Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 23821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 119(@200wpm)___ 95(@250wpm)___ 79(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 23821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 119(@200wpm)___ 95(@250wpm)___ 79(@300wpm)
I didn’t even have to agree. We both knew it was true even though neither of us ever gave the secret voice.
“But if you were with him, wouldn’t they be your folks anyway?”
“That would be different.”
“I guess. But he misses the hell out of you, he tells me all the time. It’s not fair the way you punish him for your weakness.”
“I know,” I retorted irritably and went back to staring at the cracks in the wall.
Later, Mrs. Dacien, the only mother I had ever known, stood with me.
“You love your job so much?”
It was an odd conversation to start. “I’m moving up,” I explained. “That’s good, right?”
“Yes,” she agreed, her eyes clouded. “That’s good.”
There was obviously something on her mind. “What?”
“The time when anyone else could take your place,” she said, “that’s long past. Even Ancel and I… our words carry little meaning.”
“What are you—”
“Varro. We’re talking about Varro.”
“Yeah, but what about him? I don’t—”
“Only you, Brian, not us,” she stated.
“Wait, you’re saying you don’t think he cares what you and Mr. Dacien think about the racing? That’s not true. He—”
“Not just about the racing. About anything.”
“No—”
“Stop.” She held up a hand. “I’m not a fool. There’s only one person he believes and listens to and heeds.”
“Heeds.” I snorted out a laugh.
“It’s true,” she insisted. “You’re the one he saw in the window and invited into his life. You’re the one who never said stop, only go. He’s used to looking over his shoulder and seeing you there, and now you’re not.”
“He has his life and I have mine.”
“No.”
I shook my head. “I can’t be his shadow for the rest of my life.”
“That’s not what he needs.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“Only for a little while, one season only.”
“But I’m working and going to school and—”
“You can work for him, and school can be done on the Internet, Brian.”
And of course his sponsor would pay me, and yes, I could do my coursework online, but why should I have to?
Why did I always have to follow him?
“It’s not fair of you to ask me for anything.”
“Isn’t it?”
Shit. The guilt card.
“Brian?”
My gaze locked on hers. “You don’t know what you’re really asking.”
“I do. But understand this, for him, for you, for Nico—it would be the same request. It’s not you for Varro, or because I saved you, now you have to save him.”
“Are you sure?”
Her eyes blazed in that way that I knew, from years of shared space, that she was furious. “If the roles were reversed, and Varro needed you—this would be the same conversation.”
“Yes, but that could never happen, right? He’s the one who’s scary, not me. Not Nico.”
She nodded. “This is true, so we will never be able to test this.”
I was going to say something, anything, to wriggle free.
“But,” she said softly, but somehow thunderously at the same time. Her voice blew right through me, “that doesn’t mean that you can use that to say no.”
Everything froze. I could feel my lungs constrict. “You don’t get it.”
“I do.” She nodded. “And I don’t care what sacrifices you need to make right now because, again, I would ask the same of Varro, or Nico, if the roles were reversed.”
Would she? Or was she asking me because I wasn’t hers, and she loved Varro more? She would use me to make sure he stayed in one piece.
“He loves you best, Brian, that can’t be changed. And because of that, this is all on you.”
It wasn’t fair.
“Please, Brian,” she entreated, squeezing my hands.
I wanted to ask: Do you care if by some miracle your son falls in love with me? Do you care if it physically pains me to be near him and not be his? Am I so expendable? And more… it was like returning to my childhood.
I was again a foster kid whose life was constantly unsettled, who was displaced over and over, and whose whole world had been one giant upheaval. I craved stability, and I wouldn’t get it. More than anything I wanted a home, and that dream too would have to wait. All in ruins because of this, because of what Varro needed.
“Brian,” Nico said at my ear, suddenly there.
I couldn’t tear my eyes from Mrs. Dacien’s dark-brown ones, the ones she had passed on to her son.
“Brian.”
The first time my name was spoken, it was Nico. I’d been conditioned to ignore him by years of close quarters.
But the second time, it was Mr. Dacien, and she commanded too much respect for me to not give him my full attention. I met his gaze.
“He’s asking for you.”
I was furious because they all expected me to do the right thing. I was just supposed to go in there and give up my life because Varro needed me? How was that fair?
“Brian?”
Mrs. Dacien squeezed my forearm gently before she put her hand to my cheek. I covered it briefly with my own and then made my way down the hall. Moving at a clip, I passed the socialite and the crew and the assorted entourage until I was standing again in the doorway of his room.