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  Nudging my way past my constructor and crew, I head for my bike and our customary postrace ritual. I squeeze her tight, petting her fairings and thanking her for keeping me safe until an unmistakable whistle catches my attention.

  I rise and turn to find Massimo leaning against the open door of my garage, the strangest look on his face like he wants to try to smile, to talk to me again, but can’t decide whether he should. I’d almost bet my bike it’s because even though he just messed with me, the truth is, he’s not-so-secretly worried about the damage the near hit caused to our already strained relationship.

  He’d never admit it, but he really can’t seem to stay away from me. Which wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world except that he also doesn’t know how to apologize for the crap he does. He’s probably never apologized for anything in his life.

  The part that kills me is that as angry as I get, I can’t really claim any innocence in this situation. I’ve gone after him too. Attacked him too. Even though there have been so many times when I thought there could be something more between us than just rivalry. At the very least, I wondered if somehow, someday, we could be friends.

  “All right, Lori,” Frank says, shaking hands with my crew. “You about ready to hit the road, girl? I need to get you and Billy and Mason to the airport. Oh,” he adds, “Taryn called to say, and I quote, ‘Way to go, bitch.’”

  I snort at my best friend’s message, wondering when she hung up with Billy long enough to leave it for me. But I can’t seem to muster more of a response than that. Because without saying anything, Massimo sets down a clean, white towel at the entrance to my garage. When he straightens, dark eyes locked with mine, I cross my arms and stand a little taller. It’s not the apology I want, not by a long shot, but it’ll do for now.

  The smile he was restraining breaks free, and with nothing more, he turns and heads the other direction, leaving me to wonder what words would have come from him if we were alone instead of surrounded by the watchful eyes of hundreds of thousands of fans, on top of the ever-nosy press.

  Mostly because the younger, naive part of me wants to hold close the idea that this silent, private ritual—the clean white cotton, soft, carefully folded, and laid at my door—is the safest language in which he can communicate that he’d never try to hurt me. However, the twenty-five-year-old professional racer me says I also don’t need him to tell me to brush myself off and keep going. Not to get discouraged just because today, he beat me to the checkered flag.

  I’ve been doing this as long as he has, and I don’t need his help.

  Frank’s massive barbecue-filled frame knocks into me, shaking me into awareness. I chuckle as his arm comes around my shoulders, squeezing tight. “You okay?”

  I nod absently. But really, I’m still wondering if Massimo’s white towel of truce would carry the scent of him. That familiar spicy sweetness of exhaust and that stuff he puts in his hair. The aroma that’s never been far and I’m drawn to breathe more deeply than I should… It’s as comforting as a promise from my crew, as familiar as a scolding from my conscience.

  “Yep,” I tell Frank. “Just thinking about that apex in sixteen.” And whether Massimo would’ve had nightmares about me dying on the way to the hospital if he’d crashed me out. The way I did when he wrecked in the Netherlands last year.

  “Aw, don’t sweat it, Lori. You’ll get it next time.” Frank winks, then hollers over my shoulder, “Boys, hit the showers.” He gives me another pardoning smile, steering us out of the garages and toward our respective RVs so we can at least shower and change before we leave for the airport.

  “Yeah, honey,” Billy rumbles a few feet behind me. “Should be home soon, in plenty of time to make your dad’s work thing. Oh yeah? What’d he do—Taryn! Stop letting Dax do that. I don’t care. It’s my horse, Dax is a hired hand, and I made it very clear that Gidget—carrots?”

  “Uh-oh,” Mason mutters, snickering.

  As Billy keeps whining on the phone about his beloved stallion, I glance over my shoulder at my bike, like I always do when I have to leave her between cities. At that towel, left where Massimo laid it.

  It was only six weeks after the Netherlands that Massimo came back to the circuit following his biggest wreck to date, and the nightmares eventually stopped. I’ve come back after my own crashes, and I’m sure I would’ve even if I had crashed today. The extra weight of my chest and back plates on my body, the restriction of my elbow and knee sliders, and the imprint on my chin from the strap of my helmet say so.

  But after all the races, all the close calls, and all the times I’ve challenged him…

  After all the almosts and all the fights, all the times when I’ve wondered and hoped and had those dreams come crashing down…

  After ten years of racing against Massimo, I have to accept the truth: it’s too late for anything to change.

  Grand Prix of Qatar

  Doha, Sunday, March 10

  Pos

  Pts

  Rider

  Time

  World Rank

  1

  25

  Massimo VITOLO

  42’36.634

  25

  2

  20

  Lorelai HARGROVE

  2.169

  20

  3

  16

  Santos SAUCEDO

  4.976

  16

  4

  13

  Billy KING

  5.865

  13

  5

  11

  Mason KING

  7.138

  11

  6

  10

  Cristiano ARELLANO

  9.653

  10

  7

  9

  Giovanni MARCHESA

  11.223

  9

  8

  8

  Elliston LAMBIRTH

  11.598

  8

  9

  7

  Harleigh ELIN

  12.214

  7

  10

  6

  Deven HORSLEY

  13.365

  6

  11

  5

  Gregorio PAREDES

  14.732

  5

  12

  4

  Aurelio LOGGIA

  17.998

  4

  13

  3

  Fredek SULZBACH

  18.244

  3

  14

  2

  Donato MALDONADO

&
nbsp; 21.685

  2

  15

  1

  Diarmaid DEAN

  23.463

  1

  16

  Galeno GIRÓN

  28.258

  17

  Timo GONZALES

  30.511

  18

  Rainier HERRE

  42.113

  19

  Gustavo LIMÓN

  45.769

  20

  Cesaro SOTO

  53.886

  Chapter 2

  Massimo Vitolo—March; Ravenna, Italy

  I drumroll my hands on the kitchen table, so wound up you’d think I was at a friend’s stag party instead of a fourteen-year-old’s birthday. But I can’t wait for Dario to open his present from me. He’s gonna love it, and I’ve been dying for this moment since the minute I crossed the finish line in Qatar. Snaking Lorina’s first MotoPro win just made it all the sweeter—a glorious payback for her winning our teenaged debut at the Blue Gator Rookie Cups.

  “Open mine next,” I rattle off to my little brother in Italian, jerking my chin in the direction of the box I wrapped myself, Chiara’s help not included. The rest of our table is a mess of playing cards, board games, half-drunk drinks, and dirty plates that I was supposed to clear but haven’t yet. Don’t really plan on it either.

  “You are so bossy,” my mom scolds. I wave her off as she tucks her silver-streaked hair behind her ear, then begins the process of checking on all the food she’s got simmering on the stove and baking in the oven.

  She’s a symphony conductor in the way she lifts lids and stirs and smells and sprinkles in random herbs. I nearly groan out loud at the heavenly aroma of baccalà alla vesuviana, linguine with mussels, crab cioppino, and lasagna with anchovies—my absolute favorite. My brother’s too. Pretty sure I also saw some chilled oysters in the fridge when I grabbed a bottle of water earlier, and I’m starving. No way is Vinicio gonna let me eat half of what I want, though.

  “It’s Dario’s birthday.” My mom straightens and closes the oven, looking at me like she’s ready to stuff me in there next to the lasagna if I don’t watch it. “Let him open the presents he wants.”

  But my little brother is already reaching his whole upper body out of his wheelchair and across the kitchen table for the box I happily knock closer into his hands. “What did you get me? New PS5? A Nintendo Switch?”

  “It’s socks, I swear to God.” I start helping him unwrap his present with as much enthusiasm as him, my mother incessantly yelling at me to let him do it himself.

  “No way!” Dario yells when we finally get the paper off. He holds up the box containing the VR headset he’s been watching endless reviews for. According to his YouTube history anyway.

  “This was the one, yeah?”

  He nods quickly, his eyes as big as his smile as I proudly pop the tab and take out the headset I made sure to charge before I wrapped it.

  “Check this out, man.” I hand it to him and reach over to tap the screen, but nothing happens. “It’s already got the new Moto Grand Prix game app downloaded, so you can ride with me on the track. Even battle me if you want.”

  Dario carefully turns over the VR in his hands, his smile going from genuine to forced before he clears his throat. “Massimo, this is really cool but…it doesn’t work like that. You have to download the game app onto a phone that you hook in. And mine…it’s too old. It won’t work for this.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right.” I frown at Dario like I screwed this all up.

  My best friend, Chiara, snorts behind him, propped against the windows and eternally driving my mom nuts by wearing a Starfleet Academy T-shirt, black suspenders, and a pair of my old jeans that she decorated with nail polish and then attacked with a straight razor.

  She shakes her head at me, fighting a smile behind her pursed lips. She’s been giving me that look since we were six and she’d bust me sneaking extra communion crackers when the priest wasn’t looking. But I’ve never been able to keep secrets from her. Or behave in church.

  “What?” I say to her, then slip the new phone from my shirt pocket and gently toss it down in front of my brother. “Happy birthday.”

  He scrambles to pick up the new mobile phone. “Is this the—”

  “Yep.”

  “Thanks, man!” he shouts, reaching toward me. I laugh and get up to hug him, soaking up the way he still leans his head on my shoulder and clings to my shirt before he pushes me off, his fingers already busy flying over the massive screen.

  “Massimo,” Chiara quietly chides, but I don’t care what I spent on my brother. He deserves it, and as far as he’s concerned, our family can afford it. Me, the successful moto star, most of all.

  Dario doesn’t remember the third-floor shoebox flat that my mom and my dad and I lived in before here. My father bought this house when I was about five, and Dario has only ever known a world on the first floor—four bedrooms, decent kitchen, basement, garage, a small balcony into the garden, and all of it on a quiet street where neighbors know each other.

  He remembers that Dad had a moto shop but never asks why we don’t own it anymore. He knows Mom works too many shifts at the hospital as a nurse, is probably about to trade in her car soon, and our stepfather, Vinicio, draws a healthy manager’s salary from my racing career.

  Dario has everything he needs, whenever he needs it, and that’s all he needs to know.

  “Now open Vinicio’s,” Chiara says, Dario already reaching toward a long wrapped tube that better not contain what I think it does. Our stepfather looks over from where he’s busy flirting with our mother in the kitchen, both of them still swooning over each other like they’re teenagers every minute that Vinicio and I are home.

  Could be worse. The guys she dated before him were complete dicks—some after her money, some after my fame. But Vinicio has known my family’s secrets since before he was helping cover them up, and he’s always been good to Dario. More patient than he is with me. But it was easier to take his racing advice when he wasn’t sleeping here.

  At least Dad liked him, trusted him. But Dad liked everyone.

  “Hope you like it, buddy,” Vinicio says to Dario. He winks, raising his wineglass from where he’s standing next to my mother, his arm around her waist. Then he looks at me, chuckling as he takes a deep pull.

  The hell is that about?

  I look to my mom, but she just arches an eyebrow, the sharp angles of her jaw and cheekbones challenging me to say anything. Then she downshifts into peppy and energetic. “What did you get, baby?” She slips away from Vinicio, grabbing her phone from the counter and preparing to take probably a hundred pictures. Dario starts ripping open the paper on his present with enough force that the paper shreds get tangled in the cords of his oxygen concentrator.

  “Easy, man.” I chuckle, reaching over to clear the mess as Chiara picks up the rest behind him. But Dario’s still going after the tube with the same focus I have on the track.

  “Yes!” he shouts when he’s got the wrapper off, thrusting the poster in the air. When he unravels it, his face explodes in even more excitement as he screams, “Thank you, Vinicio!”

  “What the fuck!” I shout right after him, gesturing to the giant poster of Lorina in her Dabria leathers posing like she’s Rosie the Riveter.

  Her leathers are so sinfully red. Her brand name down her arm so irritatingly sexy, all with that look in her eyes like she can’t wait to kick my a
ss on the track and we both know she can. I am never gonna get this image unburned from my eyes, for a bunch of good reasons and a whole bunch of bad ones.

  “Massimo,” my mother scolds, still snapping pictures of Dario’s ecstatic face. Chiara cracks up laughing, and this cannot be happening.

  “This is the brand-new one that just came out,” Dario says, his eyes gorging on every pixel of the image before him. It’s only from her hips up, but with the way she’s twisting and holding her flexed bicep, she takes up the whole damn paper. “No one is gonna have this one yet and—it’s signed! Oh my God, it’s signed!” He lets out a noise I didn’t think the men in my family were capable of. I wince, wiggling my finger in my ear. “She actually freaking signed it!”

  I glare at Vinicio, cracking up in my kitchen. “You’re welcome, buddy. I’m glad you like it.” He crosses over and leans down to hug Dario, my brother bouncing with joy as my mother captures the moment to remember for all time, and I hate my life. Bunch of traitors.

  “Open mine next.” Chiara points at the suspiciously red box in front of my brother.

  “I swear to God,” I say under my breath, but she still read my lips and bursts out laughing even harder, doing a little victory dance that all but confirms whatever is in there is Dabria themed. Not Yaalon.

  “Can’t.” Dario pushes Vinicio away, lays the poster on his lap, then shoves his chair back from the table and flies across the kitchen, down the ramp, and zooms down the hallway toward his bedroom, cutting the apex perfectly. “I gotta hang this up!”

  I shake my head, looking over the VR headset and brand new mobile phone forgotten on the table. Chiara mockingly pouts at me, collecting the rest of the trash and balling it up before she throws it away. “Oh, suck it up, star. Did you really expect any different? She’s been his favorite racer for years, and that’s not changing.”

  “Wish it would.” My mom swipes through the pictures she just took before she locks her phone, her jaw, and then her arms across her chest.