CHAPTER 7 - ENERGY GUMMY
energy gummy
CHAPTER seven
David never considered himself a food person. Sticking to his diet last season had always been pretty easy, especially when he was too focused on the championship to notice what he was eating. Now he was a week into his new regimen, and all he could think about was eating. Every piece of food he saw came with a calorie count, a sugar amount, and a fat measurement.
His old go-to snacks, like cashews, were no longer allowed. Too fatty. The cranberries in his salad mix? Too sugary. Sports drinks after a hard simulator session? He might as well nuke his insides. Even a sip of beer after a long day was too many calories to think about.
Kyle told him that the first few weeks would be the hardest as his body adjusted. David knew he was making it harder on himself by only eating half of whatever Kyle gave him, but the weight was coming off by the day. Every morning, when he stepped on the scale, he marked down the weight and breathed a sigh of relief when it was lower. He feared the day it wasn’t.
Hunger permeated everything. Headaches sprouted behind his eyes after every simulator session, but he could usually knock them out with a big glass of cold water and a black coffee. Long enough to make it home, at least.
Exhaustion burrowed in the second he stepped into his apartment every evening. His sole focus was heating up his blessed dinner and scarfing down every little bite.
He drew a line in his chicken and rice with a butterknife, carefully dividing the meal in half. Steam rose from it, taking away precious morsels of rice-flavored water, but he knew it was still too hot to eat. He’d burned his mouth yesterday while trying the same thing.
He divided the steamed green beans next, then scooped out his portion onto a plate. Barely a fistful between the entree and side. He stared longingly at the rest of the meal in the Tupperware container, then dumped it in the trash so he wouldn’t be tempted.
Noah wanted to come home to a boyfriend with a new, hot bod. David had to deliver. He knew Noah probably wouldn’t care, but Kyle said his improvements were already showing. His abs were showing a little more in the mirror, and his shoulders weren’t so bulky.
Trust the process. He gulped down more water as he waited for his dinner to cool and realized he’d been so focused that he hadn’t even thought to look for Klaus in the breezeway.
More positives.
******
A week later, and David was already down ten pounds. He rested his pounding head against the window of the charter bus Oxbow had rented to shuttle them to Laguna Seca for the shakedown—the first practice session in the car. David was usually excited for his first chance to sit in the real car, but all he wanted to do now was sleep.
“Late night?” Jacob teased, cuffing him on the shoulder.
David let out a grunt, shifting in his seat. He wished Noah was here so he could use him as a pillow.
“We’re almost there,” Jacob said. “How do you feel about rotation in T1? I feel like that corner and the final corner are the worst right now.”
David’s eyes burned with exhaustion. “I’m trying to sleep.”
His ears perked at the sound of Jacob fussing with a wrapper. His mouth watered a moment later as a scent of artificial watermelon hit his nose.
“Here, have some of these,” Jacob said. “They’re energy bites. Marathon runners use them. Full of B12 and stuff.”
David was pretty sure ‘and stuff’ meant sugar, but he was so hungry he didn’t care. He opened his eyes to see two big gummies that looked like edible gemstones. Jacob took his hand and plopped the gummies into his palm.
“You feeling okay, Jochmann?”
“I’m fine,” David muttered. He popped one of the gummies into his mouth and made an obscene noise. Artificial flavor had never tasted so good. He could taste every granule of precious sugar and fruit—it was like nectar from the gods.
Jacob laughed. “Good, huh?”
David nodded and closed his eyes again, saving the second gummy for later. He sucked on the one in his mouth, trying to make it last longer, while every part of him begged to eat the whole bag, calories be damned. He would burn a ton in the car today.
His phone vibrated in his lap, and he clumsily pulled it out from between his legs to see a text from Noah on the screen.
Call me after the shakedown. Have fun!! Evan sent me videos of ours. Corkscrew looked gnarly so be careful. I love you.
David’s stomach soured. Cobalt’s shakedown was yesterday, and Noah had gone to bed early after a day of working two jobs—his fashion job and as Cobalt’s temporary consultant-driver.
Evan was occupying Noah’s place on the team, so of course they talked to each other a lot. Noah had to know everything about the car to be able to jump in mid-season and be competitive, but David hated the thought of Noah and Evan having conversations throughout the day when he was too busy counting calories and drowning himself in workouts and car data.
David opened up Instagram and tapped the search button, where Evan’s profile was already at the top of the list. Evan had a new post, one with him and Finlay standing with their arms around each other, looking stoked. They blocked the Cobalt car behind them in the photo, but David knew enough about Finlay and Evan to see that their excitement was real. They had a great car.
He scrolled down, and the next post was one David had already seen: Evan’s face hidden in his boyfriend’s neck. His boyfriend had scrunched up his face, blurry with the movement of his laughter.
David scrolled back up to the Laguna Seca post. Evan’s fireproofs were unzipped, and he looked lithe and muscular in his Nomex underneath. Thinner than David, for sure. Losing ten more pounds wouldn’t make David look like that, but maybe if he dropped thirty like Kyle wanted him to, he could.
His stomach growled as if in answer, and David swallowed the rest of the gummy still in his mouth to stop it from growling more.
David locked his phone and tried his best to nap until they reached the track. He heard when they entered the tack gates and kept his eyes closed until the bus sputtered to a final stop.
His legs turned to lead as he thought about jumping into a cockpit. He shoved the second gummy in his mouth and willed the B12 to give him some life.
******
Thankfully, routine took over before David could succumb to his weakness. He made it through his allotted fifty laps without passing out, though his vision did go black for a moment when he dove down the Corkscrew on his final run. He drank more water from his water tube and pulled into the pits.
Exhaustion slammed into him the moment he killed the engine. The mechanics patted his helmet, jostling his brain around in the boiling vat of brain juices in his skull. David knew he didn’t really have a fever—he’d checked about a dozen times in his changing room—but it certainly felt like it.
“Excellent job, man,” one of the mechanics said. “How’d the seat feel?”
David struggled to think back. “A little loose.”
The mechanic nodded and reached down to help unbuckle him. David breathed a sigh of relief as the pressure loosened from his hips and collarbones. He didn’t remember it hurting so much to be strapped in.
You’re just soft , he reminded himself. He waited for a moment as the team scurried around to do checks on the car, then slithered out of the cockpit.
The world spun around him as the blood rushed to his head, and he staggered, suddenly too dizzy to stand up straight.
“Woah,” the belt mechanic said, steadying him. “You good, man?”
“I’m good,” David said reflexively, but his vision clouded with dark spots. He clutched the mechanic so he wouldn’t leave, and they started walking in tandem.
Kyle rushed up to them, worried but smiling. “David? You good?”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” David snapped. “I’m fine. I just need something to eat.”
“Sure, let’s go,” Kyle said. The mechanic didn’t let go of him as they kept walking into the belly of the garage complex.
“Does someone have my phone?” David asked.
“Got it,” Kyle said, pressing the phone into his hand. “Let’s have a seat in here.”
“What’s going on?” Hugh barked.
“Nothing,” David replied quickly. “These two are just being ridiculous.”
His surroundings finally came into focus as they entered an office room, and David took a seat on a plastic chair.
“This is good,” Kyle said, pulling a single-use powder packet from his pocket. “Now we know you need a bit more protein and carbs before you get in the car.”
“I don’t,” David hissed. “I told you, I’m fine.”
Kyle handed him a water bottle full of swirling pink liquid. “Drink this. It’ll get you some energy back.” He looked at the mechanic. “Hey, can you get him some oatmeal from catering? Made with water, please.”
“Sure,” the mechanic said. “I’ll be right back.”
David wanted to say no, but his stomach wrung itself so tightly that it hurt. He was so fucking hungry. He started downing the pink drink, closing his eyes at the fake fruity taste that reminded him of the gummies.
“We’ve already made room for an extra meal on days where you’re in the car, so this won’t knock you off track,” Kyle said cheerfully. “You’ve been doing great so far. Your lap times looked really good out there.”
“Better, he means,” Hugh said from where he’d posted up by the door. “We have a lot of room for improvement.”
David nodded once, licking the remnants of drink from his bottom lip so he didn’t waste any. It didn’t taste like it had many calories. Maybe twenty. He made a mental note to add it to his nutrition journal.
“I’ll be down twenty pounds total by the time we race,” David promised.
“David,” Kyle warned. “That’s a lot of weight. The program isn’t designed for you to lose that much that fast.”
“Or maybe I just have more fat than you thought,” David returned. He looked at Hugh. “Are you ready for the briefing?”
Hugh shook his head. “Prepping now. Eat your oatmeal and join us when you’re finished.”
“What’s the data look like on first glance?” David asked around another long sip of his drink.
“Decent. I’m not sure how it will compare with Cobalt, but the engineers are already trying to get lap times from them. You could ask Caparelli.”
David snorted. He would never use Noah for data, no matter how much he wanted to win. “Don’t push your luck.”
He finished the drink and tossed the bottle. The mechanic returned shortly after, and David shoveled down the oatmeal without thinking to savor it. He was so fucking hungry that the grayish, lukewarm mush tasted like a Michelin star meal.
The mechanic laughed and pulled up a seat beside him. “Hungry, eh? Too nervous for breakfast?”
“Too excited,” David countered, scraping remnants of oatmeal from the bowl. In reality, that morning he’d used his fingers to scoop up the residue from his half-serving of breakfast protein shake and licked it from them like an animal.
Kyle had left with Hugh to talk about some kind of contract thing, so at least Kyle wasn’t around to judge him for eating the whole bowl of oatmeal. Extra meal? Yeah right. The bigger his calorie deficit, the better.
“Is something wrong?” David asked, eyeing the mechanic. “Why are you sitting in here?”
The mechanic stood up with a laugh. “Just checking on you. I’m Sunny, by the way.”
“I know,” David lied.
Sunny laughed. “Sure, man. I’m brand new, so don’t feel too bad that you didn’t know.”
David schooled his expression. He wasn’t going to let a young mechanic put him on the back foot. “So you’re new, and you’re in here bothering the first seat driver. Not the best idea.”
Sunny laughed again. His teeth were blindingly white against his incredibly dark skin. David assumed Sunny was a nickname—the guy seemed way too happy for a shakedown day.
“True, true,” Sunny said. “Actually, I was hoping to catch you alone. I wanted to say, uh, thanks for inspiring me.”
David cocked a brow. If this guy asked him for an autograph, he was going to be pissed.
Sunny shrugged. “I’ve been working in motorsport for like, three years now? And I never felt safe coming out to anyone. I was like you; I only dated girls. I’m bi—so it was just easier. But when you came out, I had just signed for Oxbow, and I felt like I could come out too. So, uh, thanks.”
David blinked up at him, too shocked to speak. Everyone at Oxbow seemed to see his sexuality as a hindrance. He never considered it to be a source of inspiration for anyone.
“Noah came out first,” David said dumbly. “I was too scared. But after he came out, I felt like it was okay for me to come out. So you should thank Noah.”
Sunny flashed his too-white teeth again. “I will, when I meet him.”
“What did you say your name was again?” David asked, fearful he’d misheard the first time. Sometimes his German brain took over and changed things.
“Sunkanmi is my full name, but everyone calls me Sunny,” Sunny said.
David stood up and offered his hand. Sunny shook it with surprising strength.
“Nice to meet you,” David said. “Sorry if we’ve actually met before today.”
“You’re all good, man. I know you have a lot on your plate.” Sunny snapped his fingers. “Hey, we’re actually going out tonight after we get back to the city, if you want to come. I think Jacob is coming—the whole pit crew will be there.”
David wanted nothing more than to take a hot bath and sleep, but Hugh had warned him that he needed to do more to stay in the team’s good graces after punching that asshole engineer.
“I can probably come out for a bit,” David acquiesced. “I’ll have Aiden text me the details.”
Sunny gave him a thumbs-up. “Awesome. See you in the briefing.”
David waved goodbye and pulled his phone out as the door closed. Caroline had texted him her schedule for the next week and a status update—she was feeling good. No nausea. That was good—he’d been worried about her morning sickness with the way her mother talked about it like it was a strain of the black plague.
David hearted each text and flicked to his text chain with Noah.
Tough out there , he wrote. Super hot today but made progress. Hugh wants you to give me lap times. About to go brief—love you and talk later. I’m going out tonight with the team. Would rather be home with you.
Noah sent back an immediate kissing emoji. Going to bed soon. I expect drunk selfies.
David smiled down at his phone, but pain tugged at his heart. Noah had been sober for almost six months. Living in Italy as someone who couldn’t have alcohol was torture in itself.
Too bad, no alcohol allowed on my diet. I’ll send you bad selfies with the crew. Maybe I’ll send a descriptive voice memo when I’m back home.
Noah replied, PLEASE.
David smirked to himself as he pocketed his phone, but it faded when hunger gnawed at his belly with a low growl. He elbowed himself in the ribs, vowing never to let himself get so fat again. His stomach wouldn’t shut up.
Noah deserved better, and so did the team.