He leaves me alone in my suite, and I watch from the doorway as he marches confidently down the hall. Adelaide is waiting with the bodyguards by the elevators. She’s perched on a settee wearing one of her typical vintage dresses. She stands as soon as Bash approaches and she kisses his cheek. I can’t help but notice, as they step into the elevator, that his hand moves to cup her midriff. And she tips her head to lean it on his shoulder where he kisses the top of it again.
I know people think these two are some sort of stereotypical delusional old perky man and gold digger, but I’ve honestly never seen anything that backs that up. They seem to have a genuine affection for each other that I hope to have with… someone. One day. I mean not now, but later in life. Hopefully before I’m Bash’s age though.
Clara is standing by the front doors, waiting for me. She tilts her head and lowers her sunnies on the bridge of her narrow nose. “What are you thinking about?”
“Frankie Castera.” An idea hits me and I grin. “Do you know where I can get a stuffed panda?”
Clara doesn’t follow as I breeze by her, scooping my bag from her hand and wheeling it along beside me. I would take hers too, but Clara hates when dudes do chivalrous things for her. “What the hell does a stuffed panda have to do with Frankie?”
“Long story. I guess I could get one on Amazon.”
“Don’t get distracted by your dick or some such nonsense,” Clara warns. “Make sure your head is in the game, Billy. You’ve got a championship to win.”
* * *
And less thanseven days later, I definitely have my head in the game as I get out of the car Mirabella Racing supplies for me at each venue and make my way to the paddock. Of course, there’s a handful of photographers snapping away as I walk, Clara just a smidge behind me. She hates being in photographs, which is ironic because she’s the better looking of Tommy James’ two kids. Clara has my dad’s sharp cheekbones and hazel eyes but she has her mother’s delicate nose and tanned skin and raven colored hair. She’s got Tommy’s height though. She’s only two inches shorter than my six feet.
“Billy, how confident are you in your new Principal?”
I smile. It’s large and easy but it’s my only response. I know these guys too well, and some of the more rabid fans can twist any comment into something it’s not. We reach the gate, and I sign autographs for almost fifteen minutes until everyone who wants something signed has it. I don’t deny my fans anything. Their support is a vital part of my career, and I don’t pretend otherwise. Antonio blows them off occasionally, and I keep warning him it will bite him in the ass one day. Neither one of us can deny that Lucia is gunning for one of our seats, and the fans always loved the Casteras. Getting one of them back in the driver’s seat of an F1 car is the stuff of most fans’ wet dreams. And the fact that it’s a smoking hot female adds to that. Sure, some are Neanderthals with cave men ‘women shouldn’t be driving’ mentalities, but most, if they live in the modern world, at least think it would be cool.
So I work the crowds wherever I can to keep me in their hearts so that when one of us has to go to make way for Lucia Castera, I’m not the one they volunteer as tribute on social media and news posts. I’m luckily having a better year than Antonio too, which doesn’t hurt. I usually do. To be honest, when Mirabella signed him a few months before me, I was shocked. And the fact that he’s remained with them this long is also a head-scratcher to a lot of people, including me. Antonio isn’t consistent in his performance, and it took him a long time to really find his groove at this level. A lot of teams wouldn’t have given him that kind of time. Bash has insinuated more than once over the years that the loyalty to Antonio is Dario’s, not his.
Clara is carrying a bag full of my essentials as we clear the fans and press and make our way between the rows of trailers emboldened with the various logos of the teams and painted in their team colors. Red for Ferrari, Green for Mercedes, Mango for McLaren, and Ocean Blue for Mirabella. We’re positioned dead center, across from Red Bull and in between Mercedes and McLaren.
Antonio, speak of the devil, is standing in front of the main doors to enter our two-story paddock, which is made up of five adapted storage containers stacked on top of each other, and include a conference room, private rooms for me and Antonio, a crew lounge, and a cafeteria. It’s a beast. Our European set-up always is. “Hey,” Antonio grunts at me. “Are you ready for this shit show?”
“I’m always ready for anything on race weekends,” I reply calmly. He is anything but calm. His face is creased with worry and stress. The one piece of advice good old cheating Tommy James ever gave me that I’ve bothered to hold onto is ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff. And it’s all small stuff.’
Antonio’s got these really strong features: roman nose, wide-set eyes, jet black hair. And it makes his frowns look like scowls. He folds his arms across his chest, which is clad in a Mirabella Racing T-shirt. He looks so annoyed. “Word of advice,” I tell him as I reach for the door. “Frankie is amazing at picking up on the energy around her. Yours is negative and impossible to miss. I’d change that if I were you.”
“She’s definitely going to turf one of us when this season ends.” Antonio follows me inside, not bothering to wait for Clara to enter before him. I get it, he doesn’t know she’s my sister, but she’s still a woman, and letting her enter first is just simple politeness. Clara rolls her eyes but says nothing. “She and Lucia are best friends, not just sisters. She’ll give her whatever she wants. One of us is screwed.”
“We’ll see,” I mutter as I reach my dressing room door. I pause and allow Clara to enter first.
“Hopefully, when we start losing races, Dario or Bash has the common sense to pull the plug on this nonsense and send her back to modeling bikinis,” Antonio says as he reaches the door to his own room.
He disappears inside before I can say anything, which is fine. I don’t have much to say to him. Insecure asshole is the only thing that comes to mind, and that’s not going to help anything. I sigh and go inside. Clara is already setting up her stuff beside the couch.
I grab my race suit out of the closet and head into the bathroom to change. When I’m done, Clara and I run through a few stretches and exercises, mostly for my neck, and we head down to the garage. Practice session starts in less than ten minutes, so everyone is bustling. My eyes fly straight to the monitors. There’s a row of five seats in front of them and they’re all occupied. It’s the middle seat that holds my gaze. The one containing the only female. Frankie is perched on the seat, leaning forward, and Dario is talking beside her. They’re both gesturing wildly, her at the screen, which appears to be showing some kind of previous race footage, and Dario at Frankie.
I walk right over. As soon as our eyes connect over Dario’s shoulder, Frankie stops speaking. She just stares. What I don’t see in her eyes is even a flicker of acknowledgement of what transpired between us a week ago. It was good for her, not just for me. I know it. I felt it around my fingers and on my tongue. But clearly not good enough if she can pretend it didn’t happen this easily. I’ll have to work harder next time. And there’s also no glimmer of a smile over the gift I sent her, which was a genius idea if you ask me.
“Dario, Rocco.” I nod at them as they turn to Frankie and I say, “Hi boss.”
That softens her a fraction. “James. The team’s probably ready for you.”
She tilts her head toward the car parked a few feet away with my number 87 on the front and about ten people gathered around it, tweaking and fussing with various parts. I nod and am about to shelve my need to talk to her, to touch her, to wear down that Teflon resolve of hers, but then Dario speaks. “Before you jump in the driver’s seat, Billy, maybe you can help us solve a debate.”
“Always willing to help.”
”There’s a forty percent chance of rain on race day, at the moment,” Dario explains. “We’re debating tires.”
“So intermediates are a must,” I reply without even thinking about it. “But at forty percent I’d also personally like the blues on hand.”
“But forty percent is low,” Rocco says, although he’s barely opening his mouth. His jaw is clenched, so I’m thinking he is not the one that is on my side of the debate.
“Yeah, but Barcelona has a history of moderate showers turning into unexpected downpours, so I mean, it is a bit of a gamble, but do we want to be stuck out there without blues if we have standing water?” I ask innocently. “We may be down a set if it doesn’t rain, but I can go the distance on intermediates in dry conditions.”
