Page 50 of Red Flag
I’d waited for his return. His bike had come back nearly an hour ago. During his interviews, where I should have been, I sat and watched everyone leave.
Now, the pit box only had a couple of mechanics getting the bikes ready to be transported to the next track.
“You kissedArabella!” I shrieked as I stormed over to him, pointing a finger at his chest.
“Who?” he asked, still laughing on the high of his win as one of the mechanics clapped his back.
“Arabella!”
Again, he gave me one of those looks that repeated his question, his brow raised, his lips questioning.
“The grid girl!”
His brows went in the opposite direction. “Olivia, your memory is shocking. You told me to kiss her. She’s my ‘girlfriend’, of course—” he said, even using air quote marks.
“Your ‘girlfriend’ is Clara! Clara! Remember?Claaaaara!”
“Who?”
I turned away from him, unable to look at his stupid face. He was the most infuriating man on the planet. He had to be winding me up.
“Clara! You took a picture together on your Instagram. You kissed her before last week’s race. You mentioned her in your interview! But today, you kissed adifferentgrid girl calledArabella!”
He shrugged a shoulder and went to his bag onCris’ desk. His phone was there waiting for him. “They look the same.”
I could choke, my angry words stuck in my throat because how did this man have the audacity? “Arabellahas a fringe!”
He stopped scrolling through his notifications and looked up at me through his lashes. “And Clara couldn’t cut a fringe?”
“This is… oh my god!” I lifted a trembling hand to my head. I had to be coming down with something. This was a fever dream. “They look nothing alike!Arabellais Hispanic. Clara is Caucasian.”
He didn’t look back down at his phone. “Maybe if you picked a girl I actually liked—”
“You like no one!”
His stare turned angry, brows down, but he said softly, “That’s not true.”
But it was. I’d seen glimpses of relationships with other riders. But Nix’s most tumultuous relationship was with Nix.
“You don’t even like yourself!”
He threw his helmet on the floor with a loud boom. He glared at me as he shouted, “Everyone out! Get out!”
The few mechanics still around all escaped in the time it took me to inhale.
He prowled forward, his steps slow and measured. “I don’t like how you’re trying to run my life, this clean, good-boyimage you’re trying to give me. I don’t like who you are trying to turn me into. I likemyselfplenty. My true self, not thispreppygentleman you’re pushing to the cameras.”
By the time he stopped talking, he was only inches away from me. I had stepped back into one of the metal pillars.
I glanced behind him for any of those cameras because before me was not the gentleman he mentioned. Before me was The True NixonArmas.
All the press were long gone. I should have been, too.
“Do you know how many people refused the job of being your publicist?”
“I don’t care,” he said and, our feet nearly touching, he reached out to pull the lever above my head. The garage doors of the pit box started to veer down, casting us in shadow. The only light was the yellow one onCris’ desk.
He looked down at me as they continued to close, his eyes flickering across my face.
