Chapter 14
In the JJR garage, Leo talked Mack through the buttons and levers that adjusted the balance and weight of the car, tiny changes that made the car minutely faster.
On qualification day, those fractions of seconds could make careers or heartbreak.
Mack didn’t think he was teaching her anything she didn’t already know, but she was desperate and it was an excuse to spend time with him, so she listened carefully until her yawns grew so frequent that Leo waved her out of the stripped-down practice car tucked into a quiet corner of the garage.
Leo returned her yawn. “You know the tools. You need to have confidence in when you use them.”
Mack wanted to snap that she was pretty damn confident for someone who learned the tools a week ago, but she held her tongue. The little lift to Leo’s lips made her think he knew what she didn’t say. She liked that he wasn’t put off by her prickliness.
Mack hauled herself out of the driver’s seat and arched her back, pulling her arms overhead to stretch the length of her spine.
Her back felt both tight and tender, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this physically sore.
She knew exhaustion—anyone who’d spent more than twenty-four hours with a toddler understood how truly threadbare a person could feel—but this was a physical drain, a depletion of her body she hadn’t felt for a decade.
For the briefest second, she wondered how long it would take her muscles to adapt to the unusual angle of driving an IndyCar until she realized it didn’t matter because she wouldn’t be here long enough for her body to get used to anything.
Soon she’d go back to the usual aches of pressure washing bleachers and helping Shaw with fourth grade math homework. The thought of driving home to Haubstadt if she didn’t qualify made her stomach cramp and she jolted upright.
Leo placed a light hand on her back and she turned to face him.
Behind him, the wide garage was empty. The oversize fluorescent lights were out in every station but for the small pit practice area where she and Leo were, and the business bullpen, a small loft over the garage, was shut down for the night.
When they’d first started going over the in-car tools, there had still been a smattering of JJR crew milling around the garage.
She had no idea how long she and Leo had been working.
“Everyone else went home,” Leo confirmed. His voice bounced off the wide-open space of the garage. “Are you okay? Backache?”
His hand still rested lightly between her shoulder blades, a soft and comforting counterpoint to her aching spine.
She wanted him to rub gentle circles, to ease the aching muscles of her neck, to turn her around and pull her into his arms. She wanted more, more, more.
She rolled her shoulders to remove his touch.
“Sorry,” he said, withdrawing his hand, shoving them both into his pockets.
He wore his usual joggers and a soft-looking San Diego Padres sweatshirt, his still-damp hair curling on his shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, softer. He chewed his lip, and Mack realized she’d never seen him look nervous.
“I’m sorry about the other night. I’m never impulsive like that.
I . . . we were . . . it was . . . You were right. It was a mistake.”
She grabbed her elbows. She’d said the words first, and she’d meant them, but they hurt coming from Leo’s mouth. It had felt so good, even for a false moment, to be wanted.
Leo looked at her with the same intensity he wore before he pulled on his helmet.
“I don’t regret anything, Mack. That night was amazing.
I think about it when I shouldn’t.” He pulled his lower lip between his teeth.
“When you were yelling at me on pit lane I realized how badly I’d put you in a horrible position.
I took advantage of you. You’re a rookie, new to the team and IndyCar.
I don’t regret you, but I regret what I did to you.
” He dropped his gaze to the floor, and his shoulders drooped.
“If you don’t want to be on this team with me, I understand. ”
She squinted at him in disbelief. “So you want me to go?”
“No!” He was destroying his glossy curls, pulling his fingers through them mercilessly. “I’ll go. I’ll . . . try to find a last-minute ride with someone else or . . . or I’ll sit this year out.”
Her jaw flopped open.
“You should make a report to Janet. You need to be comfortable here.” He kept his eyes on the floor. She suspected he was trying not to cry.
“What the actual fuck, Leo? You’re not going anywhere.
I’m not saying shit to Janet. If anyone was impulsive, it was me.
It’s kind of my thing.” She waved her index finger back and forth between them.
“You did not take advantage of me or any other stupid shit you’re thinking.
Surely you remember how very, very consensual we were? ”
He looked up at her. “I remember.”
Mack couldn’t stop herself from reaching out and removing his hands from his poor mangled hair.
She laced his fingers with her own and they faced each other, hands intertwined.
They were so close she could feel the rise and fall of his breaths under his hoodie.
“You are going nowhere, Leo. You are going to win the Indy 500 this year, and you’re going to do it in JJR’s colors.
I’m going to qualify and run this damn race and find you at the front.
We made a mistake and we both agree it won’t happen again. ”
He stared at her for a long time, his eyes bouncing back and forth across her face, from her eyes to her lips, until finally he nodded. His thumb rubbed over the arc of her own. The empty garage, dark and cavernous around them, felt strangely intimate.
“I’m never reckless,” Leo whispered, his thumb now gliding over the back of her hand.
Mack arched her brows in question. Leo took his time answering, and she sensed that he wanted to find the exact right words.
“My parents have always been kind and loving and supportive. I never had anything to rebel against because they were always there for me. But when I started racing . . . they double-mortgaged their home and took out loans to pay for everything. They sacrificed so much for me and I never want them to regret it.”
“And being impulsive would make them regret investing in you?”
Leo closed his eyes and shook his head. “I was seventeen when I came to karting. You know how it is. Most of the kids I raced against had been driving since kindergarten. I started doing odd jobs, pressure washing and painting and working at a fast-food place to make enough money to buy my own equipment. My parents borrowed money from my grandma to buy my first kart. I still think about that every time I’m too tired to get out of bed.
The bare minimum I owe them is my hard work.
” He reached up and pushed an unruly strand of hair off her forehead.
“If I went wild, did impulsive things, did anything that took my focus away from racing, it would feel like spitting in the face of all the sacrifices my family made for me.”
“What about your YouTube channel and the dancing competition?”
He held a lock of her hair, twirling it around his finger.
“The dancing competition got me a wider audience, and I landed some solid sponsorships after that. My YouTube channel connects me with fans, which keeps the sponsors happy.” He shrugged but Mack could tell he didn’t feel as casual as he acted.
“I really do love the fans, but sponsors mean money, money means repaying my family for all they’ve done for me. ”
“See? Shady. You act like you’re all calm, a cool guy out here having fun, but it’s all calculated.”
She said it teasingly, but Leo did not smile in return. “More like strategic. There’s so much I want to do for them. I made enough to pay off their mortgages but I’m trying to refill their retirement accounts.”
“And what do you get?” Mack tilted her chin up at the garage. “You’re working to take care of your family, but what about what you want?”
Leo grinned wickedly. “I want the Indy 500.” Mack hummed in agreement, and the air between them vibrated with so much want—of each other, of the win, of someone who understood the want of something bigger than themselves.
His face changed so slightly that Mack would have missed it if they weren’t a bare inch apart. She whispered, “What else do you want, Leo Raisman?”
Geezus, the way he looked at her. No one had ever made her feel so wanted.
“Can I trust you, Mack?”
She frowned. “Of course.”
“I want more. Janet pulled me up from a junior program and gave me my first shot at IndyCar. I’ll always be grateful . . .”
“But,” she said for him.
He whispered and Mack didn’t know if he was keeping it quiet for himself or because they were in the JJR garage. “But it’s time for something new.”
“A new team?” The hush of her voice matched his.
He nodded guiltily. “I’m ready for a new challenge.
I owe Janet everything, she’s a good boss and she’s taken me as far as she can .
. .” He trailed off but Mack understood what he wasn’t saying.
JJR was a small team and it was a testament to Leo’s talent and Janet’s hustle that they’d gotten their one-car team onto the podium multiple times.
But the bigger teams had bigger resources, and like everything else in America, bigger resources meant a better chance of winning.
“Is that a possibility?” Mack knew even as she asked the question that it was. Leo Raisman was beloved to both fans and sponsors, and he proved himself on track week after week. Any team would be lucky to have him.
Leo drew an inhale and nodded. “I don’t have room for error.”
Mack stepped slightly closer into him, until no air remained between them, just space all around them in the vastness of the garage. “Me either,” she whispered.
“I know,” Leo said softly. His thumb barely ghosted over her neck. “I know.”
He took a sizable step back.
Panicked, Mack grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled.
She shoved up on her toes and kissed him the way she’d wanted to since they walked into the garage.
Leo matched her fervor, his fingers sliding through her tangled hair, his palms cupping her jaw.
Her mind knew she was being foolish but her body said he felt so right, so perfect as his rough beard scraped her healing chin and his heat enveloped her body.
She pressed down on his shoulders to gain leverage, then jumped and wrapped her legs around him.
Leo groaned as he moved his hands to her thighs and pulled her closer.
She had no idea how long they’d been kissing when Leo gently, carefully slowed their pace.
Then he eased his hands up her body, softly letting gravity pull her feet back down to the floor.
When she was standing, their bodies still tightly aligned, Leo cupped her face again for one last long kiss.
Her lips followed him as he pulled away, but Leo tilted his head so that their foreheads touched but their lips couldn’t reach, his hands still holding her face.
Mack had never done that before. She’d always followed through, sometimes even as alarm bells went off in her head. She never stopped a thing once she started it. She’d never been with someone levelheaded like Leo, someone who matched her fervor but also tamed it.
She stood breathing heavily, somewhere between embarrassed that she’d thrown herself at him and grateful that Leo stopped them from doing god only knows what in the garage.
She glanced up, looking for cameras. She’d told Laurie she knew better now, but making out in the team garage where others could find footage of her and Leo was about as stupid as it got.
Leo ran his thumb over her lip and he was still looking at her mouth when he spoke. “You have to know how much I want to find an empty office.” His eyes found hers. “But you told me you didn’t want distractions, and I want you to have everything you need to make this race.”
Mack studied his face, so serious and sincere even though his pupils were still blown. She wanted him to steamroll over her boundaries, to make bad decisions with her, to act first and think later. She wanted him to be wild and reckless and as self-destructive as she was.
Because he didn’t, and because he wasn’t, she liked him way too much. It made her furious.
“Why are you so fucking decent?” She’d meant to snap, to throw the words at him as an accusation, but they came out a whisper, swallowed up by the empty garage.
“Not decent,” said Leo. “Shady. I’m putting in the hard work and now I’m waiting for the luck to follow.”
“Winning Indy?”
Leo hummed in agreement, but it was subdued, like he was holding something back.