Chapter 16 Theo
Theo
Budapest
It seemed wherever I looked, Sebastian was there. In the drivers’ paddock. Wind-tunnel testing at Silverstone the session immediately before me, so that we bumped shoulders in the corridor as he was on his way out and I was on the way in. And now…
I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture before sending it to Sebastian. This is ridiculous, I typed.
I was stood on the wide balcony of my hotel in Budapest, the night before qualifying.
After all the promo shoots and TikTok dances that the social media had forced Graham and I into doing, after our appearance on the main stage, and after the most intense practice session of the season so far. And still I couldn’t escape Sebastian.
Because across the Octagon, so big and shining so brightly that it would give me trouble sleeping, was a billboard.
Sebastian’s eyes looked right into mine as he raised one massive hand and indicated the watch on his wrist. SEBASTIAN GARCíA LOVES ROLEX said the text, as he gave a big pearly-white smile.
My phone buzzed, and the man himself had only sent a laughing emoji in reply. I growled at it, formulating a witty reply, when I heard the knock at the hotel door I’d been waiting for.
I crossed the hotel room quickly and opened the door. Brooke Savage was stood in the hotel corridor with a bottle of red wine and a box of doughnuts.
“Thank God,” I said, taking the wine off her straight away. “I don’t normally drink the night before a race but one can’t hurt.”
“You’d be lucky,” said Brooke, pushing past me and heading to the balcony with her box of doughnuts. “It’s non-alcoholic.”
“You cow!” I shouted after her. I picked up two glasses from the side-table on my way out to the balcony. “I was stressed enough with that looking down on me.”
Brooke was looking up at billboard-Sebastian. “Does he have zero pores at all or is that a Photoshop job?” She squinted. “Nope, I can’t spot one hair out of place, not a single blackhead. His skin really is that perfect.”
“Believe me, I know,” I muttered. “You should see it up close.”
Brooke dropped the box of doughnuts onto the table and whirled to face me. “How close, Theodore Tyler?”
I gulped. “Quite close?” I tried. “Y’know, like when we’re out on the paddock.”
“Don’t lie to me, little man.” Brooke grinned, as if to show me she meant no harm. But her eyes were still a little narrowed as she sat down. “Just tell me everything and I’ll forgive you, and let you eat half these doughnuts.”
I rolled my eyes as I took the other seat on the little bistro set.
Below us, horns beeped and vendors shouted.
And across the busy street, Sebastian’s huge face seemed to observe the conversation.
I really hadn’t anticipated telling Brooke all about my boyfriend as he stared down at us.
I unscrewed the cap from the bottle of wine — never a good sign as to its quality — and poured us each a glass.
I told Brooke all about how my relationship with Sebastian had developed. How the bets had turned to friendship, friendship to want and the want into a real, solid relationship. Her eyes widened as I talked, but she sat in silence and listened, occasionally sipping her wine.
“…and then in Milan, when I lost that race, we had a bet that…y’know what, you don’t need to know exactly what we betted,” I said. “But needless to sayI ended up in his bed that night. And we actually ended up talking through the race.”
“So that’s why you were so confident in practice yesterday,” Brooke said. “You had your own private sensei sucking your dick and whispering advice in your ear. I wonder if I can find me a pussy-loving mechanic who’ll make my piece of shit car go faster,” she said.
“So crude, what will your mother think?” I muttered, then took a sip of wine for the first time since I’d poured it. “That is fucking disgusting, Brooke. You’ve got me drinking motor oil rather than wine. This is why people don’t drink non-alcoholic red.”
“It grows on you. Like a rash.” Brooke said, taking another sip. “It pairs well with doughnuts.”
“Said no one about a good wine ever,” I replied, but reached for a doughnut anyway. The sugary flavours did drown out the vinegary bitterness of the red, but I wasn’t sure I’d call it a pairing so much as a rescue.
“I didn’t know you were a wine snob,” said Brooke. “Always struck me as a tequila to the eyeball kinda guy.”
“Well, yes. That too,” I said. “But like most of us on the grid I grew up with enough money that I’ve stolen enough good wines from the cellar before a party. And my boyfriend owns a vineyard.”
“You are too fancy,” Brooke winked before taking another sip of the wine. “How are you dealing with…the rivalry?” Her tone had turned conspiratorial, like she was asking me about some great state secret.
“It’ll be fine,” I said. “I’ve had a bit of a slump. But all I’ve got to do is race well this weekend. I’m still comfortably ahead of Sebastian for the European Tour, and we’ll be past the halfway point after tomorrow.”
“Mhm. Just saying, I bet the hate sex is epic.”
“There is no hate sex, Brooke. Sebastian…he’s special.
He’s helping me out. And I’m sure whatever happens, we’ll both be there for each other.
Anyway, it’s Max Burnham breathing down my neck for the European championship.
” But even as I said it, a little tendril of unease curled somewhere in my stomach and settled there.
What would I do if the championship did come down to Sebastian and me?
I took a sip of my horrible red wine, and dreamed it was the kind that could get me drunk enough to forget.
I hated to ever call the high-octane job I did boring, but qualifying had been…
uneventful. I’d managed a respectable fifth, behind both Max Burnham and Sebastian, who had qualified in fourth and second, respectively.
I had just pulled up to the line after the warm-up formation lap, and I could see both ahead of me as we waited for everyone else to pull into their bays behind.
I was focusing in on Max. He was the prize.
Sebastian remained almost twenty points behind me, and if I could catch Max then I would be ahead of them both - with a cushion of points that could keep my relationship with Sebastian from turning sour.
I didn’t know how I’d be if we were properly track rivals again.
I remembered last season, right at the start. The crash with Sebastian that stopped our friendship in its tracks. Without that crash, one silly overconfident decision from Sebastian, would we have fallen for each other that much earlier? Did my reaction delay us coming together?
“Focus, Theo, you’ve got this. One good start is all you need.
” My race manager was talking through the headset, and I had no idea if they were general words of encouragement or if I actually looked that distracted on the grid.
I looked up at the red lights above, and narrowed my eyes like they had personally offended me.
“Come on, you bastards,” I whispered to myself. Each light lit up in turn. And then, darkness.
And then, nothing.
No big start.
The car jerked forward an inch as I pressed my foot down on the pedal. Every other car shot past me as I tried again and again to get the car to move. But nothing. Ahead of me, a light panel turned yellow to signal that I was an obstruction, that everyone else should slow down.
My race was over. And my season had just got a whole lot harder.