Page 82 of Double Apex

Aislinn may have gotten the last hug, but dammit, I got the last race.

Mo didn’t make it ’til Spa. He died on Wednesday the twenty-eighth, four days before the Belgian Grand Prix. Reece made an announcement at the press conference on Thursday.

Natalia unexpectedly flew back from Europe on Friday to be with me for the sea burial on Saturday, yesterday.

“You’rehere!” I gasped when I found her hauling a suitcase to the front door from her Uber. “Why?”

She paused in her climb up the wooden steps, giving me a baffled look. “Why?” Her expression went resolute. “Because we’ve both been stupid and stubborn, and I can’t take this careful distance between us anymore. It’s done, Phae.”

“You didn’t have to do this. I don’t need—”

“Enough.” She stepped onto the porch and retracted her bag’s tow handle with a smack, then pulled me into her arms. “We’re not doing this BS anymore, the thing where you pretend you’re too tough to need me, and I pretend—because my feelings are hurt about being rejected—that I’m too self-absorbed tonoticeyou pushing me away.” She pulled back and gave me a little shake. “No more hiding for either of us.”

“But—”

“You’re afraid our friendship can’t be what it used to be. I get it; I’m scared too. But you know what? It’s going to bebetter.”

She dragged her suitcase past me into the entryway.

“Now go take a shower. I’m gonna fry us up a foot-high stack of grilled cheese sandwiches, then we’ll both have a boatload of carbs and a good cry.”

I couldn’t have gotten through the burial without her. Theuseful thing about grief, I suppose, is it forces you to strip off your disguise and be real. I don’t think I’ve ever felt closer to Nat than in the past twenty-four hours.

What a difference a day makes, as Cosmin once observed.

Today’s the grand prix, and we’re at the main house in Charlotte, in front of the monolith-size TV. In the open kitchen, Mama and Aislinn are deep in a project making brioche. They’ve been keeping busy and talking very little, dealing with the loss in their own way.

My coping strategy, per usual, is obsessing over data. My iPad is on my lap and I’m chewing black licorice, which Mo always said is good for focus. He and I were the only people in the family who liked it, and as I snap off bites and squint at my tablet, I can almost imagine he’s here with me.

Periodically, I look up to inspect the prerace coverage, but I’m doing my best to pretend I’m more interested in the numbers. One of my peeks coincides with a shot of Cosmin sitting in the car, and it’s like a backhand smack of anxiety and lust. I go stiff, and in my peripheral vision I feel Nat studying me.

“You’refor sure, for sureabout the breakup?” she ventures, her voice all sympathy.

I stop her with an icy glare, then—remembering we’re committed to openness and honesty now—soften my expression.

“Nat? Not today. I can’t talk about Cosmin, okay? We sent Mo on a permanent vacation to Davy Jones’s fucking locker yesterday, and this is the first race he won’t see, and—” My throat tightens. “It was practically his dying wish that I not tank Emerald by banging our star driver.”

Nat’s eyes flick toward the kitchen. “He didn’t actuallytellyou that.”

“He didn’t have to specifically. Linn said he was disappointed.” I jab at the iPad screen. “I know what’s expected of me as owner.”

The moment of silence for Mo before the race almost breaks me. Mama and Linn go quiet, coming to stand behind the sofa, all of us staring at the TV.

The coverage cycles through shots of the mechanics in the garage with heads bowed, the pit crew, crowds in the stands, the team members on the pit wall, and finally Jakob and Cosmin—solemn eyes framed by helmets.

As the tribute concludes, the camera is still on Cosmin. His dark gold lashes sweep up, and I die a little, missing him, seeing my own grief mirrored in his eyes thousands of miles away.

The camera zeroes in on Klaus, whose handsome, angular face is bleak. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Nat press a hand to her chest in her caged-heart gesture.

“H-he just looks really upset,” she falters when I give her a critical look.

She’s not wearing the emerald pendant anymore and claims she’s “over it.” She even went on a date with a new guy—another journalist (who turned out to be a jerk), but something tells me the Klaus and Nat saga isn’t quite done.

I don’t press her on it. Part of being honest, rather thansaying everything, is knowing when to shut up and give each other a break. We’re learning.

On lap 16 of the race, João Valle creates a disaster at the Eau Rouge corner and the ensuing three-car clusterfuck takes Cosmin out, along with Mateo Ortiz. No one is hurt, thankfully. In a sense I’m glad Mo didn’t see this, because it would’ve been a shitty final race. Better that he imagined it as Cosmin’s first number one.

The stunning dipshittery takes Valle up to twelve penalty points for the season, which will most certainly result in a race ban. There’s a high probability Team Harrier will put their rockstar female reserve driver—Sage Sikora, the woman I begged for Emerald to hire last year—into Valle’s seat.

---