Page 29 of Until The Lights Go Out

“Short-circuit,” she clarified holding up air quotes.

I paused.

Because…yeah.

I thought back to the way he’d looked at me. The way his expression had flickered—just for a second—before that familiar wall slammed back into place. The way his voice had shifted when he said my name. The way he couldn’t quite look at me for too long.

“Yeah,” I said quietly, “I think he did.”

Nicola nodded like she’d expected that answer. “Okay, good.”

“Good?” I blinked at her.

“Yeah,” she said simply, “because that means you surprised him.”

“Still,” I added, pulling my knees up to my chest, “he’s…different.”

Nicola raised a brow. “Different how?”

I searched for the right words. “Harder,” I said finally. “Colder. Like…everything that used to be there, he just—shut it off.”

Nicola was quiet for a beat.

“He’s kinda always been like that, at least since he joined Formula One,” she offered gently. “Maybe, he just got better at hiding his feelings?”

My chest tightened. Because that…felt a little too close to the truth. I looked down at my hands, absently tracing the faint scars along my fingers.

“I mean,” she added, her tone lightening just a little, “you literally walked back into the paddock looking like that.” She dramatically looked up and down and then fanned herself.

I let out a watery laugh.

“Oh my God, you’re insane.”

“I’m right,” she shot back. “He hasn’t seen you in ten years! You’re a grown-ass woman now!”

“I don’t know.” I sighed, too many thoughts rattling around in my head.

“I do! You’re hot! He probably was losing his mind when he first saw you.”

“I am so not ready to unpack that.”

11

THEO | 14 YEARS OLD

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” my father seethed as he shoved the duffel bag at me hard enough to make me stumble backward. My heel caught on something before I could catch myself, and I went down hard, the impact rattling through my spine.

“Get up.”

I scrambled to my feet, words tumbling out immediately. “I’m sorry,” I started. “I tried, I⁠—”

“You tried,” he snapped, the words sharp and mocking. “You tried. Enough. You try, but not hard enough.” He slammed his hand onto the workbench beside him, tools rattling with the force of it. I steeled my own expression, locked my jaw. If it wasn’t first, it was losing. That was what he had always said and what was rattling around in my brain as I stared the old man down. My eyes shifted to the ground no matter how long I tried to hold it. Less emotion, less reaction. That was the rule. Survival tip number one. The same thing I had told my kid brother. So I forced my face into something blank and empty, even though my heart was beating too fast, and I could feel the sweat beading at my brow.

“You had the inside line on Turn 4,” he continued, pacing now, his voice low and cutting, “and yet you hesitated.”

“I didn’t—” I stopped myself before I could continue. Less emotion, less reaction. But he was already stepping up to me, towering over me. I had only just turned fourteen, but in the last year, I was significantly taller than I was the year before, closing the gap, but it was no less terrifying. His cold stare sent chills down my bones.

“Finish that sentence, boy.”