I stifle a wince. That’s really not great.
“He’ll get it back,” Travis says loyally.
“Yeah, for sure,” I agree.
Travis is waved forward for his interview. He hands me his water bottle to hold, and I almost take a drink from it before remembering that might look odd. Then I almost do it anyway. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so thirsty in my life. I can’t wait to strip out of my sweaty race suit and chug a glass of ice water. A whole pitcher of it, actually. And maybe a second one to dump over my head.
“Travis Keeping!” James Riley says, as Travis steps up to the camera. “That was quite the session. You were on pace for pole position until that dog ran across track. Tell us what happened.”
“A dog ran across track,” Travis says. The crowd laughs appreciatively. On the big screen behind Travis, they’re playing a replay of his last lap, and sure enough, the same white dog from FP3 darts directly in front of him, missing death by a foot. He has to swerve way off track to avoid it, invalidating his lap.
James chuckles. “I meant, is there anything you could have done to avoid it, anything you could have done differently?”
“I guess I could have kept driving straight and run over it,” Travis says. “But I’m not a total sociopath.”
Another laugh from the crowd.
“But will you feel that way if it comes to the end of the season, and you lose the championship by seven points?” James says.
He’s only joking, and Travis laughs, but I feel a weird prickle on the back of my neck when he says it, and my stomach does a queasy little flip.
“What do you make of Jacob Nichols getting pole position in his first ever qualifying?” James asks.
Travis grins at me, and the weird feeling vanishes, replaced by a flood of warmth.
“Impressive,” he says.
The word shivers through me, deep and curling. James thanks Travis for his time and waves me forward, and a distant part of me registers the roar of the crowd and the echo of my voice as I do my best to answer James’s questions. But most of my brain is still hearing Travis say “Impressive,” and counting down the minutes until I can get him alone.
Chapter 7
It takes two hours before I’m ready to leave the track.
There’s some press, a debrief with the team, even more press, then a pleasant few minutes chatting with Anne and Ben and Trevor and Jonathan, who promise to watch from the garage again tomorrow.
“We’ll be your good luck charms,” Trevor says, grinning charmingly. “Plus, I heard Quin McCarthy is hanging around in the Harper garage next door, and Jonathan thinks he’s super hot.”
“I do not,” Jonathan protests, blushing bright red.
“Well, I do,” Trevor says.
“Me, too,” Anne chimes in.
“Oh, for the love of—” Ben shoots me a beleaguered look and drags the three of them away, and I head to the Harper garage to find Travis.
I run into Matty on the way, who ruffles my hair and says, “Nice job, little one.” He laughs when I bat him away and then adds, over his shoulder, “Just wait till you see what your boyfriend did.”
I push open the door to Travis’s room, and?—
Oh, boy.
There’s a very scrappy-looking white dog sitting on the couch, its tail thumping loudly as Travis pats it on the head. Heather is leaning on the physio table massaging her fingers into her temples.
“Oh, thank god,” she says when she sees me. “A voice of reason.”
Travis beams at me. “They caught the dog! Isn’t he cute?”
“Cute” might be a matter of opinion. The dog has short fur that would be paper-white if it was clean, very dark, almost black eyes, and slightly pointed ears that remind me of a German Shepherd. It’s about the same size as Morocco, but scrawny and underfed, and its frame is covered in a constellation of half-healed scars. It looks like a dog that’s used to fighting—and winning fights, for that matter.
