Chapter 1
There is an extremely handsome actor flirting with my boyfriend.
His name is Quin something—McCarthy? MacQuarrie?—and I recognize him from that war movie that came out over the summer. He was in some big Netflix series, too, though I can’t remember which one. All I know is that he’s very famous, very handsome, and apparently incapable of taking his eyes off my boyfriend’s face.
The two of them are standing together in the back of the Harper garage, out of the way of the mechanics working on Travis’s car. Something must have happened to it in FP1. I’m not sure what—I only got here five minutes ago—but it can’t be too serious. The lines of Travis’s body are relaxed, one of his hands resting on his hip and the other moving absently as he talks. I think he’s explaining something about the car to Quin. The actor’s eyes move from Travis’s lips to his hands and back again, and he laughs a little too hard at something Travis says.
“Yo, Nichols!” Matty Wright hip checks me. Matty is Travis’s teammate at Harper Racing, as well as one of his best friends. He’s dressed in his race suit, with his neon pink crash helmet under his arm. “I didn’t know you were coming this weekend.”
“Yeah, well. It was a last-minute thing.” I shrug, affecting nonchalance. Then I glance at Travis again without really meaning to.
“O-ho.” Matty follows my gaze and gives me a wide, obnoxious grin. “I see how it is. Gotta make sure no one swoops in on your man.”
My cheeks warm. “No. I’m just helping out Crosswire. Farin’s not here this weekend, so they don’t have a reserve driver?—”
“Oh, right,” he says. “Of course. That’s so kind of you.” He grins again, the asshole, then he glances back at Travis. “Is that Quin McCarthy?”
“I think so.”
Matty whistles. “He’s very handsome, isn’t he? And so well dressed.” He sweeps a pointed look up and down my frame.
I scowl. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”
He cackles. “Yep. Cheers, friend.”
He heads off to his car on the other side of the garage, and I take a few steps backward to get out of a cameraman’s way. He trains his lens on Travis and Quin, and a few seconds later, their faces pop up on all the track TV screens. Anyone watching the FP2 coverage right now is getting a great view of Quin flirting shamelessly with my boyfriend.
And Matty is right. Quin is very handsome. He has that glossy, Hollywood look about him, with bronze-gold hair, perfectly straight white teeth, and irritatingly endearing dimples. He’s wearing a pale knit sweater and slim-fitting jeans, and even though it’s about a hundred degrees out, he hasn’t shed so much as a drop of sweat.
The cameraman pans out to show the entire garage, and I catch a glimpse of myself on TV.
Oh, boy.
The contrast between me and Quin McCarthy couldn’t be any more depressing. My blond hair is a tangled mess, my face is flushed and sweaty, and I have massive dark circles under my eyes because I couldn’t sleep a wink on the thirteen-hour flight from London. I’m wearing a pair of ratty basketball shorts that I usually reserve for the gym, and my wrinkled Crosswire t-shirt has a yellow-green stain all down the front.
In my defense, the stain was not my fault. I wasn’t scheduled to come to the Singapore Grand Prix, but Crosswire’s reserve driver, Farin Leblanc, had a last-minute conflict. I was at the factory yesterday, doing sim work for the team, when Tom Kellen, the head of Crosswire, asked if I wanted to fill in for Farin in Singapore. Even if I wasn’t completely desperate to see Travis, there’s no way in hell I would have ever said no.
I’ve been a test driver for Crosswire Racing for about six months, and while I’ve loved every second of it, opportunities to race actual cars have been slim. I’ve done tons of time in their racing simulator, and I’ve driven last year’s car a couple of times, but I haven’t come close to touching Crosswire’s current car. And honestly, that’s not likely to change this weekend. Both of Crosswire’s drivers, Mahoney and Clayton, are perfectly healthy, so unless a rogue asteroid strikes one of them down in the next twelve hours, I’ll be spending the weekend standing around the Crosswire garage. Still, it would’ve been stupid to turn the opportunity down. Drivers have scored F1 contracts off reserve drives in the past.
Unfortunately, because it all happened so last minute, the only seat left on the flight the team booked for me was a middle seat in the last row of economy. The window seat was taken by a scowling teenager wearing way too much body spray, and the aisle seat by a mother and her nine-month-old son. I offered to hold him for her when the in-flight meal came around, and my good deed was immediately punished by the kid vomiting all over me.
I had my gym shorts with me, thank god, since the stain on my sweatpants was very unfortunately placed, but I didn’t have a spare t-shirt. And then my luggage didn’t arrive, so I’m stuck in the vomit-stained one.
Did I mention I don’t smell very good, either?
I attempt to finger-comb my hair into order while I wait for Travis to wrap up his conversation with Quin. The Harper folks are starting to get a bit antsy—they keep looking at Travis and then glancing at the clock, which reads five minutes to nine p.m.—but Quin doesn’t seem to have noticed.
I edge a little closer to hear what they’re saying.
“It’s really great,” Quin says. “I think you’d like it.”
“Yeah, I read his last book a while ago,” Travis says. “What’s the name of the new one? I’ll write it down.”
He glances around for his phone, which I can guarantee is back in his changing room. Travis only uses his phone for three things: playing music, taking pictures of our dog, Morocco, and sending the occasional text. One time, he asked me—entirely seriously—if I thought he could get away with just having a landline.
“I can text it to you,” Quin offers. “What’s your number?”
You’ve got to be kidding me.
