My lungs burn from the hot air and imminent tears. “Love shouldn’t be temporary. At least not to me. That’s exactly why our little imaginary life needs to come to an end. Today. Now. I don’t want to love someone who views everything as fleeting.” I walk toward the truck. My hand grips the handle, the door creaking open before Liam slams it shut.
He turns me and pushes me against the cool metal. His hand gently—ever so fucking gently it hurts my heart—tips my head up to look him in the eyes.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” His lips brush against mine, leaving behind a soft kiss. It’s comical how the same lips that helped seal my fate still make my insides heat. Just another screwed-up part of Liam and me.
I let out a bitter laugh. “You know, I’m a fool. Thinking you could love someone besides yourself. For believing we could hook up and stay friends while neither one of us gets hurt in the process. I’m an idiot.”
“Then stop making things weird. We promised not to fall for one another,” he growls.
“No, you promised. And I’m not making things weird, I’m making them honest. Can you tell me you love me? That all the words you whisper in my ear at night mean something more? Go ahead, admit how you feel.”
Silence greets me, the dull throb in my chest increasing as Liam stands there, his wild eyes roaming over my face. I prepped myself for this moment all night long, knowing he would never confess to something he can’t recognize.
To be honest, no preparation could’ve helped me handle this.
“Don’t do this to us and our arrangement,” he rasps.
“That’s your problem. For someone so keen on living life to the fullest, you sure trick everyone, including yourself. You throw my rules back in my face when you’re the most rigid one of us all, holding on to lies you tell yourself to protect you from the unknown. Funny how you taught me the most important lesson of all. There are some things you can’t plan for, no matter how hard you try.”
“But we’re friends. You can’t leave and forget about us.”
My eyes narrow. “Yeah, Liam, well this friendship sucks right now.”
He takes a deep breath, stepping away from me and turning his back. “I can’t give you anything more than what we have. I travel as my job for fuck’s sake. You’re going to go back home, and I’ll keep racing. It’s not the right moment. Maybe if it were under different circumstances, at another time.”
I drop my head against the car door and laugh, the noise grating against my ears. If heartbreak had a sound, that would be it. “Laughable how you told me that almost four years ago when you met me. Yet here we are, years later, with you following the same pathetic lines.”
“Please, Sophie. I really like you. Don’t ruin something between us for something like love.” His eyes plead with mine.
“What does that even mean? There is nothing wrong with love.” It takes everything in me to not yell.
Fuck Peter and Rick. Screw Formula 1 and the sucky men who bully women into submission through manipulation and money. I’m so done with it all. Like Dorothy, I want to click my red Nikes together and get the hell home.
“I thought we were on the same page.” His look of pity adds to my distress.
“Forget the same page. We’re not even reading the same book.” Everything hurts inside of me. My body can’t cope with Liam’s inability to recognize his feelings for me. His wounded face pulls an ounce of pity from me, tugging at my aching heart.
I may be stupid enough to have fallen in love with him, but I’m not blind to the way he looks at me, or how he fucks me, staring into my eyes like he wants to hold on to the moment.
Looks like Liam got his wish because he gets to keep his contract. All at my sacrifice, blowing my friendship to hell, with me along with it.
Liam turns back toward our abandoned campsite. He shakes his head at my offer to help as he grabs everything and shoves it in the trunk. The empty plot of sand mocks me, not a single shred of evidence lingering where I broke my own heart. No bloodshed or shattered pieces are visible to the naked eye.
Absolutely nothing.
A perfect symbolism of the emptiness inside of me.
32
Liam
I stroll into the Bandini pit garage, finding Maya and Noah making out while Sophie has her back turned.
“I hope you realize I have better things to do than wait around while Noah shoves his tongue down your throat.” Sophie’s voice carries over the loud activity of the pit garage.