“Oh.” I drop to kneel by the sofa. “No, you’re—you’re going to do well tomorrow.”
Saying that the Monaco Grand Prix is the most famous Formula 1 race feels a bit silly, because if you know F1 at all, even at a passing fancy level, you know about Monaco. But what most people don’t know—unless you’ve actually watched drivers race here—is that it’s infamously difficult to overtake on Monaco’s narrow streets. If you’re passed, you’ve screwed something up, biblically. And Faust is on the starting line tomorrow. He’s expected to win. He needs to win. And anything less, even P2, will be seen as a failure.
Right when I’ve been hoping he falls back in love with racing.
Faust peers at me in the dark. With me on my knees and him on the sofa, we’re close to eye level. Then he covers his face with the crook of his elbow again. “Can you grab something from the bathroom for me?”
My stomach flips. “Of course.”
“Excedrin.”
“Got it.”
See, I think as I find my way to his bathroom vanity, already knowing his pill bottles will be lined up by the sink. This is why I’d wanted to avoid him this weekend. I don’t need the glittery rush of seeing his tiny, neat handwriting on a tiny, plain Post-it Note next to the bottles, detailing what looks to be instructions for different migraine approaches from his doctor. Really had been hoping to avoid the debilitating ache in my fingers when I spot his birthday printed on a label. April 28. The same date as the Day Gala. The night we’d…
I grab the Excedrin and return to the floor next to him, pills and a cup of water in hand. He hadn’t mentioned his birthday then. I shouldn’t mention it now.
We aren’t serious.
“One?” I say, opening the bottle.
“Mm.”
He takes the pill, then covers his eyes back up. “I’m good.” His voice rumbles out from the depths of his broad chest. “Just precautionary.”
“Should I call someone? If you have, um, a headache.”
It’s a stupid thing to call a migraine, yes, but the M-word feels forbidden to say in Faust’s own apartment. Particularly when it’s dark, and he’s lying down, and isthatwhy he’s here? Is he worried that he’s going to get a migraine and not be able to drive tomorrow?
“Not yet.”
Hate that. But I nod, forgetting that he can’t exactly see it. I shift to a more seated position. Imagine reaching over and—I don’t know—stroking his arm. It’s right there. I could touch it, him, feel the soft brown peach fuzz that covers his tanned skin, where his veins dip between his muscles. Is that what a regular employee would do if they stumbled on their driver clearly going through it the night before a mega stressful event? What would someone who hasn’t slept with Faust do?
“Are you staring at me?” Faust asks from behind his elbow.
“No.” I sound startled, and a smile catches on his lips. “I mean, okay, yes. But you’re kind of worrying me, with the whole Excedrin-and-darkness of it all. Because I really could go get something. Coffee or french fries or—”
I’m still rattling off the migraine cures I’ve seen people post about online when Faust’s free hand lands on the top of my head, andthen I’m not speaking, not at all. I don’t move, either, as I attempt to process how to react to this, his fingertips working through my hair just so, ruffling my hard work out of order. I’d straightened the hell out of this blonde mess, and he’srufflingme.
“Calm down,” he says, warm and gruff at the same time. “Just sit here and talk to me until I go to sleep.”
Until he—goes to sleep. Sit here. With his hand on me? But that could take hours. Or all night. And I have places I need to go, a man I need to see.
Only…
Monaco’s tomorrow. And it would be really cool if Faust won.
“I don’t know how to calm down and keep talking,” I whisper.
He hums, amused. “Oxymoron for you?”
“For someone who apparently needs my head to go to sleep, that’s a very rude question.”
That gets a laugh. Not a chuckle. Definitely not a snicker. Faust doesn’t laugh like most people I know. It’s one quick noise for him, like he’s exhaling, too busy to give in. His laughs are squeezed between his silence—and maybe that’s why it feels special to catch one. Like when you go to the zoo and see a great, big tiger fast asleep.
“You got any good stories?” he asks. His thumb moves as he speaks, slowly brushing toward my forehead, then back.
“Me? Stories?”
