I wouldn’t lie and say I didn’t want to keep the house as our home base, but it seemed I was becoming more adaptable in myold age. Forty-nine now. I could take a breath and live a little. Take some risks. With her.
You have to tell her.
This race had been my mental line in the sand. I’d been giving us time to get used to living together. Giving myself time to get over my own hang-ups. But that time was now up.
“Do you mind?” I asked, snagging a water bottle from a random open cooler, not surprised at the genial nod I got in response. It was a mellow crowd, for a bunch of adrenaline junkies.
I reached the parking lot and saw her pacing next to her CRV. Her curls were held back in two French braids and she wore a cute pair of denim overalls over her cooling suit.
She was talking to herself, and I stopped to watch as tenderness filled my chest and wedged itself around my heart. She did that a lot—talked to herself when she was working on a story or a problem, or just wandering around the house with the dogs.
I loved that.
I loved seeing her dolled up for work at the icehouse one day and sitting at her computer with mismatched socks and three forgotten drinks on her desk the next.
I loved the way she could be in the middle of falling apart and set her problems aside the minute someone else needed her, the way she had with Todd and my niece.
I loved how she liked the way words sounded and edited herself mid-conversation to pick a better one.
I especially loved the way she crashed into sleep, and how lost she looked every time she woke up, like she’d been somewhere far away and couldn’t remember how she’d gotten back. And how, when her eyes finally focused on me, her smile always said she wasn’t at all mad about the change in location.
The more I knew about August Retta, the more I loved.
It wasn’t the idea of her anymore. It was the reality I was inlove with. The funny, anxious, reaction-video-watching, reality-challenged siren who teased me for wearing a headlamp and keeping extra caulk in the garage. The woman who could still blush five minutes after she’d dragged me to the bedroom for “research.” The woman who loved me covered in engine grease. Who refused to give up a twenty-year-old car named Myrtle because they’dbonded.
She was the one for me.
All I had to do was tell her.
“How are you doing, Gus?”
She bounced a little in her fire-retardant sneakers and glanced my way in acknowledgment, but didn’t stop pacing. “Hey, Wade. You know me. Doom-spiraling into a panic attack. Same old, same old. What are you doing out of the paddock? Or the pit, or home base—did you know you all call it something different? The race starts in less than an hour.”
“Thirty-five minutes now. You want to tell me what’s going on with you?”
“Not particularly, no.”
I held up the water bottle. “I brought something to make this conversation a little easier.”
Her eyes narrowed on it. “Are you using my trick on me?”
“It’s our thing now. This happens to be a bottle of water straight from the honesty pool.”
I had clearly lost my mind, but the spark of amusement in her eyes said she appreciated it, and that was all that mattered.
“No judgments, remember?” I continued, moving closer. “Just some straight talk to get whatever’s going on in your head off your chest. Did someone say something that upset you? A judge or one of the other teams?”
She snatched the water bottle out of my hand like a talking stick and started pacing again. “Everyone here is very friendly.Like Stepford friendly. Like they know you’re going to die, so they’re lulling you into a false sense of security friendly.”
“So when you said doom-spiraling, you weren’t emphasizing the doom enough. Have you ever considered writing horror?"
She smirked for a moment and met my gaze. “Fine. They’re genuinely decent people with no secret evil agenda. Is that better? Gene really stumbled onto something here. I’m not surprised Mom wanted to be a part of it. Iamsurprised that someone didn’t manage to talk me out of joining in before things got this far.”
I wasn’t about to remind her of my initial reaction. I leaned against the car and crossed my arms. “You don’t have to do it.”
“What was Ithinking?” she went on, as if she hadn’t heard me. “A few defensive driving lessons doesn’t make me that Danica chick. And I know there are better female drivers to mention, because she’s gone all lizard-people gonzo, but you know what I mean.”
Did I?
