“Okay,” I intone slowly. “That’s… a new revelation?”
“Kind of.”
I stare at him. “Explain, please.”
“You’re like a dog with a bone,” he mutters. “I’m not good with change. Like… at all. And this sport?” he picks up his glass and takes another swig. This time, I have the foresight to avert my gaze, but I still catch him licking droplets from his lips, and the heat inside me intensifies. “It’s nothingbutchange.”
Whydo I have to be attracted to the biggest asshole I’ve ever met? Is this the universe punishing me for my years-long dry streak?
“The changes are pretty incremental in the grand scheme of things,” I say, meeting his eyes. “Yes, they’re constant, but if you keep up with them, they’re small.”
“Ihaven’tbeen keeping up with them,” he growls. “My first few years in F1 were excellent. Then, the cars and regulations started seriously changing—I didn’t like that, so I didn’t adhere to it. And the new hybrid changes in recent years were especially offensive. I hadn’t decided for sure that I was leaving… but I didn’t apply myself to staying.”
His logic is fucked, but at least I now understand him a bit better. That’ll enable me to help him. Ishouldn’thelp him after how he’s treated me… but if my forecasting system can take him from P22 to P10 in a single season, it’ll have proved its efficiency and value.
It’ll also help me make a name for myself and my work.
“So, you’re allergic to change, but you underwent a massive one that ended up with you knocking on my door at 3am. What brought that about?”
He works his jaw. Fuck, eventhat’shot.
“I spoke with someone very important to me. She reminded me that I’m either all in or all out, and that doing shit by half-measures doesn’t run in my blood.”
Speaking of blood, mine starts toboilas soon as he saysshe. There’s very little in the press about Asher’s personal life, andnothingabout a girlfriend. Could it be his mother?
No, Thomas recently mentioned that Asher has a notoriously bad relationship with his parents. So thisSheis another woman.
No wonder my attraction is one-sided. It’s entirely possible he’s in a committed relationship, and this woman is important enough to have instigated what sounds like a serious change of heart.
Why an image of me eviscerating this faceless woman flashes through my mind, I’m sure I don’t know.
“I see.” I try to keep the testiness from my tone.God, why do I care?“Well… the good news is, the 2026 regulation changes have sort of caused an overhaul. So, you won’t necessarily need to memorize manuals from previous years—though reading them wouldn’t hurt. Forthisyear, you do need to memorize the car manual, read the technical directives, the stewards’ decisions so far this season, and every debrief summary from our raceengineers. They all have essential information that you have to know as well as the back of your hand.”
“Are you giving me homework, Miss Linden?” His tone is only a touch mocking; mostly, it’s resigned.
“Yes,” I say shortly. “Do that as soon as possible. Then, I’m going to need you in the simulator every other day, with each day focusing on a new element. Today you did decent work with X-mode, but it wasn’t targeted enough. It gave me good data, but I’ll need more. Tomorrow, I want to see you run active aero drills—switching between straight mode and corner mode under pressure, and then defending without it—each for at least twenty laps. I’ll also need you cycling through the power modes; deploy, harvest, overtake, recharge, with one focus per session or two in the simulator.” I bite my bottom lip, and I think I catch a flash of heat in Asher’s eyes.
No, that’s just inappropriate wishful thinking.
“I need to see how you drive in dirty air. Clean air. What combination of modes and energy management helps you most on straights versus through corners. And, if you want the fantasy of a podium this season to be even remotely achievable—” which it probably isn’t “—I need you to give it your all. I’ve seen your early tapes; I want to work withthatdriver.”
“He wasn’t any less of an asshole than I am,” Asher comments glibly.
“He was good enough to make up for the permanent stick up his ass. You aren’t.” I give him a pointed stare. “Can you do that?”
He considers this for severalbeats. Nods. “I’ll try.”
“Great.”
The pieces of my model that are complete should be enough to successfully run forecasts on Asher specifically, especially if he’s giving it his all. The mechanical and strategic variables are solid—it’s thehumanside that’s still unfinished. His emotional volatility is exactly the kind of thing I don’t yet know how to quantify, and it’d skew the models predictions, but that’s a problem for a later date.
For tonight, I need to run through the working sections of the algorithm, clean up the inputs, test the outputs, and pray to god that my soft-launch works. If it doesn’t, I have no doubt Asher will scream my incompetence from the rooftops, ruining my prospects in F1… and I’ll be devastated to boot.
Chapter Sixteen
Victoria
Asher shows up to take over the simulator first thing in the morning. I’m barely settling down at my desk when he strolls into the analyst’s cave, points at me, and demands I come with him. He’s not nice about it, but I’m so impressed he’s here early that I don’t call him on it.
