8. Wes
I swipe my access card to enter the paddock in Jeddah and remind myself to smile.
It’s usually not a problem for me. My happy-go-lucky attitude and winning smile are what I’m most known for, after all.
But walking into the paddock alongside Freddie Norton is not something I want to smile about.
When Albrecht called to tell me the news, I said all the right things. Then I went straight to the gym to get my frustration out before I talked to Lu.
It’s a damn shame Marcus and Albrecht didn’t give her the seat.
I’d much rather be her teammate than Freddie’s.
I’ve tried my best to be welcoming, but he’s openly dismissive of me and condescending as all hell.
It doesn’t help that an old video of him calling me a washed-up has-been who needs to retire and stop hogging a seat on the grid has resurfaced.
It’s one thing not to like me—that’s fine. We don’t need to be friends. But we are teammates, and that means we need to be cordial. Especially on camera and in front of fans.
There are screams as we step into the paddock and I hear someone call my name.
I smile and wave before turning to Freddie.
Like most drivers, he’s shorter than me and has a slight, lean build.
We’re both wearing navy team shirts, but his linen pants and boat shoes are a far cry from my lived-in jeans and gum-soled sneakers.
Even though it’s his first F1 race and it’d be normal for him to be anxious or excited, he carries himself with a detached confidence that I’ve only ever seen in the ultra-rich—as if being happy about an experience most people will only ever dream of is somehow beneath him.
His golden hair is styled carefully, his sunglasses aren’t just designer but limited edition, and the watch on his wrist is a family heirloom that dates back to the late 19th century.
It’s a fact I know because Andrew commented on it, and Freddie took that as an invitation to chart its provenance.
Freddie looks at the crowd with open contempt.
He doesn’t so much as pause when a girl holds out a hat for him to sign.
“Freddie, hold up,” I call, before stopping to autograph a sign that says “GRANT FOR PRESIDENT.” I look around for my teammate, only to spot him making a beeline for the Martine motorhome.
If he doesn’t want to play nice with fans or the media, then that’s his choice.
It’s no skin off my back if he becomes the most disliked driver on the grid.
To be fair, he did only qualify P15 yesterday. I’d be pretty pissy on race day if I were at the back of the grid, too. The difference is that I’d never publicly show it.
I’m starting in P4 today, behind both Orions and one of the Fiorellis.
Though it’s not the front row, it’s not too shabby either.
Our car is competitive this year, that’s for sure.
But we need to find further performance advantages if we’re going to break out of the mid-field and move into the top three constructors this year—and I think I’ve found a way to maximize our tire performance more efficiently.
It came to me after finishing the MIT aerodynamics paper and I’ve chatted through the theory with the factory engineers.
Though it will take some time to develop and test the new component, if I’m right, it should help us make a huge leap in the constructors’ rankings.
In the motorhome, I head to our Sunday morning strategy meeting, where we review the data and intel we have from our practice and qualifying sessions.
It not only helps us better understand our own cars and racecraft, but prepares us to handle any possibility thrown our way, so that if we need to make a change mid-race, we can.
It’s actually not all that different from Elizabeth’s crisis strategy, now that I’m thinking about it.
Once the meeting wraps, everyone gets to their respective pre-race routines.
Mine has evolved over the years. I used to joke around, listen to music, play video games to kill time until I was needed in the garage.
But these days? I meditate and visualize.
And then once we’re closer to the race start, I jump rope, go through reaction drills, and then pop on headphones and listen to music that hypes me the fuck up.
Today, though, my meditation session is worthless. I’m restless and fidgety, and it’s impossible to quiet my mind. I message my sports psychologist, Jaclyn, who immediately advises me to follow where my mind and body are leading rather than trying to control it. So, movement it is.
It’s too late in the day to jog around the track, though.
And the paddock is already packed with people, which means the second I step outside, I’ll be thronged.
With limited options, I do the next best thing: power-walk through the motorhome.
But it’s not a huge space, and the lack of fresh air isn’t helping either.
As I’m heading to the stairs that will take me to the roof, I turn a corner and skid to a halt.
Because Elizabeth Jacobs is sitting in the conference room, typing at the speed of light.
Her hair is in a sleek ponytail, and she’s wearing a navy blue vest and a matching pair of trousers. My eyes continue their path down to her feet, which are adorned with a pair of white sneakers. Before I can think better of it, I open the conference room door. “Hey, Lizzy–”
“No.” Her voice is sharp as a blade.
“Before you call me a disrespectful dick again, tell me this,” I say, moving through the room and then taking the chair right next to her. “What’s so wrong with Lizzy?”
“It’s not my name,” she says, still not looking at me. It makes me want to break her concentration all the more.
“What about Beth?”
“A resounding no.”
Hmm. Intriguing.
“There has to be a story there.” I say, keeping my tone light and playful. “Were you bullied by a Beth? Do we need to go on a revenge spree?”
That does the trick. At last, she turns her full attention on me.
Though she’s still sitting ram-rod straight, the burning annoyance I’ve grown accustomed to isn’t what’s in her eyes.
Instead, there’s a far-off, wounded look that makes me want to track down whoever the hell made her feel that way and force them to beg for her forgiveness.
She blinks and the look is gone, replaced by her usual cool detachment.
“I went to high school with three Beths. They were three different kinds of awful.”
Suddenly, I can picture teenaged Elizabeth Jacobs: quiet, intense, and so pretty it hurts. She must have intimidated the shit out of every single guy. And the girls must have really hated her.
I quirk an eyebrow. “So this really will be a revenge spree.”
“We are not doing anything other than press conferences and media engagements.”
I pout. “But revenge is so much fun.”
Unbelievably, her lips quirk up. “Don’t worry, I got mine a long time ago.”
Satisfaction floods my body. Of course she made those bullies pay—probably publicly and in as humiliating a way as possible. She probably made it look like it was their own doing, too. “Care to enlighten me?”
“Don’t you need to be off, I don’t know, jumping rope or listening to some motivational podcast?”
“Nah,” I say. “The cardio comes later, and I’m not really into podcasts.”
She gives me an assessing look, and I have a feeling she’s about to tell me to fuck off so she can get back to work.
When she closes her laptop and takes a deep breath, I have no idea if I should be bracing myself for another sharp-tongued dressing down or preparing to be swept up in a thrilling tale.
“I caught the first Beth cheating on her boyfriend with a girl from the field hockey team, so I blackmailed her into leaving me the hell alone,” Elizabeth says, her low, cool voice washing over me.
“The second Beth took longer—years actually—but she was also the worst one. When everyone was home from college during the holidays, there was this house party that my sister convinced me to go to. I overheard Second Beth say she blew one of her professors in exchange for a better grade. I had no idea if she was lying, but I emailed the dean of her school all the same.”
“Hot damn,” I say, completely enthralled. “I didn’t expect these stories to be so juicy. But I’m not surprised to hear you’ve always been a vicious little thing.”
I nearly fall out of my chair when she smiles directly at me. It’s not like I was completely blind to it before, but Christ, this woman is beautiful.
“The third Beth was one of those condescending mean girls who could always pinpoint the exact way to cut you deepest,” Elizabeth says.
“So I started a rumor about her. It was completely made up, but I told the biggest gossip in school that Third Beth’s dad ran one of those counterfeiting operations in Chinatown and that all of her designer bags were actually fakes. ”
I clamp onto the personal details like a dragon hoarding treasure, immediately filing them away in my mental drawer with Elizabeth’s name on it.
She has a sister. She grew up near New York.
I wonder where. Now that I’m paying attention, there is something about her that screams East Coast. But her American accent is neutral, so she didn’t grow up in the city, let alone Long Island or New Jersey.
Connecticut, then. Or one of those tony suburbs in Pennsylvania.
Elizabeth laughs lightly. “It was so petty, especially since it was easy for Beth Number Three to debunk the rumor. Even though people knew it wasn’t true, they’d bring it up to tease her since she was clearly bothered by it. At the time it felt like justice.”
I nod. “Okay. So now I get why Beth is out. But I still don’t know why Lizzy—”
Elizabeth makes a noise in her throat that I’m pretty sure is a growl, and I swear to God, I can feel it reverberating on my skin.
“Because I said no,” she says, her voice hard again. “Why can’t that be reason enough? Why won’t you respect that? Why do I need to give you an explanation? Why do men insist on testing women’s boundaries?”
Whoa. Okay. So this goes deeper than me pushing her buttons. But she’s also right. She has been very clear that she doesn’t want her name shortened. I knew that, and did it anyway because I thought it’d be amusing.
And though there is something addicting about getting a rise out of Elizabeth, I was also being a dick. Again.
“You’re right,” I say. “I was feeling restless and needed a distraction. So I messed with you. But I shouldn’t have done that. Or at least, not in the way that I did it.”
“So why did you?” she asks, her eyes on mine. It’s as if I’ve been pinned against a wall.
“Maybe I just wanted a reason to talk to you.” I don’t realize until it’s out of my mouth that it’s the truth. I wanted to talk to her. To be around her. To have her challenge me and put me in my place.
She shoots me a curious look. I wait for what comes next; for her assessment of that truth. But then she opens her laptop. “I need to get back to work. I’m sure you do, too.”
Right. Work.
“I have a race to prepare for, you know.”
“Break a leg or whatever,” Elizabeth says, though her focus remains on her screen.
“Considering this is F1, I think ‘bonne chance’ or ‘buona fortuna’ would be more appropriate.”
Elizabeth’s eyes meet mine. “Be grateful I didn’t tell you to go fuck yourself.”
I laugh as I exit the room.
But as I walk down the hall, I bask in the relief.
Because one conversation with Elizabeth banished every jitter from my body.