Chapter 3
Jacob
If there were ever a time to break the speed limit, it’s now.
Unfortunately, my seventeen year old self was traumatised into rigid adherence by a driving instructor who believed speeding was a moral failing, so forty miles per hour it is. Anything higher and my brain starts itching in a way that feels scientifically impossible but experientially accurate.
I am running late.
For a date.
With Tippi.
My thoughts race faster than the car. She’ll think I’m rude.
Or disorganised. Or indifferent. The fact is, I’d planned this properly: finish work on time, go home, shower, change, sit quietly for fifteen minutes to gain control of my zinging nervous system, then be ready and composed when she arrived. Or a close facsimile.
Instead, a zero-day patch overran. It hung halfway through deployment and we had to roll it back, restart, monitor for vulnerabilities. You can’t just stop once you’re committed. Cyberattacks don’t care about your social life.
I swing into my street finally, muttering apologies to no one, and pull onto the drive just as a black Audi Q5 glides up to the curb.
We arrive at exactly the same moment.
Typical.
I kill the engine, get out, and then she steps out of her car and all coherent thought disintegrates.
Jeans like they were painted on. White sleeveless Sleep Token tour T-shirt. Red Converse. Riot of blonde waves. No make-up I can detect beyond maybe mascara. She’s staggering in a completely unfair ‘I just threw this on’ way that should be answerable to NATO.
“Hi,” she beams.
I forget English for a second. Then it returns in a panicked rush.
“I’m so -” I stop, swallow, start again.
“I’m so sorry. I would never have been late for this, for you, but I couldn’t help it.
I had to do a zero-day software patch and I thought it would be quick, they usually are, but this time the process hung, which meant we had to roll back part of it and restart it, because once you’re halfway through you can’t just stop, and we’d gone over halfway, and without the patch the systems would have been vulnerable and that’s unthinkable, so I had to -”
“Shhhh.” Tippi’s suddenly right in front of me, fingers pressed lightly to my lips.
My heart stumbles, my mouth unsure what to do with itself.
Her eyes are warm, amused, not remotely annoyed.
“No harm, no foul,” she says easily. “Shit happens. You made it.” She drops her hand and my mouth tingles at the loss.
“Do you still want to go tonight, or would you rather call it off and decompress?”
“I want to go with you,” I say instantly.
“Perfect.” She reaches up, slides my tie loose, and pulls it off as if it’s personally offended her, then flicks open the top button of my shirt. “We’d better head out if we’re going to make it.” On tiptoe, she scruffs my hair. “You’ll do. Come on, I’m driving.”
I stand there, dazed, while she walks back to the driver’s side. It’s only when she glances over her shoulder and grins that I realise I’ve been staring at her backside. My face heats. I pretend, weakly, that I was admiring the car.
I buckle into the passenger seat, grateful for the silence that follows.
We don’t talk on the drive; she sings along to the stereo - something thrash-guitar-heavy and unfamiliar, but she’s word perfect.
Her driving is quick, smooth, confident.
She checks her mirrors more often than most people I’ve ridden with which is kind of a surprise. It feels… safe.
Meanwhile, my thoughts take advantage of the quiet.
She told me, plainly, that she finds me physically attractive, which is like Picasso telling me my stick figures show promise. But that wasn’t the part that scrambled me. It was it’s not just your appearance, though.
Looks are subjective. Incidental at best. I’d argue no one could reasonably claim Tippi is lacking there, but what unnerves me is the implication that she sees something in the rest of me too.
What can someone like her possibly see in someone like me? I’m aware that opposites attract, but this is ridiculous.
We reach the track car park before I’ve come close to answering that. The place is already busy, all dusty gravel, rows of cars, and the distant crackle of a PA system. A muffled “Summer Nights” from Grease floats from somewhere ahead.
Tippi slams the door with casual energy and tucks her keys into her back pocket, where her hands stay. It does outrageously compelling things to the lines of her body. She strolls toward the entrance like she’s been here every day of her life, even though I know it’s her first speedway.
I walk beside her, a half-step back, trying to recall the small list of questions I prepared in my phone’s notes app like the world’s least sexy crib sheet. Better prepared than fumbling.
“So, why speedway?” I manage, once we’re weaving through the crowd toward the ticket booth. “Out of all the possible activities.”
“Why not?” she says, with a friendly shrug. “I saw the flyer, I’ve never been, and it looked fun when I caught it on the sports channel once.”
I find that sort of easygoing decision making… bewildering. “So you just decided to go? What if you buy a ticket and don’t like it?” Or don’t like me, my brain adds helpfully.
“I don’t get bored,” she says simply, like it’s an empirical truth.
I believe her. Tippi Mills would find a way to make filling in a tax return entertaining.
At the ticket window, I insist on paying. The idea of her covering everything makes my skin crawl in a way I can’t quite explain. If the evening is a disaster, at least she won’t be financially out of pocket.
That noble intention lasts about three minutes.
She darts over to the food vans and returns with two bacon sandwiches and a shared portion of chips before I can even locate my wallet. The twenty-pound note coming out of her bra does something unfortunate to my autonomic nervous system, and I force myself to look away.
“Thank you,” I say faintly as we walk toward the seating. I catch myself staring as she zigzags sauce over her share of the chips: ketchup, burger sauce, mayo, barbecue, mustard, all in thin overlapping lines until the potatoes are barely visible.
The right corner of her mouth lifts when she catches my expression. “A little of everything is my way of life.”
Of course it is.
I add a modest amount of ketchup to my own half of the tray. “Just what I need, and nothing more.”
“That tracks.” Her dimples appear; I can vividly picture them being the death of me. “Speaking of tracks,” she gestures faintly toward the circuit, “where d’you wanna sit?”
The oval is ringed with an inflatable safety barrier, the generators that keep it inflated growling behind us.
Concrete steps climb up in wide tiers, and there’s a section of bleachers cordoned off for people who paid extra.
The sun is slow dancing with the horizon, streaking the sky peach and pale blue, clouds smeared like finger paint.
“I think the best view, mathematically speaking, will be just there.” I point to the first bend. “We’d be able to see most of the track from that angle, but it’s a bit crowded.”
“Mathematically speaking?” Her eyes light up, amused.
“Yes.” I shrug, abruptly aware I’ve shown myself up as the chronic overthinker I am. “Optimal line of sight.”
“Good to know.” The look she gives me is… not bored, and not patronising. It feels almost like appreciation, and settles in a pleasantly warm spot in my chest that I didn’t know was empty.
We find a space on the steps near the bend, just back from the front row.
Tippi smiles at the people around us, and more than one man looks at her like a dog that’s just spotted an unattended steak.
I give a few of them what I hope are discouraging looks.
I have no idea what I’d do if one responded, but still, the gesture is made.
“You’re right,” she says once we sit. “This is the best view.”
Her approval makes me absurdly pleased. Using my particular way of seeing the world to improve her experience feels… good. Like I’m being useful. And in the absence of confidence or charm, I’ll take utility.
While we’re waiting for the first race, I mentally scroll through my conversation prompts. “So you’re not spending every day with your family while you’re here?” I hadn’t expected her to have time for a coffee, let alone a night at the speedway circuit, given how rarely she’s in the country.
“Nah.” She licks sauce off her finger and I have to look away for a second because, in the most respectful way, uunnnnnfffff.
“I spend most of my time with them, especially the kids, because gaaaaah, I love them. But I’m restless as hell.
I want to do things while I’m here. So once RhiRhi’s asleep, I’m free to wander. ”
I’ve never done that. Wandered for the sake of it. I go where I’m going, do the thing I’m there to do, then go home. The idea of just walking around to see what happens feels alien.
But it also makes my way feel a little… tragic, by contrast.
“You’re a doer,” I say quietly. I envy it.
“One life to live.” She says it like it’s the simplest fact in the world, but it turns something over in my head.
“Sure, I’ve had my fair share of fuck-ups.
Fell on my ass plenty. But I wouldn’t trade any of it.
It’s a crime to waste a day on ‘I shouldn’t’ or ‘but what if’.
I’d rather live in randomised chaos than stay safe and miss out. ” She shrugs. “That’s my take, anyway.”