Chapter 49
JACK
The race is complete. I lap a Maxim Performance and weave over the finish line to chaos in the stands.
‘You’ve done it, mate!’ laughs my race engineer as I begin my victory lap. ‘What a class drive in a tough race.’
‘Hell yeah! Woo!’ I punch above my head. I’m a mixture of relief, triumph, total exhaustion and sweat all bottled in an airless race suit. Getting undressed is going to be fun.
I glimpse my cheesy reflection three-storeys tall on The Sphere in the middle of the track. It’s only visible for an instant, but I couldn’t mistake my name even if I was eight drinks deep.
‘Jack Bowden,’ says Lorenzo, jumping on the radio. ‘Campione del Mondo!’
Not quite, but it does mean if I finish in the top three at Qatar next week, it’ll be mathematically impossible for another driver to top my championship points. It’s so close. So unbelievably close. I just need to focus for one more week.
I can sense the team going mental in the garage as I sail down the world-famous strip, lined by Caesars Palace, the Bellagio and Planet Hollywood. My race engineer’s playing ‘Viva Las Vegas’ and I have to shout to be heard above it. ‘Thank you lads! We’re almost there!’
I pull up behind the P1 position marker, jump up on the chassis, and hold up my index finger to the cameras like the prickish show-off I am. The entire Pagari crew have spilled out of the garage, colouring the pit lane in black and silver.
‘Come here, you,’ says Georgie, hugging me ferociously over the barrier. I scan the people behind her over her shoulder but come up dry. Even though she can’t be here – we agreed she can’t – I’m still foolish enough to hope she came anyway. ‘You’re annoyingly good, you know that?’
I ruffle her hair. ‘Congrats, George. Couldn’t have done it without you. The Jesse to my Walter.’
‘Again with the Breaking Bad! Honestly, next year my goal isn’t another World Championship, it’s to find you another show.’
‘We all want impossible things.’
I get weighed, swap my helmet for a baseball cap and take some photos with a bored Eilo and miserable étienne before we decamp to stretch limos to take us to the Bellagio.
It’s all so freaking Vegas. There are lights in the limo ceiling and everything.
They don’t do things by halves. I sit in the middle and the ride is nothing short of skin-crawlingly awkward, like a stag do where no one knows each other, and one lad’s a bitter prick.
I spend the post-race interview working out how quickly I can make it back to my driver room, and the answer is not soon when the podium’s as much of a spectacle as the rest of the race.
At last, I open the door and thank my lucky stars she’s still sitting on my couch, watching Channel 3’s wrap-up on the big screen. She mutes the TV, and the smile I get has the power to make me go to war for her.
A tidal wave of guilt passes over me seeing her hiding in here. It was mutually agreed because it’s too soon after she quit, but if she were to stand with my team and the media got the wrong idea, it would only impact me these days.
‘Congratulations, Champion,’ Minnie says into my shoulder as we hug each other. ‘Ew, you’re all soggy.’
‘Sorry, champagne.’
She unpeels herself from my front. ‘It’s ok.’
‘I missed you. I really wish you were out there with the team.’
‘Me too, but it was for the best.’ She sounds like she half believes it, which is about as much as I do.
‘Doesn’t make me want it less,’ I murmur. I know she doesn’t like how sticky I am but I can’t help pulling her to me. We can stink of fizz together.
‘I’m so bloody proud of you,’ she says. ‘You earned that win. One more race and you’ll have earned the Championship. It was such a difficult season but you persevered and now you’re reaping the rewards.’
I trail the backs of my fingers down her cheek. ‘Slow down, Speedy Gonzales, the season’s not over yet.’
‘You’re going to win it, I know you will. You were so amazing out there. You’re such an incredible driver, and I…’ She clears her throat. ‘I love you.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’
She doesn’t mean it. It’s just a figure of speech.
But tell that to my hand, frozen on her jaw.
‘I’m serious,’ she insists. Her tone leaves me in no doubt. I know she is. I know it in every fibre of my body.
We’re suddenly too close. Miles too close. I put a foot between us. Two feet. Three.
Why did she have to ruin a nice moment by saying something stupid? This was supposed to be a happy moment, and now all I feel is… I don’t know… panic? My windpipe’s contracting. The air’s too thin. I can’t swallow.
‘I know you’re scared,’ she’s saying, ‘and I’m scared too, but—’
I shake my head, over and over and over. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying.’
‘I want you to tell me you feel the same, because I know you do.’
‘You’re talking shit.’
She doesn’t budge, eyes drilling into me. ‘And I want you to call us what we are – a relationship.’
‘You’re out of your mind.’
‘What do you think a relationship is, Jack? Do you think I’m going to chain myself to you, never let you leave, and drag you kicking and screaming down the aisle? Newsflash: you’re already in a relationship. I’m not asking for anything diff—’
‘Stop!’
‘What do you think we are?!’
I press my eyes and take a deep breath. We can’t be having this conversation. ‘We’re fr—’
‘Don’t you dare say friends-with-benefits. We weren’t for one minute. Fuck buddies don’t cook breakfast, Jack. They don’t make it their mission to heal the other person’s wounds. They don’t take them on holiday.’
I don’t understand what she’s getting at.
I thought she was different; I thought she wanted the same things as me.
Why does she have to go and be clingy like every other girl?
Why do they always want more? I was upfront from the beginning and yet it’s me who feels like shit, like I’m letting her down, like I’ve done something wrong. How is that fair?
‘Who cares if that’s not the right label. Why would you want it to change?’ I say, trying to ignore my heart beating so fast I’m probably in danger of going into cardiac arrest.
‘It won’t change. I want you to call it what it is!’
‘Why does it matter?’
‘Because I just flew across the world to be shut in your driver room,’ she says quietly.
It sounds rubbish when she puts it like that.
Her eyes are welling up and I feel wank about it but it’s not my fault.
‘I’m asking for acknowledgement. I’m asking for dinner in a restaurant.
I’m asking for the man I’m bending over backwards for to admit he cares about me. ’
‘I do care about you! Of course I do. You’re one of my favourite people in the whole world. How do you not know that?’
A tear dribbles down her cheek. I make to wipe it but fist and withdraw my hand instead. She turns to pick up her bag. I don’t understand anything. Where did this come from? When did she change her mind? Was it something I did? We had a good thing going, why did she have to screw it up?!
But there’s one thing I do understand. When she leaves, she’s not coming back. I can beg her to stay until I turn blue but what’s the point? I can never give her what she wants. I don’t even fully get what she wants. My chest constricts just trying to unpick it.
I link my hands around the back of my neck and look at the floor while she leaves. Not watching might make it easier.
‘You’re the worst kind of heartbreaker, Jack,’ Minnie says from the doorway. ‘You’re the kind who doesn’t even know he’s doing anything wrong.’
Turns out averting your eyes does jack shit. You still feel like you’ve been sawed in half.