Chapter 5
Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
I make sure to stay a car’s length away from Cameron and his self-satisfied smirk the remaining two days in Barcelona.
By the time I pack my bag and hop a plane back to Milton Keynes, Orbital Racing’s headquarters as well as my home away from home, I feel I might have salvaged a potentially disastrous testing weekend after all.
Until my mother lets out the universe’s loudest gasp the moment I walk through our apartment door.
Before I have a chance to yell Boundaries!, Mom rushes up and pulls aside my T-shirt collar, revealing the ugly red welt from my crash. For someone who can’t see more than two feet without contacts, her eyes sure are sharp.
“I spun the first day of testing,” I say quickly. “But I made up for it the other two days, I think.”
If you googled “overprotective ambitious tiger mother,” Mom is who would pop up.
She tuts like I just told her I failed my SATs.
“I saw. The media are all over it already.” She shows me the article she’s been reading on her phone: True Talent or Misguided Attempt at Increasing Representation?
: F3’s Female Hope Shunts During Preseason Testing.
I drop my duffel bag, crammed full with toiletries and gym clothes. Pat McCombe, the third driver on our F3 team, also spun during testing. But I haven’t seen a single article, or even a tweet, about it.
“You need to be more careful,” Mom scolds, as if I’m not already aware.
“I got assigned Dietrich Lange for mentor,” I say in an attempt to distract her so I don’t spend the next hour getting lectured. “That’s a good sign, right? Orbital wouldn’t waste Dietrich’s time with a young driver they didn’t believe in.” At least, one would hope they wouldn’t.
Mom’s face transforms. “It’ll be great publicity.
” She whips out her phone and pulls up Dietrich’s Instagram feed; it’s mostly photos of him celebrating podiums and wins.
My heart flutters in excited anticipation.
I can’t believe I get to spend time with someone who has so much talent and a dreamy smile.
“Anything he posts gets half a million likes,” Mom says. “Do you think his social media manager would be open to collab posts?”
When I first started karting, Mom thought it was way too dangerous and tried to talk Dad out of it every single weekend I had a race.
When Dad decided he couldn’t take the Winnetka suburban lifestyle anymore, I was petrified she would stop taking me and make me join a normal sport where eleven-year-olds weren’t zooming around at 75 mph.
Instead, she pulled the biggest about-face I’ve ever seen—got more organized than Dad ever was, cold-called real sponsors instead of hitting up our neighbor’s dental practice, hired a dedicated mechanic.
It was basically her overachiever’s version of a post-divorce makeover.
The rest, as they say, was history. Now she’s my “momager,” lives with me in the UK, and spends at least two hours a day creating content for my official accounts.
Before I can tell Mom I’d prefer she stay far away from Dietrich Lange’s social media manager (and the rest of his team, for that matter) to minimize the chances of her embarrassing me, she touches my welt. “Let’s make sure to cover that up for your shoot this afternoon.”
“Today?” I groan. “I could’ve sworn that was tomorrow morning.”
“No, your session around the factory is tomorrow; today is street clothes.”
I resist the urge to keel over and bury my face in the beige throw pillows.
I’m perfectly aware this is part of the job that comes with being a professional driver—more followers online means more businesses willing to cough up sponsorship dollars—but I wish Mom would stick to more traditional driver content. I already stick out like a sore thumb.
“Can’t we do a me-in-the-gym-training post? Or me in the simulator? None of the other guys hire fashion photographers for their social media.”
“Too boring.” Mom makes a shooing motion with her hand, like my words are flies she can swat away. “I was thinking we could have you wear those new shoes Puma sent over.” She moves to my closet, rummaging while muttering to herself.
I roll my eyes and flop back onto my bed, exhaustion from the past three days creeping in.
I wish I could curl up on the couch and do nothing except binge Netflix and eat Cheetos for the rest of the afternoon, but it’s useless to argue with Mom when her mind’s made up.
She used to be a trial lawyer, so trying to talk sense into her is asking to get yourself backed into a corner with twenty different holes poked in your reasoning.
Mom steps out from the closet, brandishing the outfit she picked out. “This will look fantastic. Now get dressed and let’s get going.”