I know Qualifying is tomorrow but
are you free tonight?
Chapter 17GAINING TEMPO
When he opens his door, I step around him, set my shoes on the mat under the hallway table, and say, “I used to have a crush on you.”
Faust’s eyes flick from my shoes to what I’m wearing to me, tracking my every step as I walk to his window. His room is bigger than mine, and immaculately neat. Like he’s spent the last few days cleaning when he hasn’t been driving. Also, he’s in jeans and one of the good T-shirts after the sun has set. Not normal.
“Okay.”
“I lied about not knowing Formula 1. I love Formula 1.”
“Oh—okay.”
“Christine told me. You’releaving?” I spin around, watch his eyebrows pull together in confusion. “You can’t quit. You can’t just be done driving. That isn’t how passion works.”
“That’s why you wanted to…?”
His sentence fades as I take a step toward him, suddenly desperate for him to see what I see, even if that sight is trapped in mymemory. Him on top. Expansive and unstoppable. He’s Faust and he has a legacy and he’s just—giving that up? I would kill to be remembered like he is, and he’s walking away from it.
“It’s my counteroffer. If you want to help me, you have to let me help you.” I’ve thought about this. It’s a stalemate. Proof that he’s serious about keeping my secret. “Wait until after I’ve left to announce, if you don’t change your mind about retiring. And I hope you do. I—I’m going to try and make you.”
Faust laughs, kind of. I think I’ve stumped him. “That’s all?”
“No. I’m…” I can do this. It’s six words. “I’m not going to date you.”
He stares at me, taken aback. “Okay.”
“I don’t do that. And I don’t have sex, either.”
A moment passes—the longest of my life—and he nods.
“But if you… if this is…” Hello, death. Great to finally see you. “At the gala, Bernard asked me to be his girlfriend and I said yes. Because that’s what I do. I date shitty men and I dump them. But then he went to kiss me and I sort of panicked.” I try to make that last word funny and not weird and sad. Minimal success. “And it isn’t even that he went to kiss me, like I don’t like that, I don’t want to kiss him. But sometimes I do peck the guys, you know, on the cheeks or lips. Not often, surprisingly. And it usually doesn’t mean anything.”
“Usually?” he echoes gently.
“Usually.” I run my finger around the loose cuff of the jacket he gave me, biting my lip. The soft fabric soothes my nerves, though that work’s undone by how Faust watches me here—in his room. Wearing his clothes. “I just… haven’t kissed anyone I like in so long. Or anyone, really.”
Holding my breath, I make myself peek at his face again, needingto see his reaction. This is when he white-knights me, isn’t it? Tells me that nobody is making me kiss men I hate. Says that I deserve better than doing what I want to do, because he knows best.
This is when a man makes me pick.
And yet.
Our eyes meet, and his gaze holds mine, the lamps and wallpaper and hotel art turning into gold-black blurs behind him. His face has gone soft, slightly tense, a thin line creased between his dark brows. Words right there, on the edge of his lips. And as transparent as he is, I worry that I misinterpreted what he’d meant bybrilliantandfucking unreal, right until he says, “I could.” A pause. “Some time. And if I… work.” Another pause. “You could kiss me.”
“Oh,” I say, because that’s the only word that exists in my entire brain.Oh, and much more loudly,yes.
One final moment ticks by, and then Faust’s eyes widen like he’s registering all at once that he said that out loud instead of only thinking it. “Sorry. That was.” He rakes his hair back, turning away. “So inappropriate. Jesus, I don’t—I don’t know what I was thinking.”
I’m beside him before I know it. “It wasn’t. Because you could, um. Now. If I—you know.” I’m thinking about him asking me if I like dominance, and his hand on my wrist, and how it’s so obvious he’s never had bad sex one time in his life, and it has to be very clear to him now that’s all I’ve had. “Do I… work for you?”
Emotions flip over his face, rapid-fire. Disbelief, mostly. Then fifteen others I don’t recognize. Slowly, he lifts his hand to my face, thumb brushing over my cheek. We’re eye to eye again. Actually alone. “You work for me.” A ghost of a smile passes over his lips, and my stomach flips. He’s tracing my freckles. “You really work for me.”
I touch his hand. “Show me. Please.”
His warm palm smooths around my jaw, cupping my face in one large hand, like he owns me already. He’d hurt me if I let him in. I know this. He’s just like me. That’s why I ignore the somersault inside me when his thumb slips over my lip. His forefinger, wrapping around my chin.
