Page 13 of Green Flag
Unless I risked it all.
This had been my plan to make my family proud of me. I didn’t know if that was possible anymore.
Some of the guys went to a restaurant nearby, knocking on my hotel room door, and asking me to come for the distraction, with sympathetic eyes and smiles.
I just wanted to wallow in my own self-pity. Alone.
I never drank before a race. Never.
But a whiskey was calling my name.
A couple of drinks in the empty bar, just enough to get me to sleep without my thoughts spiralling, and I’d be good. Better.
I didn’t trust myself to drink without supervision. The bartender gave me the same smile as my friends did. I was known fucking everywhere as the sad boy.
And Cris telling me to blame him swirled in my mind as the whiskey did in the glass. I might not want to admit it, but he was partly to blame. His team neglected the helmet. He was the director of the team.Histeam were the letdown.
My throat burned with how quickly I downed my drinks, not wanting to blame anyone but myself. Even if I knew how ridiculous that was.
It all made me want to drink harder. Risk it all. Get back at Ciclati. Getout.
But that would only prove them right, wouldn’t it?
This would be my final one. My nightcap. I swirled the remaining two fingers of whiskey, trying to bide my time.
I wanted to be alone.
I just didn’t want to feel it.
I wanted to be unknown. I wanted to be far away from all of this shit.
The bartender looked up with another sad smile as he took an empty glass from before me. But his half-ass attempt at sympathy broke as the sound of heels clicking their way over brought me out of my stupor.
He grinned at her, eyes travelling up and down as she settled onto the barstool, only one away from me.
I glanced over, only to freeze on the spot, breath caught in my throat.
Long, tanned legs. Shiny, dark curls. A confidence that radiated from the glow of her perfect, tanned skin in that tiny dress.
I had to remind myself to swallow because, if not, I wouldn’t be drooling over a phone like usual, but the bar.
Everly Bacque.
The one and only Everly Bacque was sitting beside me.
And I was done for.
3
Chapter 3
Everly
The bar was dark and dull. A generic hotel bar, hidden from the families at the back of the ground floor. It was large enough to host the festivities of Sunday, after the final race, when the winners — undoubtedly Nix and Frank Feldtt — would celebrate. But for a Saturday night, it was dead. The only drinkers were a smoking couple in a booth in the far corner and the man at the bar nursing a drink.
That was fine. The men I intended to flirt with were the security at the track. I just needed a little drink of encouragement.
I wasn’t one to go to bars alone. Normally, wherever I wanted to go out, I had some acquaintances ready for a drink or five. But the grid girls had all changed in the last four years, and though I knew a few faces, I didn’t want questions about the last fouryears, and if the inquiry into me came up, I might simply die on the spot. Or yawn loudly in their face.
