“Just what I needed!” She gets up, but I wave her to sit back down. “I’ll get drinks.”
She sits back down, closes her laptop, and moves it to the side.
“How was your training session?”
“Great. Hamish really loves punishing us for something we didn’t do,” I jest.
“And you pay him for the privilege.”
“That we do! He is great, though. Kept us in line last year.”
“You lot need someone to keep you in line that much?”
I laugh. “Well, we figured the strength and condition training would help keep us at optimum weight for the year.”
“You all have to be at a particular weight?” She sounds shocked.
“Yeah. If we are too heavy for the bikes, it goes through too much fuel and the tyres get worn out too quickly. Everything has to be balanced. And then it could all change at the next trackbecause it’s longer, or newer tarmac has been laid recently. Or, the track also has cars using it and it wears differently, so we need to ride the bikes slightly different. We need to be resilient and strong enough for anything.”
“Wow, so it’s a real engineering kinda thing on the bikes.”
“Absolutely. I’m sure the same goes for rally, or any motorsport. These are just some possible scenarios and impacts for us.”
“Interesting,” she ponders out loud.
“Got through heaps of work today?” I ask, setting down glasses of water for us.
“So much, but I'm really happy with the progress. Rayna got me into a bunch of sponsor meetings today, so it was great to put faces to names over video calls. I’m ready for when I meet them at their respective tracks.”
“Smashing it!”
“Time will tell when the season starts and the first media start rolling, through.”
“Media are great. They are all here for the same thing and don’t want to piss anyone off. You could wing it and they will go with the flow.”
“I’ll use that to my advantage!”
Finishing the last slice, I take the box into the kitchen.
“I’m going to hit the shower,” I call over my shoulder.
“No worries. And I should be finished up by the time you're done. We can keep binging that new TV show.”
“Deal,” I remark, heading to my room to collect some clothes from my room before heading into the bathroom.
“What are we feeling tonight?” I open with as we enter the hotel room, returning from a long day on track. “Pizza? Fried chicken? Tacos?”
Mabel twists her mouth around, considering. “Why don’t we make dinner here? Something simple. We can head to the supermarket and decide what to make on the way?”
“Sure, that sounds like a nice change,” I agree.
“I’ll just change, and we can head out.” She ducks into her room.
I look down at my clothes and decide against changing. There’s no need. I've been in my leathers today and hardly in these clothes. Looking around the room, I smile at some of Mabel’s things she's left around the hotel room, happy she feels comfortable enough to leave evidence of herself around in our shared space. I pick up one of her coiled hair ties and realise it’s plastic as I play with it in my hands. Mabel reappears from her room in pink and black activewear shorts, a black tee, and sneakers in hand.
Holding up the hair tie in my hand, I ask, “Doesn’t this rip your hair out?!”
She laughs as she pulls her sneakers on. “Not at all. It’s actually comfortable.”
