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“Cole?” I squeak out, taking deep breaths and trying to suck in oxygen.
“They’re all in the motorhome. The race is delayed due to weather.”
“Oh, thank god,” I put my hands on my knees and bend over. “We can’t use the tires, Edmund. We can’t…”
“I know, everyone knows.”
I stand back up, look to him for explanation.
“Concordia pulled them all, hours ago. They said they just discovered a manufacturing defect. We’ll all be running last season’s tires.”
“What?”
“Then someone showed me your texts a while later. Figured you might have had something to do with that,” he smiles.
Professor Tillman. Doc. He got to them. He made them listen.
“Where’s Olivier?”
“Haven’t seen him since this morning,” Edmund shrugs.
As we stand together in the garage, everything catches up to me. I feel like I’ve just run into a brick wall, stopped dead in my tracks, and got smacked upside the head with a sack of emotions.
My shoulders heave, my eyes start running, and I can’t breathe through my nose for the snot. I don’t even know what I’m feeling—I’m just feeling all of whatever it is.
“Oh, I know that look,” Edmund wraps his arms around me as sobs rock through my body. “Your adrenaline just wore off,” he chuckles.
I blabber into his raincoat, unintelligible words. I’m so tired.
“Come on, let’s get you some tea. You’re freezing.”
Edmund starts walking me back to the motorhome under an umbrella and supporting me as I walk. I’ve never felt so exhausted in my life, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
Is this how Cole feels? Invincible during a race and then like a limp noodle after? No, he’s used to this, trained, and conditioned for it.
When we finally make it into the motorhome, Edmund tells the first person he sees to find Cole. Someone brings me a cup of hot tea, which I wrap my hands around but am too tired to bring to my lips.
“Jesus, what the hell?” I look up and hear Cole yell. He storms into the room, his race suit on but undone to his waist.
“I, I’m sorry. I, love. So. Mad,” I manage to squeak out about every third word I want to, but the tears and the sobs are unmanageable.
He’s okay, he’s safe. He’s not in a hospital like Alessi was. It’s over with the tires.
But I can’t relax because there’s so much more to resolve.
He scoops me up in his arms and holds me tight to his chest, starts walking away with me. “Get Liam,” he says to someone in passing.
I’m carried up a flight of stairs, and then he puts me down on the bed in his room. He starts pulling my waterlogged, cold clothes off me. When I’m naked down to my bra and panties, he wraps his blanket all around me in a cocoon and runs his hands all over me to warm me up.
“You’re okay,” I utter as my senses start returning to me again.
“I’m okay,” he confirms. “Race hasn’t even started.”
Liam comes into the room and hands me a huge, warm drink. “Drink all of that,” he orders.
I lift it to my lips. It tastes like dirt. It’s gritty, salty. My face puckers.
“Drink it,” he barks.
