Chapter 20 The Dancing Dots
THE DANCING DOTS
The only problem was that she wasn’t exactly participating.
As a reserve driver, her role lived on the outskirts.
Reese was visible without being essential.
She was presented to sponsors, ushered through fan events, left smiling for cameras, while the two actual drivers disappeared into strategy briefings and closed-door sessions.
Reese became the face they could spare. The one who shook hands, answered questions, and posed beside the car for photos.
In other words, the work no one else had time for.
She took it in stride. Publicly, at least.
Privately, she worked like someone trying to earn oxygen.
Every spare minute went into her body and her brain—brutal workouts that left her shaking, hours logged in the simulator until the track burned itself into muscle memory, reaction drills that pushed her reflexes to their limits.
She trained for heat and altitude, practiced in the Laurens car during the precious, tightly controlled sessions she was granted, and treated each lap like an audition that never really ended.
If they were watching, she wanted them to see everything.
Between races, her relationship with Sloane slipped into the long-distance category, which Reese quickly discovered she hated.
What they had built in close quarters didn’t translate cleanly across oceans and time zones.
They lived now in the thin space of texts and voice notes, missed calls, and FaceTime conversations snatched when their schedules briefly overlapped.
Sloane had kept her client roster and returned to consulting during the week, filling the gap left by the academy with work that demanded just as much of her. Even at home, she was pulling long hours, bouncing between meetings and deadlines, her days packed tight.
Reese, meanwhile, was based at Laurens’s headquarters in Enstone, England, a place she was still getting used to. The time difference did them no favors. When Reese’s days finally slowed, Sloane’s were often just hitting their stride.
One night, Reese lay on her back in the dark, sheets twisted around her legs, her body sore from way too many lower-body reps. The room was silent except for the low hum of the heater. England slept.
She picked up her phone and stared at it for a moment, thumb hovering, before typing.
Send me photos of your living room.
The reply came faster than she expected.
Sloane
My living room?
Reese smiled to herself.
Yes. Right now. I need to see it.
There was a pause, long enough for Reese to picture Sloane glancing at her phone, one brow lifting in that sexy way she had when her interest had been piqued. God, Reese wished they were in the same room right now.
Sloane
That’s a new one. And not at all the kind of photo I thought you were about to ask for.
Reese rolled onto her side, hugging the pillow.
I miss where you are. I want to see it.
A beat. Then another message.
Sloane
You know, I could’ve taken that in a very different direction.
I know.
Reese laughed as she typed.
I wish you would.
The photos came through a moment later.
The first was a wide shot featuring Sloane’s couch and low coffee table with late-afternoon light slanting in through the windows.
She had curtains, not blinds. The second shot was closer, messier.
A throw blanket draped over the arm of the sofa, the corner folded the way Sloane always folded it, without thinking.
Reese’s chest tightened.
She typed before she could stop herself.
You still do that with the blanket.
The reply was immediate.
Sloane
Yeah. Habit.
Reese pressed the phone lightly to her sternum, the ache settling in.
I miss that.
There was no joke this time. Just:
Sloane
Me too.
The dots danced. Reese loved those dots, especially when they were coming from Sloane. She’d wait on them all day if she had to, the flutter in her abdomen her new favorite drug.
Sloane
Four more days ‘til I see you.
I’m staring at the clock. I hate clocks now. They move too slowly.
But something interesting had happened in the time they’d been apart.
They got to know each other. Not just the big stuff, but the little things that made a person a person.
When you text with someone all day, every day, even staying up into the middle of the night to do so, the pretense comes down in the most wonderful kind of reveal.
Reese learned the patterns of Sloane’s days the way you learned a track, by paying attention.
She knew when Sloane’s morning caffeine hit because the texts got sharper, more decisive.
She knew when the day had gone sideways because Sloane stopped using punctuation altogether.
She learned that Sloane paced when she was thinking, that she folded laundry while on calls she didn’t want to be on, that she hated being idle but loved being still.
Sloane learned Reese, too. Not the public Reese from the polished interviews or the grin that she used to sell for sponsors, but the one who overthought everything at 2:17 a.m. The one who needed reassurance that she pretended she didn’t.
The one who talked through corners in her head when she couldn’t sleep, replaying laps she hadn’t even driven yet.
Sloane
You’re spiraling.
I am strategically analyzing.
Sloane
You’re catastrophizing.
Wow. Rude. Accurate. But rude.
They became each other’s first text of the day and last at night without ever naming it as such. In a way, it felt like she was never quite without Sloane, even if she was very much without her.
I think the rear grip issue isn’t the car.
Reese had sent the message just after midnight.
I think it’s me hesitating.
Sloane didn’t answer right away. Then:
Sloane
You don’t hesitate. You check twice. There’s a difference.
That one stuck with Reese. She carried it into the next practice session like a talisman. Sloane had been right. Of course she had.
They talked through everything. Reese’s frustration at being sidelined. Sloane’s exhaustion. They shared photos of hotel rooms, airport lounges, bad catering, a particularly aggressive espresso machine. Once, Reese sent a blurry picture of the sky out her window.
Can’t sleep.
Sloane
Me neither. Tell me what it looks like.
Reese did. She described the color, the quiet, the way the world felt as if it had paused. And Sloane listened. Really listened. The way she always did.
Sloane wasn’t just her girlfriend; she was Reese’s person.
It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t declared. But it was unmistakable. This was a new phase built on messages sent from different time zones, across oceans, in the quiet certainty that whatever happened next, they were no longer doing it alone.
“Welcome to Madrid,” the gate agent said as Sloane stepped off the jet bridge.
Heat met her immediately—not the sticky kind, but dry and heavy, carrying the smell of pavement and jet fuel.
Sunlight flooded the terminal in a way that felt almost aggressive after California’s softer glow, bouncing off glass and steel and making everything look newly polished.
This city didn’t ease you in. It announced itself.
Normally, Sloane would meet up with Reese at the Grand Prix circuit, in this case, the Madring. But after the past two weeks apart, Reese had messaged that she’d meet Sloane at the airport, choosing not to wait a second longer than she had to for them to be together again.
It felt strange to say, but these two weeks apart had only made her feelings for Reese grow.
She had become part of Sloane’s everyday life.
It was Reese she told if she spilled a jar of marinara sauce in the kitchen or laughed with about whatever ridiculous thing Marco Faz said during his interview with Grid and Glory.
Sometimes they called just to briefly hear each other’s voices.
The distance had been brutal, and the constant messaging felt like trying to warm your hands over a screen, comforting, but never enough.
Sloane made her way to baggage claim, her heart hammering with excitement as she scanned the throngs of people waiting for luggage, squinting at screens, or trying to find their loved ones.
Then she saw her.
Reese was impossible to miss, not because she was taller or louder than anyone else, but because she looked different.
Sharper. Stronger, somehow. Maybe it was the easy confidence in her stance, but whatever it was, it hit Sloane low and immediately.
She was dressed in training gear, which today meant a fitted T-shirt, track pants slung low on her hips, and a ball cap pulled down over her eyes.
But there was nothing casual about the way she filled the space.
Reese looked beautiful in a way that stole air, the kind of beauty that wasn’t about effort but about being exactly Reese.
Sloane briefly forgot that they were in an airport.
The noise, the chaos, the rules all fell away.
All she could see was Reese, strong and tan and devastatingly familiar, her mouth curved into that half-smile Sloane knew was a tell.
The one Reese wore when she was trying not to show how much she felt.
The moment their eyes locked, Reese stopped moving, like the world had been put on pause just long enough for Reese to take her in. A full smile blossomed on those ridiculously kissable lips.
For two weeks, they’d lived in pixels and time stamps, in jokes typed at odd hours and long silences filled with imagining what the other one was doing or wearing. None of it had prepared Sloane for this.
Reese crossed the distance first.
She didn’t hesitate or slow. She dropped her phone somewhere near her pocket and caught Sloane by the waist, momentum carrying them together. Sloane barely had time to breathe before Reese’s arms wrapped around her in a devastatingly familiar fashion. She never wanted to leave that embrace.
“There you are,” Sloane breathed, forehead pressed to Reese’s collarbone, aware of her warmth, the press of muscle, and the smooth skin she’d missed so desperately.
“I can’t believe you’re finally here,” Reese said. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Sloane whispered, holding her tight, memorizing every detail. The familiar smell of her clean cotton laundry detergent, the melon of her shampoo, the warmth of her skin. She’d missed all of it.
They stayed like that longer than was reasonable or probably polite as travelers maneuvered around them. Reese’s hands slid up Sloane’s back, thumbs pressing in as if checking that she was real. Sloane’s fingers curled into the fabric at Reese’s waist.
“You look—” Reese started, then stopped and shook her head. “I had sentences earlier. Real ones. They made sense. They were good. Now, nothing.” She pantomimed her thoughts floating away.
Sloane laughed softly, still a little stunned to be standing in front of Reese in real time. “You flew all the way here and forgot how to talk?”
“I forgot everything except you,” Reese said, then leaned in again, forehead touching Sloane’s. “I missed this. I think we can’t be apart anymore. I’m declaring it.”
“Oh? Are you moving to Venice Beach between races?”
“Or you could come to Enstone and pick up an accent. British Sloane is wildly intriguing to me.”
Sloane laughed. “I do make a mean blueberry scone.”
“Do you know what that does to me? Domesticity, when you live the kind of travel schedule that we do, is maybe my sexiest fantasy.”
“Let’s see what we can establish in Madrid.”
Reese was officially lodged by Laurens Racing at a neighboring hotel to the one booked by the academy, but Sloane couldn’t imagine a world where she and Reese didn’t stay together for the length of their time in Madrid. She knew one thing for certain: it wouldn’t be long enough.
The ride into the city felt suspended in time, the two of them tucked into the back seat while Madrid streamed past the windows in flashes of color and motion.
She caught scooters weaving through traffic and café tables spilling onto sidewalks.
Reese sat close enough that their knees brushed every time the car slowed, close enough that Sloane could feel her warmth without touching.
They talked easily, laughing about nothing and everything, the sound of Reese’s voice filling the space like it belonged there.
Every so often, Sloane caught herself stealing a glance at Reese’s profile or her hands folded loosely in her lap, at the sideways tug of her smile, and each time, the sight landed fresh and disarming, like she’d forgotten all over again how much she liked being near her.
She was feeling lucky, incredibly lucky.
Outside, the city hummed and honked and lived, but inside the car, it was just them, happy and unguarded, already counting the minutes until they could be alone.
“What’s on your schedule?” Sloane asked, which was code for how much time do we have?
“I have the fan zone at four. Samara’s coming to film the whole thing. We’ll probably do a quick one-on-one on camera after. A meeting in the paddock after that. A quick round of press where they’ll ask me the same questions about being female in a—”
“Male-dominated sport,” Sloane finished. “I wish I could tell you that it eventually goes away. It doesn’t.”
“I think that just means we need to pull up the others, invade F1 as a group.” Reese smiled against the headrest. “That’s where you come in.”
“I will do everything in my power to make sure that happens. Speaking of, we already know Marissa’s at the top of her game, but Delaney, since you moved up, has really been turning up the heat. Danielle is going to have her hands full as she finishes out the season.”
“I still hate that she’s going to win the whole thing.”
“If Marissa can consistently make podium and Danielle falls completely out of the points for a couple of races, it’s mathematically possible she won’t emerge as drivers’ champion.”
“Stop talking dirty to me,” Reese said with a shake of her head. A pause hit. “I can’t wait to see them.”
“The Starting Grid? You girls.” She kind of loved their group chat name and the way Reese had found a core support system within the drivers’ ranks.
“You all have gotten really tight. Reminds me of coming up with Veronica. That bond is unique and strong.” She squeezed Reese’s hand. “I’m happy you have them.”
“It feels very full circle, especially since Veronica brought us all together. I owe her a lot.” She kissed the back of Sloane’s hand, making it clear it wasn’t just The Starting Grid she was grateful for. “Now, how far away is this hotel anyway?”
“Why ever are you so impatient?”
“You’ll find out,” Reese said with a look that left absolutely no doubt she had plans and very little intention of waiting long for them. Sloane had absolutely zero complaints.