As she moves slightly beneath my arm, I vow to stay here, completely still, and let her sleep the whole way to São Paulo.I vow to give her everything she needs to feel secure.That’s the first step.
I gently kiss the top of her head and make that promise.
And I try to ignore the stiffening of my neck, and the prickling feeling in my arm, still for too long around her neck, like a thousand fire ants throwing a rave.
CHAPTER 21
Chloe
São Paulo (Brazil) Grand Prix
Qualifying
The hum of activity fills our garage—the clackity-clacking of whirring machinery, banging tools, and that constant murmur of a team hard at work as we prepare for this critical Rio qualifying.Above all, I’m delighted to hear the occasional burst of laughter.As though our team isenjoyingthis again.
Our mechanics, decked out in their green-and-black uniforms, dart around the gleaming Arden F1 cars, making those all-important final adjustments.We are almost ready.
I watch a shirtless Matt do bench presses while Noah lazily spots him with one hand wrapped around a green smoothie.I’m trying not to watch, but it’s virtually impossible not to ogle Matt.And now that I’ve touched that chest, run my hands up those arms, I know what it feels like to have him.
I stare up at the ceiling, cursing myself and my shittyself-control and the situation we’ve managed to get ourselves into.
But when I look back at him, my stomach flips.The way he looks across at me right now, sitting on the bench between sets, towel over his shoulder.Once upon a time when Matt looked at me like that, I felt as though there was a joke I wasn’t in on.Now I know the joke—trying to deny what was between us this whole time.He’s even more attractive to me than before.
That glint in his eye is just enough to send me back to the hill at Silverstone.He lifts the corner of his mouth into a wicked grin.I shake my head back at him.Stop it.We are going to get caught if he keeps looking at me like that, let alone constantly putting his hands all over me, every time he thinks no one is looking.
I look away, smiling despite myself.
“Barry, can we talk?”I say, calling him away from Matt’s eyeline.Or maybe I’m mostly getting myself away.“Also, whose idea was it to bring the gym gear into the back of the garage?”
“Matt and Noah’s,” he says, as we walk down the hallway toward the driver quarters.
“I see,” I reply, frowning.
“Feel like we have a new kid out there,” he says.“He’s stopped eating shit, he’s training.He’s climbing up the fucking leaderboard.He can have whatever he wants.”
“It was a good start.”
“Good start?We’re heading to the top!”Barry kisses his finger and points to the sky.Or at least, the roof of the garage.
Climbing up the leaderboard?We have two points in eighteenraces!I admire Barry’s belief in his choices and our ability to deliver, but he’s in delulu land if he thinks one good race is going to change things.We have so much work to do.
“Barry,” I say, ushering him to the back of the garage.“How are we doing with sponsors?I need to start thinking about next season.”
“Let me worry about that,” he says evasively.
I take a deep breath, reminding myself that it ismyjob, and not the owner’s, to think about the strategy for next season.“It’s my area to worry about it.To start planning for it.Even if you decide to replace me.”
Barry’s eyes drop to the floor as if he’s looking for Ginger and Roger, and I realize it’s the first time I’ve not seen them by his feet.
“Where are they?”
“Ginger was sick, so she stayed in England, and I couldn’t take Roger alone.”
He looks a little anxious as he says this.
“I’m sorry, Barry, you must be beside yourself,” I say.
“Just don’t take it the wrong way if I stroke your head during the race,” he says.
