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“Yeah. Damn,” I replied.

After debriefing at the bar with a drunk brother and my lead engineer, I dragged them back to their hotel rooms and made sure everyone had water at the ready before I was back in the dreary hallway walking to my own room. After misreading a few signs and a very long walk, I finally arrived. The room number 930 stared back at me like some cruel joke. My racing number was 93. Something I had chosen when I was young, too young. Maybe it was a lashing out at my father or a silent ode into the void. The number I switched to the minute I made it into Formula One. Shortened numbers that were for her. It stared back at me, gold-speckled iron mocking me.

I heard a slam of a door and a quick “Shit! Sorry!” before a woman barreled straight into me, a flash of red hair, strawberries, and creamy skin. I reached out and caught the person before the moment came to full focus. The ever-familiar red hair splayed across my arm.

Maisey.

“Careful,” I grumbled. I tried to keep the annoyance from seeping out of every single syllable, but I also just couldn’t help it. She was already tripping again, and my hands reached out, grasping around her waist, pulling her toward myself to steady us both before we knocked over completely.

“Oh!” she squeaked out, looking up at me. Our bodies pressed together. “Oh my God.” She scrambled to her own feet, shoving my arms away and brushing herself off. The same long sleeve from this morning was pushed up to her elbows—probably from the heat—and burn scars twisted up her wrist. I myself had changed rather quickly into shorts and a T-shirt the moment I was allowed to. It was too damn hot for long sleeves. She noticed my eyes and shoved her left arm behind her. I glared.

“Don’t do that,” I said, scowling.

“What?” she asked, looking rather shocked at my tone.

“Hide,” I said just as sternly. Her cheeks flushed red at my words.

“I wasn’t,” she argued, though the response was hardly believable. Her eyes were shimmering like they did when she was in her head lost in the clouds.

“Okay,” I said, putting my hands up. “Good.”

“What are you doing here anyway?” she asked, trying to right herself and crossing her arms, her shields back up.

“Hoping for a good ol’ nap.”

“O-Oh, your room is h-here?” She stumbled over her words, looking around like she was waiting for someone else to round the corner. It made something in the back of my head skitter.

“Yeah, Red. That’s what hotels have, rooms.” Her old nickname slipped out before I could stop myself, and I watched her eyes widen ever so slightly. She cleared her throat before speaking again.

“Right, yup. Makes sense.” She was nodding along like a damn bobble head, so I decided to put her out of her misery and be the one to leave first. I jammed my keycard into the hotel door, trying to get the hell out of this hallway and away from the girl—the woman now—who I had no idea how to interact with anymore.

I shouldn’t have let her nickname slip. I knew better than to bring about old ghosts, but I couldn’t help it. Having her around, God, it felt like I could just slip back into the bickering we were always up to. Nostalgia hit me deep as I collapsed down onto the bed with a larger-than-usual deep sigh. My thoughts drifted to Maisey kicking my ass at karting.

9

THEO | 12 YEARS OLD

The rain started an hour before the race.

At first it was just a drizzle, tapping against the metal roofs of the trailers parked along the edge of the lot. By the time drivers were called to the grid, the entire track was slick and shining like black glass. Water pooled along the curbs and ran in thin streams across the asphalt. Parents hurried through the paddock with towels and umbrellas while kids in bright racing suits stood around shifting nervously in their oversized gloves.

I liked racing in the rain.

My father said it separated the good drivers from the great ones.

“Smooth hands,” he said as he crouched beside the kart, tightening something near the rear axle with a wrench. “If you jerk the wheel, you’ll spin.”

“I won’t spin,” I said.

He stood and wiped his hands on a rag, then gave the kart a sharp push forward to the staging area where the rest of the karts were lining up.

Engines coughed to life one by one, the high-pitched buzz filling the damp morning air.

Across the line of karts, I spotted a flash of red hair.

Maisey Andrews was sitting in her kart a few rows ahead of me, helmet resting in her lap while she tugged the sleeves of her suit over her wrists. Her braid hung down her back, the same pink ribbon she always had tied at the end. She glanced over her shoulder, caught me looking, and grinned big and bright, like we were about to play a game instead of race.

I looked away.