Chapter 8 #4
“It’s good from the tap. You want a sip?” He holds up his freshly filled glass.
“No thanks, beer tastes like pee water to me.”
He does an exaggerated clutching-his-heart motion. “Why do you have to hurt me? That’s sacrilege. Have you tried their craft labels?”
“It also is, like, the worst drink nutrition-wise. You might as well be eating Wonder Bread.”
“It’s not any worse than the crisps you have every day at lunch.” To my astonishment, he lists off all my favorite junk food. “Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Chilli Heatwave Doritos—”
“What, are you watching me?”
“Someone told me I had to keep an eye on the competition.” He dimples, and my pulse jumps.
I reach for my drink to have an excuse to break my gaze on him. Cool it, Justine. Just because he’s devastatingly handsome and gets how much it sucks to be dumped by the assigned F1 mentor doesn’t mean he’s not the asshole who drove into me at testing.
“There you are.” Pat comes up, throwing an arm around Cameron. “We gotta go. I told Savannah we’d be at dinner by eight.”
“Can’t you get Devs or Gray to go with you? I’ve got an early start tomorrow.”
“Come on, man, you said you would.”
Cameron turns to me. “Looks like I have to go. You’re free to join if—”
“Nah, dude,” Pat interrupts. “It’s supposed to be a double date. Sorry Justine, no offense. I’ve been trying to get this girl to go out with me for forever and she only said yes because her friend wants to meet Cam.”
“That so?” Cameron perks up, and a burst of irritation ripples through me. Why are male egos so easily flattered? And what’s so good about great hair and dimples, anyway? That poor girl is going to run for the mountains once she realizes he has an awful personality.
Not that I care what—or who—Cameron does on his Thursday nights.
“Later, Kwong, I’ll text you about our next FC-80 sesh.” He gives me a backward wave, already headed for the exit with Pat.
“What’s an FC-80?” I hear Pat ask before their voices are swallowed up by the din.
A second later Roz runs out of the bathroom, hair looking like she stuck her finger in a socket and the spaghetti strap of her dress half falling off her shoulder.
“I got off with Grayson!” she whispers triumphantly. “Now come on, let’s get out of here. I want to leave him wanting more.”
She runs for the exit, dragging me along behind her and practically smacking me in the face with the door on our way out. From the street outside, we watch Grayson stumble back to the now-empty booth, looking winded and baffled, cool-guy composure nowhere to be seen.
We meet each other’s eyes and burst into giggles. I laugh so hard, my knees buckle and I have to sit on the nearby bus stop bench for support.
“What a night.” Roz sinks down next to me.
I nod, my gaze drifting from the faux nineteenth-century row of shop houses across the street to the bus stop sign papered over with different-colored flyers.
Unlike most towns in the UK, Milton Keynes doesn’t have a long history.
It was founded by some central planning government council in the 1960s, so the whole place looks more like a bland midsize city in the Midwest than a quaint British village—complete with signs where town is spelled towne to make things look authentically old.
Normally, I find the place about as aesthetically pleasing as our strip mall back home with the giant Olive Garden, but tonight—with the dusky peach-colored sky above us and the buzzing of The Hound and the Bacon behind us—it’s not so bad.
Like the little delivery robots trundling all over the city, you could maybe call it beautiful in its own quirky, special way.
My eyes land on a neon-green flyer stuck toward the bottom of the bus sign. It has Annual Milton Keynes Funfair printed in fuchsia over a black-and-white graphic of a striped tent. Nostalgia burbles in my stomach.
“Have you ever been to this?” I ask.
She squints at the flyer. “Nah. Why? You a fan?”
“I used to go to the Illinois State Fair every year with my family. It doesn’t feel like summer until I’ve had fried cheesecake.
” Dad and I loved it, but Mom hated the smell from the livestock and insisted on carrying a sun umbrella around with her.
Surprisingly, she kept taking me even after Dad left.
I think it was one of her many ways of showing me we didn’t need him.
Roz tuts. “Americans. Honestly, what don’t you people deep-fry?”
“It’s delicious, I promise.” My mouth waters at the thought of milky-gooey sweetness wrapped in crisp, crunchy breading.
“That’s mad.” Roz laughs, leaning her head on my shoulder.
I feel lighter than I have in days. Roz was right after all, about going out and getting out of my own head. Even my giant dumping by Dietrich feels less devastating. As nice as it would have been, I don’t technically need his mentorship to succeed—I’ve already gotten this far by myself.
“Roz,” I say, “the French Grand Prix is in a month?”
“Four weeks and three days, if you want to be precise.”
I nod. A month to our next race. A month to train hard and work hard and get everything back on track.