Chapter 28 #2
It had been going for over one hundred years and had just celebrated its centenary with an exhibition of more than sixty cars which had previously won or marked the history of the race, a drivers’ parade through the city where fans gathered and cheered the drivers on, wishing them luck for the weekend.
They even had drone shows and live entertainment at the circuit.
Savi wished she could have been there for that, but she’d missed out by one season.
‘Do you think we could stop for food first?’ Weston asked, holding off on making another complaint when Savi turned to glare at him. ‘I could do with some local cuisine.’
‘We’re going to an Italian,’ Savi deadpanned.
‘Close enough. Italy is only one country away.’
Marco asked the driver to stop, agreeing that their bags would be taken to the hotel and dropped to their rooms by the staff.
Another perk of being a VIP that Savi didn’t think she would ever get used to; people trying to do everything for her.
She’d walked into her hotel room for the second race of the season and someone had unpacked on her behalf, freaking her out when she realised the staff must have seen and handled her underwear. It was weird.
‘This is beautiful,’ Calvin commented, standing on the pavement and looking up, not at the restaurant building, but at the cathedral opposite. ‘Can we go in?’
‘The three of you can come back into the city in the week, I’ll have someone from the team drop you in,’ Marco suggested. ‘We have plenty of assistants and interns who can ferry you around. The circuit isn’t far from the city centre, so it won’t take much time out of their day.’
It was relatively quiet in the area immediately surrounding the restaurant, and they were shown to a table as soon as they entered.
It was nothing like Savi expected, and not the kind of place she thought Marco would choose to dine in.
The tables were all dark wood, the walls red and there was some questionable décor, like the side table which seemed to have no real purpose except for displaying a single dying plant, with marble elephants acting as a table leg.
Nonetheless, it was homely and seemed authentic, and she loved it.
They’d pored over the menu, settling on a range of pastas and pizzas and calzones, ordering all the side dishes they could manage between them, then they’d said hello to a couple of drivers from Camino Endurance Team and let Weston and Calvin take photos with them, both of them looking pleased as punch to be speaking so intimately with people they’d admired for years.
They were waiting for dessert when a group of fans approached them: a group of five or six girls who were decked out in Revolution Racing merch.
They’d spent the duration of their meal glancing over at Savi and Marco and whispering, until Marco had waved them over and given them the green light to interrupt.
‘Hi, girls,’ Marco smiled. ‘Thanks for waiting for us to finish eating.’
‘It’s no problem,’ one of them smiled back, acting as their spokesperson while the rest of them seemed too nervous to speak. ‘We were wondering if we could get photos and autographs? We know we’ll see you at the parade, but you’ll have so many people to see then.’
‘Sure,’ Savi agreed, taking a black marker pen from one of them and signing a collection of hats for them all. They each had a Girls Off Track hat which she signed, too. Her signature sat amongst around ten others, black ink standing out against the pastel pink fabric.
‘We’re trying to get autographs from as many females in motorsport as possible, but you were our top priority this season,’ the quietest girl of all spoke up.
‘We’ve been following your career since you were first announced as a driver in your last championship and went on the Girls Off Track podcast, and when you signed your contract with Revolution Racing we just knew we had to meet you. ’
‘Yeah, Revolution having an all-female team for their second car really changed the game. We even collectively signed up to a Girls Off Track workshop, we met Faith and Lucie!’ another chimed in. ‘We’re all studying degrees in college which should help us get into the industry.’
‘That’s amazing. Keep doing as many of those workshops as you can!’ Savi said. ‘I think they’re doing an internship programme next year where they’ll invite select people to work the race season under them, so if any of you get accepted for that you could well be working with us.’
‘What?!’ their spokesperson gasped. ‘As soon as they announce it on socials we’ll get on that. Do you think you’ll ever join forces with them?’
‘Maybe, as their company expands. I think I need a couple of race seasons to settle in with the team before I try to branch out to other projects,’ Savi said, smiling over at Marco, knowing he was a silent partner in his friends’ business.
‘Hey, girls…’ Marco smiled. ‘What are your names and social media usernames? I’m gonna get you some VIP paddock passes for this week.
My family can’t make it so I’ve got some spare.
You can watch Savi and the girls in action, and you’ll get to meet Lucie, Faith, Esme, Bea…
’ He pulled his phone out to take their information down.
Savi couldn’t stop grinning while they all took turns taking photos, her dad stepping in to help with the group shots.
They were crowding the aisle of the restaurant, blocking the waiters, but nobody seemed bothered.
The staff were probably used to drivers dining with them and fans catching wind of their locations.
She loved that she had the power to make fans’ dreams come true, like she was some sort of motorsport fairy godmother.
Although it was Marco who was doing the wish granting this time, she had done plenty herself.
‘Thank you both so much. We’ll see you at the track!’ The girls gathered their merchandise and phones and scarpered off, back to their table, leaving Savi and her family to enjoy their dessert in peace.
‘Ma?’ Weston poked Bonnie in the ribs, laughing. ‘Are you crying?’
‘Bonnie, are you okay?’ Marco tried to catch her eye but she was hiding her face.
‘Sorry, I’m just so proud of you, Sav. I know it’s not been an easy few years, but I think being here it’s all just hitting me. You defied the odds and actually fucking made it.’
Savi gasped. ‘Oh my goodness me, Ma’s swearing. But seriously, thank you. You guys have had my back from the very beginning, and I know even without Gabriel’s financial input, you would have made it happen. Somehow, some way. I couldn’t have done it without you.’
While she joined Bonnie in tearing up, she felt Marco’s hand drop to her thigh under the table.
He didn’t give it a squeeze, or even move at all, but he held his hand out with his palm facing upward.
A silent invitation to take hold of it and use him as an anchor.
She did exactly that, managing to hold back her emotion so as not to cause a scene in a restaurant full of people who recognised them.
The last thing they needed was close-up shots of Savi’s ugly crying face hitting the internet; her teammates would never let her live that down.
‘I’m going to make it my mission to come to one race a season, even if I have to take a commercial flight on my own,’ Weston said.
‘Not a chance, I’m coming with you. I’m not missing my little girl on that podium if I don’t have to,’ Calvin stated, seemingly forgetting that he had a ranch to run. It was a miracle that he’d left to watch her race at the start of the season, let alone that he was here for this too.
‘Please do come to as many races as you can,’ Marco said, ‘because I’m really going to miss you all. I feel like part of the family.’
‘Well, duh. You are.’ Weston rolled his eyes. ‘We’ll be wearing our Revolution Racing shirts for you, too, De Luca. You can’t escape us now; once a Hart, always a Hart.’
Savi was sitting on the edge of the claw-foot bathtub in her hotel room, dressed in her pyjamas and moments away from falling into bed. Except she was actually moments away from walking down to Marco’s room and giving him a hug.
He had wheeled Weston all around Le Mans, playing tour guide to her family and not once complaining about how much strength it took to push a six-foot-something ex-athlete over cobbled pathways.
Weston’s expensive new wheelchair was no match for those cobbles.
They’d made it to the cathedral after all and found Calvin a magnet.
Both experiences that everyone had soaked up every moment of until Weston started to say that his medication was making him sleepy.
He’d been on anti-depressants for two years, something Savi had briefly tried to keep her anxiety under control; she had just concluded she would rather keep any kind of medication out of her system.
Deciding that her need to thank him overruled the voice in her head telling her they needed some space between them after spending so much time together recently, she made her way down the corridor and pressed the button to buzz the elevator up to his floor.
The rooms next to hers were empty; waiting for Kodie and Miko to fill them when they showed up tomorrow.
She tapped on the door lightly, sort of hoping he wouldn’t hear it so she could run back to bed.
It was one a.m., and they were supposed to have had an early night, but she hadn’t been able to sleep.
One second, her mind was on Jesse, angry at herself for sticking by him for so long when she knew there hadn’t been a future there.
Then the next, it was on Marco and all the times she’d thought she felt something and squashed it down in favour of being loyal to the man who wasn’t treating her like a partner.
She had only known Marco was awake because the group chat was alive thanks to him and Brett bickering back and forth about mundane crap.
‘You’re still up?’ he said, looking surprised but not confused to see her standing at his door at this time of night. He beckoned her in, closing the door softly behind her.
‘Couldn’t sleep,’ she shrugged. ‘And I realised I haven’t thanked you for today.
For taking my family under your wing and showing them round.
In fact, I haven’t thanked you for coming back to Wyoming with me, either, and helping me decorate and picking up the pieces when Jesse left.
You’ve really gone above and beyond for us all, and you’ve opened Weston’s world up again and–’
‘Savannah,’ he interrupted, ‘you don’t have anything to thank me for. I’ve had the best couple of weeks getting to know you on a deeper level, living out my cowboy fantasies.’
‘But still, you didn’t have to do any of it,’ she mumbled.
‘I wanted to. It’s as simple as that.’
‘Thank you.’ She said it again, one last time, but this time he clamped his hand over her mouth, and she let out a muffled laugh. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank–’
‘Shut up, Cowgirl. Do you want to stay and watch something? We have a few episodes of that show left. I know we have to be up early, but–’
‘Yep,’ she nodded. ‘Which side of the bed is yours?’
‘Left.’
She leapt up onto his king-sized mattress in her leopard print PJs and fluffy slippers, brought halfway across the world with her for the first time ever, and settled into his sheets, the pillows nearly swallowing her whole. ‘You coming?’
He raised an eyebrow at her, eyes raking her body in that way he’d done so often and she had ignored. ‘How does such a small person take up so much space?’
‘It’s my big heart,’ she grinned. ‘I require the extra room.’
‘Yeah, well, hope you don’t mind some physical contact because I’m not watching TV from the far-left hand side of such a humongous mattress.’
Savi raised her eyebrows, feigning a threatened look because in truth, that small dose of physical contact with someone who knew her and respected her may well have been what she’d come looking for tonight. So, she really, really didn’t mind.