“Maybe you can help me with this—” Rafael attempts to move his arm, but the sling keeps it strapped to his body. “And I can help you with something as well.”
With racing. He’s talking about racing. Because every single person in the entire fucking paddock wants to give Julien advice about racing. “I don’t need help with anything.”
“Not even your hair?”
“What?!” Julien pats his curly locks, looking for any pieces that might be out of place. Sure, he could use a trim, but he didn’t think it lookedbad. “What’s wrong with my hair?!”
“I can help you if you ask for it.” Rafael’s head tilts forward, and he looks up through his thick eyelashes, a teasing smile playing on his lips.
It’s hard to resist that look from an advertisement for one of his many brands, much less in person.
“No.” But Julien can’t be distracted by attractive men who use their bedroom eyes against him. “Don’t you have groupies for this sorta thing?”
“I get by, but I don’t think I should be clubbing in my condition.” Rafael wiggles the fingers of his bound arm again. “Besides, it’s convenient to have something ready to go.”
Some-thing. Like a willing hand, no matter who it’s attached to.
Julien gets around well enough, and no-ties is how he prefers to work anyway, but with Rafael so bad at jerking off, it doesn’t seem like Julien would get much out of a potential arrangement.
Not unless he can suck up his pride. “What did you think of Free Practice?”
“That sounds like you’re asking for help.”
“I’m asking for youropinion. It’s different.”
Rafael hums. It feels like he isn’t going to say anything else, but he finally relents. “You run a different line.”
“A different race line? Even in FP2?”
Julien was hesitant about the walls at first, but he definitely kept closer to the race line once he was more comfortable. At thevery least, he would’ve noticed if he was on the wrong side of the road as everyone else.
“Not the walls thing, your apexes. I thought it was a fluke, but you did it every single time, like you’ve run the same lap hundreds of times.”
Julienhasrun the track hundreds of times—on simulators. “So… what? If I stick to your race line, I’ll drive faster?”
Rafael’s eyebrows raise. “Sounds like help.”
“Fine!Yes, I’ll jerk you off. What’s wrong with my apexes?!”
The older driver shifts his weight, leaning back and standing tall with an air of victory. “They’re good. I want to try and recreate your laps once I’m healed.”
Julien tries to find the harsh critique buried in the comment. Good? Is that sarcasm? If not, that almost sounded like… acompliment?“What?”
“You lose time in braking. Our brakes are stronger than Form 2 cars, so you need to trust them more.”
“Trust—?” That’s just the same advice Julien has received all day. “No, what about my race line? The thing you liked? My apexes?”
“Yeah, it’s interesting. You position the car in a weird way over some of the curves. You’re still slow, but I checked the data and you shave a couple of meters off the entire lap. If you get your braking under control, you could do some serious damage during Qualifying—cut out a few hundredths, even.”
But Julien does the same racing line all eRacers do. It’s nothing special.
Then again, there are thousands of eRacers all over the world who try new things, learn from each other, and evolve.
If other,real, drivers aren’t adapting their driving style to match, maybe it could give Julien an actual advantage in Qualifying.
Anadvantage.
Newly recharged, Julien hops back onto the sidewalk and strides towards the parking lot. There aren’t a lot of cars left, but there’s still a row of black SUVs waiting for passengers. “Do we get in any of them? How can you tell them apart?”
