Chapter 7
seven
SILVERSTONE, ENGLAND
Avery held up the badge hanging from the lanyard around her neck and waited for the familiar ‘beep-beep’, giving her access to the paddock, the restricted working area for teams, sponsors, media, and officials.
Avery entered the gates and hesitated: where to head first in her new alternate reality as Teddy’s pretend girlfriend?
Wives and girlfriends typically hung out on the sides of their drivers’ garages or killed time in the multi-story team-branded hospitality suites.
She had no clue who Teddy may have told about their new situation and how he would act when he saw her.
Teddy and his engineers would be deep in their work reviewing data from the previous day’s practices and working out their strategy.
Would her presence in his garage be welcome?
Or was that overstepping the nature of their agreement?
Probably best to go straight to the adjacent makeshift office area where staff would be holed-up working. It was qualifying day, and all hands would be on deck, and she needed to coordinate a few upcoming charity appearances with the media/PR department.
Her colleagues sat around a fold-out table, laptops out.
“Avery, pull up a seat,” James called out, pointing to a stack of plastic chairs in the corner as soon as she walked in.
Avery breathed easier—at least one person considered her part of the team. She dragged a chair over as James scooched his, making room for her on his side of the table.
“We’re reviewing Zack’s and Teddy’s interview schedules for the weekend. We may have overbooked them,” he said, turning his screen to her.
She squinted her eyes. Good, they hadn’t cut the five-minute appearance/photo-op with the local girls’ coding academy she’d asked for.
She was scanning the rest of the color-coded lines of the spreadsheet, when someone approached from behind and squeezed her shoulders.
She turned around and looked up to see it was Teddy, and found herself unwittingly breaking into a grin.
Whether he was acting or not, she was genuinely glad to see him.
He was once again sporting the standard at-work look of all F1 drivers: race suit half-zipped with the top half hanging around his waist, exposing his long sleeve fireproof undershirt.
He looked unbelievably cool. Avery couldn’t help admiring the now somewhat familiar outline of his impressive physique under the tight-fitting top.
“Lads, I’m going to need to steal this one away for a moment, if that’s alright,” he said, to the four guys sitting there, who exchanged puzzled looks.
Avery stood up from her chair, and Teddy gently placed his hand on her lower back, and guided her out of the work space. Her mouth went dry. Is he just being a gentleman? Or is this it, our debut as a couple?
He led her through the back of the team’s office on wheels and to his personal dressing room.
For all the times that Avery had been in a garage, she’d never been in a driver’s private room.
It was less glamorous than she had imagined.
A small round table, a gray armchair, some shelves, and a portable clothes rack took up most of the space.
“Take a seat,” Teddy gestured to one of two plastic chairs at the small table as he sat down in the other.
“You put on quite the show out there,” Avery said. “So, has James told the reporter about us? Is the cat out of the bag?”
“Yes, it’s done,” he nodded his head and tapped his hands on his thighs.
“I should probably tell you that I told Stacey about our plan, but I trust her to keep it quiet,” Avery wrapped one of her dark curls around a finger.
He shrugged. “It’d be nearly impossible for me to hide anything from her anyway. A driver’s trainer knows him better than he knows himself in some ways.”
“And I assume James knows the truth?” Avery asked.
Teddy nodded again. “He does.”
“And I want to tell Caroline, my right-hand woman and dear friend, if that’s okay with you. But I guess we should keep up the ruse at work, otherwise…” Avery paused, “You never know who has loose lips and could blow our cover.”
“Agreed. The fewer in the know, the less likely there is to be a leak,” Teddy added. “I won’t tell anyone else on the team or in my personal life that we’re not really together.”
Did he have anyone in his life who he could confide in?
Though she often experienced some amount of loneliness spending so much time on the road, especially as a woman in such a male-dominated sport, at least she had Stacey.
And her family’s involvement allowed her to see her dad regularly.
Silverstone was the fourth race of the season, and Avery had yet to see any close friends or family join Teddy for a race weekend.
“Alright then, I guess you and James will loop me into your schedule for the obligatory WAGs pics,” she said using the internet term for ‘Wives and Girlfriends’ of professional athletes.
“And I’ll have Stacey and James add the gala and a few additional foundation-related appearances to your calendar. ”
There was a knock on the door, and Brandon, the Silver team principal, poked his head in. His eyes went wide.
“Oh, sorry Teddy! I didn’t realize you had company in here,” Brandon said. “But we need you in the garage. Q1 starts in 20 minutes.”
“We were finishing up here. I’ll be right out,” Teddy said as Brandon quickly closed the door behind him.
“Well, I’m sure Brandon will mention seeing me in your dressing room. I’ll have to tell my parents that you’re the guy I’ve been ‘secretly’ dating and will be taking to the gala.”
“Looks like we are really doing this thing, doesn’t it?” Teddy raised his eyebrows at her. “Feel free to stay in here as long as you like, but please close the door behind you on your way out.” He trotted down the hallway to catch up to Brandon.
Avery took advantage of a moment alone in Teddy’s little sanctuary from the racetrack madness to see if there were any other clues lying about that could provide her a bit more insight into his state of mind.
She didn’t want to snoop, but she figured anything in plain sight was fair game since he had invited her to stay.
However, the small space was devoid of any personal items or flair.
There were six race suits identical to the one he was currently wearing hanging from the clothes rack.
And the shelves were nearly bare save for a basket of protein bars, energy drinks, and Teddy’s current helmet, the unique design of which was the only hint of personality in the space.
Formula One drivers often worked with graphic designers to incorporate unique, personal elements into their helmet design, alongside the necessary sponsor and team logos.
Avery carefully picked up Teddy’s helmet from the shelf and inspected the design.
The whole helmet was wrapped in a blue, yellow, and red tartan pattern, and a small Union Jack flag was printed on one side.
It was a lovely homage to his Scottish roots and the race’s location.
She made a mental note to ask Teddy if that particular tartan had a special meaning to him as she placed the helmet back where she found it and quietly slipped out of the dressing room, hoping no one would notice her.
She wasn’t eager to start dealing with the gossip that was about to spread like wildfire through the Silver ranks.