Chapter 13
Chloe
United States Grand Prix
Race Day
After two weeks of preparation, it’s race day.
I glance up at the screen, where the Sky Sports hosts are walking the pit.
“This is it. The Circuit of the Americas, in Austin, Texas, set in the five hundred acres of rolling hills outside the city. We have just six races to go before the end of the season, with Rossini’s team riding high.
This year only one team has failed to get any points .
. . the black and green of Arden Racing still unable to finish higher than their season best of fifteenth place way back in Monza. ”
I groan, pulling my headset off. Yesterday, Matt qualified in seventeenth, and Noah just ahead of him in sixteenth. And with a track this fast, I hold little hope we could see improvements today. But we only need a little, tiny step. Just an inch here and there. Just a few seconds.
As the race gets underway, I listen to Archie guiding Matt. They have famously sparky communication, and this race is no different. Archie’s legendary line to Matt as they crossed the finish line first in Monaco is now part of F1 lore, memed and repeated endlessly.
“You’re gonna be a fucking nightmare,” Archie said, his words broadcast out across the world and played back on every sports channel for a week.
Not Great work. Or Congratulations, you just won your first Monaco Grand Prix. But “Christ. You’re gonna be a fucking nightmare.”
It still makes me laugh when I think about it, and I hope that having Archie here will be a lift for Matt.
But as the race progresses, I feel a knot tightening in my stomach.
The crew are sloppy with a pit stop. Noah comes off the track and damages his front wing. Matt seems unable to push past anyone, his once-famous killer instinct completely vanishing as soon as he is within striking distance.
I had allowed myself to hope that Matt was going to somehow pull off a miracle, but my heart sinks as he crosses the line in sixteenth. Just ahead of him, our rookie rider Noah takes fifteenth. When Matt crosses the line, Archie pulls his headphones off and looks at me.
“Let me see the data,” I say.
Back in the garage, there is little joy.
Despite his best effort, Noah is frustrated, kicking his helmet across the garage and accidently smashing a computer screen.
One of the younger mechanics is in tears.
The strategist, who has become my nemesis, is playing Candy Crush on one of Arden’s iPads as I walk in.
I snatch it out of his hand and toss it on the bench. He looks at me, defiant.
“Everyone, let’s huddle,” I say, calling the team into the garage. “Doors down.”
The smell of burned rubber and gasoline fills the space. The heat of Noah’s car radiates in the already stifling hot air.
“Can we get the coolers on?” I say to no one in particular, just as the pumps start to blow. “Right. Better today. We have taken a step up from last race, and that’s all I ask.”
“I suck,” Noah says, plonking down on the floor as he peels off his balaclava and gloves.
“No. You showed some real class on turn three to take the Williams.”
“Fifteenth is terrible,” Noah says, petulantly kicking away his sponsored water bottle.
“If fifteenth is terrible, then how about sixteenth?” says Matt, pulling off his own balaclava and nodding grimly in my direction. “It’s the pits of fucking hell.”
Noah looks mortified, but Matt drops a hand on his shoulder and course-corrects immediately. “You did great today. We should grab a beer and watch it back.”
“Anything to see in the data?” Archie asks me hopefully.
“Yes, actually,” I say, scanning the numbers and the summary evaluation that’s come in from the data team.
I feel suddenly energized. “In lap thirty-six, and I almost can’t believe this, Matt clocked the fastest time out of the turn-one hill.
And sixth fastest during the sweepers in turns seven to nine. ”
Matt looks across at me, surprise on his face. “That’s not nothing, I guess.”
“It was a promising moment,” I say, smiling broadly, barely believing it myself. “We definitely have problems on the straights, but we can improve that. We know we need to work on drag.”
Archie chuckles, and I glance at Barry, who seems pleased as he grins at me while stroking Roger’s fur. “Look at my little rescue dogs starting to heal.”
I steal a glance at Matt, who looks different; there’s a small glimmer of something I’ve not seen in a long time across his face. Barry is right. Maybe he is starting to heal. But before I get too swept up in encouraging Matt, I elbow Noah’s race engineer gently in the ribs.
“Oh. Right,” he whispers, fumbling around on his iPad. “Noah, you moved up one place from qualifying. Hit a sixth-fastest time, right behind Matt on that turn one.”
Noah looks up, smiling shyly. “Wow. That’s cool.”
“Guys. These numbers show we have a little something. That what we’re doing, if we can stay focused, will work,” I say, clinging hard to this scrap of hope. “We have to believe a lot harder than we do right now. Because we can claw up that grid. I know we can.”
But I don’t know. I don’t know at all. I glance across at Matt, who nods at me encouragingly.
“I don’t think anyone should go home tonight,” I say, raising my voice so it fills the room. “Whoever can, should come out for a meal. Let’s try to get to know each other a little better. Bond as a team.”
“Great idea,” Matt says quickly, before anyone has a chance to groan.
“Are you celebrating one good turn in two hundred and thirty-six turns? Let’s not over-egg the pudding,” Barry says, frowning. “We placed fifteenth and sixteenth. And two cars crashed, so that’s basically third and fourth last.”
“Also one of the Williamses had a broken wing,” mutters that awful strategist, and I have to fight myself not to snarl at him. I need to get rid of him if I ever get settled.
“It doesn’t matter. Come on. Who’s in?” I raise my hand and look around the room.
Matt’s hand shoots up, and then Archie’s. I breathe out, looking gratefully at Matt. Thankful that despite everything, at least he has my back.
In the end, there are seven of the core team who make it out.
Archie, Matt, Noah, a young strategy assistant called Michelle, two pit crew members, and I feast on a hastily organized dinner at a karaoke bar.
It’s the only place we can find that will take us all at the last minute, and, conveniently for me, the same place Keyla and some of the McLaren crew might be heading, per her text.
Archie is in charge, ordering trays of fish and pulled-pork tacos and endless frozen margaritas. Some girl in Daisy Dukes is already on the microphone doing a rendition of “Sweet Home Alabama,” much to Noah’s delight.
“I thought you were dating someone,” Matt says, spotting the thirsty look on Noah’s face.
“She bought a new fucking handbag on my room service,” Noah shouts back.
Archie and Matt look at each other and laugh.
“Live and learn, my dude,” says Matt, holding his beer up to cheers Noah, before grinning my way, as if to say he can’t help but banter with the kid.
I mock-scowl back at him before flicking through the karaoke list, my sloppy fish taco in my other hand. I actually swore I’d never do karaoke again after The Last Time, but it’s the perfect bonding exercise for all of us, so I suck it up. We need some fun right now.
A huge gloop of fishy taco juice lands on my white shirt. “I’m filthy.” I dunk my napkin into my glass of sparking water and try to wipe off the splodge, but it’s no use.
“We have matching stains,” says Matt, pointing at his own T-shirt and the trail of black beans on his front.
“Were you raised in a fucking barn?” asks Noah in his poshest accent, while pretending to eat his taco with a knife and fork.
Matt finds this hilarious and starts to cut his buffalo wing with a fork, catching the bone and sending the wing flying across the table to hit Noah in the middle of his brand-new Gucci T-shirt.
“We need more shots,” says Michelle, before giggling wildly at something one of the two pit hunks has said.
“To not quite coming last,” says Matt, who like most drivers saves his drinking for just after a race, and only needs a couple to get any kind of effect. He holds a shot of tequila aloft.
“To the best rear end on the grid,” teases Noah, his margarita slopping over the sides of his glass as he toasts Matt.
“You know, he’s got a sponsorship coming for an adult nappy,” says Archie. “They’re getting the spot across your ass.”
“Fuck you,” says Matt, tossing a deep-fried pepper at him.
“Finish up, you drunk idiots. It’s time for a last nightcap. I’m spent,” I say, not wanting a repeat of the last time I saw Matt in a bar.
“A nightcap?” Archie roars. “We’re just getting started, Bug.”
“She doesn’t like Bug anymore,” Matt says, wagging a finger at Archie as he leans across the table, grinning at me.
“But look at those eyes,” says Archie. He uses his thumbs and fingers to stretch his eyelids apart. “Permanently startled. Like a baby deer.”
“Cute as hell, though,” says Matt, and I shoot him a look: Stop it. So he reaches forward and grabs the song list in its plastic folder, leaning across the booth as he pats the cushion playfully. “Sit here and let’s choose a song, Chloe,” he says, eyebrow raised.
I’m stuck. On the one hand, if I don’t move, it will look weird to the others. On the other hand, I don’t want to be next to Matt when he’s looking at me like he is.
“He won’t bite,” shouts Archie above a searing rendition of “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”
“He might,” I whisper under my breath, but I oblige, sliding in next to him. He immediately lifts his arm up and lays it on the back of the seat behind us, making more room for me, but making the space entirely too intimate for my liking.