“Podiums,” he says, grinning, holding up his fingers in a V shape.“Two.”I smile as he smooths back his wiry salt-and-pepper hair.I suspect he didn’t come here to gloat at me.
“Matt’s still struggling,” he says after a moment.
“Your drivers didn’t need to lap him,” I say, attempting a joke, humiliating as it was.
“He’s in his own head since the crash.”
“He was driving badlybeforethe crash,” I remind him.
Matteo tips his head sideways, scratching at the scruffy regrowth on his chin.“He was impatient before.Driving too fast, too recklessly.But since the crash, he doesn’t drive at all.He’s a lame horse.”
“What are you saying?I should shoot him?”I quip.
Despite my attempt to seem jovial, I must look stricken, because Matteo dips his head, lowers his voice, and puts a hand on my shoulder.“Cut him loose.He’s going to need too much time.”
“Well.Time is what I don’t have,” I mutter.
Something passes over Matteo’s face, and he nods as though he understands.
Because he probably knows the trouble Arden is in.
Jack was right.This team is on the brink of financial collapse, and everyone here knows it.I’m about to press Matteo, to see what he knows, when we are approached by a girl, can’t be more than eighteen or nineteen, her long blond hair back in a ponytail, stuffed under a cap.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she says shyly.I glance at the phone she’s clutching in her hands.“Can I have a selfie with you?”
Matteo smiles warmly, standing a little straighter, making room for her to stand next to him.“Oh,” she says, glancing between Matteo and me, flushing red.“I meant with Chloe Coleman.”
“Ahh.Of course,” he says, hands up good-naturedly.“I’ll leave you to it.”
She looks back to me and grins, and at once I feel a giddy sense of pride, misplaced though it may be right now.
“It’s just so cool having a woman at the top,” she says, giddy, as we lean in together and she takes several shots, moving her head into multiple positions as she does.“Thank you!”she squeals.“I’m at the academy.If things don’t work out, I hope I can go into management like you.”
I try to swallow a sort of embarrassed yelp.
“We’re all cheering for Arden.Foryou!”she calls out, and I watch as she skips back to a group of young women, all drivers, I suppose, from the FIA’s new woman-only racing academy, designed to help improve representation in the sport.I watch as they crowd round her phone to look at the photo, hooting and giggling.
Christ.I’m clutched by a nightmare worse than fear of failure.
Collective responsibility.
Barry is right.Tomorrow, Matt and I need to figure this out one way or another, or we’re both finished.
CHAPTER 8
Matt
Thirty-four minutes and counting.
That’s how long Chloe and I have been trapped in this tiny damn box of a room.
Barry told us to meet him here in the garage at ten a.m., packed and ready to head to Texas.I thought we were going to debrief, and was awake half the night planning my retirement speech.But instead, Barry lured us into this little room on the promise of those doughnuts over there on the small table, the strong black coffee, and an honest “chat.”Okay, the venue seemed a little strange, but the neutral territory of the garage, away from the prying ears of gossipy reporters, made some insane sense at the time.
As Chloe and I stood there awkwardly exchanging glances, Barry asked for our mobile phones, to “keep us focused.”Then, before we knew what was happening, he was on the other side of the door, locking it from the outside with a key.
“Come together, you two.If you learn to work as a team, you’ll get out,” he said as he grinned, before running off on his tippy-toes like a teenager mid-prank.
“It’s like a PG version of that movieSaw,” I said, looking around the empty room as Chloe rattled the door for the hundredth time.
