Page 50 of Speeding Hearts

I stood up and as I did, I was startled to see that the same handsome dude who’d been talking to Stella was the one currently chatting with Victoria. From the way he was talking to her, he didn’t look sleazy, just genuinely friendly. Which maybe was worse. Maybe Stella was actually interested in him. The jealousy swirled in my stomach like something rotten.

I turned back to the crowd. If Stella was staring at him, I’d have my answer.

But the spot she’d been in a moment before was filled with someone else. She was gone.

“She is leaving,” said the European guy in his stilted English.

I whipped my face toward him. “Leaving? Or she left?”

“She is left,” he said, not helping. “Stella, you are looking for, yes?”

I glanced at Victoria. The hurt was still there in her eyes, but so was a flicker of something else. Excitement. The thrill of the dude next to her.

Good, they could have each other. I needed to find Stella.

Chapter 16

Stella

The excitementI’d gotten from qualifying was still buzzing when I showed up to the Rox. And when everyone flipped out seeing me in a dress and heels, I was flying high.

Or a least, as high as I could be with the strange feeling that my heart had been dipped in lead.

I’d put on the dress and heels on a whim. My brother Hank’s girlfriend Casey had sent them to me when they learned about the fire at the motel. Both Hank and Will had threatened to fly over here when they heard, but I’d enlisted Casey to help talk them down. The last thing I needed was my brothers nosing around my life in Oak Bend.

Casey and Hank were still figuring things out when I left Jewel Lakes, but in her note, Casey said she had me to thank for talking sense into him. Me! As if I knew anything about love. Case had great style though, I had to admit, as I’d stood in front of the tiny mirror in the camper’s bathroom.

But only a few minutes after I arrived at the Rox, everything changed.

Dean Hughes—the source of that weight in my chest—was hunched over the bar.

The strangest feeling ran through me: a tornado of joy and heartbreak all swirled together. Joy at seeing him. Heartbreak at where we were.

Then whatever dregs of elation I felt drained out of me as I saw who he was talking to.

Dean was here for Victoria, the woman he supposedly had no feelings for anymore, but he couldn’t find the time to show up for me. Even if they were just friends, so were we. And not only had he not shown up for me, but he couldn’t even spend even an ounce of energy wishing me luck? He had to have known I was racing today. His mom—my landlord—knew, and I knew she told him everything. The few times she’d come down to the trailer to check in on me, she’d asked me so many questions.How’s the racing going? Are you being safe? Are you practicing those outside corners?I’d laughed. His mom seemed to know more about the track than anyone, though I chalked it up to her brother running the place. She was so sweet it hurt.

Especially now, as anger rushed in, making me ball my hands into fists.

Dean should have been the one asking all those questions. Checking in on me. Why couldn’t he just be a decent friend? Why couldn’t he be there when I needed him? Even if he didn’t want to be involved in the racing anymore, he could have at least checked in.

Hell, even a fraction of the text conversations we used to have all day would’ve been enough. A fuckinghello.

But was that the truth? Was that all I wanted from him?

“Stella?” From somewhere outside the storm cloud in my chest, I heard my name.

Fabrizio.

A moment ago, he’d been making me laugh with an impression of Colin.

I don’t a-know about that.Fake spit.

Colin, standing right next to him, had split his sides laughing.

I’d never seen him in such good spirits. Shame I couldn’t grab any of them back on command. Not with Dean here.

“Stella,” Fabrizio said. “I getting grappa for everyone. You too?”

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