Page 8 of Flat Out
I stuck it on the lid of the tin and set it gently on his nightstand. Then, as I leaned over to wake him, I paused. He looked small. Heneverlooked small. He always held himself tall and confident, a proud champion who'd come from nothing. My larger-than-life idol now lay broken before me. It wrecked me. How could I leave him like this?
Except I had to. I had to go be the woman who screamed into microphones and demanded better. The one who had to make the noise and burn the legacy of silence to the fucking ground.
I knelt on the bed once more and ran a hand over his cheek. “Callum,” I whispered, just loud enough for his lashes to flutter. "My love, I have to leave."
“Mmmph.” He stirred. “No. Stay.”
My heart cracked. “I need to go.”
He cracked one eye open. “Just got you back…”
I leaned in and kissed him—soft and slow. But when I pulled back, his hand slid up to cup my breast, gently. Possessively.
My lips parted and I giggled softly. “Callum.”
“Sorry,” he mumbled, sleep-drunk and needy. “Missed you. Want you everywhere.”
I laughed softly. “You can have me when you’re awake and able to breathe without pain, mon amour.”
He smiled. “Okay, love.”
“I’ll be back.”
“I know.”
If he clung to me again, I wouldn’t be able to go. If he asked me to stay one more time, I might. And then what? Lose the momentum? Delay the interviews? Risk the plan I’d already set in motion? I’d always been able to choose my career, my next step, but for the first time, I wanted someone more than I wanted control.
I forced myself to my feet and wandered down the hall to grab my bag before popping my head into his room for one last look, one last whisper even though he was sleeping.
“I love you.”
Because this was the love before the war, the breath before the scream, the balm before the blade.
And I was about to set the world on fire.
I woke up to darkness.A painful kind that clung and made me realize I wasmissing something.
The throbbing in my head had dulled, but it wasn’t gone. A ghost of a migraine still pulsed at my temples, and my neck ached like hell. I groaned as I rolled onto my back, one arm thrown over my eyes to shield them from the dim hallway light I’d apparently forgotten to turn off.
Then I caught a whiff of something—lavender. Soft and sweet, florally with some herbal undertones.
Aurélie.
Her name shot through me like a jolt of adrenaline. She’d been here. Not just in the dreamlike haze of my half-sleep. She’d beenhere. I remembered the way she smelled, the way she’d said my name, the way she spoke in French until I fell into a deep slumber to the sound of her voice. I remembered the weight ofher hand on my chest. The feel of her lips on my forehead. The whisper ofI’ll be back.
I turned my head. Her spot on the bed was empty, but her scent lingered, feeling like home and warmth and every comfort I’d ever known.
I blindly reached for my phone. The screen lit up like a damn nuclear reactor. I groaned at the sudden light, swiping my thumb on the screen so I could turn the brightness down.
347 unread texts. 217 DMs. Seemingly thousands of mentions. About my crash, the kiss before the race, the kiss before I was loaded into the ambulance. Aurélie in a dead sprint as she ran across the grass to get to me. The way I held her like she was the only thing tethering me to earth.
And then there were the clips and screenshots andtweets. She’d started a fucking revolution while I was passed out in bed.
I didn’t open social yet. I clicked into the group chat first.
Grid Gremlins
Me, Aurélie, Marco, Kimi
