CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER twenty-three
As David took on the sweeping Esses at COTA for his final lap, he cursed himself for ever believing his weight gain would go unnoticed. He couldn’t hide the belly fat creeping over the edge of his fireproof leggings from the data sheets. Every single extra pound came back to bite him, including a full six ounces of fucking steak.
Fireworks crackled in the sky over the finish straight as the winner crossed the finish line, almost a full lap ahead of him. David searched his mind for the usual excuses out of habit, but there were none. His pit stops went great, his tires were fine, the car was just insanely slow. So slow that he watched most of the field pass him before the first ten laps were over.
Aiden insisted nothing was wrong over radio, but David knew the whole world was listening, so it wasn’t like Aiden would admit if there was some huge error in the car.
“It doesn’t make sense,” David said as he rocketed down the hill into Turn 11. “Something has to be wrong, mate. I was flying yesterday. I had pole.”
“We’re looking into it,” Aiden said, his voice heavy with sadness.
David’s hands shook on the wheel as he watched the car in front of him disappear at the end of the straight into Turn 12. He’d lost almost four tenths a lap, every lap. Burning fuel should have helped him go faster, but it hadn’t.
You got lazy. He could practically hear his father in his ear already. If Klaus had access to the pit lane, he’d be waiting with clenched fists. He would corner him in his driver room and pummel him with bare knuckles until David cried like a baby. And as soon as Klaus noticed his tears, he’d grab his face and haul him up from the ground by his skull.
David swallowed hard, flinching at the wetness on his lips. He’d actually filled his water tank for this race—more stupid weight he didn’t need. Noah had been so worried about the heat that David had agreed to filling the water tank to calm him down. But this wasn’t Noah’s fault.
David crossed the finish line in silence. He started into his cooldown and kept his eyes on the road ahead, ignoring the big screens and noise from the crowd.
“You did your best out there,” Aiden said over radio. “P11, David. Out of the points, but a solid day. You drove as well as you could.”
David had probably walked around with fractures for most of his teenage years as he fought for a spot in any professional racing series that would take him. Podiums didn’t matter back then; only wins. He could still taste the blood from biting his tongue so many times.
Eleventh place would probably earn him a night sleeping on the floor, or Klaus would simply beat him until he couldn’t stand. No points was an embarrassment, especially when everything was supposedly working fine.
David finished his lap without replying to Aiden. He pulled into the pits behind all the other cars and killed the engine, but he didn’t get out.
He tilted his head back and stared up at the sky above, tinted through his visor. His helmet muffled all the noise except the sounds of his breathing.
He was going to lose his championship. If the car didn’t make a complete turnaround by the next race in Toronto, he was fucked. His championship bid would fizzle out, and everyone would say last year was a fluke.
“David?” a woman asked, popping up in his vision. She was a track medic, by the looks of it. “David, are you okay?”
He gave her a thumbs-up, but she didn’t leave.
“David, you need to show me you can get out of the car.”
He had to face the inevitable. David unhooked his steering wheel and set it on the chassis before hauling himself up out of the cockpit. His legs shook as he stood, reattached the steering wheel, and finally stepped out.
“See? I’m fine,” he said. He kept his helmet on, just in case his father had snuck into the post-race chaos.
The medic had just stepped out of his vision when David’s stomach buckled. He stumbled, slapping a hand over his face on reflex, but it hit his helmet instead.
He could suddenly feel every piece of food he’d eaten since yesterday rotting in his gut. The steak, his egg breakfast, the apple slices Noah fed him in bed. This morning, he’d brushed his lips over the tips of Noah’s finger to taste the tart juice there, chasing it like a glutton.
David dove into the nearest garage, shoving past mechanics and track personnel. He shucked off his helmet and threw it to the ground, just in time to pitch his head into a trash can to puke.
Snot, phlegm, and saliva trailed from his nose and mouth by the time he was finished. His eyes leaked salty tears, and his chest rattled with every dry heave in an attempt to toss up more. His vision spun, but as he blinked back into the present, it came with a pleasant emptiness, too.
“Here, man,” someone said, offering a clean rag.
David took it with a noncommittal nod and wiped his face. His throat burned when he swallowed, but he felt… good.
Better than good, actually, since the source of today’s problems was currently in a trash can and not in his stomach.
He wiped the last of his sickness from his mouth and tossed the rag in the trash. He practically floated to his feet, he was so light.
The garage was plastered in bright yellow—Yellowjacket Racing. Yellowjacket used to be a championship team before Noah and Finlay took Oxbow from a brand-new nothing to the top of the leaderboard in a little over a year. Their best friend, Robbie Kessler, used to drive for Yellowjacket. He was supposed to be their next champion, but he died on track in a car fire.
Noah woke him up sometimes when he had nightmares about it. He shook for hours after, hiding in David’s chest as he retold the story of the flames licking up over the edges of the cockpit and the dented metal preventing Robbie’s escape. He only drove a few races for Yellowjacket before he died, but the team kept a headset for him on the wall, and one of his Yellowjacket caps hung on the same peg.
David glanced at it as he grabbed his helmet off the floor and headed out to look for Noah. He always wondered what Robbie would think of him. Looking at his pictures, David thought they would probably get along. Robbie seemed like the level head out of the Titanium Trio. Noah and Finlay protected him—Robbie was treated like a prince by everyone, for some reason. David remembered hearing about some clause in his contract that he had to stay in five-star hotels that his wealthy parents paid the difference for.
David stepped out into the pit lane and saw Sunny guiding the other mechanics, who were pushing his car toward the garage.
“Sunny!” David called, hurrying toward him. “Hey, have you seen Noah?”
Sunny continued directing the car as he said, “Podium ceremony.”
David looked to the big screen just in time to see a well-dressed man handing Evan Faris the first-place trophy.
David froze in the middle of the pit lane, watching as Finlay sprayed Evan with champagne, and Noah hopped up on stage to give them both a hug. Jenson, the team principal at Cobalt, wiped a tear from his eye in the crowd like a proud father— something David only knew from watching moments like this on TV.
“Sulking?” Hugh said as he stepped up beside him.
“Evan won,” David said blankly. “That rookie won a race.”
The media was going to be insufferable.
Hugh let out a grunt, crossing his arms over his beer gut. David found it interesting that only Americans had beer guts, in his experience, despite Germans drinking way more beer.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Hugh said.
David gripped his helmet tighter as Noah ruffled Evan’s long hair. “I don’t sulk.”
“You went missing after you parked,” Hugh said. “If Caparelli wasn’t up there, I would have assumed you two snuck off. Where were you?”
“Doesn’t matter,” David growled.
Hugh snorted. “Well, we figured out why the car was slow.”
David straightened. Thank god. “Really? What was it?”
Hugh turned to him with his usual sour expression. He cocked his head, assessing David as if he were some kind of livestock. “It’s all over social media,” he said. “Wagyu the night before a race? A little presumptive, don’t you think?”
David furrowed his brow. “What? What does that have to do with today?”
Hugh patted his shoulder, hard. “Everything, apparently. I hope you enjoyed it, Jochmann.”
On screen, Noah cheered with his team as if he’d won the world, while David lost his in the space of a few words.