“There’s nothing to figure out,” I bit out, pushing to my feet.
My friend just grinned, stepping back into the group as if I wasn’t seconds from coming undone. I turned away before I could fuck everything up.
At the bar, I ordered a drink and downed it before the bartendercould blink. It didn’t help. Nothing did. I gripped the edge of the counter, knuckles bone white, willing the tension to leave my body.
When the fuck did this stop being about racing?
My head spun. I squeezed my eyes shut, dragging in a slow breath. It didn’t work, because my body was still searching for her. Still on edge from that pull between us, that need.
My lids flicked open, and I turned my head. She was across the room, watching me. Just for a second, but long enough to feel it in my spine. Then she looked away and said something to Kimi. They fucking laughed again, like none of this meant a goddamn thing to her. Completely fucking unbothered by the events of the night.
Kimi caught me staring and dipped his chin, as if heknewmy internal battle. Then he leaned away from Aurélie, almost giving her space. Maybe to show me that he wasn't into her that way.
Something in me cracked straight down the middle. A hot, throbbing wound I couldn’t touch, couldn’t name. I exhaled sharply, dragging my hands through my hair, fighting off the irrational, unbearable feeling curling inside me.
The good news, though? All the alcohol finally hit. The bad news? It couldn’t touch the part of me that still felt her everywhere.
The bass rattledmy ribs and synced with my pulse in a way that felt more like a warning than an invitation. Part of me wanted to leave. Get into a car, go back to my hotel, take a shower, scrub this night off my skin. But I didn’t, because I was hell bent on ruining my own night. Running meant it was real. That it was about him and I was too tipsy to care anymore.
So I stayed, even as my mind screamed at me to flee. Even as the comfort of Kimi’s presence beside me did nothing to cool the fire still licking at my insides. Even as I pretended—pretended so fucking hard—that I wasn’t hyperaware of Callum.
I was unraveling, spiraling, I could still feel his hands covering mine, hear the way his zipper sounded as I pulled it down.
I tipped my head back in forced laughter at something Kimi said, the taste of liquor bitter on my tongue. It was easy, comfortable. Kimi was familiar and safe, but he wasn’t the one setting me on fire, nor was there any kind of romantic connection. There never had been, and never would be.
The truth clawing at the edges of my mind? Callum was the first man to make me feel anything since my ex and the affair that had broken me.
An ugly thing in my chest tore open, a deep, festeringwound I thought I’d stitched shut. But tonight, Callum had fucking ripped it open with his bare hands when that girl had slid under his arm like she’d been there a hundred times before.
I expected to feel that sharp, electric intensity of his stare, but he wasn’t watching me. He’d stopped a while ago—but I hadn’t. I tracked how he sat there on his phone, or nursed a drink with his shoulders hunched.
The same pit chaser from earlier sidled up next to him, her red-painted nails trailing lightly down his forearm as she encroached on his space, whispering something into his ear. He didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch. Just stared ahead, lost somewhere unreachable.
He wasn’t paying attention to her at all, not even a little. He wasn’t acting like the Callum Fraser I knew—all charm and cocky amusement, who should have had some fucking reaction to the girl practically pressing her tits against his bicep.
He was just… there. It threw me off my axis.
I was prepared for him to chase me, to want to make me jealous, to play another game. I wasnotprepared to see him withdraw like this—quiet and detached.
My stomach twisted violently, bile rising in my throat. Suddenly, I wasn’t standing in a club in Miami, watching a man ignore a woman throwing herself at him. I was back in F2. Back in the doorway of my ex’s office, where I stood frozen as he whispered sweet things into someone else’s ear. She wasn’t me. Just another woman who took something I didn’t know was breakable.
A woman who was the complete opposite of everything I was… just like these pit chasers.
I blinked, shoving it down. The pain, the heartache, the feelings of worthlessness. I had to compartmentalize.
It’s not the same.
I didn’t have a fucking claim on Callum. I had no right to feel like my stomach was caving in, like my blood was rushing in my ears, like I wanted to grab him by the collar and demand that he fucking look at me.
Did I care? I was the one who walked away, and if my body thought otherwise? I would drown it out. I simply needed to get out ofmy head. Out of this booth. Out of this stupid goddamn battle with myself. I just needed tofeelsomething else, something real. Not the version of us written in fan fiction where everything made sense; where rivals fucked and fell in love as if it was easy. As if the repercussions wouldn't outweigh the rewards.
The moment my empty glass hit the table, I slid out of the booth, smoothing my dress over my thighs, setting my shoulders like armor.
Kimi glanced up, brow raised. “Going somewhere?”
I flipped my hair over one shoulder, feigning nonchalance. “Yeah. To remind the world why they love me.”
They loved the fantasy. The curated edits. The fanfics where I always got the guy. But this wasn’t fiction. This was messier, hotter, real.
