Page 13 of Heart of the Race

“But the places where he—” I couldn’t bring myself to say “crashed,” it wasn’t enough of a word. “Won’t we go back to all those this year?”

“Aye, my lad.”

I had to absorb that. “Sorry, go on.”

“Well, once he was released from the team, they took the bikes back. I talked him into getting a Honda. Everyone runs better on a certain kind of bike. Sometimes it’s as simple as the shape of the fairing, but for Varro—he seems to do better on the esses on the Honda.”

He was talking about turns. On the switchback ones, the hairpin ones, the esses, Varro, for whatever reason, maneuvered better on the Honda. Everyone swore by a different kind of bike, and as far as I could tell, every rider could make a case for why his was the best. I just wanted Varro to stay vertical—or at an angle—without losing his balance. How he could even hold the curves, slanted as he was when he took them, like he could have turned his head and touched the pavement with his nose, was a feat of balance I could not imagine. The physics of it was lost on me, but science had nothing to do with him believing. I was there, so he could have flown if he needed to.

Every day, Varro stared into my eyes as he got on the bike. I looked at the helmet and the red and black racing leathers and thought, How can that be all? Shouldn’t there be more padding? Armor, maybe? But that was all there was, because otherwise how was he going to hunch over the bike and fly down the course?

I didn’t say anything; it wasn’t my place. The words be careful never passed my lips. I just prayed them over and over in my head.

Each of the Grand Prix events lasted three days, and during that time, we lived in a motorhome. We had two—one for the crew, one for the rest of us—and quarters were tight. We parked in an area called the paddock, and really, by the time we were in Qatar for the first race, I was certain I was going to need tranquilizers.

I had no idea how everyone kept themselves sane amid the constant bustle, the lights, the noise, the crowds of people, and the rules. Just what you had to know was daunting. Where to sit, where to stand, the riders had to line up on the grid according to their qualifying time, all the races had points, and… It was mind-blowing.

“Why are you worrying?” Varro teased the night before the race, pulling me into the tiny room we shared at the back of the motorhome. The room held two stacked beds that could be pushed up flat against the wall, a closet, and a flat-screen on the wall. “They named me the wild card. I’m in, that’s what we all wanted.”

His desire, not mine.

“All you have to do is watch me ride really fast out there tomorrow. I need the best time. That’s all there is to it.”

But I found that watching was not the exciting experience I thought it would be. It was simply terrifying.

And it wasn’t that I didn’t like danger. I was as much of an adrenaline junkie as the next guy, and having him race legally on tracks was so much better than when he had been riding roads that could only loosely be called that, at altitudes between one and a half and three miles above sea level. But it was terrifying because of the speed. He could be gone in an instant.

But nobody, including him, read that on my face.

“Oh, mate.” Aidric grinned at me over a drink in Jerez almost a month later. “You’re lucky, you are.”

I squinted at him.

“He looks at you and he thinks he can fly.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“’Tis. If I hadn’t seen the man shag three and four girls a night before you joined us, I’d wonder about you two.”

But there was nothing more between me and Varro than there had been our entire lives. And when I looked up and saw Varro emerging from the back of the club we were in, I was reminded yet again that the man was a whore.

“Oh shit,” I heard a girl say at the table next to us. “I want that.”

Varro was making his way through the crowd to reach me and Aidric.

Jesus.

Head held high, a loose-hipped, fluid stride combined with the wicked curl of his lip—he made people stop and stare. His frame was powerful and strong; his clothes clung to his long muscular legs, broad shoulders, and wide chest.

The thick, glossy black hair he had inherited from his mother was pulled back from his face in a queue, and the rest hung to his shoulders in a silky fall. Even the stubble, of which I was normally not a fan, was sexy on him.

When he reached us, I could smell the smoke and perfume clinging to him. My stomach rolled. “Gettin’ laid?” I inquired snidely.

“Yes, sir.” He grinned big.

“How many is that tonight, mate?” Aidric teased.

“Three. Or, I mean, does it count in a bathroom stall?” he queried his head mechanic, his hooded brown eyes looking liquid in the light.