She returned an hour later, and not a moment too soon, because I’d been close to going on a search. I went over to her right away. She leaned against her car but she avoided my eyes and focused on her lighter as she lit the tip of her cigarette. I didn’t smell alcohol or marihuana on her.
“I need to be alone right now, Adamo. I know you want to talk but the voices in my head are enough to deal with right now. Just give me time.” For a moment, her eyes met mine, asking me to respect her wish.
I nodded reluctantly. “Okay, you know where to find me. Don’t do anything stupid without me.”
The flicker of a smile crossed her face. “Don’t worry.”
After a quick kiss, I turned and left her alone, even if it was the last thing I wanted to do. Our next race was scheduled in three days so it wasn’t as if I didn’t have enough to do. My car needed another check-up and Crank and I needed to go over the statistics of the races.
That night was the first time that Dinara and I didn’t see each other since we’d started having sex. It was strange lying in my tent, knowing she was only across camp from me and wondering what she was doing, how she was feeling.
Four days later was a big party because we’d reached the halfway point of our season. After the events of the last couple of days, I wasn’t sure if I was in the mood to dance, getting drunk was another matter. That seemed like an enticing option at this point.
I didn’t see Dinara in the morning and resisted the urge to seek her out despite the growing desire to do so.
Instead I helped Crank and a few other guys to set up a large firepit in the center for tonight, and bought meat for barbecuing for the entire crowd. The Camorra always sponsored the big celebrations to keep the racers entertained. We earned a lot of money with them after all. When Crank and I unloaded my trunk, I spotted Dinara for the first time that day. She sat on her hood with her arms propped up behind her and her eyes closed. Dima stood beside her and was talking to her, but she didn’t give any indication that she was listening to him. She seemed miles away. I could only imagine where her mind was taking her.
Eventually Dima stalked off. I jogged after him and reached him before he could get into his car. “How’s she?”
Dima scoffed. “You ask me? I don’t even know what the fuck happened these last few days. You took her away and now she’s messed up. Did you let her see her mother?”
“Dinara has a right to discover every aspect of her past, even if you and Grigory don’t like it.”
Dima leaned in, his eyes flashing in warning. “You should be careful, Falcone. Your brothers aren’t here to protect you and when it comes to Dinara, Grigory won’t care about consequences. He’ll rip your heart out and feed it to the dogs if something happens to her.”
I smiled darkly. “He can try.” I turned, presenting my back to Dima. Did he really think he could scare me? I’d lost count of the number of enemies who wanted to see me and my brothers dead. Grigory would just have to wait at the end of the queue for his fucking turn.
Across camp, Dinara caught my gaze. She must have watched my confrontation with Dima. She didn’t look away and so I approached her, taking it as an invitation. She put on her sunglasses casually, but this was a bigger admittance of her emotional turmoil than she probably realized. Instead of asking what I really wanted to know, how she was coping with everything, I said, “Are you going to join the party tonight? It’s going to be a blast.”
“A blast,” she said with a strange smile. “Sounds like something I don’t want to miss.”
“It starts right before sunset.”
It was strange not being closer to her, not touching her, but Dinara still leaned back on her hood and didn’t make a move to seek my closeness. If she still needed room to process everything, I’d give it to her. “I’ll be there.”
I nodded, resisting the urge to rip away her sunglasses to see the look in her eyes. Instead I backed off and returned to Crank. “Trouble in paradise?” he asked when I helped him fire up one of the barbecues he’d built out of an old steal wine barrel.
“Dinara and I enjoy space apart on occasion. We aren’t attached by the hip.”
“If you say so,” Crank said. That was the problem living in camp.
Shortly before sunset, every member of the camp, including pit girls and other women the racers had found in nearby bars had gathered for the party. Flames from the firepit in the center snaked up into the sky and illuminated the night and filled our bodies with warmth. The scent of barbecued meat and marihuana hung heavily in the air. A spicy concoction that made you feel high without a single taste or drag.