Page 70 of Rush
Savi was sitting on the edge of the claw-foot bathtub in her hotel room, dressed in her pyjamas and moments away from falling into bed. Except she was actually moments away from walking down to Marco’s room and giving him a hug.
He had wheeled Weston all around Le Mans, playing tour guide to her family and not once complaining about how much strength it took to push a six-foot-something ex-athlete over cobbled pathways. Weston’s expensive new wheelchair was no match for those cobbles. They’d made it to the cathedral after all and found Calvin a magnet. Both experiences that everyone had soaked up every moment of until Weston started to say that his medication was making him sleepy. He’d been on anti-depressants for two years, something Savi had briefly tried to keep her anxiety under control; she had just concluded she would rather keep any kind of medication out of her system.
Deciding that her need to thank him overruled the voice in her head telling her they needed some space between them after spending so much time together recently, she made her way down the corridor and pressed the button to buzz the elevator up to his floor. The rooms next to hers were empty; waiting for Kodie and Miko to fill them when they showed up tomorrow.
She tapped on the door lightly, sort of hoping he wouldn’t hear it so she could run back to bed. It was one a.m.,and they were supposed to have had an early night, but she hadn’t been able to sleep. One second, her mind was on Jesse, angry at herself for sticking by him for so long when she knew there hadn’t been a future there. Then the next, it was on Marco and all the times she’d thought she felt something and squashed it down in favour of being loyal to the man who wasn’t treating her like a partner. She had only known Marco was awake because the group chat was alive thanks to him and Brett bickering back and forth about mundane crap.
‘You’re still up?’ he said, looking surprised but not confused to see her standing at his door at this time of night. He beckoned her in, closing the door softly behind her.
‘Couldn’t sleep,’ she shrugged. ‘And I realised I haven’t thanked you for today. For taking my family under your wing and showing them round. In fact, I haven’t thanked you for coming back to Wyoming with me, either, and helping me decorate and picking up the pieces when Jesse left. You’ve really gone above and beyond for us all, and you’ve opened Weston’s world up again and–’
‘Savannah,’ he interrupted, ‘you don’t have anything to thank me for. I’ve had the best couple of weeks getting to know you on a deeper level, living out my cowboy fantasies.’
‘But still, you didn’t have to do any of it,’ she mumbled.
‘I wanted to. It’s as simple as that.’
‘Thank you.’ She said it again, one last time, but this time he clamped his hand over her mouth, and she let out a muffled laugh. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank–’
‘Shut up, Cowgirl. Do you want to stay and watchsomething? We have a few episodes of that show left. I know we have to be up early, but–’
‘Yep,’ she nodded. ‘Which side of the bed is yours?’
‘Left.’
She leapt up onto his king-sized mattress in her leopard print PJs and fluffy slippers, brought halfway across the world with her for the first time ever, and settled into his sheets, the pillows nearly swallowing her whole. ‘You coming?’
He raised an eyebrow at her, eyes raking her body in that way he’d done so often and she had ignored. ‘How does such a small person take up so much space?’
‘It’s my big heart,’ she grinned. ‘I require the extra room.’
‘Yeah, well, hope you don’t mind some physical contact because I’m not watching TV from the far-left hand side of such a humongous mattress.’
Savi raised her eyebrows, feigning a threatened look because in truth, that small dose of physical contact with someone who knew her and respected her may well have been what she’d come looking for tonight. So, she really, really didn’t mind.
29
Marco watched as Savannah’s eyes lit up with every merch tent they passed, every food truck or display of historic cars. They’d walked the twenty-five minutes from their hotel to the circuit so they could take in everything at their own pace, appreciating the walk despite it being the crack of dawn and their eyes barely being open.
One episode last night had turned into two, then three, and before they knew it they’d had three hours’ sleep, nose to nose. They had somehow managed to wake up before their alarms went off, and then Savannah had high-tailed it back to her room to change.
They were expected to wear official team clothing all week because Le Mans was so high profile; the media were constantly on the prowl for drivers to interview, and the cameras were always rolling to get B-roll footage ready for the international television broadcast over the weekend. Marco’s dream of matching cowboy gear would have to wait. He wore his usual red tee and black jeans, and Savi had borrowed his spare black tee after deciding that her own red one didn’t hang off her body the way she wanted it to. She wanted oversized for fashion purposes, and the team had only supplied her with fitted.
Marco felt somewhat smug that she was wearing his shirt, he just couldn’t help but wish it were in an entirely differentcontext. Still, they walked into the paddock hand in hand, having not quite worked out how and when or even if to tell people they were no longer a couple and never really had been. As far as Marco was concerned, the threat of those indecent photos being linked to Savannah was still looming over her, and therefore he didn’t intend to go anywhere.
‘De Luca, my boy.’ Brett clapped him on the back in a bone-crushing embrace, ‘Savi, my lady. How was your little Western getaway?’
‘Do not ever call me “My Lady”, this isn’t the eighteen-hundreds,’ she tutted. ‘But it wasreallygood. Please excuse me while I go and find Kodie and Meeks, catch up later!’
They watched her in silence as she headed into the garage, and then the second she was out of earshot, Brett pounced with all the questions he’d been dying to ask.
‘So how was it, meeting the parents?’ he smirked.
‘It must have gone well because they’re here with us.’
‘No way, man! That’s amazing. What are they like?’
‘Everything I expected them to be and more. Being with them felt like I was at home away from home, and honestly? I’m sad that we had to leave.’
