Maxime cuts through a tight cluster of competitors, slipping between them like they're standing still.
“Did you see that?” I squeeze Kai's arm.
He nods. “Really good form.”
The laps stack up. I lean forward, fingers white on the railing. The riders angle so low their knees nearly scrape the tarmac. Every overtake tightens something in my chest.
Then a gasp ripples through the crowd.
A rival rider loses control out of a turn. His bike fishtails, rubber screaming.
Maxime swerves. Hard. For one horrible second, our rider is sideways, tires spitting dust, the barrier too close.
I grab Kai's arm.
His hand covers mine. Steady.
“It's okay,” he says. He's right.
Maxime corrects and finds the line, using the momentum to thread past two riders in a move that pulls a roar from the stands.
I exhale, shaky. “I think I just aged ten years.”
“Welcome to racing, love.”
The crowd surges to its feet.
I squint at the board. Third and fourth.
“They did it.” My fingers dig into his arm. “Honey, they placed.”
He slings an arm over my shoulders. “Not bad for a first race.”
Down in the pit, the air still crackles.
Logan is in the middle of it, arms crossed, talking to the head engineer with a focus that borders on surgical.
“Good work,” he says, clapping the man's back. “That second pit stop cost us, though. We need to shave time there if we want to improve next round.”
Kai steps forward and pulls Logan and Ethan into a hug.
“Team Blaze is officially on the map.” His voice is rough.
I love seeing them together. Logan’s absence has been a gap, even if Kai wouldn’t admit it.
Near the edge of the pit, a cluster of grid girls lingers after their walkabout. Long legs, designer smiles, sun-kissed skin under the overhead lights. Several of them circle closer, eyes fixed on Logan.
A brunette in red tilts her head, bites her lip. Her friend whispers something behind manicured fingers. Both giggle.
Logan doesn't look up. He's pointing at something on the engineer's tablet, arguing about telemetry data, completely unaware he's being hunted.
Kai's eyebrows lift. “Jesus,” he mutters.
I grin. “Shocked?”
“They could be naked,” Ethan says, “and he'd still be talking about tire degradation.”
A woman walks toward the Team Blaze section with a boy beside her. He's maybe twelve, gangly and bouncing on the balls of his feet, wearing a Blaze cap that's slightly too big for his head. His eyes go wide as he takes in the garage.
