Page 8 of Rush
Savi bit her lip and eyed the coffee table where her trusty black hat sat waiting. She had only left it in the trailer because she’d been in a rush after Marco had irritated her earlier, otherwise it would have been firmly planted on her head for the first day of media duties.
‘I should’ve known.’ He feigned genuine disappointment, picking it up and placing it on his head. ‘Do you actually wear this, like… in public?’
‘Please take that off your head immediately.’ She snatched it back from him and blushed, memories of four summers ago coming back to haunt her.
‘Okay, sensitive about the hat. Noted.’ He smirked at her again, but in her head, Marco’s smirk was replaced with Jesse’s. The owner of said hat.
He had been wearing it the summer they met at the Sheridan County Fair and less than six hours later, she’d been wearing it on her own head while they… she… never mind. That saying, wear the hat, ride the cowboy? Well, that had been the start of her and Jesse’s journey. A journey which she feared may be about to end during the most important summer of her life.
Marco De Luca was no cowboy, and he was definitely no Jesse Montalvo. That cowboy hat wasn’t his to wear.
4
Savi was all dressed up in her Revolution Racing race suit and she felt like a million bucks, even if she’d had to abandon the cowboy boots for the day to meet health and safety standards. The adrenaline that had been coursing through her veins since she woke up that morning only heightened when Jesse’s name appeared on her phone screen for the first time all week in bold, white letters, her favourite photo of him staring back at her.
‘Hi, baby.’ His deep, gravelly tone sent shivers down her spine. ‘How’s my superstar?’
‘I’m good, better now I finally get to hear your voice.’
‘You can hear my voice any time you turn on a country music station on the radio, darlin’.’
‘You know that’s not my Jesse, that’s the Jesse Montalvo the rest of the world gets access to. The shiny, polished version.’
‘Ah, yeah, I forget you like it rough.’ She could practically hear the smirk in his tone, and she went weak at the knees.
Jesse Montalvo, her secret boyfriend of four years, was a global country music sensation. Born and raised in Story, Wyoming, just twenty minutes away from Sheridan, he was one of few people who had ever made it out of the state and been launched into stardom before he could legally drink. Savi was close behind him.
He was touring North America, so he’d been singing love songs to everyone but her and she had been wrapped up in pre-race season preparation. They hadn’t seen each other for four months, and there was only so much they could do over video calls and texts. It had been four years of hiding in the shadows and pursuing their dreams, the trials and tribulations of a long-distance relationship still not quite destroying that spark they’d had when they first met.
Even now when there was so much pressure on her shoulders, he was there as her safety net, reminding her where she came from and how hard she had worked to get there. If anyone could make her believe she deserved this, it was him.
‘How’s the tour going?’ She never liked the answer to that question. He always told her how incredible it was to do something he was so passionate about, and she knew what that was like. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was she had never been part of his world, and he had never been part of hers. Not when it came to work. It always left a bitter taste in her mouth.
‘Well, I get a whole two weeks off come Sunday morning…’ His voice trailed off like he was more annoyed than happy about that.
‘Since when?!’
‘Since the arena in South Carolina got flooded and we had to reschedule. My stupid ass donated thirty grand to help fix it and now they’re not sure they can fit me into their schedule, so I’m gonna have to find a new venue and do a show later this month. Sucks for the fans.’
‘It was out of your hands, Jess.’ She imagined they would feel how motorsport fans felt when a race got red-flagged. She’d driven in a few of those, and it was never a nice feeling.
‘Mm. Anyway, I mentioned it because I want to fly you out during your break. It’s such a long one. You, me, two weeks in the mountains. Potentially a quick trip to Nashville if I can get security sorted out in time. I want to celebrate your first race with you since I can’t be there.’
‘I would love that.’
‘How about I send a jet to pick you up from Brussels tomorrow evening? You can fly overnight, and I’ll have someone meet you at the airport and bring you right to me.’
‘Can’t you come and get me yourself?’ she pouted, thankful that he couldn’t see her. She didn’t like to seem ungrateful, but she was tired of being ferried around by his security team. She just wanted to sit in the passenger seat of his truck, and she could only do that at home in Wyoming. Except they rarely went back there together these days, because locals liked to talk.
‘You know it’s not that simple, baby. Tell you what, I’ll wait on the side of the road a few miles away from the airport, security can drop you to me and you can switch cars. Then we can road trip into the mountains together.’
‘To your cabin, right?’
‘Exactly.’
She couldn’t help but smile at that. The journey to Jesse’s cabin was stunning, if not a bit treacherous as you got closer. They had spent many days holed up in there, away from prying eyes and soaking up their time together before one of them inevitably had to leave.
Sometimes she liked being a secret, but on days like today, she wanted him here. She wanted to run into his arms when she crossed the finish line, but as the years went on, she started to doubt if he would ever be willing to expose their relationship to the public.
