“Oh.” Brilliant, Hutch. Very smooth.
He sets the coffees down on the nightstand and drops the bag beside them.
“The restaurant downstairs does a decent spread. Seemed a good way to start the day.” Then, after a beat that feels like a held breath, he adds, “I told you last night I wasn’t going anywhere.”
Heat crawls up my neck. “Right. Well, you could’ve said something this morning.”
“I thought I’d be nice and let you sleep.” Kip nudges a cup toward me. “This one’s yours. Black, with two sugars. Just the way you like it.”
For a second, all I can do is stare at the cup. He remembered. Not because it’s written anywhere or part of some team file, but because he pays attention. I can’t remember the last time someone other than my immediate family has cared enough about me to clock a detail most people forget before the conversation ends.
I take the cup from him because my hands need somethingto do besides tremble like a bloody rookie on qualifying day. His fingers brush mine. Too tender. Too much.
He sits on the edge of the bed beside me, close enough that our knees touch.
“Hey,” he says. “You okay?”
I nod, though my throat is tight. “You caught me off guard, that’s all.”
His mouth lifts into a smirk that says he knows exactly what I mean. But he doesn’t push. He just grabs the bag from the nightstand, hands me a still-warm apple turnover and bumps his shoulder against mine.
“Eat,” he says. “We’ve got a long day ahead, and the garage just called. The van should be ready in half an hour.”
“How do you know that? I thought they were going to call me?”
“They did. You were out cold, so I picked up.”
For the first time since waking, my chest loosens a little. Enough for me to take a bite of the flaky pastry, which dissolves on my tongue, buttery and far too decadent for a weekday morning in a rundown motel.
Kip nabs his own turnover with one hand and unlocks his phone with the other, already toggling between maps, weather reports, and whatever app he uses to calculate travel times down to the bleeding second. Classic Carmichael. Post-sex apocalypse or not, he’s still the lad who needs every variable in order before he can breathe properly.
He swipes, frowns, and adjusts something on the route, all while nibbling his pastry without looking away from the screen. There’s a steadiness to him this morning, quiet but unshakable. It shouldn’t make something flutter in my chest, but it does.
“Traffic around Oxford’s already starting to build up,” he mutters. “If we leave in the next hour, we should hit Silverstone by two. Maybe earlier if we don’t stop.”
“Christ, you’re already planning pit strategy,” I say around another bite.
He glances up, a flash of something dangerously close to fond in his eyes. “Someone has to.”
He’s right. Someone has to. And when we’re back on-site—under the team’s watchful eyes, the FIA’s expectations, the cameras, the whole machine—we’ll have to slot back into our proper roles again. PA and pit crew. Order and improvisation. Everything we were before last night redrew the lines, forced to pretend they never shifted.
He doesn’t say any of that. He just goes back to his phone, thumb skating over the map. But the moment lingers, not uncomfortable exactly, just aware.
I sip my coffee to cover the thought that keeps trying to surface.Is this only allowed in the dark, when no one’s looking? Or is there a way this gets to exist in the daylight too?
Kip finally sets the phone down, face forward, businesslike. “We should finish up so you can pack and we can hit the road before morning traffic turns the highway into a parking lot.”
I nod, but my stomach drops another notch. Because as much as last night felt inevitable, morning-after Kip feels like a challenge I haven’t learned the rules for yet.
CHAPTER 16
Kip
By the time we’re halfway to Calais, the adrenaline’s long gone, burned off somewhere between the last service station and Hutch tearing through two bags of chips. What’s left is a kind of worn-in quiet. The good kind. The rare kind.
Hutch drives one-handed, fingers loose on the wheel, clearly born for it. The other hand rests on his thigh, tapping out some rhythm only he knows. I’m slouched in the passenger seat, head tipped toward the window, watching bits of countryside rush past in soft, green smudges.
It’s peaceful.
