’re in the middle of the F1 summer break. Mo told me yesterday, in a blithe tone I think he assumes will keep me from being totally shit-scared, that he “just wants to make it ’til Spa”—the Belgian Grand Prix—“and see how our boy does.”

He means Cosmin. Jakob’s a solid driver, but my dad has his hopes pinned on Cosmin more than ever since the podium finish ten days ago. The Spa circuit plays to Cosmin’s strengths—it’s fast and cerebral.

It’d be borderline poetic to have Cosmin win at Spa while we watch, then Mo peacefully drifts off to the great paddock in the sky in his recliner during the post-race interviews, a “big ol’ shit-eatin’ grin” (as he calls it) plastered on his mug.

The idea of him possibly not being here in two weeks is horrifying. Which is why, on a Wednesday night, despite knowing it’s only five in the morning in Romania, I crack and FaceTime Cosmin.

We both start talking at once—I’m dithering apologies for waking him up, and he’s telling me how pleased he is that I’ve called.

He’s beautiful—sleep-rumpled and yawny, with that slightly scratchy morning voice that reminds me immediately of the stellar predawn fucks we had. It’s still dark there, and Cosmin leans to switch on a bedside lamp.

“Don’t apologize,” he says, combing one of those big hands through his disheveled hair. “I’m delighted to hear from you. Though of course I hope it’s not for a tragic reason.”

“Nah, Mo’s still kicking.” I hope I don’t sound callous, but it’s the way my dad phrases it himself. I sigh. “Fuck, I’m really struggling, Cos. Nat can’t be here—she tried to get away from work, but the magazine has her scrambling.”

During the summer break, it’s so-called silly season in Formula 1, when rumors fly and gossip gets hot about changes in upcoming driver lineups for the teams. Reporting on the sport shifts from facts and analysis to TMZ-like back-fence buzz.

“We talk on FaceTime,” I say with a generous tone I don’t really feel, “but…”

He waits a beat. “But,” he states with quiet confidence, “you feel alone, even surrounded by family.”

A melancholy warmth blooms in my chest. How does he seem to know instinctively, always, what’s in my heart and my head?

“Yeah,” I acknowledge in a whisper. “I told Nat I’m glad she can’t be here because, y’know.” I make air quotes with one hand. “Because ‘things are so hectic.’ But I didn’t mean it, and was hoping maybe she’d read between the lines.”

Cosmin stacks a few pillows and reclines, free arm behind his head, and I’m both thrilled and unnerved that he’s shirtless. I hope he can’t see the way my eyes travel the angles and slopes of his muscles. I don’t want to remember how insanely hot it was to slide my hands over him while he was propped above me on those muscular arms.

One side of his mouth tightens in sympathy. “How can I help? Talk to me.”

I’m just tired enough that an impulse takes over at his “talk to me.” With a shy smile, I slowly say in Romanian: Nineteen blue pencils are on the small table with my glasses, inside the heavy backpack.

As I fumble my way through the sentence, Cosmin breaks into a grin. He shakes his head, then laughs long enough that eventually I join him.

It feels amazing. Holy shit, it’s the first time I’ve been unabashedly happy in a month. I’d honestly forgotten what it was like.

“Why did you choose this unusual sentence?” he asks.

“It’s the longest one I know!”

We both dissolve into laughter again. I pull the quilt up to my neck, comforted.

“If you’d like to learn more interesting phrases,” Cosmin teases, “I’m happy to accommodate.”

“Hmm. I’ll bet.”

“Explain this course of study, drag?.”

I pull my hair around to one side of my neck on the pillows behind me, and he watches me do it. This also is a feeling I’d all but forgotten—being admired for something other than my usefulness or strength.

I scrub one hand over my face, masking the prickle of tears I feel.

“This situation with Mo, there’s no sense of control. I need something to—”

I almost say, “provide a distraction.” With a swell of guilt, I remember having referred to Cosmin in that way multiple times.

“I need to decompress with something low stakes,” I say instead. “There’s no garage here, so I can’t work on an engine. I figured a language app might be a good focus. Also…”

Biting my lip, I sneak a glance at Cosmin, and the tender look on his face disarms me. The truth rushes out, useless as it is: “I miss hearing Romanian,” I confess.

A sensation that’s both painful and a relief, like stretching a sore muscle, spreads in my chest. Oh, God. Why did I call? This is both the best and worst thing, talking with him.

“How many lessons have you completed?” he asks.

“I’ve learned eleven hundred words. Twelve thousand experience points.”

He pauses, watching me.

“Mi-e dor de tine ?n fiecare zi, ?i-mi simt inima frant?,” he says, his speed and enunciation careful. “I wonder how many of these words you know.”

His pupils look huge, but it might be a trick of the light, or the fact that my own eyes are shimmering with tears.

My lips part, and I can’t speak for a moment.

“Inima frant? is ‘broken heart,’” I almost whisper. “It wasn’t in the lessons—I looked it up weeks ago.”

We sit in this knowledge, surveying each other.

“What did Mo say about what Klaus and Reece told him?” Cosmin asks. “About us?”

I pull in a shaky breath. “He hasn’t brought it up. But my sister was here the day of the video call, and she said he was disappointed.”

Cosmin presses his lips together in resignation.

“But the good news is that we aren’t selling the team.” I sweep my free arm up. “You’re looking at Emerald’s future Grand Poobah.” Remembering his earlier unfamiliarity with Scooby-Doo, I ask, “Do you know that one?”

“ The Mikado ,” he says with a smile. “Yes.”

“Okay, major points,” I concede. “But I was actually thinking of The Flintstones cartoon.”

We both laugh, and Cosmin’s lovely face goes serious as we trail off.

“I am relieved to know you’ll be returning,” he tells me gravely.

I shrug. “In some capacity, yeah.” I swallow hard, nervous to ask the question screeching like a klaxon in my mind. “Have you, uh, are you dating anyone new?”

“What the shit? Phaedra. No. ” A semi-hostile bewilderment flashes across his expression. “Are you ?”

“For fuck’s sake, Cos. Of course not.”

His eyebrows dart up, and the memory comes to me viscerally—the way his skin smells. The warmth of touching his face with mine.

“It’s ‘of course not’ for you, but expected of me?”

“A little bit,” I admit.

His chin tips up. “I’m not that man anymore. I don’t feel the same about myself. And I do feel the same about you .”

There are a hundred replies clawing their way to the top of the pile in my mind, and I choose the one that’s necessary, even though my heart is breaking.

“That’s why Lars is in my chair on the pit wall. So let’s make this worth it, Legs. Give Mo a win at Spa—it’ll be his last race.”

Statistically, most people die in the three-to-four a.m. hour. I’ve been waking up around then every day, terrified and listening to the lingering night noises, waiting for the routine sounds of morning that let me know Mo is still here.

Today I overslept, having a very vivid dream. In it, I got up and my dad was already awake, sitting on the sofa watching the waves out the window.

How did you get out here without the wheelchair? I ask.

He shrugs, still gazing at the water. I walked. Turning to me, he says, Let’s go for a spin in the Vette. How fast can you drive?

I grin. I’ll burn up the damned road. But Mama made you sell it years ago—remember?

It’s still in the garage , he tells me with a wink.

He stands and drapes one big arm over my shoulders, and he’s solid on his feet as we walk down the steps.

The 1960 Corvette is black and white, fucking gorgeous. I was fifteen and went with Mo the day he bought it. He talked the guy from $100,000 down to $99,000, saying Let’s keep it at five figures so my wife won’t shit a brick . It’s the car I learned to drive on.

We open ’er up on Ocean Boulevard, the wind churning our hair as I push the speedometer past a hundred, roaring along parallel to the beach where the sun is rising.

My mother squeezes my shoulder to wake me, and I’m mad because she’s taken me away from him. Then I register the look on her face, and the mewling sounds of Aislinn crying in the next room.

“No.” I sit straight up. “ Fuck no.” I shake my head hard, whipping the blanket off.

“Phae, honey. He’s gone.”

I won’t look at her, and for some reason it becomes incredibly important to find my socks. Why am I stalling, instead of hurrying like I should? What the fuck is wrong with me?

I yank the socks on and storm into the hallway with the purposeful aggression of a woman about to correct a fuckup perpetrated by the less skilled. As I arrive at the main bedroom doorway, Aislinn is lying on the bed with her head on Dad’s chest, and irrationally my hands shake with the urge to slap her.

I prepared for this. I did, I did, I swear I did .

But as I cross the carpet, all my preparation feels like a champion diver who perfected flawless triple flips, then discovered when it was time for the big event that there’s no water in the pool.

I have the impulse to demand why Linn was awakened first. But she sits up and meets my eyes, and she’s fucking ruined, so I let her have this. Because in that moment, I decide—since no one can ever prove it’s not true—that my father was dreaming the same thing right along with me as he crossed the finish line.

Aislinn may have gotten the last hug, but dammit, I got the last race.

Mo didn’t make it ’til Spa. He died on Wednesday the twenty-eighth, four days before the Belgian Grand Prix. Reece made an announcement at the press conference on Thursday.

Natalia unexpectedly flew back from Europe on Friday to be with me for the sea burial on Saturday, yesterday.

“You’re here !” I gasped when I found her hauling a suitcase to the front door from her Uber. “Why?”

She paused in her climb up the wooden steps, giving me a baffled look. “ Why? ” Her expression went resolute. “Because we’ve both been stupid and stubborn, and I can’t take this careful distance between us anymore. It’s done, Phae.”

“You didn’t have to do this. I don’t need—”

“ Enough. ” She stepped onto the porch and retracted her bag’s tow handle with a smack, then pulled me into her arms. “We’re not doing this BS anymore, the thing where you pretend you’re too tough to need me, and I pretend—because my feelings are hurt about being rejected—that I’m too self-absorbed to notice you pushing me away.” She pulled back and gave me a little shake. “No more hiding for either of us.”

“But—”

“You’re afraid our friendship can’t be what it used to be. I get it; I’m scared too. But you know what? It’s going to be better .”

She dragged her suitcase past me into the entryway.

“Now go take a shower. I’m gonna fry us up a foot-high stack of grilled cheese sandwiches, then we’ll both have a boatload of carbs and a good cry.”

I couldn’t have gotten through the burial without her. The useful thing about grief, I suppose, is it forces you to strip off your disguise and be real. I don’t think I’ve ever felt closer to Nat than in the past twenty-four hours.

What a difference a day makes , as Cosmin once observed.

Today’s the grand prix, and we’re at the main house in Charlotte, in front of the monolith-size TV. In the open kitchen, Mama and Aislinn are deep in a project making brioche. They’ve been keeping busy and talking very little, dealing with the loss in their own way.

My coping strategy, per usual, is obsessing over data. My iPad is on my lap and I’m chewing black licorice, which Mo always said is good for focus. He and I were the only people in the family who liked it, and as I snap off bites and squint at my tablet, I can almost imagine he’s here with me.

Periodically, I look up to inspect the prerace coverage, but I’m doing my best to pretend I’m more interested in the numbers. One of my peeks coincides with a shot of Cosmin sitting in the car, and it’s like a backhand smack of anxiety and lust. I go stiff, and in my peripheral vision I feel Nat studying me.

“You’re for sure, for sure about the breakup?” she ventures, her voice all sympathy.

I stop her with an icy glare, then—remembering we’re committed to openness and honesty now—soften my expression.

“Nat? Not today. I can’t talk about Cosmin, okay? We sent Mo on a permanent vacation to Davy Jones’s fucking locker yesterday, and this is the first race he won’t see, and—” My throat tightens. “It was practically his dying wish that I not tank Emerald by banging our star driver.”

Nat’s eyes flick toward the kitchen. “He didn’t actually tell you that.”

“He didn’t have to specifically. Linn said he was disappointed.” I jab at the iPad screen. “I know what’s expected of me as owner.”

The moment of silence for Mo before the race almost breaks me. Mama and Linn go quiet, coming to stand behind the sofa, all of us staring at the TV.

The coverage cycles through shots of the mechanics in the garage with heads bowed, the pit crew, crowds in the stands, the team members on the pit wall, and finally Jakob and Cosmin—solemn eyes framed by helmets.

As the tribute concludes, the camera is still on Cosmin. His dark gold lashes sweep up, and I die a little, missing him, seeing my own grief mirrored in his eyes thousands of miles away.

The camera zeroes in on Klaus, whose handsome, angular face is bleak. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Nat press a hand to her chest in her caged-heart gesture.

“H-he just looks really upset,” she falters when I give her a critical look.

She’s not wearing the emerald pendant anymore and claims she’s “over it.” She even went on a date with a new guy—another journalist (who turned out to be a jerk), but something tells me the Klaus and Nat saga isn’t quite done.

I don’t press her on it. Part of being honest, rather than saying everything, is knowing when to shut up and give each other a break. We’re learning.

On lap 16 of the race, Jo?o Valle creates a disaster at the Eau Rouge corner and the ensuing three-car clusterfuck takes Cosmin out, along with Mateo Ortiz. No one is hurt, thankfully. In a sense I’m glad Mo didn’t see this, because it would’ve been a shitty final race. Better that he imagined it as Cosmin’s first number one.

The stunning dipshittery takes Valle up to twelve penalty points for the season, which will most certainly result in a race ban. There’s a high probability Team Harrier will put their rockstar female reserve driver—Sage Sikora, the woman I begged for Emerald to hire last year—into Valle’s seat.

I’m itching to see how she’ll do. She’s delightfully caustic—the only child of an eccentric West Coast dot-com bazillionaire. I can’t wait to watch her crash the sausage party.

Shit just got interesting.

Emerald may not have a woman driver this year, but two-thumbs This Bitch owns the team now, and I have no plans to shake my metaphoric pom-poms on the sidelines like a simpering F1 cheerleader while the big boys go racing.

I text Klaus and tell him I’m coming back.