Chapter 8 #3
Three pitchers later, Roz and Grayson have gone for a smoke while the rest of the table is still debating Newcastle’s chances without their usual forward against Nottingham Forest.
I take the opportunity to slip out of the booth. I need a break from pretending to laugh at the boys’ milquetoast soccer jokes in the name of making friends and fitting in.
While I’m waiting on my vodka lemonade at the bar, a presence squeezes in to my left.
“Sorry, do you mind? It’s absolutely packed.” Of course it’s Cameron, because the universe has decided today isn’t my day.
To be fair, there’s no other spot open at the bar and the waiter at the cash register has been ignoring customers like it’s her job to. I shrug and scoot in as much as I can without bumping into the middle-aged guy next to me.
“Thanks.” He shoots me a half grin, half grimace. “All right?”
I narrow my eyes. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Keep your hair on, just thought I’d ask—you’re the one who had the dead man’s stare on back there.”
“A what?” I used to think British accents on guys were super hot, but then I moved to the UK and it got exhausting trying to figure out what barbs I’m getting jabbed with.
“Eyes open, seeing nothing? Staring off into the abyss?”
So now I look like a dead person. “Gee, thanks. So flattering.”
“Look.” He sighs and runs his hand through his hair, tugging hard on the ends. “I don’t want to get into another fight. It’d be better if we could manage to finish the FC-80 without any more incidents.”
“Fine by me,” I say primly. “You’re the one who insisted on torturing me when I was already late for my meeting.”
“Aw, come on, I was only teasing.”
I make a pfft sound, and he looks at me with a small grin.
“You were so funny and frantic, I would have gone faster a second later.”
“It wasn’t funny to me.”
“Well, did it turn out all right?”
Roz claimed going out would be the best way to distract myself from my woes, but so far reminders of how I’ve blown it on- and off-track keep popping me in the face like I’m in some sad live-action simulation of Dragon Ball FighterZ.
“Whatever, it doesn’t matter anymore. Thanks, by the way.”
He gives me a quizzical look.
“For saving me from Sasha Devin.”
“Oh, right. Sasha can be a twat sometimes.” He turns toward me, leaning in to the bar counter. “If it makes you feel better, I didn’t get points my first F3 race either.”
Incredibly, some of the tension that’s been in my stomach all day loosens a little. “Really? But you placed third for the season last year.”
“Would’ve been champion if my car didn’t break down in Sochi.”
“I watched that. That sucked.” My heart had broken for him at the time. He was clearly the most talented driver on the grid, robbed by circumstances beyond his control.
This was, of course, before I met him in real life.
“I survived; you will too.” He shrugs, then downs the last dregs of beer in his glass. “I guess what I’m saying is, no need to go jumping off terraces or anything after one race.”
I smile despite myself. Did someone spike his beer with a kindness pill?
“It’d be a right pain in the arse to have to finish that car by myself.”
Though his joke is stupid and corny, it makes me laugh a little. Then, because he’s looking at me kindly, his eyes like the velvety molten chocolate you always see in high-end ads, my brain short-circuits and I share, “Dietrich dumped me as mentee after Spielberg.”
I regret it the microsecond the words are out and brace myself for a smirk.
“Bloody hell,” he mutters instead. “I’m sorry.”
I’m grateful he didn’t laugh in my face and even more grateful he’s another driver. Roz had been comforting, but she didn’t understand what it would feel like, getting assigned to and dropped by one of the sport’s biggest deals.
“Are you gutted?” he asks.
My lip trembles. I pull myself together and give as nonchalant of a shrug as I can muster. “Nothing I can do about it now.”
He raises his hand toward me, then drops it.
“When I was a kid, my nan entered me in a go-kart competition. I won, but last minute at the prize-giving ceremony they told us the sponsor changed their mind: They wanted to split the pot equally among the top three finishers. The worst was, I had to stand up there and smile for photos with everyone, though I was dying to chuck my trophy to the ground. It traumatized me for years.”
The image of little Cameron, with his full head of Adonis hair, doing his best not to throw his first-place championship cup to the ground in front of an army of reporters and company reps makes me smile. “I’m surprised you had the self-control.”
“We’re not all menaces like you.” He bumps me gently with his shoulder. “Broken any more pieces of Orbital equipment lately?”
I laugh. My first genuine one since I got here. “Shush, Pat and Grayson are right there. Do you want Frank to find out and make us build a second car?”
“I’ll tell him I was just an accessory to the crime. You were the mastermind.”
There’s a grunt behind us. “Hendriksen, six quid.” The bartender slides a pint glass across the counter to Cameron and then a slimmer glass to me. “Ten quid.”
Cameron watches me scan my phone. “You ought to have the beer next time; anything else here is daylight robbery.”
The irony of Cameron quibbling about a few pounds while wearing a sweater that costs as much as a computer makes me chuckle. “Shilling for the sponsor, are we?”
Hendriksen Brewing is Orbital’s title sponsor (technically the team’s full name is Orbital-Hendriksen Racing, but nobody ever calls it that).
Their logos are plastered all over our cars and racing suits.
Luckily, there’s no contractual requirement to actually drink it.
I had my first and last Hendriksen at someone’s end-of-school party last year.
It came out of a keg, was lukewarm, and tasted even worse than Natty Lite, the only other drink on offer.
I vowed then and there I was never touching beer again.