Page 33 of Revved up & Ready

Her ex is skirting that line pretty dangerously, though. He’s been in my direct messages talking all kinds of shit. Normally, I wouldn’t engage with things like that, but I’m close to breaking my own rules for that little fucker.

Some days, I wish I could scrap my social media altogether, but my online presence is key to staying in racing. It’s funding this season and setting me up so that next year, I’ll be on theIncite Energyteam. I doubt I’ll ever be free of it, but at least I’ll be able to scale it back so it’s not a second full-time job.

Ian: Looking forward to meeting her at a race soon.

Me: Can’t wait to introduce you.

If she comes to any more.I still don’t know what happened with Sadie at the race yesterday. She didn’t show up by the pit board until halfway through, and she wouldn’t talk to me about it last night or this morning when I asked how the race was for her.Something isn’t right.

Slipping my phone into my pocket, I step over Luke’s sleeping pit bull, Betty, and find a spot at his workbench that gives me a perfect view of Sadie—who brought her work toTurbine Cafétoday.

“I think I finallygetit.” I point through the wall of windows separating Luke’s motorcycle shop from Allie’s coffee shop.

He continues porting the intake he’s been working on for the last fifteen minutes, but I know he’s listening.

“You want to be close to her, keep her safe, talk to her whenever you want, and obviously, it’s awesome to be able to see your girl all the time,” I say, leaning across the worn wooden surface.

That grabs his attention away from the disassembled engine long enough to find his girlfriend through the glass, mouth turning into a half smile.

Sadie combs her fingers through the pink-tipped ends of her hair over and over as she reads something on her screen.Mustbe something she does when she’s concentrating.

“But I never thought about how it would be to watch her work,” I tell Luke. “I like learning her habits.”

Luke nods, but the movement turns into a shake a few seconds later when my words register. He stops his work and stands up from his stool. “Are you talking about how nice it is to stare at Allie?” His voice is a mixture of confusion and irritation.

“Don’t make it weird.” I scoff, spinning the screw on a Crescent wrench, opening and closing it as I continue to watch Sadie. “I’m not staring ather. She’s my best-friend-in-law.”

He shakes his head. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“She came up with it.” I shrug, pointing the wrench toward Allie.

He looks through the glass at her, then back to me. “Alright,” he grumbles. “Not thedumbest.” He starts toward his stool but stops again. “Whoareyou talking about?”

Betty—still mostly asleep—huffs a breath and rolls her heavy head onto my foot.Maybe she thinks it’s as ridiculous as I do that he had to ask.Sadie kissed me at the race.She kissed me.Actually, my helmet, but that’s almost more significant.

“Sadie,” I answer.

He abandons his work altogether and moves over to block my view. “We talked about this.”

Tilting my head, I ask, “Did we?” Even though we have.Multiple times. He knows I’m into her, and he warned me not to get into anything casual with her.I haven’t.

The conversation with Ian was just another reminder that I need this to work, but Sadie needs it to work too. She needs the confidence boost of letting her ex and everyone else know she’s moved on. She needs to prove to herself that she can do risky things and pull them off.

Weneed this to work, and if our friends don’t know, it won’t. She’s nervous they’ll figure out the truth and keeps telling me I won’t be able to keep a secret from Luke because he knows me too well.And if Luke knows, Allie will know. And if Allie knows, everyone will know.

Her mind works like that—in dominoes. One small, fairly reasonable thing knocks down another small, fairly reasonable thing, and then another, and another, and eventually, it’s a giant, unmanageable pile of things that are no longer fairly reasonable. Every time I see her start to spiral like that, I want to hold her and tell her she doesn’t have to feel that way. I want to pick up all her dominoes, but I haven’t figured out how yet.

“You know she’s fresh out of a relationship.” Luke’s voice pulls me from my thoughts. “That asshole really did a number on her. She’s not ready for—” he huffs a breath almost identical to the one Betty just let out, “—whatever it is you think you want from her.”

“Not ready?” Frustration I rarely feel with my best friend heats my neck. “She tell you that? Do you often ask Sadie how she feels? Do you ask her what she wants?”

“Do you?” he counters.

“Yes,” the word comes out loud enough that an elderly woman sitting at a table on theTurbine Caféside of the glass looks up at me. I give her a sheepish smile and shrug.

“She’s vulnerable,” Luke says.

Making sure to lower my voice, I say, “Sadie is wounded, but she’s working hard to heal. Shehashealed from so much of it already.”

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