Still. She’s onmycar. She’s spent the last two weeks working withme. Elio can go fuck himself. If I can’t have her, I’ll make it this season’s mission to make sure no one else on the team can.
After all, she will have alotof work to be doing if I’m going to get on the podium—and I intend to do just that, no matter what it takes.
“This is a partially-complete model, and it’s not as versatile as the complete version will be.” We’re 30,000 feet in the air, and instead of making a foray into the mile-high club like I’d prefer to, I’m pretending to be interested in Victoria’s algorithm.
I should be interested in it; it could get me to a podium. But, instead, all I can focus on isher. Her intoxicating scent of crisp apples and honeysuckle. The slightsmattering of freckles along the bridge of her nose. The way her eyelashes fan her cheeks every time she blinks. The slight uptilt of her lips as she talks about something she enjoys.
“I input numbers here, here, and here to feed the model what it needs.” She points her finger at a bunch of spots in a sea of random numbers and letters, as if I can follow along with this techy bullshit. “Then, the other tab shows me projected outcomes. I round them as well as I can. I think if I can hook up my model to the data analysis team’s live telemetry feed, it should be able to give me live projections—but they’ll be incomplete.” She releases a huff of frustration, and eventhat’shot. “They’ll look like white noise to anyone who isn’t me.”
“Good way to protect it,” I offer dumbly. “If nobody else can use it, I mean. Otherwise the team will get their hands on it.”
She taps her lips. “Yeah, I haven’t thought about that too much. For now I’m encrypting the outputs and restricting access so that even though the model pulls from the team’s data, nobody can see what it’s producing or how it works. When it’s ready, I’ll ask my friend about how I should license it. She’s a lawyer.”
I think for a moment. “Is this the friend who you think I’d get along with?”
Victoria nods. “Yeah, Delilah is proudly an ice queen. Andscarysmart. I want to get her out to a race later this season.” Her expression falls. “I won’t be able to see my friends or family much until the season’s over. I missthem.” Something troubled that I don’t like crosses her expression.
“You get used to it,” I say with a shrug. “The constant travel. The distance. Thejetlag. It all becomes part of the process.”
She tears her gaze away from the screen to examine me. “Did you get used to it?”
“I was fuckingthrilledby it at first,” I admit. “The luxury, the travel. Being able to say I visit dozens of countries a year. As I’ve grown, it’s started taking a toll.” My gaze strays to her lips. We’re sitting right next to each other, with only a flimsy armrest separating us. What would happen if I just closed the distance and—
No.Besides it being a complication neither of us need, she’s made it clear she’s not interested—and I’m not the type of guy to chase women.
“Is it the travel taking a toll or your dwindling love for F1?”
“Both,” I confess.
She nudges my arm with her own. Bona-fideelectricityshoots through my skin at the point where we have contact, and my blood rushes from my brain to my dick.
Shit, not now. She’ll notice, and that opens me up to a sexual harassment suit—
Except, she looks like she felt it, as well. Her gaze widens, and she releases a small gasp.
She clears her throat, pointedly shifts a bit farther away from me, and offers me a shaky smile. “Well. Maybe you can find your love for F1 again.”
I sure as fuck hope so. And something deep inside me says that Victoria just might be my way to rediscovering what made me fall for F1 in the first place.
Chapter Twenty
Victoria
Ilya decides against making me the team’s errand girl during setup. Instead, he sticks me with the engineers. I manage to interface with the analysts back in HQ, and after promising Oliver more cookies than I can ever bake, he gives me access to their live telemetry feed. It’s a bit outdated, but it does what I need it to do: track metrics during the race without any delays. If my model doesn’t lag, it’ll tell meexactlywhat I need to know to make recommendations for Asher.
I don’t see the surly driver much during setup—he spends a lot of time with team management. I catch him a few times in the hotel lobby, but we only have a few minutes to talk. After spending hours every day with him for two weeks, the distance feels kind of wrong. I almostmisshim.
By the time qualifying rolls around, I’m a bundle of nerves. I’ve tested the parts of my model I’ll be using over and over again, and the system as a whole is solid enough, but I’m terrified that I’m missing something. Positions determined in qualifying could set the scene for massive success or major failure; where the drivers place todaydetermines where they’ll start on the grid tomorrow. It’s not a deciding factor for race outcome, but it heavily contributes.
The only people at the pit wall are me, Ilya, Declan, Ethan, and Elio’s engineer. Since I’m a last-minute add-on, I have to stand next to Ethan. My tablet is clutched in a death grip as I watch Asher get buckled in.
“Elio should be able to make it to Q2,” Declan says, referring to the second round in the three-round qualifying knockout. Each round, the slowest drivers get eliminated, until only the top 10 fight for the front of the grid in Q3. “Asher will probably be knocked out in Q1.”
Anger singes up my spine, but I keep my mouth shut. Asher’s brought this doubt on himself, but still… it frustrates me just how much he’s dismissed.
Ethan swivels in his seat to face me. “Don’t distract me during sessions, yeah? If you have something to say, wait until the break in between.”
We neverdidget around to talking on the flight here, and he’s been pretty short with me each time I’ve tried to approach him this week.
