Page 163 of Downforce

“You already had the talent to win,” she tells me.

I run my gloved hand along the key pendant she never takes off. “But you unlocked my potential.”

Her searing faith in me is what propelled me over that finish line.

“You know what this means, right?”

Her brows raise. “What?”

My smile opens up even wider. “You have to marry me.”

Annalise raises an eyebrow. “I don’t remember you asking me.”

I go to reply, but I’m suddenly pulled off the ground by at least five members of my team. It seems they’ve decided they gave me enough time with Annalise and are now ready to celebrate this victory with me.

Though I don’t lose sight of her, not once, during the celebration, I drift farther and farther away from Annalise as she pulls back, making way for the rest of the Amato team to celebrate this win.

The next few hours are a blur of champagne sprays, loud war shrieks of victory, and smile after smile as I pose for cameras while raising the Driver’s Championship trophy over my head. It’s not until I bring the silver trophy to my lips for a kiss that tears begin to well up, filling my gaze.

Days later, and the genuine glow of winning the championship hasn’t worn off. However, I’ve redirected my attention to something more pressing and even more life changing.

“Are you all packed?” Annalise asks as she rounds the corner from her hallway.

“Ready to go,” I answer calmly, although everything inside of me vibrates with nervousness. I might be more anxious than I was before the race a few days ago.

In the morning, Annalise, me, her brother, and his family return to their hometown of Williamsport to spend a week with her immediate family before then flying to the family’s estate on the West Coast of the States to spend the holidays together.

Outside of Travis, I get along with Annalise’s entire family very well. They’ve all given me shite for besting Travis in the race to win the championship, but even Tristan has come around.

And while her father asked me if I were the ‘son of a bitch’ who called his daughter a bitch, even he seems to tolerate my and her relationship more than Annalise expected. Mrs. Townsend did pull me aside to tell me that she spoke with her husband and told him to take it easy on me.

If him taking me aside and revealing that he keeps a cache of weapons at his disposal and he has more than one secret place for disposing of bodies that do harm to his family is going easy on me, I’ll take it, I suppose.

Despite all of that, her family is not the reason why I’m feeling anxious.

“Come sit with me.” I extend my arm in her direction.

The second she touches my fingers, I grasp ahold of hers and bring her down onto the couch next to me. I pull out the sudoku book I’ve had tucked behind my thigh.

“Is that a new one?”

“It is.” I flip the book over in my hand as if examining it like I’ve never seen it before. “There’s word puzzles in this one.”

She looks at me with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m still more of a numbers guy, but it looked interesting. Want to help?” I open the book to the page I have already marked.

Her head juts backwards. “You’re going to let me work on this with you? Don’t I always take over?”

I chuckle at the offense in her tone while handing her a pencil.

“First dibs? Someone’s still in a good mood from their recent win,” she sing-songs.

God, I love her.

For longer than intended, I watch her as she reads the clues and writes in the appropriate letters in each box.

“Oh, this is one where you solve the questions and then fill in the blanks at the back of the book to decipher a word or phrase,” she says happily, completely missing that I’ve let her take over the solving of the puzzle while I sit and watch.