Chapter 3  Losing Control 

Drake.

The garage smelled like burnt rubber and hot metal, the way it always did after a test session, and I stood with my arms crossed while my engineer ran through the telemetry from the last set of laps. Numbers scrolled across the screen. Tire degradation. Downforce readings. Sector times shaved down to the thousandth of a second. This was the part of racing nobody saw on television, the endless hours of data and adjustment that happened between the roar of the engines and the checkered flag, and normally I could sit through it for hours without losing focus.

Today I lost focus twice in ten minutes.

"You are half a second slower through turn four than yesterday," my engineer said, tapping the screen. "Same setup. Same conditions. What changed?"

"Nothing changed," I said, though that was not entirely true. What had changed was that I kept seeing a pair of dark eyes narrowing at me across a party, I kept hearing a voice telling me to try being less of myself for five minutes, and none of that belonged anywhere near a garage or a telemetry sheet or a championship I was supposed to be defending in four months.

"Boss." Elliot, my best friend and the man who had been my race engineer for three seasons, leaned against the car with his arms folded. "You have said maybe six words all morning. That is unusual, even for you."

"I am thinking about the setup."

"You are thinking about someone. I have known you long enough to tell the difference."

I did not answer him. Elliot had earned the right to push a little, given everything we had been through together, but there were limits, and I intended to hold that line even with him.

We wrapped the debrief and I walked out to the paddock, where the noise of a hundred conversations and rolling equipment carts filled the air, sponsors in polo shirts talking into headsets, mechanics wheeling tire sets between garages, the whole traveling circus that followed us from country to country every other week of the season. 

This was my world. I had grown up in it, moved through junior categories before I could legally drive on a public road, clawed my way onto this grid at nineteen and became team captain by twenty-one because I refused to accept anything less than the top of the timing sheet. People who did not follow the sport thought it was only about driving fast, but it was about control, about squeezing every possible advantage out of a machine and a body and a mind until there was nothing left to give, and I had built my entire identity around being the one who gave the most.

Two ladies from a sponsor's marketing team fell into step beside me near the hospitality unit, both of them laughing a little too loud at something one of them said, angling themselves so I could not avoid noticing the effort they had put into their appearance.

"Drake, we were hoping you might join us for the sponsor dinner tonight," the taller one said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"I have plans," I said, and kept walking.

It was not entirely a lie. My plan was to sit alone in my hotel room and stare at strategy notes I had already memorized, which sounded significantly less interesting than whatever they had in mind, but it was still true, and it was still preferable.

My younger brother caught up with me near the motorhome entrance, twenty years old and still young enough to find the whole circus endlessly entertaining rather than exhausting.

"You just walked away from two very attractive women," Caleb said, falling into step beside me. "That is new. Usually you at least pretend to be polite for thirty seconds before you disappear."

"I was polite."

"You said three words and left."

"That is three more than they needed."

Caleb laughed, but he was watching me with the same careful attention Elliot had used earlier, like he was trying to solve a puzzle I had not agreed to hand him. "Something happened at that party the other night. You have been off since then."

"Nothing happened."

"You stood outside in the cold for ten minutes watching a car drive away. Michael told me. He said you did not say a single word the entire time, you just stood there until the taillights disappeared."

I did not answer that either, because there was nothing safe to say. The truth was I had thought about very little else since that night. Not the championship standings, not the upcoming race weekend, not the sponsors circling for my attention like they always did. Her. The way she had looked at me like I was an inconvenience rather than an opportunity, the sharp edge in her voice when she told me to try being less of myself, the way she had turned and walked away without looking back even once, as if I had already stopped mattering the second the words left her mouth.

Nobody walked away from me like that. Nobody dismissed me and did not immediately regret it.

That was what I told myself the reason was. A challenge. An itch I needed to scratch so I could move on and get back to focusing on the only thing that actually mattered, which was winning. It had nothing to do with the shade of her eyes or the stubborn set of her jaw when she had snapped at me, nothing at all.

I did not believe in love. I had decided that a long time ago, back when I was twelve years old and sat on the stairs listening to my parents scream things at each other that could never be unsaid, back when my mother packed two suitcases and left in the middle of the night without waking either of us to say goodbye, and my father spent the following decade proving that a man could build an empire out of anger and call it strength. I had watched what love did to two people who once promised each other forever, watched it curdle into something that left permanent damage, and I had promised myself I would never hand anyone that kind of power over me. Attraction was fine. Attraction was simple, transactional, easily managed. Love was a liability I refused to carry.

So whatever this was, whatever kept pulling my thoughts back to a girl I had met exactly once, it was not that. It could not be that.

That night, alone in my hotel room, I opened my laptop under the excuse of reviewing sponsor commitments and found myself instead pulling up the details of the conservatory renovation my team had funded months ago, before any of this happened, before I had any reason to care about a list of student names attached to the project. I told myself I was simply confirming logistics. I told myself the same thing when I found her name on the list of recommended performers for the fundraiser and added a note requesting her inclusion specifically, my assistant's confused reply arrived within the hour asking if I wanted to specify a reason.

I did not give her one.

Three days later, I stood at the back of the conservatory's main hall, unannounced, having told no one on my team where I was going or why. The room smelled like polished wood and old paper, students moving between practice rooms with instrument cases slung over their shoulders, sunlight cutting through tall windows in long pale strips across the floor.

I found the room I was looking for at the end of the hall, the door propped halfway open, and through the gap I could see her standing with her violin raised, eyes closed, completely lost in whatever she was playing, unaware that anyone was watching her at all.

I stood there in the hallway and did not move.