But the more I accelerate, the less I hear. She’s not talking to me. The noises aren’t the same. “Goddammit, Becks! This car is shit! I thought you checked everything. It’s—”

“Nothing’s wrong with the car, Colton.”

“Bullshit! It’s shuddering like a bitch and is gonna come apart once I open her up,” I grate out, pissed at that placating tone in his voice. I’m the one in the fucking car—the one that can possibly slam headfirst into the wall—not him.

“It’s a new car. I checked every inch of it.”

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Beckett! Goddammit!” I pound my fist against the steering wheel, completely backing off the gas.

I know he says something about taking it nice and easy but I don’t really hear it because the flashback hits me so hard I suffocate in the open air.

The car stops but dizziness spirals through me.

My body slams to a stop but my head hasn’t.

A breath shocks into me as I realize what just happened. That I survived that tumbling pirouette into the catch fence. That I escaped the shredded fucking mass of metal on the track at my back.

Pain radiates around me like a motherfucking freight train. My head splinters into a million damn pieces, hands grabbing and groping and pushing and prodding. That familiar pang twists in my gut because I don’t want anyone’s hands on me, can’t handle the feeling. I don’t want to be reminded of the little boy I used to be and the fear that used to course through me when I was touched by others. By him.

Medical jargon flies at a rapid pace and it’s so technical I can’t catch the gist. Just tell me if I’m going to be fucking all right. Just tell me if I’m dead or alive, because I swear to God my life really did just flash before my eyes and what I thought was going to be … what I thought I wanted out of life … just got twisted and turned more than the aluminum of my car.

How could I have been so wrong? How could I have thought change would be the catalyst when it ended up being my fucking epiphany? Shows me to try and change the road fate’s already set for me.

I writhe to get away from the hands that touch, twisting and turning to find her. To go back and tell her that I was so wrong. Everything I put her through. Each rejection and rebuff was my fault. Was a huge mistake.

How do I make it right again?

Pain grapples again and mixes with the fear that ripples under the surface. My head feels like it is going to explode. Lazy clouds of haze float in and out and eat the memories away. Take them with them as they leave and fade. Darkness overcomes the edges until I can’t take it anymore. Voices shout and hands assess my injuries, but I fade.

My thoughts.

My past.

My life.

Bit by bit.

Piece by piece.

Until I am cloaked in the cover of darkness.

“Colton?” It’s her voice that shocks me from my memory like a drowning man finally breaking the surface for air. I gasp in a breath just as hungrily.

I shake my head and look around. I’m all alone on the backstretch of the track, sweat soaking through my fire suit. Did I really hear Ry or was that part of my flashback?

“Rylee?” I call her name. I don’t care that there are guys on the mics that probably think I’m losing it because she’s not here … because they’re right. I am losing it.

“Talk to me. Tell me what’s going through your head. No one’s on the radio but you and me.”

She’s here. It’s her. I don’t even know what to do because I feel like I’m hit with a wave of emotions. Relief, fear, anxiety, need.

“Ry … I can’t … I don’t think I can …” I’m such a fucking head case that I can’t string my thoughts together to finish a thought.

“You can do this,” she tells me like she actually believes it, because I sure as fuck don’t. “This is California, Colton, not Florida. There’s no traffic. No rookie drivers to make stupid mistakes. No smoke you can’t see through. No wreck to drive into. It’s just you and me, Colton. You and me, nothing but sheets.”

Those words. I know they don’t belong right here in this moment but fuck if they don’t draw a sliver of a laugh from my mouth but that’s all I can manage because they also make me think of everything I’ve put her through. How nothing but sheets between us has led to her having to deal with the fallout of Tawny and all of that bullshit.

And yet somehow she’s here. She came for me. Does she have any fucking clue what that means to me especially when I’m the last one on earth that deserves her right now?

I pushed and now she’s pulling.

“I just …” Can’t do this anymore. Push you away and hurt you. Push the gas and drive the car. Not have you near me.

I know my head’s fucked up but I’m in overload mode again and then she speaks and lets light into my darkness.

“You can do this, Colton. We can do this together, okay? I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

I don’t deserve you. Your faith in me. Your belief in me.

“Are your hands on the wheel?” The confidence in her voice staggers me when I feel anything but.

“Mmm-hmm … but my right hand—”

“Is perfectly okay. I’ve seen you use it,” she says and the thought flickers through my head of just how she saw it the last time we had sex.

“Is your foot on the pedal?” she asks.

“Ry?” I want to stay in these thoughts of her, don’t want the fear to ride the wave back into my psyche.

“Pedal. Yes or no?”

“Yes …” But I’m not sure I can do this.

“Okay, clear your head. It’s just you and the track, Ace. You can do this. You need this. It’s your freedom, remember?”

She knows the words to pull me back from the edge. I take a deep breath and hold on to the confidence that she has to try and override the fear crippling my thoughts with images and sensations of tumbling into the wall. The wall that looks exactly like the one to the right of me.

Surrounding me.

C’mon, Donavan. Engage the motor. Prevent it from dying. The engine revs and a part of me sighs at the progress.

“You know this like the back of your hand … push down on the gas. Flick the paddle and press down.”

I make myself focus on her voice, hold on to the thought that she came back to help fix the broken in me. And the car starts to move down the backstretch and into turn three.

“Okay … see? You’ve got this. You don’t have to go fast. It’s a new car, it’s going to feel different. Becks will be pissed if you burn up the engine anyway so take it slow.”

I push a little harder, accelerator unsteady, but I’m starting to move around the track. I pass the point similar to where I went into the wall in St. Petersburg and I force my mind to tune out the unease and focus on listening to the car talk to me.

“You okay?” I can’t answer her because I may be trying to engage mentally but my body is still owned by the fear. “Talk to me, Colton. I’m right here.”

“My hands won’t stop shaking,” I tell her as I look at the gauges and realize I’m going faster. And with speed I need to concentrate on the feeling of the track beneath me, the pull of the wheel one way or another, the camber when I hit the corners. Routine items I can diagnose without thinking. Because I don’t want to think. Then doubts come, fear creeps.

I shake the thought and sigh, knowing how much shit I’m going to get from Becks since I’m not focusing like I should on the task at hand. “Becks is gonna be pissed because my head’s fucked-up.”

She doesn’t respond and I start to crawl back in my own mind for a moment when she clears her throat. She has my attention now. Is she crying?

“It’s okay … watching you out there? Mine is fucked-up too … but you’re ready. You can do this.” Something about her willingness to be vulnerable to me when I know she’s standing around all the guys hits places inside I’m glad I can’t analyze right now.

“Aren’t we a fucking pair?” I laugh, finding it rather humorous how screwed up we both are.

“We are indeed,” she says, and the little laugh she emits tells me so much. I press the accelerator down some. I’ve never needed approval from anyone, but right now I need it from her. Need her to see that I’m trying, both on and off the track.

“Hey, Ace, can I bring the guys back on?”

“Yeah,” I reply quickly. I hit turn four again and feel a little more confident, a lot more sure that I can do this. And I know how a large part of that is because she’s here. Shit, even after I was an asshole to her, have put her through hell with the paparazzi chasing her, she’s still here. “Ry … I …” My voice fades but my mind completes them.

I’m sorry.

I race you.

Thank you.

“I know, Colton. Me too.” Her voice breaks when she says it, and I feel like I can breathe again, like my world was just somehow set right when it’s been inside out the time without her.


Colton’s demons have robbed him of so much in his life. But he’s finally faced them, finally told Rylee he loves her. We know how the story ends, so when did he have that a-ha moment when he knew she was the one he wanted to do the one thing he swore he’d never do—get married?