Chapter 26
HERE WENT EVERYTHING
Race day arrived like something holy.
Morning light filtered through the thin hotel curtains, soft and gray, and Reese woke with the strange calm of someone standing at the edge of something enormous.
For years, she had imagined this day in fragments of helmets, anthems, and the heat of the grid.
Now it was here, ordinary and extraordinary all at once.
Surreal in the way she couldn’t believe it was hers.
She pressed her palm flat against her chest and felt her heart beating evenly beneath it, then reached for her phone before she even checked the time.
There was already a message from Sloane:
Sloane
Morning, Hotshot. You were born for this.
Reese grinned, internalizing the words. They meant everything to her.
Sloane had snuck out early that morning to start work at the academy, whose feature race was scheduled first of the day.
They’d agreed that Reese would sleep in and get as much rest as possible.
She remembered distinctly the moment the warmth that had been curled into her back had disappeared, and a kiss had been placed softly on her cheek.
Now, alone and awake, Reese smiled into the quiet room, nerves humming beneath her skin. “Just keep the car on the track,” Shanelle had said.
The few days since she’d landed in the UK blurred into a montage.
There’d been factory briefings over video on the flight, simulator sessions that stretched late into the night, engineers firing data at her in rapid succession as if testing whether she could swim in it or sink.
It had left her feeling overloaded, overwhelmed, and in need of a break.
To calm her nervous system, she’d walked Silverstone twice—once alone at dusk, tracing the racing line with her steps, and once with Shanelle, dissecting braking zones and wind direction like surgeons.
Every practice session had been measured, every radio exchange intentional.
No wasted laps. No ego. She’d pushed without overdriving, listened more than she spoke, and memorized the car’s personality, which was so much more heightened than any car she’d ever driven.
The way it rotated under throttle, the way it twitched in high-speed corners, and the way it reacted so sensitively to each driver’s request.
Sloane had arrived three days prior, but their busy schedules always seemed to be in opposition, and Reese had to focus on qualifying, which, in the end, had placed her in P13 to start the race.
At least she wasn’t last in P22. Falling into bed with Sloane at the end of a long day had become the moment Reese looked forward to the most. They’d decompress with the lights off, wrapped around each other, talking until one of them couldn’t keep their eyes open anymore.
The night before the race, most of The Starting Grid ended up squeezed into Marissa’s hotel room, which looked like it had been decorated by someone deeply committed to retro glamour—mustard and teal accents, a low-slung leather headboard, abstract art that tried very hard to mean something, and a floor lamp that leaned at an angle like it had opinions.
Reese sat cross-legged on the carpet with her back against the bed while Marissa paced like an overcaffeinated team principal.
“Okay,” Marissa said, pointing a hairbrush at her like a microphone and tossing her sassy curls back like a supermodel. “Opening lap. What’s the plan?”
“Survive,” Reese deadpanned.
“Incorrect,” Cassidy’s voice chimed in through the laptop propped on the desk. Her screen froze for half a second before catching up. “You’re not surviving. You’re belonging. You should maybe write that down.”
Reese glanced at the screen. “Easy for you to say from your couch.”
Cassidy smirked. “I’ve studied Silverstone. It rewards patience. Don’t try to win it in Sector 1. Let the race come to you. Write that down, too.”
“Listen to her,” Delaney added, dropping down onto the edge of the bed. “You don’t have to prove anything in the first corner. Your name’s already on the grid.”
Marissa squeezed Reese’s shoulder. “And isn’t that the coolest?”
“You’ve done the work,” Cassidy said more softly now. “Trust that.”
Reese exhaled. For a moment, it wasn’t about headlines or history or firsts. It was just this—friends who understood exactly how much tomorrow meant.
“Okay,” she said, nodding once. “I’ll let it come to me.”
“And if you don’t,” Marissa grinned, “we’ll still claim we knew you when.”
“Speak for yourself,” Delaney said, as she pulled Reese into a headlock, which of course shifted into a wrestling match that Delaney, in typical fashion, won.
Laughter rolled through the room, warm and grounding. Reese had needed that time with her friends to relax away from the stresses of training. She knew her friends would be watching the race as if it were their own. Her family would tune in, too.
But that morning, the race day was no longer abstract.
Here went everything.
Silverstone on race morning felt different from how it had all week.
Heavier. Charged. Almost like it was ready to go.
The low gray sky stretched wide and endless above the circuit, the kind of English morning one could expect.
The grandstands were already a living thing—color and flags and sound folding in on itself from the die-hard fans, ready to spend the whole day there.
She blinked at her name on the timing screens. That hit harder than she expected.
As the day moved forward, she adjusted the collar of her race suit as she walked, helmet tucked beneath her arm, the weight of it familiar and sacred.
Engineers moved around her in practiced choreography.
Cameras tracked her steps. Somewhere, an announcer said her name again, stretching it slightly, making it larger than it felt inside her own head.
This is real.
The car sat waiting at the end of the grid, nose pointed toward Turn 1, impossibly sleek under the muted light. Mechanics hovered around it like guardians, tire blankets humming softly, heat rising in faint waves. The smell met her first: fuel and rubber baked into asphalt.
She slowed as she approached.
For years, she had watched this walk from the outside. From hospitality balconies in F2. From the academy paddock. From behind pit walls where her access badge hadn’t quite matched her ambition.
Now the path cleared for her.
Damon met her halfway. “All good,” he said, voice steady in her earpiece. “Just another race.”
Reese almost smiled. It wasn’t just another race.
She ran a hand briefly along the halo as she reached the car, grounding herself.
Her first Formula 1 start.
The noise of the crowd swelled as more drivers emerged onto the grid. The national anthem would come next. The formation lap. The lights. This was happening.
Reese eased her helmet on, the world narrowing instantly to the sound of her breath and radio chatter.
She lowered herself into the seat, hands finding the wheel like they’d always belonged there. It was go time.
As they grew closer to race time, Sloane stared at the clouds inching in on the circuit, willing them to stay in the distance.
The weather scanner predicted a small shower a few minutes into the race, but the precipitation was scheduled to move off after that.
She was holding those problematic clouds to the bargain.
Reese had enough to contend with on her first race and didn’t need wet conditions and unplanned tire changes to worry about as well.
She’d attempted a light breakfast that morning, and had even walked around with a toasted bagel on a plate for a good half hour before she had to surrender it to the trash can.
Her appetite had stepped out and probably wouldn’t return until Reese had successfully finished the race and could move safely back to her status as the reserve driver.
Sloane just had to make it through today, and then she could regroup and figure out how to be better prepared for these feelings in the future.
She had checked the radar twice before the start and then once more on her phone during the formation lap, as if vigilance alone could influence weather patterns. The system had looked small. Fast-moving. Five minutes of inconvenience, the commentators had said.
But from her place near the Laurens garage, she could see the sky deepening instead of clearing.
Dammit. The gray thickened, low and stubborn.
The air felt heavy against her skin, charged in a way she remembered too well.
When the first drops hit the track, they didn’t seem tentative.
They came down with intent. Leave it to Silverstone to make this harder.
She folded her arms to contain the unease pressing outward from her chest. She would not devolve into anxiety. She would not give in.
When the lights went out, Sloane’s breath caught anyway.
Reese launched cleanly without spin or hesitation, slotting neatly into the rhythm of the pack as the field surged toward Turn 1.
She held her line, gave just enough room, and came out the other side exactly where she’d started, intact and unbothered.
Sloane grinned. Reese Maddox doing exactly what she’d been trained to do, surviving the chaos and keeping her place among drivers who’d been here for years.
On the screens, Reese was composed. That was what struck Sloane first. The steering inputs were clean. The throttle application was controlled, and there was no panic in the corrections. No trace of ego. Reese was adapting really nicely to the conditions.
“Good girl,” Sloane murmured, hand on her chest. It seemed to be living there. “You got this, baby.” She exhaled slowly, an attempt to release some of the muscle tension. It didn’t work.