Alec was gonna fucking kill his dumbass boyfriend, but only after Tyler safely finished the race.

God, he hoped Tyler did safely finish.

If Tyler had decided he was ready—if Doc Gordon had said he was ready, despite Alec’s advice—there was nothing anyone else could do about it.

And Alec had to figure out for himself whether his fears for Tyler’s safety were going to be too big a problem.

This already felt so different from watching race day on TV. Not just because Tyler was in the race and not beside him on the couch.

The energy in the air from fans was incredible—and a little scary. He was in a separate section that looked like it was for VIPs, and it was filling up quickly now that the practice laps were over.

Pre-race commentators dotted the fence, and there was a personable announcer keeping a countdown to the green flag on the loudspeaker.

But Alec got the strong impression that some fans were there in the hopes of seeing a crash.

The nerves made his hands shake. Or maybe that was not eating since before he set out for the speedway from Josh’s house.

Josh had been easy to find at the farm, and between them, they’d very quickly figured out what had happened. It sounded like it was Tyler’s habit to get back to work quicker than he should have.

The announcer caught his attention briefly.

“Tyler Joseph is a surprise return to this race after the spectacular crash that kept him off the track for a few weeks. Hopefully he can keep his wheels on the ground today!”

His interest faded when the guys started talking about other car numbers. He only knew Tyler was 32, and that asshole Richie was in 67.

He caught a murmur from behind him. It sounded like a woman’s voice. “Isn’t Ty the one who came out online last week?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Alec froze, not daring to turn around yet. Had he? Or was it rumor? He really shouldn’t say anything, but listening in felt weird when they didn’t know who he was.

The first woman whistled. “He’s got balls. I’d hate to be the first guy…”

“I know, huh? He’s cute, though. Wonder if he’s got a boyfriend.”

“And a hundred women cried.”

Alec turned halfway around, and the movement immediately attracted both of their attention.

One of them murmured, “Speaking of which.”

The other one blushed and laughed as she leaned down. “Hey. Haven’t seen you around here. Sponsor?”

“Me?” Alec laughed. “No. No, I’m a… uh, plus-one.”

“Oh, friend?”

“Boyfriend.”

“But there aren’t…” It took one of them a few seconds of squinting at the track, then back at Alec. Then, she caught her breath. “Oh, my God. Sorry. Are you… I mean, do you and Tyler…”

“Yeah, I’m here for Ty.”

“Hi! I’m Sally. Chess’s girlfriend.”

“And I’m Kiera. My husband’s Ronnie. He’s in number 45.”

Alec recognized both names as teammates of Tyler’s. Shit. He hadn’t been prepared to meet the coworkers—or the coworkers’ families.

He twisted in his seat to shake hands. “How d’you do,” he nodded politely. “Alec.”

“Hi. Man, you must have been worried sick about the crash. Chess barely slept that night. Do you think he’s okay for today?”

It took Alec a moment to recover from being startled. Chess had been that worried about him?

“Racing is a family,” Sally added, not impatient but immediately understanding. “I was surprised, too. It’s great to meet you.”

“We wondered about Ty for a while,” Kiera added, propping her elbows on her knees as she grinned. “Figured he wasn’t ready to settle down. I had no idea…”

“Oh, come on. We had some idea.” Sally winked.

Alec nodded slightly, his cheeks burning. “Ah. Yeah. I mean, I’m pretty new to… dating him.”

“Aw! You’re jumping in the deep end, hon,” Kiera laughed, then gestured. “Come on, sit with us.”

Alec’s nerves were no better, but he sure as hell appreciated the offer. It was nice not to sit alone, stewing in his worry over Tyler’s safety.

When he took a seat next to them, Sally leaned over Kiera to get a look at him. “You look like you saw a ghost. Are you nervous for him?”

As soon as Alec nodded, she patted his knee. “You need something to eat. I’ll grab a hot dog for you. Back in a minute.”

Before he could open his mouth and say that he was all right, she was gone.

Kiera chuckled. “Don’t stop her when she goes into Mom mode.”

Alec rubbed his cheeks and nodded, unable to help a quiet laugh. “I appreciate it. Yeah. I’ve been a little… I mean, he kind of snuck back to it.”

“No way.” Kiera scoffed and shook her head. “I thought he’d learned last time.”

“Last time?”

Kiera hesitated, then seemed to figure there was no harm in telling him. “He got into a wreck a couple years ago—right after he started driving this car, actually. Came back way too soon.”

“And was he… okay?” Alec hadn’t realized he was twisting apart the napkin that had been on his seat until just now. He brushed the pile of paper from his knee to the ground and shook his head.

“Yeah. Not exactly top-20 finish, but he did okay.” Kiera patted his arm. “I know it’s hard to take advice, but: relax. This is his job. He knows what he’s doing. That said, I wanna smack my husband sometimes for the stuff he does.”

Alec laughed under his breath. “Yeah. You can say that again.”

Sally came back, and Alec realized how hungry he was the moment he smelled the hot dog. He wolfed it down while they grinned.

“Yeah, it’s easy to get caught up in their lives,” Sally told him. “Was Kiera just giving you the talk?”

“More or less,” Alec mumbled when he’d swallowed. “How do you do it? I mean—marrying him,” he nodded at Kiera. “Not knowing if he’ll come home.”

“Fatalities are really, really rare these days,” Sally told him, her voice soft.

Kiera nodded. “And safety standards… they’re way higher. It pisses the guys off, but it’s good, too. That crash he was in? Super rare.”

“Then why did it happen?” Alec shook his head. “Ty told me he thinks it was deliberate.”

“They check out all the video footage afterward. The investigators must have found… ohhh. But wait.” Sally straightened up, then gripped Kiera’s hand. “Remember the Deux hardware store sponsorship?”

“Yeah.”

Alec was lost, but he nodded along.

“Well, they just put out their whole LGBT acceptance policy, like, last year, right?”

“Right,” Alec murmured.

Sally looked like she was trying to explain, gesturing her hands a few times before she formed words. “Okay, so… they yanked sponsorship from Ty last season, and picked up one of Richie’s teammates… Derek. Ty’s current sponsor is this big auto parts store, Spare Tire… well, I don’t know. I don’t think they’ve said a lot about gay people.”

Alec was catching up. “You think Richie and his team are targeting Ty? Is there a grudge?”

“No more than any rivals.” Kiera shrugged. “Not enough to try to kill a guy over.”

Alec nodded, a chill running down his spine. “Are they trying to… I don’t know, out him? Kill him? What’s the deal?”

Sally drummed her fingers on her knee. “What if they’re homophobic dicks? Can we assume that? I never liked Richie when I met him, and I tend to hate self-absorbed, homophobic pricks.”

Alec liked her already. He grinned. “Yeah. So it’s a… hate… bump?”

“But the sponsorship. Richie’s sponsor is in a three-year contract, if I remember right.” Kiera was searching on her phone. “Yeah. Two more years.”

“Check Richie’s teammates.”

“Harry,” they both said at the same time.

Alec looked back and forth between them. God, he was out of his depth. He was going to need to do some serious homework. “Harry?”

“He finished well in the race where Ty crashed. The best of the four cars. And he’s got nearly as many individual points as Richie. I can’t find out much about his sponsorship contract, but I think he’s done this year.”

“If Ty crashed and got replaced, Spare Tire could find another team to support. And they paid well. That’s why Ty has such a big name—or the other way around. Whatever,” Kiera waved a hand. “It’s a lot of money, and teams like drivers who can bring a lot of money and a big sponsor, that’s the important part.”

Alec’s head hurt. “Individual points… so… they want to…?” He shrugged helplessly.

“I think they’re trying to sideline him because they want his money. If he happens to be gay and they happen to hate him for it…” Sally shook her head. “You need to talk to him and see if he and Richie ever fought, or…” she trailed off, then cleared his throat.

“Or fucked,” Alec finished, half-smiling. The idea of a lover’s quarrel gone horribly wrong made sense, and Ty had sure as hell seemed to hate the guy. But he’d put that down to the crash. “I will. Do you think they’ll try anything this race?”

“Richie can’t, unless he wants investigators crawling up his ass for months.” Sally shook her head. “Unless he’s retiring, and these guys don’t retire until they’re chained down. He wants to… wait.”

“Wants to what?” Alec curled his fingers into the napkin that had held his hot dog, resisting the urge to shred this one, too. “Wants to?”

Sally put a hand on his arm and drew a breath, and he mirrored her. When he was calmer, she continued, “Wants to move up to a team with even more prestige. Drivers switch teams—no pun intended—all the time.”

Alec managed a weak chuckle. “So this sponsor would be better… but Harry’s the one who’d get it?”

Kiera leaned in. “Good point. Okay. So, if they’re working together—this could be the start of the plan, you know? Set themselves up with good sponsors, buy their way to better cars and teams and a name in lights. But not directly, or people would notice. If Richie took out Ty and then got his sponsorship, that would be too obvious.”

“So, slowly, over a few seasons.” Alec started to understand. “All four of the drivers?”

“I dunno. But it sure as hell looks like it.”

“Richie, Harry, and—who are the others?”

She rattled off their car numbers, and Alec trie to memorize them. “So Richie’s not looking to impress people. They want Harry to finish really well. Which explains why he’s been finishing ahead of the rest of them all season.”

“Were they getting Ty out of the way to make a better finish for Harry last race?”

“We’d have to see the replay to make sure,” Kiera murmured, shaking her head. “But we can totally go to Roger about this. He can put a word in someone’s ear to look at the whole team. It wasn’t like Harry finished first last time or anything. That would have been way too obvious. Guys have tried that before.”

Alec shook his head and combed a hand through his hair, trying to stay calm. Normally, it was easy. Right now, here in the stands with nothing he could do, no way. “Can we warn Ty?”

“No way. It’s gonna start any time now,” Kiera murmured, resting a hand on his arm to keep him in his seat. “He won’t get messages until after the race. Trust him—and his spotter. Great guy. He’ll keep Ty safe.”

He didn’t last time, Alec wanted to say, but he drew a breath and let it out.

They were right. The whole time, Tyler had been sure Richie was up to something. He was going to be damn well aware of him this race, and no doubt his other teammates.

From what he’d said, he hadn’t been aiming to finish first, anyway. He wasn’t a threat to Harry’s finishing position.

Why the fuck did this have to be such a big deal? And what the hell had Tyler got himself wrapped up in?

I thought racing was just cars going around a track for ages.

As he grew aware of the nearly-full stands around them and the rumble of car engines, all Alec could do was take a deep breath.

“Here we go,” Kiera murmured, leaning in. “Get ready for a long couple hours.”

Fuck, Tyler better be okay, so Alec could kick his ass—and then hug him. There was nothing he could do to keep him away from those assholes, and God knew he’d tried.

All he could do was watch as stillness settled over the stands, everyone holding their breath and waiting for the starting flag.

Kiera was on the phone, murmuring into it, but Alec felt sick as he watched the cars shoot off the starting line.

As long as Tyler made it through this race, they could find out the truth behind their theory. The odds were stacked against him, but that never seemed to stop him.

Goddamn it. He was pissed off at Tyler, but a little proud, too.

He would be just as glad to have him in his arms, safe and sound and next to him on the couch again, though.

But if this was what Tyler wanted to do, Alec wasn’t going to stand in his way. Alec would be by his side—at least, whenever he wasn’t sweating it out alone in the car, turn by hundred-plus-mile-an-hour turn.

Somehow, I love every inch of his attitude and stubbornness and goddamn sweet heart. Just please, please, let him be okay so I get the chance to tell him as much.

Chatter started up around him as people who obviously saw each other every week caught up with each other, but Alec was oblivious as the minutes slid by.

Sally and Kiera stayed mostly apart from the talk and drinks, explaining what had happened sometimes when the crowd gasped, cheered, or chanted a driver’s name, when a car pulled off the track into the pits, or especially when they seemed to jostle for position.

It all happened so fast—almost terrifyingly so—in real life. Not watching it on a screen made all the difference, and suddenly, the adrenaline rush made complete sense to Alec.

It wasn’t until someone tapped his shoulder that Alec was forced to tear his eyes from the track.

An older man stood there in a plain polo shirt, but it was obvious from the way Sally was looking at him that this was someone important.

“Roger Hanwell,” the guy introduced himself.

Hanwell… isn’t that the team name? Alec caught his breath and straightened up, offering his hand to shake. “Alec. Pleased to meet you.”

“You, too, son. Kiera just told me what she thinks is going on. I’ve passed the word on. They’re not gonna stop the race or anything, but there are folks looking at the crash investigation again. If anything weird happens again, and if they find anything, they could DQ the team.”

Alec nodded slowly. “So someone’s listening.”

“Yeah. It’s a serious accusation, but I’ll put my name behind it.” Roger squeezed Sally’s shoulder. “These are smart cookies. And Ty himself told me he thinks there was something off about the crash. Besides, I think Josh would have throttled me otherwise.”

Alec blinked as he looked beyond Roger and saw Josh edging his way down the row of seats.

Josh grinned and raised a hand in a wave. “Sorry I couldn’t make it ’til now. Farm shit to sort out. Everything fine so far?” He looked down at the track, seemingly reading it the way everyone around Alec seemed to be able to do.

“So far, so good.” Roger nodded between them. “I’ve gotta go, but I’ll see you again afterward. Welcome to the family, kid.” He offered his hand again.

Alec’s heart soared.

Fuck, he hadn’t realized how nervous he was—about meeting the team, about maybe accidentally outing Tyler to everyone around him, about making Tyler’s work life worse. But these people had been nice to him so far, and so had Sarah.

Maybe, just maybe, this could work out.