Chapter 14
fourteen
LOS ANGELES, CA
Avery’s shoes click-clacked against the linoleum flooring of the team’s factory headquarters, east of LA, making sure no one in the small group she was leading got left behind.
She’d worn flats, knowing she’d be doing a lot of walking today, but the loafers still made a ton of noise with each step.
The summer shutdown was over, and it was all hands on deck at the factory as the team geared up for the second half of the season, which would kick off that weekend in Austin, TX.
Today she and Caroline were taking a small group of donors on a behind-the-scenes factory tour, which would end with a not-so-subtle pitch for a gala sponsorship.
Not that she minded, any excuse to be in the thick of the racing world was a good one.
“And through these doors is our state-of-the-art simulator where our drivers and engineers map out the best plan for each and every turn on the track,” she explained, stopping in front of a set of frosted double glass doors.
“Oh, can we take a looksie?” Susan, a woman representing one of the city’s prominent family foundations, asked with a conspiratorial wink.
Avery hesitated for a moment. She didn’t want to interrupt any prep for that weekend’s race.
But making a potential donor happy was also important.
A little VIP treatment would go a long way in securing a donation, heck, maybe the group would buy a whole table.
“That’s not usually part of the tour, but let me see what I can do,” Avery winked back, laying it on a bit thick.
Avery knocked gently on the glass door, and when no one answered immediately, she opened it a crack and looked into the dimly lit space.
A trio of engineers sat with their backs to her, facing their computer monitors, clearly reviewing some data.
Beyond their bay, another set of doors lead to the actual simulator set-up: a stationary replica of the team’s current car parked in front of movie-theater-sized screens that could project a realistic view of the track from the driver’s perspective.
“Hello?” she asked, her voice going up an octave.
The guy closest to the door pulled off his headphones and turned around, “Hi there, Avery. Teddy’s on his lunch break,” he looked at his watch, “But he should be back here for the afternoon in a few minutes.”
Teddy? Here? She tried to simultaneously mask her surprise and shove away the butterflies that fluttered their wings in her belly at the mere mention of his proximity. Of course, the staff assumed she’d stop by to see her “boyfriend” at work, if he was in town.
She tried to keep her expression neutral.
“Oh, of course. Actually, I have a favor to ask?” she pointed beyond the glass.
“I have a small group of foundation donors on a tour, can I bring them in and show them what you do here in sim?” She felt a bit guilty as she asked, knowing how much pressure the engineers were under.
“Sure, no problem at all,” Alan replied, pushing up his glasses. “Come on in,” he stood up and helped open the doors, as the group of donors shuffled in.
“Please allow me to introduce Alan, our lead engineer for simulation, who was kind enough to take a moment away from his work on the next race to show us around,” Avery said to the group.
“Yes, as Avery mentioned, what we do here in the simulator is help plan exactly what setting the driver should use at each segment of the lap…”
Avery tuned him out as soon as she could see that he had her tour’s attention.
Her whole body was on high alert knowing Teddy was in the building.
How did I not know he was here? Her body positively lit up at the news he was nearby.
But my heart feels more than a twinge of disappointment that he didn’t let me know he was going to be here.
He was under no obligation to, of course, it wasn’t like their deal made it so that he had to report his whereabouts to her.
She knew that. It was just that she’d thought things had changed between them in Amsterdam.
And they’d been in contact nearly every day.
It would have been so easy for him to tell her he was going to be in LA.
Did he not want to see her? Had she misread the situation entirely?
“Great question, we work with several test drivers each week, not only our track drivers,” Alan explained to the group. “If there are no other questions, it was a pleasure meeting all of you. I do hope I’ll see you at our gala?” Alan turned to Avery and she smiled back appreciatively.
“Alan, thank you so much for your time,” Avery said emphatically. She ushered the group out of the room, a few of whom were clearly trying to linger in hopes of catching a glimpse of Teddy. She couldn’t blame them.
Avery felt her own eyes darting around, looking for Teddy as much as her tour group was, as they filed back out into the hallway.
“Avery, are you sticking around? Teddy should be here any minute,” Alan asked nonchalantly before she closed the doors behind her.
She looked at the group of donors, then back longingly at the sim set-up. “Well, I need to wrap up this tour and show our guests out…”
“I’ve got this, I can take them,” Caroline offered.
“Really? You sure?” Avery asked, not used to handing off her responsibilities to anyone. “I’m sure,” Caroline confirmed, tapping her low-heeled boot on the floor. “Who do you think gives these tours when you’re out of town?”
“Good point. Okay, I’ll hang out for a minute,” she said, instinctively grabbing for one of her curls.
Avery watched as the group marched down the hallway, gazing at the back of Caroline’s shoulder-length blonde hair, before turning her thoughts back to Teddy.
Will he be happy to see me here? She didn’t want to be a nuisance to him—or any of the engineers for that matter—with the next race days away.
“Don’t let me keep you,” she told Alan.
“No worries,” he said. “Come check out this setup we are working on. I know you know what you’re looking at,” Alan gestured over to the screen.
Avery beamed. This, the feeling of really being a part of the work, lights me up inside.
Avery hovered over Alan’s shoulder as he explained the microchanges he was making to the car’s balance and steering to see if they could get the car to improve a couple of tenths of seconds each lap based on Teddy’s feedback earlier in the day.
“And what about that number there, what –” Avery was interrupted mid-question when Teddy and an engineer came barreling through the doors, deep in conversation.
She knew he would be walking in any second, and yet his commanding presence still surprised her.
The way that everyone in the room straightened their shoulders a bit, and stopped what they were doing when he entered.
Was it because he was the driver who could make or break all their hard work when he was out on the track in real life?
Or, because he was the face of the team, the guy who got paid the big bucks?
Or was it just his essence, his “it-factor”?
Probably all of the above.
Teddy’s eyes went wide with surprise seeing her shoulder-to-shoulder with Alan, but his mouth quickly turned into a smile.
The big smile Avery had thought about every day since she’d last coaxed it out of him.
Had it really only been three weeks since they’d seen each other?
He’d let his facial hair grow out since she’d seen him; the days-old scruff she was used to seeing him rock had grown into the beginning of a goatee. She didn’t hate it.
“Avery, hi. I didn’t know you were going to be here today,” Teddy said as their eyes locked. She could have sworn she saw the golden-brown flecks dance.
“I didn’t know you were in town at all,” she cocked her head.
He ran his hands through his hair and broke their eye contact, as if embarrassed to have been caught once she pointed it out.
Crap. She hadn’t meant to put him on the spot in front of the engineers. Had she crossed some kind of line in their relationship? “Not that you have to give me your schedule…” she winced.
Alan drifted away, giving them as much room as was possible in the enclosed space.
“Yes, since Austin is relatively close to LA, I decided it would be nice to pop into the factory for the day, and do my sim work here,” he paused. “As soon as I finish here tonight, I fly straight to Austin,” he offered up, “Quick trip, that’s why—”
“Totally, I get it,” she said, letting him off the hook, even as her heart smarted a bit.
“Stay and watch this next set of laps?” he offered.
Her posture softened a bit. She could do that. “Sure.”
There was that smile again, how could she resist that smile?
“Alright, let’s get started then,” Alan interrupted. “I made the changes we talked about before lunch to the steering, so let’s try again option B on the big hill and turns 1 and 2.”
Teddy nodded—he’d become serious, Work-Mode Teddy again before her eyes. The smile replaced with a straight face that was all business.
Someone handed him a helmet, and he walked through the second set of doors to the car setup.
“Okay, Teddy. Option B when you’re ready,” Alan spoke into his headset that would be delivered to Teddy’s radio like he’d talk to his race engineer in a real race.
Avery couldn’t hear Teddy’s responses as Alan continued to give Teddy instructions lap after lap, trying a number of different options as the team engineers recorded every minute difference, looking for correlations between settings and lap times.
She stayed where she was, and watched the screen with his helmet cam view lap after lap with genuine interest as Teddy breaked at every corner and then picked up his speed on every straightaway.
“Good. Let’s jump out and do a debrief,” Alan instructed.
He strode through the double doors, his presence once again filling the room.
“Option B felt best, I think. Little bit of understeer by turn twelve in Option A,” Teddy started the conversation.