Chapter 3 #2
I stand perfectly still until he has pulled back. “I can tell you’ve been living in Italy,” I say loudly, as though explaining the kiss-greet to him, or myself, or anyone watching. I fight the urge to touch my cheek, which is still tingling. Oh, this is not a good start, Chloe.
“I have,” he says. The right side of his mouth curls up in a half smile. “It’s um . . . it’s good to see you.” Instinctively, I find myself examining his face for evidence of teasing but find none.
Instead, I find a different Matt. His once sun-kissed golden skin is paler, and that sallowness in his cheeks tells me he’s not eating properly.
By the look of those dark circles under his eyes, he’s not sleeping much, either.
Still, the depth of his attractiveness is undeniable: piercing hazel eyes with green flecks, surrounded by impossibly long lashes.
His black hair is seriously in need of a tidy, but irritatingly, that, his lazy stubble, and the grown-up age lines around his eyes only add to the all-around rugged sex appeal.
Of course he was voted one of F1’s sexiest drivers multiple years in a row.
“Yes. Good to see you too,” I say, forcing myself back into the moment.
Matt takes me in with a subtle eye drop to my feet and scans all the way back up to meet my eyes.
Part of me wants to make a joke about how now that I’m a team principal, I have sensible pants instead of baggy jeans.
But instead, I blush under his overfamiliar gaze with the speed and intensity of a thermonuclear blast.
Because it’s the way Matt is looking at me, right now, that used to upend me all those years ago.
The way his gaze intensifies, with a barely there smile that seems to radiate mostly from those hazel eyes.
It’s like he’s waiting for me to catch on to some mysterious joke and I am not sure I ever will.
I clear my throat. “Welcome to . . .” I wave a hand around the garage.
“Hell?” he says, with a sideways tilt of the head, finishing my exact thought for me. Although his pointing it out so sneeringly only serves to irritate me. This may be hell, but it’s my hell.
“Welcome to . . . your new team, I was going to say.”
“Sure you were, Bug,” he quips back, a knowing grin creeping across his face.
“Chloe,” I snap back at him. “Not Bug.”
“Still got those big eyes, though,” he says.
“Stop,” I say firmly, imagining the dark red of my cheeks deepening to a nice purple.
Matt frowns. Point taken. “Sorry. Where can we talk, boss?”
I look pointedly at the clock.
One hour and fifty-five minutes to go.
“We don’t have time. I have a hundred things to do.
I have the FIA breathing down my neck about the changes to the team, I need to get to the paddock presser, and Noah’s race engineer is sick.
. . . But after, definitely,” I promise, sensing Barry’s attention shift from his phone.
I’d like to at least talk to Barry before I speak to Matt. “I promise.”
“Matt!” Barry bellows delightedly. “How’s my golden guy?”
Matt turns to Barry, readying himself to protest about something, probably everything, but Barry never seems to wait for the toss of the ball before he’s on defense.
He takes one look at Matt Warner’s face and lifts both his palms as if he’s been on the run for some misdemeanor and is finally handing himself in to the police.
“Look. I’m sure you’re feeling a little blindsided—”
Matt and I scoff in the same petulant, teenage way, at precisely the same time. He cocks his head in my direction, raising both his brows in surprise, like he’s the only one who is allowed to feel outraged by all this. The big main-character energy. The arrogance. There it is. There he is.
“Everyone is feeling a little blindsided,” I explain.
“You didn’t know?” Matt raises one eyebrow at me.
“Nope,” I shoot back at him.
Oh, he looks deliciously surprised.
“Whose idea was it?” Matt pulls back, confused.
“His,” I say, thumbing in Barry’s direction.
Barry is watching us like a spectator at a particularly stressful tennis match, eyes darting side to side.
“All my idea,” he finally says, puffing his chest up with ill-placed pride. If I were Barry, I’d be bracing myself for Matt’s next shot.
Matt wastes no time. “What kind of fucking hack hires a driver without a phone call first?”
“Would you have picked up?”
“I might have.”
“Bullshit,” Barry says, laughing.
“You know what’s bullshit? This.” Matt nods in the direction of the vehicles, the pit crew, the entire garage, in fact. While I agree everything needs work, once again, I’m irritated Matt is the one pointing it out.
I glance at the clock for what feels like the hundredth time.
On the one hand, this argument needs to play out, and part of me is happy Matt is saying all the things I’d like to say to Barry.
On the other hand, we only have one hour and forty-five minutes until the timer begins for the first round of qualifying and still no idea if Matt can even fit in that fucking car.
“Rossini were done with you. You were less popular than a shit in a kid’s ball pit,” Barry says.
“And yet you bought the shit,” Matt points out, in a murky mix of gotcha and self-own, which he grimaces at when he realizes.
“Nobody here is shit,” I try to interject.
“What else are you going to do, Matt?” Barry presses.
“NASCAR,” Matt replies evenly.
“Gentlemen,” I try, a little louder. “There’s no need to bring NASCAR into this.”
One hour and forty minutes to go.
“You won’t leave,” Barry says. Then he taps the silver tape on Matt’s chest with a chubby pink finger. “Because there’s still some bite in the old dog.”
I watch as Matt’s face ever so slightly softens, and I grab my moment.
“Okay, everyone. Can I have your attention?” I call out, my voice tight and high. One mechanic turns his head briefly, but no one else responds.
I feel Matt’s eyes on me.
“You’ll need to be louder than that, Bug,” he mutters.
I ignore him, feeling the heat in my cheeks.
“Hello, everyone! Attention, please!” My voice lances through the garage, and everyone stops, the noise of banging and drilling and chatter falling completely silent. Out of the corner of my eye, I even see Matt flinch.
“Right, listen up,” I say, tapping my watch.
“We need to move. Guys, can you do the seat checks with Matt? We don’t know how he fits the car yet.
Do the best you can, and let’s talk about getting a clay molding done before the next race in Austin.
Noah, since this is his first time inside the AR21, can you sit with him and talk through the feel, give him any tips?
Whatever you can do. I need to see the results from testing.
” To my delight and surprise, the crew springs into action, and I feel awash with relief.
“Barry. I’m sorry, but please. You need to go,” I say, swinging around to face him, trying to stand a little taller in my sensible black loafers. “We have a lot to prepare.”
Just as he’s about to argue, he stops himself, reaching down to pat one of his little greyhounds. Sensing that he might convince himself into a fight, I add, “I’m sure Piero Rossini isn’t debasing himself down in the pits with these grease monkeys.”
Barry hesitates but seems to be pleased with the excuse I’m handing him. “Fine. I’ll leave you experts to it,” he says, skulking off through the back door with a final thumbs-up for good luck.
I spin back around, and just as I’m about to head off to speak to the strategists, Matt gently grabs my arm. “Chloe,” he says, tugging me backward toward the driver room, but I resist, pulling my arm back from his grasp like it’s made of hot iron.
“What is it?”
“You don’t want to talk about this clusterfuck first?” he says, looking puzzled by my reaction. He motions toward the back, but I stay firm. “Come on, Bug—sorry, Chloe.”
“If it’s about our qualifying strategy today, then yes.”
Matt pulls back now, his face suddenly impassive. Maybe even with a hint of anger. One of the young strategists shoves a printout in my hand and I glance down, flicking through the plans. “Soft tires?” I shout after him.
“Yup,” the strategist says, nodding toward the tires, which are wrapped in blankets.
“But the race director just declared the track wet,” I say, looking outside at the sky, suddenly completely overwhelmed by such a small thing. “Are we sure? Forecast is patchy, I don’t want to get stuck out there on slicks.”
“We think it’s going to dry up . . . anyway, we can hold him back and wait,” he says as if I’m stupid, nodding at the paperwork in my hands.
“I think he should take the full session. It’s his first race,” I say uneasily. I’m off-kilter. Second-guessing myself—and my team, who I feel are ready to pounce the moment I make an error. Fuck this nightmare, I need to focus.
“Chloe,” Matt tries again, stepping in closer still, dropping his voice because he’s just inches away from me. I can smell that heady mix of coffee and expensive cologne. “I need to talk to you. Privately.”
I hesitate, narrowing my eyes as I try to subtly step backward.
He looks over at the strategist and then back at me. “Aren’t you supposed to be team principal? I’m your first driver.”
I get that he’s annoyed. I get that he’s just left a legacy team to join this tin can rodeo, but the way he’s putting that question to me feels undermining. And arrogant.
“Chloe, the officials are here!” calls another strategist from across the room.
“Coming!” I call back. I turn to Matt. “Please. If it’s strategy you want to discuss, then yes, we can walk and talk,” I shoot, deciding to stand my ground.
“But otherwise, Matt”—I glance up at him, his eyes dark, stern—“I don’t have time.
You don’t have time. You are about to head out to qualifying in a car you’ve never driven before and you weren’t even here for testing.
You’re under a new management team and the whole world is watching. ”
“Yeah. Exactly,” he says, holding his palms up like that’s the point. “That’s why I need to talk to you.”
I feel the blood pulsing in my ears as the pressure rises. Excitement? Anxiety? Actual imminent stroke? Hard to tell. All I know is this “talk” with Matt Warner needs to happen later. When the pressure is off. When we have time.
One hour and thirty-five minutes to go.
“Please. Noah’s waiting for you,” I say, begging him to listen.
After a moment of worrying silence, I can see his body sag as he steps back and heads slowly, reluctantly toward a waiting Noah, whose eyes light up with awe and delight as two-time world champion Matthew Warner joins him for a pre-race briefing.