“She left?”
“When I was two. Apparently, she wasn’t mother material.”
“Oh, Carrick…I’m sorry.”
I can’t imagine anyone leaving a child. My mum would never have left me, and my dad…no way. The only way he left me was in death. And to leave someone like Carrick…I can’t imagine. He just shines so much.
Reaching over the table, I touch my hand to his, curling my fingers around it. “She missed out big, Carrick. Really big.”
His eyes flicker to my hand, lingering there a moment, and then they lift to my face.
My heart starts to pump in my chest.
I slide my fingers away. Picking my drink up, I take a nervous sip.
“What’s your favorite car?” he asks out of the blue, assumably to fill the awkwardness I just created with my little hand-holding moment.
“Oh, that’s easy. Jaguar XK-one twenty.”
It was the car my father drove, his pride and joy. He had it until the day he died. I haven’t seen that car since. When my dad died, my mother got rid of his cars at auction and gave all the money to charity. I was angry for a long time about that.
“What about you?”
“Usually the one I’m driving. I’m fickle like that.”
He grins, and I laugh.
“How did you know you wanted to be a mechanic?” he asks.
“Same as how you knew you wanted to be a driver. I grew up around cars. It was a natural progression. My mother probably wished I had done something else with my life though.”
“Like what?”
“Anything but a mechanic. I think she secretly wanted me to be a model, like she was.”
“Your mother was a model?”
“Mmhmm.” I probably shouldn’t have told him that. It wouldn’t take a genius to link my mother to my father with the help of Google, not that I think Carrick is going to go Googling my mother or me.
“You know it’s funny. The first time I saw you, I had you down for being a model.”
I roll my eyes at him.
“So, is your mother anyone I would have heard of?”
“Probably not. She gave up modeling after she had me. She was incredibly beautiful though, still is.”
“I can imagine.”
“Here. I have a picture of her.” I get my phone from my bag and hand it to him, showing him the screen saver picture I have of my mother and me. I took it just before I left Brazil.
“That’s your mother? Fucking hell, you look like sisters. She’s a definite MILF.”
“Ew!” Reaching over the table, I grab my phone from his hand. “That’s gross! You can’t perv on my mother!”
He’s laughing now. “Sorry. I’m not saying I would like to…erm, you know your mother, but I can imagine that some men would like to you know her—a lot.”
“Jesus, Carrick. You’re making this worse.” I drop my head into my hands.
“Sorry.” He chuckles.
I lift my head, shaking it at him. “Moving on. I’ve been meaning to ask you this for a while. Do you have any ritual things you do before a race?”
My dad did. He always had to wear black boxer shorts and socks. Before every race, he would also have a plain egg omelet for breakfast. I never did learn why.
“Yep.”
I wait, but he doesn’t expand.
“Well…are you gonna tell me what it is?”
Arms on the table, he leans forward. “Okay.” He lets out a breath. “I have to eat a bar of Galaxy chocolate before each race.”
“Really?” I smile. “Why?”
Eyes on me, he rests back in his seat, keeping his hands on the table. “After we first moved to England, I don’t know if it was the pressure or being in a different country or what, but I wasn’t winning races. I was coming in fourth at best. I was panicking because Dad had given up so much by moving us to England, and I was getting frustrated because I knew I was capable of more.
“Anyway, on this particular day, I was hungry because I’d forgotten to eat, and my dad was all, ‘You will lose this race on an empty stomach.’ So, he went off to get me something to eat. Anyway, he came back, telling me there was only this shitty vending machine. Then, he held out a bar of Galaxy chocolate, and I was like, ‘What the hell is that? I’m not eating that. It’s women’s chocolate. Men don’t eat Galaxy. They eat Yorkie.’ You remember the adverts?”
“I do.” I laugh, loving the way he’s telling the story.
He’s so animated with his eyes all lit up.
“So, my dad got pissed off and said, ‘Well, they haven’t got any men’s chocolate, so eat the bloody women’s chocolate, and shut the hell up!’”
I snort out a laugh. “So, what did you do?”
“Sulked for about a minute, and then I ate the fucking bar of Galaxy, and it was the best chocolate I’d ever tasted—not that I admitted that to my dad at the time. Then, I got in my kart and won my first ever race in England.”
He smiles fondly, and I can see the memory in his eyes.
“And since then, before every race, my dad buys me a bar of Galaxy from a vending machine, and I eat it. It’s my one weird thing.”
“But what if there isn’t any Galaxy chocolate in a vending machine? Or worse, there isn’t a vending machine?”
He leans forward, a sexy-arse smile on his face. “There’s always a vending machine, Andressa, and there’s always a bar of Galaxy in it.”
“Ah.” The power of being Carrick Ryan.