Page 218 of Revv

My hands settle around the grips while the crew finishes clearing away. Andre is somewhere off to the side, watching all of us with that permanently stressed expression that says he’d like one race where nobody tries to shave ten years off his life.

Good luck with that.

I glance toward the paddock where I know Cece is standing with Lena and Bexley.

Her hair blowing in the wind, sunglasses pushed onto the top of her head, one hand shielding her eyes from the Florida sun while she watches me from behind the barrier.

That’s my girlfriend.

Still sounds fucking good.

Better now that I know she loves me.

Actually loves me.

Not tolerates me or secretly likes me while threatening to run me over.

Loves me.

Fuck, yeah.

I smile inside my helmet.

Her eyes narrow immediately and she points at the track like she can somehow boss me around from fifty feet away.

Focus.

I lift two fingers from the grip and point at her instead.

She gives me the middle finger.

Yep.

That’s my girl.

For a second, everything else around me fades.

Not completely.

The engines are still screaming. Heat still sits heavy over the track. Someone beside me revs hard enough to shake the air, but my attention keeps drifting back to her.

To everything it took to get here.

Her pretending she couldn’t stand me while tracking every fucking move I made, that first kiss she swore never happened, the beach, Miami, and her Honda choosing the perfect fucking time to strand us there. Takeout in bed, her falling asleep against me, the way she trusted me in the ocean, that little gold wave sitting against her chest, and finally hearing her say she loved me after spending half the night ready to fucking murder me.

Every stupid, messy, perfect piece of it.

I used to think winning meant crossing a finish line first.

Maybe it still does sometimes.

But this?

Cece standing in my paddock like she belongs here.

Knowing I get to go home with her afterward and that I’ve, somehow, gone from chasing the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met to being the guy she chose.

That feels like winning too.