Pit Lane Persephone

Chapter 19: Seb

I was only trying to loosen her up—no one who's "fine" goes for a run in the rain after a race—but doing it with alcohol may not have been the best idea. The other riders left the bar hours ago. Only a few of the older techs are left nursing their beers and catching up on the day's football highlights on a muted TV in the corner. That Schnapps hit Lauren hard and even though we stuck to weaker stuff after, those should have stopped much sooner, too. But I was really enjoying hanging out with her. I honestly didn't want the night to end.

When she starts shaking from exhaustion, I decide to walk her back to her room. It's really fucking late to worry about earlier bad decisions. I just have to keep myself from making any new ones.

Putting my arm around her waist, I guide her to the lift. "What is your room number?"

"Are you coming with me?" she asks with doe-eyed innocence.

I smile. She's a cute drunk. "I will walk you to the room to make sure you get there okay. What number?"

"Uhm, five-something." She scrunches her nose like it will help her remember.

I press the button for the fifth floor. First things first.

The carriage slowly moves upward. I keep my eyes on the digital numbers above the door as they count the floors, but it's not enough to distract me from the girl pressed against my side. With her arms wrapped around my body and her head against my shoulder, she's breathing deeply. I can't see her face, but another minute and she'd probably fall asleep like this. I wouldn't even mind.

The lift dings as it comes to a stop on the fifth floor. The doors slide open, and I nudge Lauren to attention. She lets go of me abruptly, like she'd just realized she's been doing it. Her steps are unsure, as if she's walking on a swaying deck, but she catches herself on the wall, and I follow her out. As we head down the hallway, her walk normalizes as she uses decorative landmarks to navigate. Turning right at the large vase of fake sunflowers, then backtracking at the door to the emergency stairs when we go too far, we finally stop in front of room five-twenty.

I'm relieved when her keycard triggers a green light and the door clicks open. Stepping back, I'm ready to wander to my room when she turns and leans against the door to keep it open.

"Do . . . do you want to come in?" she asks, biting her lip and playing with the drawstring of her sweatshirt's hood.

Of course I do, which is why I shouldn't. "Thank you, but I need to get sleep," I say with such conviction that I nearly believe it myself.

"Thank you? THANK YOU?" She repeats the phrase increasingly louder as a wide-eyed expression of disbelief replaces her previous flirty one. "I didn't offer you a goddamned stack—fuck, I mean stick—of gum for you to say 'thanks, but no thanks.'"

"Ssh." I throw up my hands to shush her while looking around to see if we are still alone. So much for cute drunk. The fight I first noticed in her eyes in Malaysia—and have seen again on other occasions since—can't be banished with a little alcohol. We don't have an audience yet, but that will change if she keeps up this racket. "Please. Just go inside. I will come too."

We go in, but I stay by the door. Leaning against the wood panel, I use it to keep steady—the last time I checked, I've been up for nineteen hours straight—and to put distance between us. Of course that last part would have worked even better if she'd actually gone across the room, yet here she is still lingering in the entry an arm's length away.

It's not hard to guess what she wants because I want it too. She did ask me into her hotel room in the middle of the night, after all. What else could it be for? Helping pack up her suitcase for tomorrow's flight out? Fuck no, and it feels great.