Page 3 of The Pumpkin Spice Proposal
At least, that’s what I told myself as I tried to ignore the tiny voice asking why I suddenly cared who Ben’s best friend might be.
CHAPTER2
Mario
The next morning,I woke up to the enemy.
Sunlight.
It streamed through the guest room window at the Sage house like a cheerful interrogation lamp, demanding I acknowledge another day I hadn’t asked for.
“Mario, breakfast is almost ready.”
As if I couldn’t smell the bacon wafting up the stairs.
My own mama could yell down the house, so I didn’t hesitate to call back. “Coming, Mrs. Sage.”
Below, the house hummed with life—pans clattering in efficient rhythm, small feet thundering down the hall. A normal family morning. To me, it felt like trying to breathe underwater.
For ten years, my mornings had followed a different protocol. Physio at six. Data analysis by seven. Track walks, strategy meetings, the controlled chaos of the pit lane. The soundtrack was engine whine, radio chatter, and the precise click of tools on carbon fiber. Now it was this—a domestic symphony in a key I didn’t recognize.
I swung my legs out of bed, and the floorboards protested with a groan. My best friend’s old room was a time capsule: soccer trophies lined up like tiny golden soldiers, faded posters of bands I’d never bothered to learn, a bookshelf packed with fantasy novels. Everything lived-in and comfortable. Everything I’d never had time for on my way to the top. Now I was a refugee hiding in its cozy chaos.
I pulled on my uniform of anonymity—jeans, gray henley, the kind of clothes that made people’s eyes slide right past you. The mirror was a tactical error. My reflection showed fatigue etched in every line, plus the purple shadow of a bruise high on my cheekbone. A souvenir from my last dance with physics and a concrete barrier. The media had called it a “spectacular crash.” For me, it had been silent. The world went quiet when the engine died, everything suspended in that terrible moment before the noise and pain rushed back.
Coming to Autumn Grove was Ben’s solution. “Lay low,” he’d said from Michigan to my hospital bed in Monaco. “Let the circus die down. Mom will feed you until you burst. It’s the perfect to hide. Who would look for you here?”
Ben had even sorted out a tiny rental cottage two blocks off Main—small, drafty, and exactly the kind of anonymous place I preferred. For now I was crashing at his mother’s, but I’d signed a lease to stay in town through December. It was somewhere to sleep, close enough if I needed help, and far enough away to pretend I wasn’t being looked after.
My best friend had failed to mention his mother would look at me like a wounded sparrow, or that the family’s relentless cheerfulness felt like being pelted with marshmallows. I was grateful—I should be grateful. But all I felt was displaced, a ghost haunting someone else’s happiness.
The kitchen was mission control for the Sage family operation. Mrs. Sage, Margaret, commanded the stove, flipping pancakes with military precision. Ben hunched over his phone, bacon dangling forgotten from his fingers. And Olivia—Lily’s seven-year-old daughter—sat at the table creating art with blueberries, arranging them into what looked suspiciously like a racecar.
“Mario, dear! You’re awake!” Margaret’s voice could power a small city with its warmth. She gestured with her spatula like a conductor, as if she hadn’t just yelled up the stairs at me to get moving.
She smiled. “Pancakes? Eggs? I made extra of everything.”
“Coffee.” My voice came out rougher than I intended, like gravel in a gearbox.
Ben glanced up from his screen. “Sleep okay?”
“Fine.” The lie came automatically. I hadn’t slept more than three hours straight since Monaco.
“Mom’s making pot roast tonight,” he said, taking a deliberate bite of bacon. “Fair warning.”
Another family dinner. Another performance where I pretended to be a functional human being instead of spare parts looking for a purpose.
I poured coffee into a mug that proclaimed “World’s Best Grandma” in cheerful purple letters. The irony wasn’t lost on me. I’d spent my career drinking from sponsored cups, everything branded and calculated. This was just coffee in a grandmother’s mug, and somehow that felt more foreign than racing at Monza.
Leaning against the counter, I tried to blend into the cabinetry. Olivia looked up from her blueberry engineering project, studying me with the intensity of a chief mechanic inspecting a suspension setup.
“Half of your face is purple,” she announced, as if this were breaking news. “I could put some makeup on it if you want. To hide it.”
“Olivia,” Margaret warned gently.
“It’s fine.” I met the kid’s gaze directly. In racing, you never showed weakness, but children operated under different rules. “I ran into a wall.”
She considered this with the seriousness of a technical steward. “Did the wall win?”
