Chapter 3
Chloe
I shrug off my stupid, expensive green blazer, feeling the sticky sweat already pooling between my shoulder blades and making its way down my spine. There is a reason Nico Rosberg described Singapore’s street circuit as being like a two-hour spin class in a sauna. It’s humid and hot as hell.
The cavernous garage is ready, doors about to open onto the Singapore pit lane.
The interior is set like a stage show, plastered with Arden Racing forest green signage and sponsor logos.
Along the sides of the garage are our custom-built engineer stations, rows of monitors detailing and transmitting every imaginable scrap of data to and from the team in Singapore and our headquarters back in North London.
In the heart of this cutting-edge technological theater sit the two Arden Racing cars.
Multimillion-dollar machines, the black-and-forest-green livery shimmering under the bright lights.
Through the back, away from view, are a set of rooms for testing, building, spare parts, and naturally, plenty of coffee.
I glance up at the digital clock that is counting down to start time.
Two hours to go. I desperately need Barry to leave. In the weeks leading up to this race, he has been standing over me, second-guessing all my decisions. He’s like a manifestation of my own self-doubt and I need him to fuck off already and let me do my job.
“Where is he?” asks Barry, his eyes darting around for Matt. I watch the guy in a white boilersuit hastily painting Matthew Warner in big white lettering above one of the garage doors.
“Maybe he’s firing his agent,” I joke.
Barry laughs, slapping me lightly on the shoulder. “You’re funny, you know that?”
I silently count to five. “I’m amazed we could afford him,” I say dryly, recalling the tiny figure we have remaining on the spending cap for the year and the even tinier figure on my own deal terms. Barry looks at me sheepishly.
“I’ll have to adjust some numbers,” he says evasively.
On the way back from the press conference, I made the decision to deal with Barry and his “surprise,” a.k.a.
Matt Warner, after the Singapore Grand Prix.
Or rather, my only friend on the circuit, McLaren strategist Keyla Kato, made the decision for me.
As I stumbled through the sea of waiting reporters, she yanked me into the women’s toilets (a famously quiet space in F1) and pep-talked me out of my shock.
“Welcome to the F1 disco,” she said sympathetically.
“What in the name of Senna just ha—”
“There’s no time to take you out for fucking cocktails to debrief.”
“I’m just . . . Matt? I can’t be his boss, he’s—”
“No. We don’t have time for that. Pull yourself together, Chloe,” she said, squaring up to me, trying to catch my eyes. “This is Formula 1. You’re not in Little League anymore. Matt is just a driver. Your driver. Okay?”
“Okay.” I said the words, but I was not and am not okay. Matt isn’t just a driver, to me, at least.
He is my aching, desperate, unrequited love from childhood. A nightmarish one-way infatuation only a teenage girl can have, made infinitely worse by the fact that Matt seemed to like hanging out with me.
I overanalyzed everything endlessly. Of course I did. A grin across the garage after a close race. Those long shared drives home head-banging to Queen after training. A gentle hand on my lower back as he pushed me forward, urging me to speak up in that room full of dudes.
The hometown connection felt special to me.
Made us feel meant to be. We were the same working-class kids with fathers who were mechanics and F1 fanatics, and our families knew each other from the circuits.
I could see Matt resented the rich kids.
So many F1 kids were from big wealth, and while we didn’t have the ski holidays and the five languages and the high-end kit on the track, we had Brackley grit, and that was something. To me, at least.
I eventually accepted Matt would never see me as more than that frizzy-haired, zany young girl who loved F1 as much as he did.
So, I settled for friendship. I was his occasional confidante.
Someone he could talk to about racing. About his string of short-term girlfriends.
I was someone he called mate in a way I loved at the time, but in hindsight I know it was probably a pointed reminder.
I feel like I debased myself now, waiting around for years, hoping he would wake up and realize I was the one. What a dumb waste of time.
And if I was in any doubt at all, after Matt got his offer at Rossini, I never heard from him again.
Of course, I knew I was going to bump into him regularly now that I was on the circuit.
I’d readied myself. I’d role-played my nonchalant “Oh, hi. It’s you,” in a sexy dress holding a martini at some pre-race party.
But I was not prepared for this. To be teamed up with him.
I felt numb with shock, and Keyla brought me back to earth by grabbing my hand and squeezing it.
“Come on, Chloe,” she said, as our eyes met. “Fuck your history with Matt Warner. Eyes on the damn prize. You can do this.”
“I can do this,” I repeated.
“Good. You’ve got your professional pants on,” she said, glancing at my green pantsuit with amusement. “Now it’s time to professionalize. Go!”
Looking around the garage at the crew now, I realize Keyla was right. No matter how furious I am, I need to focus. The eyes of the FIA and the whole racing community are on me. The very public Matt situation? I have to suck it up and pretend this is all part of my plan.
Then tomorrow I’ll unleash hell on Barry fucking Arden.
“Just waiting for the star of the show. We’ll give you a shout,” Barry explains cheerfully to the team, who have been standing obediently for the past five minutes.
The pit crew drop their heads and move quickly, livery polishing, rear jacking, tire wrapping, and rolling under the chassis to do final checks.
I glance worriedly over to our second driver, a young Australian by the name of Noah Blacklock, who looks positively lacerated by Barry’s description of Matt as the star of the show.
“What am I, chopped liver?” Noah says to Barry, sulking.
“Nothing wrong with liver,” Barry replies, stroking one of the two dogs who are permanently at his feet. “You’ll have your time, Noah. When you’re out of nappies.”
I shoot Noah a reassuring nod, which he seems to appreciate with a half smile shrug, before returning to his neck stretches.
He’s young, twenty-one years old, with all the talent in the world, wasting away at Arden Racing.
I had hoped to bring in someone who could help mentor Noah, and instead I have Matt.
Where is Matt? I glance at the clock, nerves starting to pique.
“You should be out there romancing the beasts,” Barry says, nodding at the press out on the pit lane.
“I will, I promise,” I say, recoiling at the idea. “Let me get through this first qually.”
Barry isn’t listening. He is already scrolling his phone. I glance at the screen and watch his mouth curl into a big grin, as he revels in the drama of an earlier racing headline.
ARDEN STUNS F1 WITH NEW HIRE(S)
Below, a close-up photo of Matt Warner from his glory days, atop a podium, colorful ticker tape falling around him, a magnum of champagne in his hands.
I suppose I made the story. Sort of. That’s me in the headline, the (s) in hire(s).
There is a thud and a slow crank as the main garage door onto the pit lane rolls open.
The sky outside is darker now as the sun begins to set over the waterside track.
I can see the press, bloggers, and those famous enough or lucky enough to get a ticket outside starting to mill around on the grid.
Above, the first of the crowd makes their way into the towering pit lane grandstand and unfurls their flags, drinks full and anticipation bubbling.
There is simply nothing like the thrill of a night race.
And while I watch those first fans, giddy with excitement, the grid floodlights spring on, and I remember why we do this.
We come to win, yes. Of course, everyone is here to win.
But also, we’re here because we love the thrilling, high-speed show of Formula 1 racing.
We live for it. And so do those guys over there in the stands.
I feel a little of my earlier excitement return.
“Chloe Coleman in the flesh,” says a husky voice behind me.
I know exactly who it is before I spin around to see him, but the suddenness of his presence still makes me jump.
I quickly take in his unzipped Arden Racing suit, the arms hanging from his waist, his black Nomex undershirt tight against his hard chest, with a crudely cut stripe of silver gaffer tape covering an ex-sponsor’s badge.
He’s still got that imposing, magnetic presence that he’s had since we were teenagers.
My head has to tilt upward to meet his eyes.
He seems taller and leaner than he used to be, but his forearms, which are now tightly folded across his chest, have thickened. Racer’s arms. Firm. Strong.
It steals my breath to see him like this again.
Be cool. Be cool. Be coooooooool.
“Matt,” I say, hand to my chest. “Shit. Hello.”
Well, cool Chloe crashed and burned before she began.
He hesitates for a moment, a curious something passing across his face.
A brief softness in his gaze toward me. But before I have a chance to reach out to shake hands, he leans in and kisses the air next to both my cheeks.
I get a nutty, caramel hit of coffee and some kind of earthy cologne as his warm breath skims my cheek.
It is almost instant, my body’s reaction to him, a pulse of heat that rushes straight through me and travels all the way down there.
Damn my traitorous body.