He disappears back into the crowd, leaving me standing there holding his card and my vodka soda like some kind of bewildered lottery winner who can’t quite believe the numbers on the ticket.
What are the actual odds? I blow up one record deal and get offered another in the same hour. Jack gets called up to race from P18 on the same night I’m performing in Vegas. We’re both here, both fighting for what we want, both risking everything.
The universe is either laughing at us or rooting for us.
The announcers are getting louder, the energy ramping up. I can barely think over the roar of the crowd and music blasting from every speaker. I look back up at the giant screen showing Jack’s photo. About to race for everything he’s been working toward.
And I’m going to be right here watching. Cheering for him even if he doesn’t know I’m here. Even if I don’t know what we are anymore.
Tonight feels like the kind of night where impossible things happen. Where you get the career you’ve always wanted and maybe, just maybe, you get the person too.
CHAPTER 30
JACK
“Midnight!” Thomas’s voice cuts through. He’s standing a few feet away, phone in hand, looking impatient. “We need to move.”
I force myself to turn away from the railing and follow him toward the garage even though every instinct is screaming at me to go find her instead. I need to compartmentalize. Push Lark and that song and everything I’m feeling into a box and lock it down. Focus on what’s directly in front of me. Seventeen cars sit between me and the front of the grid. Seventeen obstacles between me and proving I deserve to be back in this seat, that eighteen months on the sidelines didn’t dull my edge.
As I walk toward the garage, I can’t stop hearing her voice. Can’t stop thinking about those lyrics she wrote, about the fact that she’s here at a Formula One race in Vegas when I had no idea she’d be anywhere near this circuit. Maybe the universe is giving me another shot at this. Maybe I haven’t fucked it up beyond all repair.
First I’m going to win this race and get my seat back.
Then I’m getting my girl back.
I climb into the car and everything else fades away—the roar of the crowd, the blare of the announcers, every thought except the one right in front of me. The mechanics strap me in and the steering wheel clicks into place. This is where I belong. This is where everything makes sense.
The Strip Circuit is a spectacle under the lights. Every casino, every building lit up like they’re competing for attention. The track snakes through it all, barriers close on both sides, unforgiving. Every overtake on this track is a high-risk gamble. Seventeen cars ahead of me. Seventeen obstacles between me and proving I deserve to be here.
I can see Luca up in P4, his scarlet car vibrant under the lights. He’s been on podiums lately, proving this car is capable of winning. Now I need to prove I’m capable of driving it there from the back of the field.
The formation lap begins and we all file out, warming tires and brakes, testing temperatures. The car feels good underneath me. Responsive. Alive. We form back up on the grid. The countdown begins on the overhead lights.
Five red lights appear one by one.
My hands tighten on the wheel. Every muscle coiled. Every sense is razor-focused.
The lights go out.
Go.
The g-force slams me back into my seat as twenty engines roar to life around me. I nail the start, the car launching forward like it’s been shot from a cannon. Two cars ahead hesitate and I’m already threading the needle between them, claiming the inside line into Turn 1.
This is what I needed. This clarity. This absolute focus where nothing exists except me and the machine and the track ahead. The hum of the engine behind my head is a physical thing, vibrating through my chest, through my bones. The tachometer climbs and climbs as I push through the gears, the speed building until everything else becomes a blur of light and sound.
I’m one with the car. Every input translates perfectly—steering, braking, throttle. It responds like an extension of my body, doing exactly what I ask before I even finish the thought.
P17 already. Then P16 as I out-brake someone into Turn 3.
Lap after lap, I pick them off. The Haas on lap 3 with DRS down the main straight. An Alpine that makes a mistake in Turn 7 on lap 5, running wide and giving me the inside line. A Williams that I out-brake into the hairpin on lap 8, taking the position before they even know I’m there.
P14. P13. P12. P11.
“Brilliant driving, Jack,” Marco says through the radio. “One more for points. This is wild, mate. Keep it up.”
One more car between me and the points. But I don’t want P10. I want more. Fuck finishing in the points. I want the podium. I want to win.
I push. Every corner on the absolute edge. Every straight with the throttle pinned. The car is responding perfectly, every adjustment I’ve made clicking into place.
