Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
LAS VEGAS GRAND PRIX | WEDNESDAY
Nico and I are holding hands as we head into the sprawling white pit building in Las Vegas.
I never held any of my previous boyfriends’ hands, but this feels nice in a way I didn’t expect and wouldn’t have thought I’d like.
Then again, this is Nico. He’s nothing like any bloke I’ve ever been with, so the feeling tracks.
We’re in Vegas for the Grand Prix, but FuegoFrío sponsors both of us and asked that we do a hot lap together before the race weekend.
Nicolina and Sebastian are with us. They flew in from Seattle last night, and they’ll watch from the Paddock Club terrace.
“I still can’t believe the FIA made you do community service,” she says.
Seb zips his jacket. Mornings in November are pretty bloody cold in the Nevada desert, even with the sun warming the street circuit’s asphalt. “There are worse things than teaching kids to drive fast.”
Nico nods. “True. Even if the stewards are sadists for sentencing two rivals to work together.”
I laugh. “I think it turned out well enough.”
He smirks. “Barely.”
“You lying wanker.” I drop his hand and shove him like I used to when we were kids, and he laughs.
“You finished teaching in S?o Paulo?” Seb drapes his arm around Nicolina’s shoulder. “Or are there more sessions here?”
I shake my head. “No, we’re done, though I’m a bit sad about that. The lessons in Brazil were so much more fun without Graham’s cameras in our faces.”
We escort them upstairs and into the F1 Experiences suite. It’s opened early to accommodate the film crew. We head to the terrace and all lean against the railing.
Nicolina squints at the track where a matte blue Mercedes coupe is surrounded by production crew. “Speaking of Graham Pritchard, what’s new with the espionage scandal thing? He left WolfBett, right?”
“Sí.” Nico nods. “And the teams have implemented new security protocols.”
“The media have finally started focusing mostly on racing instead of bullshit and my skincare regimen.”
She laughs. “But your beauty routine is so pivotal to all your wins.”
“Clearly.” I roll my eyes. “How will I survive without daily commentary on my moisturizer choices?”
Nicolina drops into a chair.
Sebastian settles across from her, long legs taking up space. The guy’s absurdly big to me after being around F1 drivers and crew who can’t compare to his mass. “What’s happening with Graham? He just disappeared?”
I shrug. “Apparently so. The bloke’s completely radioactive. He can’t get near any motorsport event. Even sponsors who worked with his other projects dropped him. Nitro’s suing him. So are Telco and JMR. Doubtless there are others.”
“Damn.” Nicolina shakes her head. “What about the other guy?”
Nico frowns. “Dixon Atteberry. Beside the espionage and blackmail, he was selling data to betting syndicates too. The whole enterprise was bigger than anyone realized. He’s facing prison and financial ruin.”
“Jeez.” Nicolina shakes her head. “How are Reece and Wyn handling all of it?”
I shrug. “Okay, I guess? Reece has Maiken and had mostly cut Graham from his life already.”
Nico straightens and wraps his arm around my hips. “Wyn’s having a harder time.”
“He’s better on track, though,” I say. “He’s driving more like his old self and less like an absolute bastard.”
Nico nods. “It was good to see him on the podium in México.”
Nicolina smiles. “Good for him. He deserves to race without all that pressure.”
Sebastian nods down at the film crew on the track. “That’s wild.” They’ve set up cameras in and around a two-hundred-grand German coupe.
Nicolina glances over, then grins at us. “You’re about to turn trivia into a contact sport.”
Esteban and Cin appear, looking for Nico and me. We promise to come back up to the club after the session’s over, then leave Nicolina and Sebastian and head to our separate driver’s rooms.
I hang my team jacket on the hook in my room, smooth the fabric twice, then unpack my gear bag. Every piece goes exactly where it belongs, and I could reach out with my eyes closed and put my fingers on precisely the thing that I want.
Helmet on the left side of the counter. Balaclava rolled tight as a scroll beside it. Earpieces looped cleanly. Gloves folded together, socks rolled and tucked into my right racing shoe, worry stone in the left.
“You’re doing that thing.” Cin closes the door behind her and leans against it, watching me with dark eyes that miss nothing.
“What thing?” I pull my Nitro team jersey from the bag and give it a sharp shake to eliminate wrinkles that aren’t there.
“The thing where every piece has its exact place and if one item is two millimeters off, the world might end.” She crosses her arms. “Singapore really rattled you, didn’t it?”
“Singapore?” I pause, jersey halfway over my head. “That was two months ago. Why are you bringing it up now?”
She’s studying me. “Because you’re arranging your kit like you’re about to perform surgery, not drive a hot lap.”
The jersey settles into place and I smooth it down, then reach for my new trackies. Black with the FuegoFrío fire-and-ice logo stretching down each leg. “I’m fine.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t.” Cin nods toward my right hand, then meets my gaze. “But is your hand aching?”
I stop curling my fingers into a fist. I’ve been unconsciously flexing the knuckles that connected with Wyn’s nose.
Bloody hell. I shake it out. “It’s fine too.
” I glance up at her and know that I’m-waiting look on her face.
“Singapore wasn’t about losing control,” I say quietly, pulling up the trackies. “It was about finally taking it.”
“I know.” Her voice is gentle. “But Vegas isn’t Singapore, Pet. Why are you armoring up like you’re heading into battle?”
I frown then lean against the massage table. “That night proved I can’t just put my head down and drive anymore. Every time some drunk arsehole opens his mouth around me, it’s to bitch about women being in F1.”
Cin nods slowly. “You feel the weight of being first.”
“The weight of being only.” I run both hands through my hair.
“When Wyn said those things about my arse slipping out from under me, about not knowing how to recover... it wasn’t just him talking.
It was every doubt, every snide comment, every bloody journalist asking about my skincare routine between engineering briefings. ”
“So you shut him up.”
“Yes, I did.” The memory brings a fierce satisfaction. “One perfect punch. Thumb outside, wrist straight, just like you taught me.” I flex my hand again, working out the phantom ache.
That earns me a small smile. “I’m so proud.”
“Worth the bruised knuckles.”
“But Nico followed you in there like a white knight. Is that what’s bothering you then?”
Ah, fuck. She’s as bad as Dad, always shoving my nose into the question I’m avoiding. “I don’t want a bloody knight in shining armor, Cin. I don’t want a man who thinks his job is to protect me.”
“Did he say that’s why he was there?” She hasn’t moved from the door.
“He said he was there as my backup.”
“So he cared enough to show up. That sounds like a Belmonte move.”
“He looked pleased,” I admit. “Like he’d been waiting for someone to knock Wyn on his arse for years.”
“Probably had been.” Cin grins. “The tosser had it coming.”
“But it had to be me, didn’t it? The woman. The only woman.” I shake my head. “Now every time I raise my voice, every time I defend myself, it becomes a story about whether I can handle the pressure, or if I’m too emotional.”
“Or it becomes a story about a driver who refuses to be diminished.” Jacintha’s been watching me navigate this world for a decade, patching up more than just physical injuries.
“I don’t know. Does it?”
She presses her lips together and nods. “Hmm. What else is bothering you?”
“Kelley.” There’s a small window in my room that overlooks the track. I raise the roller shade. The crew’s busy around the hot lap car.
“What’s The Incubator got to do with today?”
I consider my need for hyper-control, precision, and for everything to be exactly right. Old habits from darker times when controlling my environment and myself were the only way to feel safe.
“Nico and I are about to do this FuegoFrío thing together and I don’t know how to...” I trail off, not sure how to finish.
“To do what?”
I squint, thinking hard about feelings and questions that are only half-formed in my head.
“How to let… him… have my back without losing myself in the process.” I nod because that’s what it is and why Kelley’s tangled up in it.
“When Nico showed up in the gent’s room.
.. part of me was grateful. And that scares me more than any drunk idiot making crude comments. ”
Cin nods slowly. “Because caring about Nico feels like giving him power over you.”
“Yeah.” I hop up on the massage table and lie flat. “What if I let him in and I become one of those women who disappears into the man’s story?”
“Like Kelley.”
“Exactly like her. She’s never existed on her own. She defines herself by whoever she’s attached to—Dad, Richard, me. What if I become just like her?”
“There’s no ‘what if’ there, Tonka. You’re nothing like Kelley.” The certainty in Cin’s voice hugs me. “Nothing. You show up. You’ve been showing up for everyone around you since you were six years old. That’s not using people, it’s caring about them.”
I stare at the white ceiling. It’s so featureless, my eyes have trouble locking onto a reference point. “What if caring makes me weak again, Cin? What if it makes me need things I can’t control?” I turn my head to meet her gaze. “What if this thing with Nico falls apart, then I fall apart?”
She reaches over to the table where I’ve staged my gear and deliberately pushes my helmet askew. “In Singapore you decided to defend yourself, right?”
I stare at the displaced helmet, fighting the urge to straighten it. “Yeah.”
“Well, you also can care about someone else and be strong enough to survive unscathed if the relationship shunts into a wall. You’re not Kelley.
You won’t disappear if you’re not attached to someone powerful.
” She finally pushes off the wall and comes to the side of the massage table.
“Because you are strong, Petra. And you’re definitely strong enough to let Nico care about you too. ”
“What if I’m not?”
“Wrong question.” She grins. “What if you are?”
We haven’t really talked about this. Everything’s been such a whirlwind and the races have been back to back. I’ve hardly had time to think, let alone talk with my cousin about shit like love and fear. “He said he’s loved me since we were kids.”
Jacintha laughs. “Well, duh. You’re the only person who refused to see it.” She shakes her head. “That’s not a man who wants to control you or wants you to stand behind him. Right? I mean, he knows exactly what kind of wild horse he’s grabbed hold of, Tonka.”
I look at her again. “Did you know he was the one who told Dad I was purging?”
Her eyes widen. “Did he really?” Cin nods. “That totally tracks. It’s pure Nico Belmonte, right?”
She’s amused, but I still don’t know how to feel about it. “Is it a warning sign though? Like trailing me into the gent’s room in Singapore? Does he think it’s his job to save me from myself?”
“No. He’s always been looking out for you.”
I sit up. “Which is infuriating.”
“Why? He doesn’t do it because he thinks you can’t take care of yourself. He does it because he cares in the same way Coy and I and Bowie and Reece and this whole team care about you.”
I think about that while putting on my trainers. Nico cares, probably more than he should, about more people and things than he should.
“Everyone thinks he’s this super-controlled, single-minded bloke who’s collecting trophies like a kid collects American baseball cards, and maybe they think I’m just another one.
” She opens her mouth to argue, but I raise my hand.
“But he’s not. And I know I’m not that to him.
But… Cin, I don’t know what Nico is to me.
I don’t want to be like Kelley. I don’t want to just use him and shove him off to the side for the next great prospect that comes along.
Or worse, do that, hurt him, then that other person like she did with Dad, then think I can just go back to Nico and pick up where we left off without considering the wreckage I’ve left in my wake. ”
“Which proves every point I’ve stated.” Cin hugs me. “You don’t want to use him, Petra. You want to be with him. There’s a world of difference.”
An alarm buzzes and she checks her watch. “Now. You’ll have to overthink your feelings later. It’s time to nail a hot lap and outshine a world champion.”
I look at my race helmet, still sitting exactly where she moved it. The asymmetry still makes my teeth itch, but it’s not so bad that I can’t ignore it.
I reach for the doorknob. “Right. I’m ready.”