Chapter 8
Hutch
The rain starts somewhere outside Reims, sprinkling at first, then hammering by the time we hit the motorway.
The wipers struggle to keep up, smearing water across the glass in rhythmic sweeps.
The world beyond the windscreen is all misty grey and smudges of red tail lights, endless asphalt stretching into nothing.
Kip’s quiet beside me, laptop balanced on his knees, fingers tapping in steady bursts.
Every few minutes he frowns at the screen, mutters something, and starts over.
The bag from the bakery sits between us, half-empty and still smelling faintly of butter.
I should be locked in on the road, but the rain and the way he commands my attention without trying make it hard to focus.
“So,” I say, mostly to keep the quiet from stretching too long. “How does someone who hates mess so much and isn’t even a racing fan end up wrangling drivers for a living?”
The faint click of his keyboard cuts off. “You make it sound like I wrestle them.”
“Don’t you?” I ask, risking a glance at him.
“Some days, yeah.” He rewards me with a small smile that sneaks under my skin before I can look away. “I was a communications major. Thought I’d end up doing PR for, I don’t know, tech startups or music festivals. Not multimillion-dollar egos in carbon fiber suits.”
I chuckle, easing the van into the slow lane as the rain thickens. “So working in motorsports wasn’t the dream?”
“Wasn’t not the dream. I’m good at it. Just sometimes I wonder how I got here. One day I’m writing press releases for Pirelli, the next I’m babysitting a Formula One driver.”
He says it lightly, but there’s something underneath. Ambition, maybe. Or restlessness. Hard to tell with him.
“What about you?” he asks after a beat. “You always want to do this?”
The question catches me off guard. I shrug, eyes on the road. “Didn’t have a grand plan. Left school early, took whatever work came my way. Got lucky with a local garage, started learning the ropes. Someone there knew someone on a touring car team. One job led to another.”
“And now you’re flying around Europe babysitting machines that go two hundred miles an hour.”
“Something like that.” I glance at him just long enough to catch the curve of his mouth. “Suppose I stuck with what I knew—things that move fast and only stop when it’s planned.”
He laughs quietly, then looks back out at the rain. “Seems like you worked hard for it.”
I don’t say anything to that. Maybe because I did, and maybe because hearing it from him hits deeper than I expect.
I tighten my grip on the wheel. The motorway’s gone from silver to slate, slick with standing water.
Kip shuts his laptop with a muted click and leans back, watching the blur of passing lorries. “You ever think about doing something else after this?”
A laugh escapes before I can stop it. “Like what? Join the circus?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugs, fiddling with the edge of his sleeve. “You’re good at what you do. But that doesn’t mean it has to be forever.”
“Forever’s a stretch. One season at a time, that’s the job.” I check the mirrors, easing around a slow-moving car. “You start thinking long-term, you miss the turn in front of you.”
He chuckles. “Considering how often you miss them, you might want to take notes.”
I’d roll my eyes if I wasn’t concentrating so hard on the road in front of me. Or what I can see of it. “Very funny.”
“But in all seriousness, I guess that’s where we’re different.” I feel him watching me for a reaction, but I keep my attention fixed on the traffic ahead. “I can’t not think about the next thing. Next race, next release, next crisis.”
“Sounds exhausting.”
“It is,” he admits. “But I like knowing what’s coming. Being the one who has a plan.”
I glance over. He’s looking out the window, the grey light catching the side of his face, eyes far away. And I get it. Because under all the data and discipline, there’s someone who’s just trying to keep things from going sideways. Can’t blame him for that.
Still, I can’t resist needling him a little. “You know what they say. Sometimes life is what happens when you’re busy making plans.”
He snorts. “Tell that to my color-coded calendar.”
The rain hammers down even harder, relentless and blinding. Spray from passing vehicles lashes the windscreen, the tyres hissing over puddles. Visibility’s gone to shit.
“Bloody hell,” I mutter, easing off the accelerator. “Can barely see the lane lines.”
Kip peers ahead. “I think that sign said there’s a turnoff in two kilometres.”
“Glad to see you’ve finally made peace with the metric system. And yeah, I saw it, too. We’ll pull off, wait it out.”
By the time I guide the van down the exit ramp, water’s pooling along the verge—what Kip would call the shoulder. The road winds through a village that’s barely more than a handful of houses and a filling station. Then I spot it—a squat brick pub with a sagging sign and the promise of shelter.
“Perfect,” I say, pulling into the gravel lot. “Let’s hope they’ve got something hot on.”
Kip gives a short laugh, unbuckling his seatbelt. “You mean food, right?”
“Course I do.” I shoot him a look. “Mostly.”
Kip eyes the downpour. “We’re running for it, aren’t we?”
“Unless you’ve got an umbrella hidden in that laptop bag.”
He grins, already opening his door. “Race you.”
“You’re on.”