“What’s with the silver gaffer tape across the chest?”Archie asks the producer as we head to the door.
“Oh.Um.We lost a sponsor earlier,” she replies, blushing.
I turn to Archie, my face expressionless.
“Come on,” he says, grabbing my arm with one hand and the racing kit with the other.“We need to get you to qualifying.And you need to talk to Chloe.”
CHAPTER 3
Chloe
Ishrug off my stupid, expensive green blazer, feeling the sticky sweat already pooling between my shoulder blades and making its way down my spine.There is a reason Nico Rosberg described Singapore’s street circuit as being like a two-hour spin class in a sauna.It’s humid and hot as hell.
The cavernous garage is ready, doors about to open onto the Singapore pit lane.The interior is set like a stage show, plastered with Arden Racing forest green signage and sponsor logos.Along the sides of the garage are our custom-built engineer stations, rows of monitors detailing and transmitting every imaginable scrap of data to and from the team in Singapore and our headquarters back in North London.
In the heart of this cutting-edge technological theater sit the two Arden Racing cars.Multimillion-dollar machines, the black-and-forest-green livery shimmering under the bright lights.Through the back, away from view, are a set of rooms for testing, building, spare parts, and naturally, plenty of coffee.
I glance up at the digital clock that is counting down to start time.
Two hours to go.I desperately need Barry to leave.In the weeks leading up to this race, he has been standing over me, second-guessing all my decisions.He’s like a manifestation of my own self-doubt and I need him to fuck off already and let me do my job.
“Where is he?”asks Barry, his eyes darting around for Matt.I watch the guy in a white boilersuit hastily paintingMatthew Warnerin big white lettering above one of the garage doors.
“Maybe he’s firing his agent,” I joke.
Barry laughs, slapping me lightly on the shoulder.“You’re funny, you know that?”
I silently count to five.“I’m amazed we could afford him,” I say dryly, recalling the tiny figure we have remaining on the spending cap for the year and the even tinier figure on my own deal terms.Barry looks at me sheepishly.
“I’ll have to adjustsomenumbers,” he says evasively.
On the way back from the press conference, I made the decision to deal with Barry and his “surprise,” a.k.a.Matt Warner,afterthe Singapore Grand Prix.Or rather, my only friend on the circuit, McLaren strategist Keyla Kato, made the decision for me.As I stumbled through the sea of waiting reporters, she yanked me into the women’s toilets (a famously quiet space in F1) and pep-talked me out of my shock.
“Welcome to the F1 disco,” she said sympathetically.
“What in the name of Senna just ha—”
“There’s no time to take you out for fucking cocktails to debrief.”
“I’m just...Matt?I can’t be his boss, he’s—”
“No.We don’t have time for that.Pull yourself together, Chloe,” she said, squaring up to me, trying to catch my eyes.“This is Formula 1.You’re not in Little League anymore.Matt is just a driver.Yourdriver.Okay?”
“Okay.”I said the words, but I was not and am notokay.Matt isn’t just a driver, to me, at least.
He is my aching, desperate, unrequited love from childhood.A nightmarish one-way infatuation only a teenage girl can have, made infinitely worse by the fact that Matt seemed to like hanging out with me.
I overanalyzed everything endlessly.Of course I did.A grin across the garage after a close race.Those long shared drives home head-banging to Queen after training.A gentle hand on my lower back as he pushed me forward, urging me to speak up in that room full of dudes.
The hometown connection felt special to me.Made us feel meant to be.We were the same working-class kids with fathers who were mechanics and F1 fanatics, and our families knew each other from the circuits.I could see Matt resented the rich kids.So many F1 kids were from big wealth, and while we didn’t have the ski holidays and the five languages and the high-end kit on the track, we had Brackley grit, and that was something.To me, at least.
I eventually accepted Matt would never see me as more than that frizzy-haired, zany young girl who loved F1 as much as he did.So, I settled for friendship.I was his occasional confidante.Someone he could talk to about racing.About his string of short-term girlfriends.I was someone he calledmatein a way I loved at the time, but in hindsight I know it was probably a pointed reminder.
I feel like I debased myself now, waiting around for years,hoping he would wake up and realize I wasthe one.What a dumb waste of time.
And if I was in any doubt at all, after Matt got his offer at Rossini, I never heard from him again.
Of course, I knew I was going to bump into him regularly now that I was on the circuit.I’d readied myself.I’d role-played my nonchalant “Oh, hi.It’s you,” in a sexy dress holding a martini at some pre-race party.But I was not prepared forthis.To be teamed up with him.I felt numb with shock, and Keyla brought me back to earth by grabbing my hand and squeezing it.
