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“I had an hour. Maybe have to leave in twenty.”
“You’re gonna have to change your clothes,” I teased.
Axel chuckled and kissed the tip of my nose. “Small price to pay. I think this might have been the best lunch break of my life.”
I shook my head and rested my cheek over his heart, listening to one of my favorite sounds in the world. I couldn’t deny I could happily spend lunch like this every day, too.
Thirty-Three
Axel
“My mom and dad are coming to the race,” I told Bristol while we worked in the kitchen that evening. We were actually meeting up with Huck Larson—one of the other Pressure drivers—and his sister, who worked for him. Conveniently, they were in the RV next to ours. We’d arranged a circle of chairs between the rigs and were doing BYOD—bring your own dinner. Huck had set up his portable firepit and mentioned he’d see if his friend, Quill, one of the other guys on the circuit, wanted to join us.
“Is that safe for your mom?”
I shrugged. “You know how she is. She’s insisting. I’m sure my dad checked with the doctor to be sure she can travel. I think the most important worry will be keeping Dad away from his brother. He’s ready to commit fratricide.”
I couldn’t exactly blame him. My uncle had pulled all kinds of shady shit on the family, and I felt like I discovered a new part of the shitstorm every day. To that end, my dad was pissed at me, but he’d get over it. Specifically, my accountant had deposited the money to cover my mom’s medical bills. We couldn’t get the amounts from my parents or from her providers due to privacy laws, but some digging had sussed out how much their loans were. My mom and dad could be as mad at me as they wanted; I didn’t care.
Beside me, Bristol sighed, her fingers tracing back and forth on the countertop while she stared blindly at the salad she’d been making.
“What?” I asked, my senses going on high alert.
“That reminds me… Marta.”
“Don’t worry about her. She can’t touch us, and she’s part of Darius’ crap. She’ll probably leave us be now—”
“I don’t know about that,” she said, pulling out her phone. “She found me in the stands today.”
She flicked her thumb across the screen then hit something. As she turned up the volume, I head voices. While I listened to the conversation, my mouth dropped open. Disbelief and anger fought for dominance the farther the recording went.
“I’m not too good for you. You’re too good forme,” I growled, my hand in a fist. Despite Bristol’s reply to Marta, I knew Marta’s words had hurt her. And then the admission about why bullshit upon bullshit had been heaped on me the past few months and the unspoken implication that my uncle had been complicit in it all. When Marta started talking about the cars, it left me speechless, though I knew it shouldn’t.
Bristol wrapped her arms around me, silently giving me strength while I absorbed it all. It wasn’t strength I needed, though. It was a restraint on my fury.
“Can you send that to me?” I asked in a carefully controlled voice. I wasn’t sure what I’d do with the recording, but I wanted the evidence in my possession.
She nodded, worry filling her face. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fucking pissed. But I’m happier than I’ve ever been to be out from under Darius’ team. I’ll probably be questioning every little bad thing that happens to me for a long time, too.”
Troubled by the implications about rule-breaking with the car, I distracted myself by dishing out my food. I grabbed my plate and a soft drink while Bristol put away the salad and did the same.
“Let’s get outside before they think we’re not coming,” I said. “I, uh, have a bit of an anti-social rep.”
“That must have been difficult for you. You’re sonotanti-social.”
I half-shrugged. “It was harder not having you. The rest… It was easier to deal with.”
Now, it was especially difficult to know what she’d gone through. Bristol would tell me to knock it off with the guilt if she realized just how much it ate at me that she’d been alone in one of the worst episodes in her life. I could never express how grateful I was that she forgave me, that she was eager for us to have a child, even after that.
Huck and his sister were already outside by the fire when Bristol and I headed out. He stood, smiling wide as we approached.
“Hey! I was going to come knocking in a minute.”
“Sorry,” Bristol said. “My fault. There was some family drama I needed to tell him about.” She shuffled her plate and drink to one hand and held out her other. “I’m Axel’s wife, Bristol. Nice to meet you.”
“Wife,” Huck echoed, looking to me while she shook his hand. “Is that what you were doing over break?”
