Chapter 13
The Avenue sits right past the entrance of the OTC lobby.
It’s a broad hallway with two-story high ceilings where the Orbital: A History exhibit is displayed.
All of the team’s most iconic past cars are showcased, alongside biographies and photos of instrumental drivers and team principals.
The first time I walked by I ended up ten minutes late to simulators because I got so caught up looking.
“You can’t make comments publicly like—” Dietrich runs a hand through his hair, shoulders tensing as whoever he’s talking to interrupts.
I try to make my steps as loud as I can so Dietrich knows I’m here, but The Avenue’s flooring is noise absorbent, designed to enhance the awe-inducing effects of the exhibition.
I’m five feet away, in plain sight if he would only turn around, when he hurls his phone.
It soars and hits the highest pane of the floor-to-ceiling steel-enforced windows.
The sound cracks like a gunshot over an empty range.
I jump at the noise and trip over something long and low to the ground behind me. I try to regain my footing by grabbing the closest standing object, but it’s a wobbly exhibit sign that tips over with me and lands squarely on my nose.
Before I have time to check for bodily damage, Dietrich’s concerned face hovers over mine. “Are you okay?”
I nod. At this point, my pride hurts more than any of my actual body parts.
“How many fingers?” Dietrich waves his hand back and forth in front of me so rapidly I would have trouble counting even without a fall.
“I’m fine.” I push myself up and press my nose gingerly. It’s hot to the touch and tender but doesn’t seem bruised. “The noise startled me, that’s all.” I gesture toward the remnants of Dietrich’s phone, scattered along the far side of the floor.
His face falls. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were here, otherwise I would have…” He trails off.
Making a guy talk about himself is a surefire way of getting him to like you, according to Roz and the dating advice TikToks she sends me, but this does not feel like the move of the moment.
Dietrich looks like he’d rather compete on an eat-goat-brains-for-money game show than elaborate on what caused him to throw his phone like he’s Shohei Ohtani’s long-lost twin.
I dive for the first random tangent I can take us down.
“Did you know Robert Peel triggered the Bedchamber Crisis?”
“What?” Dietrich stares.
“A British prime minister in the 1800s; he asked Queen Victoria to change her ladies-in-waiting. She refused, and he declined to lead.” I rattle off the answer Cameron gave from his Quizlet. “It’s a pretty major historical event. I love history. How about you?”
“I… er… have watched some interesting documentaries before. Are you sure you’re feeling okay? I can take you to the medical center.”
“I’m all good, see?” I do a couple of shuffle steps from the new dance Roz and I learned last night. “All facilities intact.”
“If you say so… Should we go to the B level? I was thinking we could review your race tapes.”
I nod, glad my improvised distraction worked. I may have made myself appear weird beyond measure to Dietrich, but at least now he only looks confused instead of sad.
I follow him down a corridor to a concrete stairwell that turns into a dimly lit hall. Doors branch off, each leading to an A/V room. Some are so small they only fit a couch and TV, while others are large enough you can comfortably seat an entire F1 design team.
“Wow.” I poke my head into a room with floor-to-ceiling digital whiteboards. “I had no idea this existed.”
“Me neither. My father found it. He took me down here after my first Orbital race to review.” Dietrich’s eyes are hard in the glow of the faint lights, and I know exactly who he was in such a heated conversation with earlier.
He chooses one of the doors and leads us in. “The engineers and strategists come here to analyze past races, but anyone can use the rooms as long as it’s not reserved.”
The couch sinks down like it’s made of cotton candy. I make a mental note to come back the next time I need a midday nap—these are far more comfortable than the nap pods in the employee relaxation area.
Dietrich takes the remote control and turns on the screen.
There’s a menu of categories, seasons, and races to choose from.
Much to my chagrin, he picks the first Formula 3 race of the current season, the race where I thought I could pull off a masterful overcut but wound up spinning like an Olympic figure skater instead.
Basically, fifty minutes I’ve done my best to excise from memory.
“Can we please watch anything but that? I promise I’ve learned my lesson already.”
Dietrich hits play. “Are you a driver or an ostrich? How are you going to stop repeating mistakes if you bury your head in the sand?”
I groan as the video starts. It’s worse than I remember.
You know how it’s always so awkward when you see yourself on film? Like I didn’t know my nose looked like that. Or I didn’t know my voice sounded so annoying. Or Wow, Mom was right; I shouldn’t have gotten bangs.
Rewatching an old race is like that times one hundred.
There are cameras everywhere—positioned all along the side of the racetrack, embedded in curbs and trackside signs, even buzzing overhead for aerial drone shots.
As a result, you can see every wobble, every under brake, every time you just miss the optimal racing line.
On top of that, the races are commentated, so there are a couple of overly enthusiastic British men narrating every mistake you make in excruciating detail.
(“OOH! Justine Kwong, who started this race with the highest grid position ever by a female F3 driver, in the GRAVEL! Now here’s the replay. ”)
Dietrich insists on pausing at every mistake to give me pointers. He’s doling out some of the best advice I could ever hope to get, but it’s also humiliating to be so thoroughly lectured—dissected down to the millisecond—by someone you’re hoping to impress.
“There.” Dietrich hits pause again. “You are so fast when you are driving in the clear; no other driver in F3 this year is better at finding lines—”
Something warm swells up deep within me. Play it cool, I remind myself. Keep collected.
“—but you have zero wheel-to-wheel race craft. It’s a travesty.”
And we’re back.
“You can’t always torpedo into your opponents and pray. See that?” He gets up and puts his finger on the screen. “You have to be patient. Set up the move. There are three more overtaking spots ahead. You could have waited for any of them.”
Then he hits rewind and we have to watch my spin again. And again. And again.
“Seriously?” I sigh as Dietrich skips back once more. “We’ve watched this at least a million times now.”
“You think this is a lot? My father used to leave me at the petro station when I didn’t win so I could reflect.”
I swallow. We’re right back to where we were an hour ago when I was spewing random facts from Cameron’s A-level prep materials to distract Dietrich.
Dietrich also seems to realize this, if the faint flush spreading across his face is any indication.
I debate telling him at least he has a father who cares and bothered to stick around, but that only seems like it’d bring the mood lower than it already is.
“If it makes you feel better, my mom is a massive pain in the ass too.”
“I’ve heard the mechanics say she always knocks out their eardrums with screaming when you do well.”
I bite my lip to keep from laughing—I wouldn’t expect any less from her.
“I think I would like that in a parent,” Dietrich continues with a rueful smile.
“Be careful what you wish for. I can’t even look at a chocolate bar without getting told off these days.”
“She is only helping you chase your dreams. If I told my father I wanted to do anything except racing…” His words drift off, but they stay with me.
Because he’s right. Mom is helping me go after my dreams. As annoyingly extra as she is, it’s all in the name of pursuing what I’ve spent years yearning for.
Yet another reason it would be a terrible idea to get into anything with Cameron.
“I know my life is a dream, even for F1 drivers,” Dietrich says. “But it just feels like someone else’s dream sometimes.”
It’s all I can do to keep my jaw from dropping. Is Dietrich Lange, F1 god, potential breaker of a bajillion records, the driver I wouldn’t hesitate to give my two front teeth—no, scratch that, all my teeth and hair—to switch places with, saying he doesn’t want what he has?
He turns away and stares hard at the padded, sound-cushioned wall. “It’s nice, winning. And driving is fun. But I don’t love it, not the way my father does. Sometimes I want it all to go away and I wish I could be a regular university student.”
I’m not sure what to say. As far as the F1 world goes, he’s the celebrated King while I’m somewhere between court jester and maid who takes out the garbage. But even though I’m metaphorically (and literally) on the lowest rung, I could never imagine wanting to give up my place here.
I love the thrum of adrenaline. The intensity of competition. The headiness of winning. Of trying to be the best.
What Dietrich’s talking about—walking away, leaving—is unimaginable. But then I think of the hunched tenseness in his shoulders, the crushed expression on his face the moment before he threw his phone, and I know all this is as meaningless to him as it is meaningful to me.
I clear my throat. “What would you study if you went to school?”
“Environmental sciences,” he says without skipping a beat.
“For example, there are lots of bad headlines about Formula 1 and how the cars should go electric, but did you know that’s only a fraction of the emissions from opening ceremony jet flyovers?
No one is talking about that. I want to figure out how to change things like that, maybe use my platform to do it. ”
His face lights up in a way I’ve never seen, not even when he’s standing on the top step of a podium. “If you already know what you want, why not go for it now?”
Dietrich winces. “My father would like me to stick around until I beat Hamilton’s records.”
“But he’s got eight championships—that’ll take years!”
“Don’t remind me. I don’t know if my sanity will last, honestly.”
“You should talk to your father.”
He visibly deflates, sinking deeper into the cushy black leather. “I have tried. Every time I don’t get two sentences in before he starts yelling.”
From what I’ve seen of Niels Lange, this is not hard to imagine.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, truly feeling it. Which is incredible, because if someone told me a year ago I’d be in this situation—comforting the reigning F1 champion about his deeply rooted desire to not be an F1 driver—I would have pinched myself to wake up from whatever weird simulation I’m in.
“Thank you for talking to me.” Dietrich flashes a sad, tremulous smile that makes me want to hold him until he’s okay. “There’s not too many people I can be honest with.”
The halls are quiet when we reemerge from the A/V dungeons. Our footsteps echo off the shiny white floor, magnified by the cavernous OTC walls. The real Dietrich is so different from what I thought, but no less amazing of a human being.
We come to a stop in the lobby.
“Well, this has been lovely.” Dietrich smiles so sweetly I could melt into a puddle right then and there. “Thank you for spending your afternoon with me.”
“Thank you.” I glow.
“Justine! It is nice to see you.” Niels walks over from where he must have been sitting on one of the lobby benches.
He smiles broadly at me. I force a polite smile back, though part of me is dying to yell at him for stranding a literal child at gas stations.
“Dieter said you are reviewing race tapes?”
“Your son is an incredible driver,” I say pointedly.
“You are very kind.” Niels preens like I gave him the compliment. “It is encouraging to see young women with so much hunger, is it not?” He nudges Dietrich, who grimaces.
“I’ll see you soon, Justine,” Dietrich says.
I give him a goodbye nod back. We separate for different exits, Niels jabbering away in German to a barely responsive Dietrich. Just as I’m about to reach the door nearest to the bike rack, Dietrich calls my name.
He jogs across the spacious lobby, coming to a stop in front of me. “Would you like to come with me to the gala next weekend? As my guest?”
“Seriously?” My heart leaps. The annual gala is Orbital’s most important social event of the year.
All of senior corporate—including Lou Wilson—attends, as do current and prospective sponsors.
It’s also become famous for how raucous the after-party gets—the only time when throwing up on the F1 team principal’s shoes, like Grayson did last year, becomes an amusing anecdote and not a cause for firing.
I’ve been dreading it—six hours in black tie while making small talk with sponsors is not my idea of a good time—but going on Dietrich’s arm… that would be a different story.
“Seriously,” Dietrich says, all twinkling blue eyes and sparkling smile. It’s all I can do to keep from swooning like a Bridgerton heroine.
Niels watches us from the other side of the lobby. He gives an approving nod, and it makes me wonder, just the tiniest bit, if he had anything to do with the invitation.
“I can meet you at your building?”
I do my best to stay cool, calm, and collected—per the TikTok Roz sent last week. “Sure,” I say breezily, as if I get invited to fancy parties by F1 drivers all the time.
Dietrich leans in and kisses me on the cheek, driving every ounce of cool, calm, and collected out of my head.