Chapter 10
Race day seemed to have taken an age to arrive, and Savi and her teammates had been wide awake since stupid o’clock, sitting in the hotel restaurant and eating what their team principal called a breakfast of champions.
‘How’s your buddy situation been going, Savi?’ Miko asked. ‘You two getting on okay?’
‘Great,’ she grinned. That was the truth, Marco had spent yesterday evening going over race strategies with her and teaching her everything he knew about the circuit.
The best places to overtake, the areas to avoid the risk.
He was taking his roles as a teammate and a buddy seriously, in addition to his one as fake boyfriend.
‘It’s so unfair,’ Kodie whined. ‘You get De Luca at your disposal whenever you want, but I keep losing Julien to babysitting duties.’
‘He’s not babysitting, Kodie. They’re his kids.’
‘Yeah but he brings them to our meetings. I had to hold Emmy through lunch the other day. I get there are two of them, because they were unfortunate enough to be cursed with twins , but couldn’t he have put one in a highchair or something while he held the other, rather than dragging me into it? Better yet, get Faith to have them?’
‘Faith was filming content with me and Brett,’ Miko sheepishly admitted. Julien had let slip he was debating retiring in a couple of years, but Savi couldn’t imagine him not being their teammate. The three guys were part of the furniture at this point.
‘It must be hard trying to balance everything. They only use their nanny on quali and race days, they give her the rest of race week off to see all the sights.’
‘Screw sightseeing, Sav! This rookie needs help!’
‘You don’t need help,’ Miko reassured her. ‘You’re great out there, Kodie. We all are.’
‘Morning, ladies.’ Brett swanned in with Marco and Jules hot on his tail, each holding one of the Moretz twins.
Faith and Lucie followed soon after with camera bags and pushchairs.
It was the picture of chaos, but it put a smile on Savi’s face.
Revolution Racing was beginning to feel more like family for her.
‘Hi.’ Marco dropped down and greeted Savi with a kiss on the cheek, part of their plan to ease the team into the idea of them, and then Margot was reaching for her. She semi-reluctantly held her arms out and the almost-one year old crawled onto her lap.
‘Please don’t hand me the other one,’ Kodie winced.
‘Not a fan of kids, Kodie?’ Faith patted her on the shoulder and took her daughter from Julien so he could go and get breakfast from the continental buffet.
‘Absolutely not. Yours are cute, though. I’m not a witch, just… they’re loud. The most noise I can handle is that of an engine.’ She said it matter of factly, but she still sat there playing with Margot’s stuffed tiger.
‘Oh, I think Emmy wants Uncle Mars.’ Faith let the other twin clamber across to Marco who had seated himself next to Savi, squashed up in the booth seat. He was in the process of helping himself to her untouched cup of coffee.
‘Of course she does,’ Brett rolled his eyes. ‘Uncle Brett’s love and affection is never enough.’ He removed himself from the table to join Julien while Savi and Marco found themselves making a tiger and a panda interact with squeaky voices.
‘You nervous about today?’ Marco spoke quietly.
‘A little,’ she confessed. ‘Although I’m not sure why. You’ve taught me everything you can about the track, and it’s not like it’s my first race.’
‘Could it be because this is our debut?’
‘There’s that, too. I’m mostly nervous for how the rest of the team will react.’
She would be lying if she said it hadn’t kept her awake last night, tossing and turning for hours and trying to quash the feeling of dread.
Photos of their kiss at lunch hadn’t hit the media yet, and they may not.
Cameras didn’t always follow them everywhere.
But that meant there was more pressure on today, and their pre- or post-race kiss, whichever they opted for, would be an even bigger deal.
It didn’t help matters that she hadn’t heard from Jesse since he’d invited her and Marco to LA.
‘We’ve got this, Cowgirl.’ He nudged her arm.
But as Margot cuddled up to her and Savi let herself get lost in baby snuggles and a drama-free breakfast, pushing all thoughts of Jesse aside in an effort to get her head back on race day, the butterflies in her stomach continued to flutter.
‘Savi, Mars, can we have a quick chat?’ A very dishevelled-looking Jasper pulled them aside on their way into the garage. There was a lot more pressure on his shoulders since bringing in a second car this season.
They followed him to team HQ and into a conference room, which was just a big table and chairs with some leafy green potted plants in the corner.
It was basic, but it did the job. This was where they held drivers’ briefings, and also where they argued back and forth and analysed the race result on days things didn’t go quite right.
To be dragged in for a private meeting was a whole different ball game, but Savi knew what this was about.
‘Sir,’ Marco nodded at their boss, prompting him to start talking.
‘I understand that the two of you are seeing each other.’ He tried to hide his smile and stay in super serious Jasper-mode.
‘I don’t know how serious it is, but I will say the same to you as I did to Brett, Lucie, Julien and Faith…
’ The poor man, what other team principal was put in this position three times by four of his drivers?
‘Don’t let it impact the team.’ Marco and Savi said in unison, earning a grin from Jasper and unleashing his obvious excitement at the prospect of them being a couple.
‘I needn’t have bothered with this meeting.
You’re not kids, you know how to handle yourselves,’ he stated, except Savi was still a kid compared to some members of the team.
She was only twenty-four and Marco was in his early thirties.
‘I got the PR team to prevent photos being leaked yesterday of you two kissing at lunch, because I was worried you weren’t ready to go public… ’
‘Nah, this has been brewing for a couple of months. Pretty much since Savi first joined the team. We just kind of clicked instantly even if it only got serious in the last week or so, so we’re down to go public.
We don’t want to go through the trouble of trying to keep it secret.
’ Marco was so quick with it, so smooth, it was as if he’d been rehearsing what to say.
Perhaps he had been, and perhaps Savi should have, too.
‘Yeah, why bother trying to cover it up? It would soon come out anyway.’
‘Noted. So should I tell PR to expect lots of stories in the press after today’s race that are totally unrelated to the results?’ he laughed.
Savi knew he was joking but she still felt weird about it, because he was right.
Two teammates dating was hot gossip for the fans, and it would be talked about on a much larger scale than their fastest lap time or what position they were in the championship.
It shouldn’t be like that, just like the fact she was a female racing driver for a top team shouldn’t be such a big deal, but they didn’t have the power to change it.
She was worried about the backlash she’d receive for dating her teammate, but it would never be as bad as the backlash that came with having her identity attached to indecent photos with a country music superstar.
No matter how bad opinions of this situation with Marco got, she had to remind herself of that.
It also helped that although Marco was more famous than her, he had nowhere near the legions of dedicated fans and press attention that Jesse got, which meant there wasn’t the same risk of scrutiny on his personal life, and therefore hers. It was still a risk, but it was a much safer one.
‘You’ve done this twice before, Jasper. I don’t even think fans will be shocked. It was my turn to create waves, bring some excitement.’
‘ I’m excited. Have you told Gabriel?’ He directed his question at Savi.
‘Not yet. I’m thinking we surprise him when he sees it on TV.’
‘The man might have a heart attack at his prodigy finding happiness so close to home, but yes, I agree. I will ensure he’s in the Revolution Racing garage before the end of the race so I can witness his reaction in real time. Right, you guys had better get back to work!’
Savi and Marco ambled back down the paddock, hand in hand, just to really drive it home. If it was going to be this easy the whole time, they’d have no problems. It wasn’t that it felt natural, it just didn’t feel wrong. And it certainly didn’t feel like she was holding her brother’s hand…
‘I knew something was going on!’ Lucie pounced on them as soon as they stepped over the threshold, and the entire team turned around to take notice of the new couple’s arrival. ‘When he kissed you on the cheek this morning we all pretended not to see it, but I knew!’ she beamed.
‘Let’s not make a big deal out of it,’ Savi mumbled, earning a squeeze of the hand from Marco before he let her go and reached for his helmet from its cubby at the back of the garage.
His helmet this season was Revolution red with white detailing and sat right next to hers, a turquoise and purple design with a lucky horseshoe design on the back. It had much better detail than her poor excuse of an ankle tattoo.
Savi always tried to incorporate a little bit of home into her helmet, to make it feel like her family were with her even though they couldn’t leave the ranch.
Her dad being there for the first race of the season had meant the world to her, and she wished he could be at every one.
She wished Weston would stop shying away from his new reality and join her, that her ma could finally witness her daughter crossing the finish line with her own eyes and not through the lens of a camera.
But she understood their predicament, and had learned to accept that Weston just wasn’t ready to take that step.