Arthur gets third at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The race is a two-hour anxiety attack that kicks me in the heart and then pulls it out of my chest, fills it with helium and confetti, and releases it into the sky. When Arthur blows past the checkered flag fractions of a second before the rest of the pack, we all burst from our chairs, yelling and knocking into each other, headsets thrown, computers abandoned, a hodgepodge of absolute glee.
Even Holmes. I get a shot of him tearing up as Arthur takes the third-place medal, and sometime between him entering the cooldown room and ascending the podium, Ignition announces publicly that he’ll be driving in Belgium and the Netherlands after the summer break. The team is excited. Arthur is excited. Sarah isecstatic. “I couldn’t have planned this timing better,” she squeals. “We’re all anyone will be talking about over the break!”
On our second-to-last day in Hungary, Arthur invites me to join him and Cameron and Delaney on a celebratory “lark,” per his text message. The four of us get something called chimney cake from a food truck and eat while rambling down the cobblestone side streets, the black streetlights illuminating gold as the daylight shrinks, my tiniest, most portable camera in hand. Arthur tells the lens about the old Jewish Quarter, where we are now, and how he’dfirst gotten lost here when he was eighteen. “My phone wasn’t working, I couldn’t find Wi-Fi, so I just walked around for hours until I ran into Cameron—literally.” He laughs. “Then we came here.”
I pocket my camera and survey the dilapidated building in front of us. Plants are growing out of the brown brick wall, and the door inside doesn’t have a handle. “This might’ve been someplace when you were eighteen, but right now it’s falling apart.”
“They’re called ruin bars,” he murmurs into my ear as he ushers me through the doorway, ducking to avoid a string of icicle-shaped lights. “Fitting, don’t you think?”
His breath is warm, and the inside is dark and dusty, and I work on swallowing as he leads me through a cramped lobby, around a corner… and into an enclosed courtyard.
Color coats everything. The walls are 90 percent antique posters, 10 percent dartboards, illuminated by a tangle of orangey lights. Short bedside lamps are shoved in corners, paper lanterns are flung over the skylight rafters next to disco balls. There’s a bar on the other side of the table-littered space, though a majority of the people are filtering toward a doorway behind a row of slender trees. Yes, actual trees.
“Why couldn’t we go to XTasy? They have bottle service.” Delaney pouts. “And did you really have to invite the entire team, King?”
She can’t mean… everyone.Everyoneeveryone. “I didn’t plan on it,” Arthur says. “Just told Rafael we were coming, and you know how Rafael is.”
“So sweet.” Cameron sighs. “And so chatty.”
We’ve reached the bartender, and Arthur pulls out his wallet, speaking Hungarian as he trades colorful money for a glass of carbonated something. “You up for it, Graywood? Thought this place might be more your speed, but we can head out now if it’s too much.”
I press my lips together to hide my social-anxiety grimace. I should go. If the entire Ignition team is about to show up to celebrate Arthur’s third-place win—including my ex-boyfriend and my ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend—then leaving would be the best choice, followed by stone-cold sobriety. Arthur and I haven’t done our dating-not-dating gambit in a bar setting yet, and I’ve literally never gone to a nightclub before. The closest I’ve experienced is a democratic socialist bar on half-price margarita night, and I left before it flipped from after-dinner infighting to dance-floor speed-dating.
But… the summer break is almost here. Two weeks back in Texas, with nothing to film and no reason to see anyone. Two weeks with no Arthur. His excitement. His ruin bars.
Two weeks closer to September.
“Sure.” I take the fizzy drink from him. “You know me. I just love clubs, dancing, debauchery.”
“Do you now?” Arthur’s face glitters with a wind-chime laugh he won’t let out. “Then enjoy your fröccs, love.”
“Pardon?”
“Hungarian specialty. Sparkling water and wine.”
I sniff the rim of the glass. “Sensible choice.”
Arthur’s grinning now. “Everything in moderation.”
As I take a sip, I can practically feel the weight of mini-devil Arthur sitting on my shoulder, twirling a pitchfork. This is not the smartest decision. But after I swallow and nod, begrudgingly giving Arthur thenot-too-badhum of drink approval, he looks so proud of himself for negatively influencing me that it’s… marginally endearing.
Anyway, I’ve had a weird few weeks. Months. Year? I deserve one wine spritzer.
“Like it?” Arthur asks, carefully watching my reaction.
“Yeah. It’s nice.”
When I take another drink, Arthur smirks. “There’s a good girl.”
“Gross,” Cameron mumbles, and goes to join Delaney on the other side of the bar, where she’s talking with a more enthusiastic bartender about the merits of Hungarian red blends.
I glare at Arthur as he cracks up. “Sorry, I couldn’t not.”
“You could’ve.”
“Maybe,” he says. “It isn’t like you’re indulging because of me, regardless.”
