One Last Fling - Chapter 8
Cam
By the time Cam landed in Austin, he’d convinced himself he was fine. The texting had settled into something manageable at one point. Polite. Purposeful. Mostly about racing, occasionally about travel delays or bad coffee. No flirting. No ellipses. No late-night confessions.
It was exactly what Lily had asked for. But now she wanted it to stop. He wondered if either of them could stick to that. He sensed she had a weakness for him, exactly as he did for her.
The Circuit of the Americas sprawled under a wide Texas sky, heat already clinging to everything. Cam walked the paddock with the familiar sense of being watched—not just by fans or media, but by the invisible machinery of contracts and decisions ticking away behind the scenes.
He saw Lily before she saw him. She stood with her team, arms crossed, listening intently, hair pulled back tight. Focused. Grounded. Untouchable. More than anything, she looked good. When she finally glanced up and spotted him, her expression barely changed. A nod. A professional half smile.
“Fowler,” she said when he approached.
“Atkinson,” he replied.
They shook hands. The contact was brief, firm and did absolutely nothing to calm his pulse.
“Good flight?” she asked.
“Uneventful.”
“Lucky.”
That was it. No tension anyone else could see. Internally, he felt like a wire pulled too tight. He was ready to snap.
Practice sessions came and went. Cam pushed, searching for tenths, for reassurance, for something that felt like control. The car was solid. Not perfect. Nothing was, lately. Between sessions, he caught footage of Lily behind the wheel. She was fast. Hungrier than ever. And the closer she got to locking in that championship, the clearer the math became.
One seat + two drivers = someone was going to get their heart broken.
That night, alone in his hotel room, Cam checked his phone out of habit more than hope. No new messages. He considered sending something—Good luck tomorrow or You looked fast
today—and deleted both. Boundaries went both ways.
But then his phone buzzed. Track’s brutal in this heat.
He exhaled slowly before replying. Cheer up. It’s trying to kill everyone equally.
A pause. That’s comforting. I aim to reassure. That was it. No jokes. No teasing. Still, he found himself smiling at the ceiling.
The next day, qualifying tension rippled through the paddock. Lily was razor-sharp. Cam put in a lap he was proud of—one that might actually matter. They crossed paths near the garages afterward, sweat-soaked and keyed up.
“You were quick,” Lily said.
“So were you.”
Another pause. He could feel it then—the pull, the unspoken awareness that they were circling something neither of them wanted to name. Something they both wanted but shouldn’t give in to.
“We should keep it like this,” she said quietly. “Just…basic.”
Cam nodded. “I think we are.”
She searched his face, like she was checking for cracks. “Right. Good.” She walked away before he could say anything else.
Cam watched her go, ignoring the way his heart hurt. They were doing everything right. Which was exactly why it felt like a matter of time before everything went wrong.