“I like to give people something to watch,” Reese said evenly.
Marco let out a quiet laugh. “Sure. But this isn’t karting. Or the girls playing make-believe at the academy thing. This is Formula 1. Pressure’s different.”
Reese held his gaze. “So I’ve heard.”
“But I’m sure you’ll look good on camera.”
For a beat, the air between them tightened. Marco was clearly waiting for Reese’s nerves to kick in, for bravado, for Reese to overreach. She gave him none of it.
Shanelle stepped in smoothly. “Marco, Reese’s data from the academy speaks for itself. We didn’t bring her in for optics, so let’s move past it.”
Marco shrugged. “You got it, boss.”
But his eyes said something else entirely.
Shanelle gestured toward the table. “Let’s get started. Reese, I want to walk you through what the reserve role actually looks like. Expectations. Access. Opportunity.”
Opportunity. The word landed with weight.
Reese took her seat, spine straight, pulse even. She didn’t look at Marco again—not because she couldn’t handle him, but because she didn’t need to.
If he wanted to underestimate her, she’d let him. She was playing the long game and planned to win.
The meeting wrapped up with polite efficiency, handshakes, and a few smiles that felt authentic rather than forced, and then Shanelle Laurens stood, smoothing a hand over the front of her blazer as if she were mentally shifting gears.
“Race days move fast,” she said. “No point pretending otherwise. We’ll get you set up to observe from the garage.”
Reese nodded, heart ticking up a notch.Garage.This was getting real.
A team coordinator appeared almost immediately, badge already in hand, and Reese had just enough time to sling her bag higher on her shoulder before she was being ushered down a hallway that smelled faintly of coffee and something metallic she’d never been able to name but always associated with racing.
Samara and her crew stood off to the side to get some B-roll of Reese’s first day in Formula 1. As always, she pretended they weren’t there, resisting the urge to wave to Samara and shout that she’d actually done it.
They moved briskly past glass-walled offices, past engineers bent over laptops, past doors marked with names Reese recognized from broadcast graphics and Wikipedia rabbit holes. She caught glimpses of monitors flashing sector times and weather overlays. The sport she loved, stripped of glamour and humming with urgency. She was already addicted.
As they neared the garage, the sound hit first.
Engines snarling to life. Radios crackling. Impact guns barking. It was louder than the academy paddock, sharper somehow, like everything had been tuned one degree tighter.
“This is home base,” the coordinator said, handing Reese a headset. “You’ll stay behind the line. No stepping forward unless someone waves you in.”
Reese slid the headset on, breath catching as the world of Laurens Racing unfolded in front of her.
The cars sat like coiled animals, bodywork gleaming under the lights.Beautiful. Engineers swarmed with practiced choreography, hands, tools, and voices overlapping. It was chaos, but the kind that made sense if you knew the language.
“Does anyone know who won the Formula Next feature race?” she asked.
One of the engineers slid his headset behind his ear. “Delaney Rhodes by 0.4 seconds.”
Reese sucked in air and hooted loudly, which pulled quite a few head swivels. “Sorry. Big win is all. Her first this season.” It was like Delaney knew it fell to her now, and Reese couldn’t have been prouder. Did she proceed to do a little silent dance in front of her chair? Hell yeah, she did. She fired off a text message to The Grid so it would be there when her friends retrieved their phones again. She imagined the look on Delaney’s face when she’d emerged from the car, all of it likely having happened during her meeting inside, and felt a pang of regret.
Across the garage, she made eye contact with Marco Faz as he slid into the Laurens’s car, which prompted him to wink at her. And not the friendly kind. Ezra Fernandez was the second driver for Laurens. He paused in front of her on his way to his car.
“Nice driving these past few weeks,” he said, and shook her hand. “Glad you’re joining us. Let me know if you need anything. I got a few hot tips on this car.”
Reese stared at the absolutely gorgeous car Laurens had developed, a car that she’d now be meticulously learning around the clock. She was scheduled for sim time later that day andwould be afforded a few practice sessions as soon as possible. She adjusted her red Laurens ball cap and smiled, relieved to be on good terms with at least half of the team’s driver population. “I’ll take whatever you have. Have a good race, Ezra.”
The next ninety minutes passed in a blur.
