Nick's POV

By the time I made it into the Kent hauler, I was pretty sure every bone in my body had shifted half an inch out of place.

Road courses did that to you.

People loved to talk about them like they were pretty. Technical. Elegant. Like stock cars were out there dancing through esses and braking zones and elevation changes.

Bullshit.

There wasn't a damn thing elegant about sawing on the wheel for three hours, cooking your calves against the firewall, getting launched over curbs hard enough to make your spine question its commitment to the rest of your body, then climbing out and pretending you didn't feel like somebody had thrown you in a dryer with a cinder block.

Watkins Glen had taken everything I gave it and then charged interest.

I made it three steps into the hauler before Logan took one look at me and said, "You look like gas station beef jerky."

I stopped, turned my head slowly, and immediately regretted it when my neck lit up like a Christmas tree.

"Keep talking," I muttered. "I'm too sore to hit you today, but I've got a long memory."

Logan grinned from where he was leaned against the counter, headset still hanging around his neck. "You've also got the posture of a shrimp."

"I just spent half the race getting curb-stomped by Turn Four."

"Yeah, and the other half yelling like everybody on track had personally wronged your family."

"Because half of them did."

From behind him, Avery appeared in the narrow doorway with her arms folded, still in her PeakForm polo, sunglasses pushed up in her hair.

She looked polished. Calm. Perfectly put together in a way that made me want to be annoying on purpose.

Then her eyes swept over me once. That was all it took. Her expression shifted from professional Avery Cole to the girl from Red Creek who had known me nearly my whole life and could spot my bullshit before I finished breathing it.

"You're limping," she said.

"I'm walking with character."

"You're limping."

"I am road-course swaggering."

Logan made a choking sound into his water bottle. Avery didn't laugh. That was how I knew I was in trouble.

She walked toward me, eyes narrowing, and pointed at the bench near the back of the hauler. "Sit down."

"I'm fine."

"You are gray."

"I'm naturally mysterious."

"Nicholas Lane Hartley."

My full government name hit me with all the force of a pit road speeding penalty and today's curbs combined.

"Oh, shit," Logan muttered. "She full-named you."

I sighed, because there was no winning when she used that voice. I made my way to the bench with as much dignity as a man could manage when both hip flexors had apparently been replaced with barbed wire.

Sitting down was worse. A lot worse. I lowered myself gingerly, jaw clenched, and still let out a sound that had Logan immediately perking up.m

"Oh, that was pathetic."

"Logan," Avery scolded..

He held up both hands. "Leaving. I'm leaving. I know when I'm not wanted."

"You have never known that once in your life," I told him.

He pointed at me on his way out. "Trainer's coming. Try not to flirt with the sponsor. You look like a collapsed lawn chair."

The door shut behind him.

The sudden quiet left the hauler humming around us. Generator. Air conditioner. The distant clank of tools outside. Crew guys laughing somewhere beyond the thin walls like the whole world had not just tried to break me into individual parts and sell me for scrap.

Avery stepped closer, her expression softening just enough to make something in my chest ache worse than my ribs.

"Bad?" she asked quietly.

I looked down at my hands. My fingers were still flexing like they hadn't gotten the message that the race was over. My palms were raw from wrestling the wheel. My forearms had that deep, ugly ache that came from holding onto a car when the car had spent three hours trying to throw you back.

"Everything hurts," I admitted.

Her face changed again. Not pity. Avery didn't do pity, thank God. But concern slipped through the cracks in her polish.

"My neck," I said, because once I started telling the truth, it came easier. "Shoulders. Lower back. Left hip's pissed off. Wrists are cooked. Braking leg feels like it went twelve rounds."

"You took a hard hit over that curb in Stage Two."

"Felt that, huh?"

"I saw your helmet snap forward."

"Yeah." I exhaled through my nose. "That one rang my bell a little. Not concussion-wise," I added when her eyes sharpened. "Just...whole-body reminder that I chose a stupid career."

"You love your stupid career."

"I do. Unfortunately."

The hauler door opened before she could answer, and Drew, Kent Motorsports' trainer, stepped in with his black bag and the mildly entertained expression of a man who had seen drivers lie about pain every weekend of his professional life.

"Well," Drew said, looking me over. "You look terrible."

"Everybody's being so supportive today."

Avery stepped aside but didn't leave. "He says everything hurts."

Drew set his bag down. "Of course everything hurts. He spent three hours manhandling a 3400 pound car around a road course like it owed him money."

"It did owe me money," I said.

Drew pointed at my chest. "Compression shirt off."

I blinked at him. Avery's eyebrows rose.

I looked between them. "Just like that? No dinner? No emotional buildup?"

Drew didn't even pause while digging through his bag. "I need to see your shoulders and back."

Avery turned her face away, but I caught the corner of her mouth twitching.

I pointed at her. "You laughed."

"I did not."

"You almost laughed."

"I almost did a lot of things. Take the shirt off before Drew loses patience."

"Yes, ma'am," I muttered.

My fingers tightened around the hem of my shirt.

Drew glanced up. "Problem?"

"Just enjoying the humiliation," I said.

Drew stepped in and helped peel the compression shirt over my shoulders. I hated that I needed help. I hated more that Avery was watching me need help.

And then I remembered the tattoo. The one stretched over my ribs, tucked under my right arm, inked in a place I'd chosen because no one saw it unless I let them. A scatter of stars and streaks of light, a meteor shower caught mid-fall.

The shirt cleared my ribs. Cool air hit sweat-soaked skin. My hand dropped instinctively to my right side, not quite covering it, but close enough to be obvious if anyone knew what I was doing.

Avery's gaze flicked over me before she could stop it. It wasn't the kind of look I would have teased her for. Not really. It started as concern. A quick scan for bruises, swelling, anything that made the race look worse on my body than it had from the pit box.

Then her eyes caught on my ribs. On the dark sweep of ink trailing along my side. Meteor streaks. Tiny stars. A sky I'd put on my body when I was nineteen and too heartbroken to know what else to do with it. The one I had no business still carrying on my skin after ten years of pretending I had learned how to live without her.

Her whole face went still for a second. But I saw it.

My palm shifted lower, uselessly trying to hide a tattoo she had already seen. The movement pulled at my ribs, and I winced.

Drew noticed the wince, not the reason for it. "Don't guard. I need to see how you're moving."

"Working on it," I muttered.

Avery's eyes flicked to me. Too sharp. Too knowing. Fuck.

I turned slightly away from her, angling my right side toward the cabinets like that would make me subtle. It was a stupid plan. Pain made everything slower. My shoulders protested. My ribs joined in for moral support.

Her gaze flickered to my side again. I knew what it felt like to have Avery Cole look at me. Really look at me. I'd known since I was a teenage idiot with dirt on my jeans and a steering wheel in my hands, desperate to impress the girl sitting on the tailgate.

Her eyes flicked over my chest. My shoulder. My side. Then lower, toward my ribs again.
I shifted fast. Too fast. My back spasmed in protest, and I sucked in a sharp breath, twisting just enough to block her view with my arm.

"Shit," I muttered.

Drew grabbed my shoulder. "Stop moving like an idiot."

"I was adjusting."

"You were flinching."

"I'm injured. Flinching is allowed."

Avery didn't say anything. That was worse.
I risked a look at her. Her face had gone still. She looked up at me. Her eyes were different now. Not so much confusion, but more recognition. The kind of look that said she had seen enough to know it mattered, but not enough to know what to do with it yet.

I held her gaze for half a second, silently begging her not to ask. Not here. Not in the hauler. Not with Drew standing behind me and crew noise outside and Logan probably three feet from the door with his nosy little menace instincts.

Avery's throat moved. Then she looked away. Not because she didn't care. Because she understood. That almost hurt worse.

Something had crossed her expression before she could catch it, and now she was locking it down behind the version of herself that handled boardrooms and sponsorship calls and men who underestimated her because she wore heels.

She'd seen something. I knew she had. The question was how much. A streak of ink? A few stars? Enough to know?

My stomach twisted harder than my back.
I forced a smirk because that was easier than panic. "Eyes up here, Cole."

Her gaze snapped to mine. For half a second, she looked caught.

Then she folded her arms. "You're injured."

"I'm sore. There's a difference."

"You also look like you went twelve rounds in a steel cage match."

"Did I win?"

"No."

Drew snorted and moved behind me. His thumbs pressed along the top of my traps, and I immediately forgot whatever emotional disaster had been unfolding because pain shot straight down my spine.

"Shit..."

"Mm-hmm," Drew said, entirely too calm. "That's what I thought."

"Avery's arms folded again. "What?"

"He's locked up from his jaw to his hips." Drew pressed two fingers into the muscle along my neck, and my entire body tried to leave the bench. "Neck's a mess. Upper traps are guarding. Lats are tight. Low back's angry. Hip flexors are probably worse. He's overheated. He's also mildly dehydrated and that isn't helping the spasms either."

"Thank you for reading my obituary out loud," I said tightly.

Drew leaned closer, absolutely unmoved.

"Breathe."

"I am breathing."

"No, you're arguing with oxygen. Breathe."

Avery's attention shifted to him, but not all the way. I could feel her trying not to look at my ribs again. I could feel myself trying too hard to keep that side turned away.

Avery sat on the bench across from me, close enough that her knees almost brushed mine. "Do what he says."

I narrowed my eyes at her. "You enjoying this?"

"No."

"Liar."

"I am enjoying being right about you needing help."

"That's different?"

"For me, yes."

Drew started working along my shoulder, slow at first, then deeper. The first pass hurt like hell. The second made my vision briefly go white. I dropped my head forward, elbows braced on my knees, and tried not to make another sound because Logan would absolutely hear about it somehow and turn it into a shirt.

Avery's voice went quieter. "Nick."

"I'm good."

"You don't have to be tough in front of me."

That hit harder than Drew's thumb under my shoulder blade.

For a second, I didn't answer. I just stared at the floor between my boots, at the scuff marks and bits of rubber tracked in from the garage, at the stupid little ordinary details that kept me from looking at her.

Because if I looked at her, I would see the tattoo question sitting in her eyes. And I did not know how to answer it yet.

I had dodged shirtless content for weeks because of that tattoo. Made jokes. Pushed back on Marina. Told Cameron no thirst-trap strategy, no shirtless gym footage, no "raw athletic performance" nonsense.

Everyone thought I was being modest.

I was. But not for the reason they thought. That meteor shower was not for the internet. It was not for engagement. It was not for PeakForm, or Kent, or fans who thought every inch of a driver's body belonged to public curiosity. It was mine. It was hers. Even if she didn't know it yet. Or maybe now she did.

"I know," I said eventually.

Drew shifted to my other shoulder. "He says, while actively trying to win a toughness contest with my thumbs."

"I'm not competing."

"You always compete."

Unfortunately, the man had a point.

He moved lower, working along my lat, and I braced both hands on the bench. The pressure tugged at the muscles over my ribs, and I realized too late that leaning forward pulled the skin taut along my side.

Avery's eyes dropped just for a second. But I saw it. I straightened immediately. Pain shot through my lower back.

Drew huffed. "Hartley."

"I'm fine."

"Stop jerking around."

"I'm not."

"You are. And you're making my job harder."

Avery's gaze lifted to mine again. There it was. A question. She had one. Maybe ten. But she didn't ask. Not here. Not with Drew's hands on my back and the garage noise bleeding through the walls and my body too wrecked to outrun anything, including the past.

Still, my pulse kicked. Because Avery knew me. Worse, she knew the parts of me I'd buried. If she'd seen enough, really seen it, she'd know that tattoo wasn't random. She'd know it meant something. She would know it meant her.

Outside, somebody fired an air gun. The sharp crack cut through the hauler wall, and my shoulders jumped before I could stop them.
Avery's hand landed on my knee. Light. Barely there. But I felt it everywhere.

Drew paused. "You good?"

I swallowed. "Yeah."

Avery's fingers tightened once, then eased.

"You're okay," she said softly.

I looked away because the last thing I wanted to do right then was explain that sometimes after a race like that, after hours of noise and heat and impact and adrenaline, your body didn't understand quiet right away. It kept waiting for the next hit. The next corner. The next restart. The next car diving inside where there was no room.

I looked at her hand first. Then her face. Her expression had gone still again, like she realized what she'd done a second too late. But she didn't move it. So I didn't either.

"Yeah," I said, rougher than I meant to. "I'm okay."

Drew, God bless him or damn him, pretended not to notice.

"Your body's still keyed up," he said, shifting into lighter work across my shoulders. "Long exhale. Drop your jaw. Let your shoulders go."

I did, or tried to.

Avery stayed quiet. That was the thing about her. She knew when to push, but she also knew when silence was kinder.

After a few minutes, Drew moved around in front of me and checked my wrists and forearms.

"Grip strength okay?" he asked.

"Yeah."

He pressed his thumb into my forearm.

My fingers twitched. "I hate you."

"Good. Nerves are working."

Avery leaned forward. "His hands were shaking when he came in."

"My hands always shake after a road course."

Drew shot me a look. "That's not the comforting statement you think it is."

"It's normal."

"It's common," Drew corrected. "Not the same thing."

I hated when people were technically right in a tone I couldn't argue with.

He worked both forearms, then made me stand so he could check my hips and hamstrings. Standing was rude. Stretching was worse. By the time he had one hand braced at my hip and was guiding my leg back into a quad stretch, I was gripping the cabinet and questioning every decision that had led me to professional motorsports.

Avery watched with her lips pressed together.

"You are absolutely laughing internally," I accused.

"I am not."

"You're thinking I look ridiculous."

"You do look ridiculous."

"At least you're honest."

"You're also very impressive," she said quietly.

That shut me up.

Drew glanced between us once, then wisely pretended to be fascinated by my hip alignment.

I looked at Avery. For a second, everything faded down around the edges.

"You think so?"

Her cheeks warmed, but she held my eyes. "You finished that race with a car that looked like it had been thrown down a staircase. Your cool suit was barely keeping up. Your hands were blistered. Your neck was locking up. And you still kept digging."

I swallowed. Praise from Avery had always been dangerous. Even at sixteen, when she told me I'd driven well at some dirt track feature, I'd ride that high for a week.

At twenty-eight, apparently, it still went straight under my ribs. Right under the ink I was trying so damn hard to hide.

"I wanted more," I admitted.

"I know."

"Had a shot at it."

"I know."

"Missed my braking marker by six inches with eight to go, and it cost me."

"I know."

Drew released my leg and stepped back. "Six inches at race speed after three hours of road-course abuse is not exactly a moral failing."

"It is when you're the one driving."

Avery's face softened. "Nick."

I dragged a hand over my face, then immediately regretted it because my forearm hurt.

"I'm fine," I said, but it came out tired instead of convincing.

Drew packed a few things back into his bag. "You need fluids, electrolytes, protein, compression tonight, and ten minutes of easy mobility before bed. Not a workout. Mobility. There's a difference, and I know you pretend there isn't. No gym tomorrow morning,"

I stared at him. He stared back. Avery's eyebrows lifted.

"That feels targeted," I said.

"It is. Walk. Stretch. Recover. Let the soreness settle before you try to punish yourself into feeling better."

That one landed too close. I looked down.
Drew softened a little. "You drove a hell of a race. Your body just needs to believe you're done driving it."

He clapped me once carefully on the shoulder, then grabbed his bag. "I'll check on you in the morning. Drink the electrolytes. And if the spasms get worse, you call me. Not Logan. Not Reid. Me."

"Bossy."

"Alive."

Drew left before I could object to my own line being used against me.

When he was gone, the hauler got quiet again
Avery stood in front of me, arms still folded, but there was nothing defensive about it now. She looked like she wanted to say ten things and hated all of them for being too soft.

I saved her the trouble.

"I know," I said.

"You don't know what I was going to say."

"You were going to tell me not to be stupid tonight."

"I was going to phrase it more elegantly."

"Corporate Avery would."

"Red Creek Avery would say stop being a stubborn ass."

I smiled despite everything. "There she is."

She rolled her eyes, but the warmth stayed.
"You heard Drew. Mobility, food, fluids, sleep."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And no getting up at dawn to do some miserable recovery ride because you're mad about six inches."

I looked at her. She looked right back.
Damn her. Damn her for knowing me. Damn me for loving that she did.

"I won't," I said.

Her expression flickered with surprise.

"Really?"

"Really."

She studied me for another second, suspicious.
"That was too easy."

"I'm in too much pain to be difficult."

"That has never stopped you before."

"True."

Her gaze flicked, just once, toward my right ribs. Barely. So fast I might have missed it if I hadn't been watching for it. But I was.

The tattoo sat there between us, covered now by a towel I was pretending to use to wipe the sweat away, and all the words neither of us could say yet.

She had seen it. I knew she had. And worse, she knew I knew.

For one suspended second, the hauler felt too small. Then Avery reached for a clean T-shirt Reid had tossed onto the counter earlier.

"Can you get this on?"

"Yeah. I can do it."

She handed it to me. I lifted one arm, got halfway into it, and froze when my shoulder barked.
Avery's mouth twitched.

"Don't," I warned.

"I didn't say anything."

"You were thinking it loudly."

She took the shirt from me with a sigh. "Come here."

"I'm not helpless."

"No," she said, voice gentle but firm. "You're not. But you are sore, and I am standing right here."

That did something dangerous to the center of my chest.

I let her help. She stepped close enough that I could smell her perfume under the rubber and fuel and sweat clinging to the hauler air. Something clean and soft and Avery.

She guided the shirt over one arm, then the other. Carefully. Slowly. Her fingers brushed my shoulder, the back of my neck, the edge of my ribs.

I held still. Too still. Because when the cotton slid down my right side, her hand paused. Barely. Just a breath.

Right over the meteor shower. Right over the piece of us I had spent years keeping hidden. For once in my life, I did not make a joke.

When my head came through the collar, she was right there. Close. Too close, if either one of us had any sense.

My pulse kicked hard. Her eyes flicked up to mine. And there it was again. That look. Like she had seen a piece of something she wasn't sure she was allowed to name. Like she was trying to decide whether the shape of it was memory or coincidence. Like maybe, maybe, she'd seen enough.

Neither of us said a word. She tugged the shirt down the rest of the way, her fingers leaving my side like she'd touched something hot.

"There," she said quietly.

"Thanks."

She nodded.

Neither of us moved. Her eyes lifted to mine, and for a second I thought she might ask. About the tattoo. About the stars. About why a meteor shower was inked along my ribs like a secret.

But then the hauler door opened, and Logan stuck his head in.

"Everybody decent?"

Avery stepped back like she had been burned.

I closed my eyes. "I hate you."

Logan grinned. "That means yes."

Avery cleared her throat and turned toward the counter, suddenly very interested in a packet of PeakForm electrolyte powder.

Logan looked from her to me, then down at my shirt, then back to my face.

"Oh," he said, delighted. "Did she dress you?"

"Leave."

"She dressed you."

"Logan."

"You let her dress you."

"I will find the strength."

"No, you won't. Drew told me you're not allowed to be stupid."

Avery turned around with a water bottle in one hand and a protein bar in the other. "He's right."

I looked between them. "This is a betrayal."

"This is care," Avery said, holding the bottle out.
I took it.

Logan leaned against the doorway, grinning like a man who knew exactly how much trouble I was in. "You know, for a guy who looks like a folding chair with a driver rating, you're having a pretty good day."

I twisted the cap off the bottle. "Explain that before I throw this at you."

He nodded toward Avery. I didn't look at her. Didn't have to. My chest already knew.

"Yeah," I said quietly, taking a drink. "Guess I am."

Avery looked away first, but not before her eyes dipped once more to my ribs. Not before I saw the question there. Not before I understood that the conversation wasn't over. It had only been postponed.