Chapter 26
Bobbi-June was a huge time waster.Not just for me, either. Everyone at VANT Racing had stopped to coo over her in her tiny little knit cap and booties. Alphonso had looked all sparkly-eyed when he saw her wrapped in the baby blanket and booties he’d gifted me, and had taken a photo for his wife. He told me that the baby was going to have so many knitted blankets soon, I wouldn’t know what to do with them.
Even Antony had held her, making baby talk, asking if she would come and race for them in sixteen years’ time, which made me laugh. I loved racing, but the idea of my baby flinging herself around a race track at over two hundred miles per hour filled me with terror. I had no idea how my dad had ever let me race.
True to Antony’s word, VANT had set aside a little room off the office with a recliner that I could use for nursing, as well as a baby monitor and bassinet if I needed it. Their thoughtfulness made my chest feel full. But the baby mostly just stayed in her stroller, sleeping or playing with the mobile that hung across the top.
I was halfway through the day when I finally made it to the simulations room. I brought Bobbi-June in with me, and she was thankfully sound asleep.
Stephie looked panicked when I parked the stroller beside her desk. “What do I do if she wakes up?”
I shrugged. “Just rock her with your foot. She’s just been fed, so she should sleep for a little while. Unless you don’t think you can do math and jiggle your extremities at the same time?”
Stephie huffed. “I could drink tequila shots and juggle, and still do the math needed for this.” She might be timid, but no one second-guessed her mathematical talent.
Luckily, the room was pretty dark and silent. We’d had to adjust for the fact I was smaller than the last time we’d run the simulation, and I knew I’d have to get back into shape sooner rather than later. My brain was always kind of on the baby, but eventually, I was deep into the drive.
There were differences between open-wheel and stock car racing, obviously. They were a world apart physically, but driving was driving. The fundamentals were the same, but your skills had to be tweaked between the two.
I’d shout stuff at Stephie, and she’d adjust on the fly, which was a testament to her skills more than anything else. Especially since she’d admitted that before starting at VANT Racing, she’d never seen a race car in her life. She didn’t even own a normal car. She rode the bus to work, and didn’t ever want to drive. Said she’d seen the statistics. You were less likely to die on public transport than in a personal vehicle.
The project that Stephie and I were working on would create the standard settings for the vehicles, and then they’d be tweaked to the drivers and engineers. Honestly, it was such an awesome experience, it felt like I was playing instead of working.
As we stopped the simulation, I glanced down at my watch. The room was still silent, even though Bobbi-June was normally awake by now. Panicking slightly, I climbed from the simulator and stopped when I saw Rocco holding her, swaying from side to side, baby-talking to her in Italian.
“My ovaries,” Stephie gasped when she noticed him in the room too.
I frowned at her and stepped toward the large man holding my tiny, cooing baby. He looked up at me with a soft smile. “She was fussing. I think she wanted to get out and see the world,” he said placatingly. “You seemed to be in the zone, and she didn’t seem unhappy with my presence. I should have asked for permission.”
I mean, yeah probably. I was probably a shitty parent for not noticing her fussing. Maybe I shouldn’t be bringing her to work, if I was doing both of my jobs badly.
However, the baby was flailing her tiny arms in Rocco’s direction and seemed perfectly content in the arms of a stranger. “It’s fine. Thank you for holding her.”
He tucked Bobbi-June back to his chest, and Stephie sighed. Yeah, I got it. The normally gruff driver was smiling down at the baby, and if I hadn’t just given birth, I might have become spontaneously pregnant again.
“It’s nothing. She is a good bambolina.” He handed her over to me and turned to Stephie. “I believe we have a meeting?”
Stephie cleared her throat, and I could see the flush of her cheeks even in the almost darkness. “Uh, yeah, we do. Just need to get your measurements for the simulator.”
I clutched Bobbi-June to my chest, where she began to nuzzle hungrily. “I’ll leave you to it.” I placed her back in her stroller, and she started protesting, her tiny wails sounding like a kitten crying more than the caterwauling you’d think of. She really was the best baby.
Rocco looked over at us. “Just feed her here, Stellina. I won’t look.” He lifted his chin at the chair over in the darkened corner, then climbed into the cockpit of the simulator without sparing me another glance.
I looked over at Stephie. She shrugged, as if to say go for it. So I did. I also wanted to watch Rocco in the simulator, if I was honest.
I slipped my arm out of the oversized work shirt that I was wearing. I had a maternity tank on, but I still looked around to make sure everyone was distracted before I pulled out a boob. Bobbi-June latched quickly, and I held her close to my body. Rocco was still figuring out the simulator, pointing out the differences between it and the one he used to use for the Formula One team he drove for.
Stephie was one hundred percent focused as she made calculations to account for his slightly increased body weight, height, and the track he was testing. I knew there were about fifteen other people who worked on the software for this thing, but they lived at the VANT Enterprises offices most of the time.
Finally, Rocco began racing, and it was a thing of beauty. He drove with so much ease, despite the fact that Stephie had set the simulator to provide haptics. It had taken me a while to get used to them today, as we’d kept them to a minimum when I’d been pregnant. If I crashed into the wall, it provided enough physical feedback that your wrists would hurt, as it would if you crashed into a real wall. It was a great motivator to take it seriously. Not that Rocco would know anything about that, because he maneuvered the imaginary vehicle around the track easily.
Bobbi-June finally finished, and I popped her over my shoulder to burp her as I stood, walking over to Stephie. “This part here, the track was made for stock cars. It’s going to drag for IndyCars, so you want to make sure it’s reflected in the sim.”
Stephie made notes as I watched Rocco continue to drive. I couldn’t wait to see him out on an actual track in the prototype car.
I snuck out as quietly as I could, going to find Hayes. As predicted, he was in the garage, tinkering with the nose cone of the car. Seeing us, he laid down his tools and grinned. “My favorite girls.” He dropped a kiss on Bobbi-June’s head and then one on my lips. “Want to have lunch?”
I tucked Bobbi-June back into her stroller. “Well, she just ate, but I’d love to.”
He shouted to Alphonso that he was going to lunch, then threw an arm around my shoulder as we walked toward the big double doors. “How’s the first day back going?”
I shrugged. “Everyone’s been really good about Bobbi-June, but I’m sure eventually the novelty of having a baby in a workplace will wear off.”
“We’ll deal with it when it comes to it. Pretty sure Jesse’s dying to be a stay-at-home dad,” he said with a chuckle.
It was hard to imagine Jesse—tall, tattooed, gruff-looking Jesse—as someone who changed diapers and gave baby bottles, but I’d seen it with my own two eyes. Both he and Hayes had stepped up for me when they didn’t have to, and I could admit to myself that I loved them. It was hard not to when they celebrated every time Bobbi-June burped, like the house was a frat party and she’d won a belching competition. They tried to see who could make her smile first, even though I was ninety percent sure it was a gassy face.
“Hayes?”
“Hmm?” he asked, making faces at the baby as he pushed the stroller.
I pulled him to a stop. “I love you?”
He blinked in my direction. “Was that a question?” he teased.
Flushing pink, I slapped him gently in the stomach with the back of my hand. “No, I mean, I love you.”
Grabbing me around the waist with the hand not holding the stroller, he pulled me close. “I love you too, Tally Palmer. So fucking much.”
I kissed him until my knees felt like jello and I was breathless. “That’s a relief, otherwise this unrequited pining thing might have gotten real old, real fast.”
He laughed and kissed my temple, then walked me to our new favorite deli around the corner. It was one of those places that only served the workers in the surrounding industrial zone, and the decor was as varied and rough as the clientele, normally a weird mish-mash of office workers in matching suits and guys in high-vis vests with hard hats under their arms. But the place did a mean sandwich, and I was excited about eating my body weight in processed deli meats, now that I was no longer pregnant.
After ordering, we grabbed one of the open tables. There weren’t separate tables; most people were happy to sit at the huge counter that wrapped around the grill and chat with the cooks or each other.
I parked Bobbi-June beside us, and a guy could have come in here shirtless, covered from head to toe in grease, and it would look less conspicuous than a baby. We got some weird side-eyes, but mostly, people ignored us. Maybe I should buy her a bright yellow vest so she fits in.
The short-order cook dropped off our food, made a funny, happy face at Bobbi-June which was made slightly more comical by his complete lack of teeth, then went back to the kitchen without saying a single word to us.
I’d just had my first bite when another guy walked up to stand beside our table. He looked almost as out of place as the baby, with his beige chinos and fleece sweater-vest. “Excuse me?”
“Yeah?” Hayes asked, his eyes flicking between me and the guy, like I should know who the hell he was.
“Are you Tally Palmer?” he asked, and I smiled. Maybe he was a NASCAR fan. It didn’t happen often—out of sight, out of mind and all that—but occasionally, I was recognized.
Nodding, I put my hand out for him to shake. “Yeah, I am.”
Instead of placing his palm in mine, the guy slipped an envelope between my fingers. I didn’t even know where he’d pulled it from. He didn’t even look at me as he said, “You’ve been served,” in a bored tone. Then he turned and walked out while I stared, my brain struggling to catch up with what had just happened.
I dropped the envelope. It felt like a rattlesnake, curled in a ball, waiting for me to move so it could strike. I knew exactly what was going to be inside that envelope, and I wanted to set it on fire.
“Tally?” Hayes said hesitantly, as I peeled open the sealed envelope and looked inside. Brick Willtot’s name jumped out at me, like the boogeyman of my nightmares.
“Buck’s family is suing me for custody of Bobbi-June.”