“Oh, no. I didn’t say anything.”
“I know.” Mr. Miller’s expression turned intense. “On the track you’re surrounded by boys. It can be confusing. But the racing world is old fashioned.Veryold fashioned. You’re already an immigrant racing for America. If you were—you know—you won’t stand a chance out there.”
“Yes, sir,” Mateo answered, quietly. He wasn’t an immigrant, but he should’ve known better. It just hurt to hear it from someone else—someone he respected so much.
“I think that’s enough for tonight.” Mr. Miller closed his laptop and slid it into his bag. He didn’t look at Mateo. It felt purposeful, somehow. “I’d like to leave at ten tomorrow. I’ll text Bobby, let him know to be here before then.”
At 10:30 a.m., Bobby stumbled back to the RV with a satisfied grin. “What’s wrong?” he asked, smile falling as soon as he spotted Mateo.
“Nothing,” he replied, wiping his eyes. They were irritated from crying all night. “Nothing for you to worry about.”
“Okay, so you point this way for snakes, and this way for rats.”
“Why would I choose either?” Robert crosses his arms in front of him to make a big ‘X’.
“I’ll choose both, then.” Matt has never had much of a problem with larger pests, it’s shit like cockroaches he can't handle. Especially the flying ones.
At least snakes and rats stick to the ground, for the most part.
The two drivers are closer than usual—nearly on top of each other so the editing team can fit text on either side of them for a vertical video. The crew probably wants them to break out into a fight for how much they’ll inadvertently smack into each other when they disagree.
“Coffee or tea?”
Both boys raise their right arms, pointing to the space roughly above Robert’s head.
Coffee?But Robert nearly vomited the first time he tasted it. Used to complain about the smell in the camper every single morning.
To Matt’s questioning look, Robert ducks his head down, towards his ear, and mumbles, “Well I can’t choose Red Boar now, can I? Not with VFIBR kickin’ our asses.”
“What’s funny?” the director asks.
Matt hadn’t realized he was laughing. “Oh, um… nothing.”
“I’m just talkin’ shit,” Robert explains, sitting back upright. “You’d have to cut it.”
“Let us be the judge of that, please.”
“Right. What’s next?”
The director fixes them with a glare one more time before reading, “For movies, this way for horror, this way for romance.”
They both choose horror and Robert scoffs.
“Yeah,right!” He forces Matt’s hand to point at romance. “You think I don’t know you’re a big baby?”
“Says the guy afraid of snakes?” Matt grabs Robert’s arm with his other hand before it can snap back to horror. “You can’t just choose horror because musicals aren’t an option.”
“There are horror musicals!”
“Oh yeah, many morehorror musicalsthan romantic ones.” Matt tries to keep Robert’s arm above him while maneuvering his own to the other side. “I like speculative movies, that should count as horror.”
“You like stupid movies that don’t make any sense—it’s different.”
“If they werestupid movies, maybe they’d make more sense to you.” Matt freezes as soon as it leaves his mouth. That might’ve been a step too far.
“Hey!” Robert sounds more surprised than offended. “Hey!!!” Now he’s offended.
Robert knocks into Matt hard enough for the two to teeter on the edge of his chair, both boys pushing and shoving at each other while trying hard not to fall to the ground.
