The Story We Tell

You put the phone face down on the counter. You've read his texts, and typed back, and read his answers, all in the forty seconds it took Maren to hang the jacket over a chair and start tapping her foot. Whatever you two just agreed under the edge of the counter, it's time to say it out loud.

"I got a new contract," you say.

Maren's eyebrows go up. The foot stops.

"Kinetic Arc placed me with a race team for the season. Strahl Vanguard. Their physio quit." You pour the pasta into a bowl, because your hands need something to do. "Jace is one of their drivers. His truck was at your future father-in-law's garage yesterday, so his engineer asked me to drop him off. He threw his jacket in the back. That's it."

Every word of it is true. You hate how easily it comes out.

Maren stares at you. Then she squeals.

"Are you serious? Ava! That's huge! A race team?" She drops the swatch book on the table and grabs your arms. "Do you travel? Do you go to the races? Oh my God, you'll be at the Heartland 500. Holden's going to die. He's been trying to get Jace to get us pit passes for a year."

"I travel," you say weakly. "All the race weekends."

"So you'll be with Jace every weekend." She lets go of you, and her face does something complicated: pride, then calculation, then the faint crease between her brows that means she's planning. "Okay. This is actually perfect. You can keep an eye on him."

"Keep an eye on him?"

"Jace is..." She searches for the word. "A lot. He's sweet, he is, but he's had three speeding tickets, two fights on camera, and he once missed Holden's birthday because he was in Monaco with a swimsuit model. I need him at my wedding on Labor Day weekend in one piece, sober, on time, in a tux, with the rings. Promise me."

"I'm his physio, not his babysitter."

"Promise me."

"Fine. I promise."

"And Ava?" Maren picks up her wine. Her voice is light, teasing, the way it used to be when you were twelve and she caught you staring at a lifeguard. "Don't fall for him. Every woman does. It's embarrassing."

You laugh. It sounds almost real.

J: well?

You: she bought it. she wants me to keep you sober and in one piece until labor day

J: reasonable

J: she's going to make a great general someday

You: jace. the rules. you said you'd keep them

J: copy. writing them down

J: rule one: we never happened

J: rule two: i don't leave things in your car

J: rule three: i'm allowed to think rule one is stupid as long as i don't say it out loud

J: oops

Two weeks later, the team flies to Florida.

Strahl Vanguard charters a small jet for the drivers and key staff, and you sit in a cream leather seat with your kit bag between your feet, trying to look like someone who does this all the time. Iggy is asleep before takeoff, headset around his neck. Hallgren reads a journal article about cervical spine loading. Jace sits four rows ahead with his earbuds in and his cap pulled low and does not turn around once, which you tell yourself is good.

"You must be the physio."

The woman who drops into the seat beside you is the kind of beautiful that looks expensive. Long black hair in a glossy fall over one shoulder, a red mouth, a tailored white jumpsuit that should be impossible to wear on a plane without spilling something on it. She holds out a hand with gold rings on three fingers.

"Ximena Corvalán. Communications. Which means I'm the one who writes the apology every time the boys say something stupid on camera." She smiles. "Mostly Jace."

"Nice to meet you."

"Mm." Her eyes go over you, quick and thorough, the way you assess a gait. "You're very pretty. That'll help. Fans love a pretty medic. Do you mind being in the background of a few social posts? Nothing invasive. Hands taping wrists. That kind of thing."

"Sure," you say. "I guess."

"Wonderful." She glances up the aisle, toward the back of Jace's cap, and something in her expression goes dry and fond. "Don't let him charm you, by the way. I did, two years ago. It lasted a month and I had to write my own press release about it."

Your stomach drops somewhere around the cargo hold.

"Oh," you say. "I won't."

"Smart." She pats your knee and moves on up the aisle, leaving behind a cloud of something with jasmine in it.

You turn to the window. Below, Indiana is going brown and green and then gray under the clouds. You think about Jace, two years ago, with a woman who looks like that, and something sour and unreasonable twists in your stomach.

You have no right to it. Rule one: you never happened.

St. Petersburg is all palm trees and concrete barriers and the smell of salt and hot rubber. The temporary street circuit is laid out through the waterfront, grandstands bolted up along the bayfront park, and the whole city hums with engines.

Sorin Vandewalle finds you in the team hospitality tent that afternoon. He's in a fitted team polo that shows off his arms, blond hair swept back, and he leans on the table where you're unpacking tape like he's posing for a watch ad.

"Doctor," he says, in his warm Belgian accent. "I have a terrible problem. My neck." He tilts his head with a pained expression. "Here. Very tight. I think only you can help."

"Dr. Hallgren does neck assessments for the twelve car," you say.

"Nils has cold hands." He smiles, slow and dazzling. "Dinner, then? There's a place on the water. Very romantic. I mean very professional."

Across the tent, Jace is signing a stack of posters. He doesn't look up. But his pen stops moving for a full three seconds.

"I'm busy tonight," you say.

"Tomorrow, then." Sorin winks and strolls away.

The team hotel is a tall glass tower overlooking the marina. Your keycard says 1412. You let yourself in, drop your bag, kick off your shoes, and stand at the window watching the boats bob in the dark water, and feel, for the first time in two weeks, something like calm.

Then you turn around and notice the second door.

It's in the wall beside the closet. A connecting door, the kind that links two rooms. There's a deadbolt on your side. It's locked.

Your phone buzzes on the bed.

J: heads up. 1414

J: there's a door between our rooms. it locks from your side

J: just so you know