The rest?
He’d figure it out later.
???
Chapter Four
Jax
The Singapore morning was already heavy — humid air pressing against the tinted windows of the team car as it glided away from the Mandarin Oriental, the city skyline shrinking in the rearview like a glittering postcard. Eighth place last night had felt like progress. Points on the board. A clean drive, no incidents, better than the string of DNFs, mechanical gremlins, and low finishes that had haunted the first half of the season. But progress wasn’t victory. And victory was the only currency that mattered when Marcus and the owners were watching every lap, every post, every off-track moment.
Jax leaned back against the cool leather seat, long legs stretched out as far as the luxury sedan allowed, phone resting on his thigh. The debrief notes from his race engineer were already waiting in his inbox — tyre degradation graphs showing where he’d lost time in sector two, sector times overlaid with Lucas’s for brutal comparison, a blunt bullet-point line about “improving consistency in traffic and overtaking aggression.” Tomorrow was the long haul to Austin — red-eye flight, time-zone whiplash, then a full sim session and strategy briefing. He needed to show up sharp. Focused. Serious. No moreheadlines about late nights or casual flirting. No more giving the boardroom suits ammunition.
He scrolled to his contacts and hit call on his grandmother’s name. Brisbane was three hours ahead — she’d be up, probably in the kitchen with the old electric kettle whistling, radio tuned to ABC News Breakfast like clockwork, the volume low so she could hear the birds in the backyard.
She answered on the second ring, voice warm but edged with that familiar dry affection.
“Jaxon Callaghan. You’re alive.”
He grinned despite himself, the knot in his chest loosening just a fraction. “Morning, Nan. Is it?”
“Yup morning here, love. Saw the race. Eighth. Better than crashing into a wall, I suppose.”
“High praise. Thought you’d at least say ‘not bad for a boy who used to lose his go-kart in the backyard.’”
She snorted — the same snort he’d heard since he was thirteen, the one that meant she was laughing but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of admitting it. “Don’t tempt me. I still have that photo of you upside down in the hedge. Black eye and all. Might frame it for Christmas this year.”
“Yeah, yeah. Keep that one for blackmail.”
“Already on the mantel.”
He laughed — low, real. The sound filled the quiet car, easing the tension that had settled in his shoulders since Marcus’s hotel-suite meeting.
Nan had raised him after his parents died — Mum to breast cancer when he was eleven, Dad to lung cancer two years later. Thirteen years old, suddenly living in a small Queenslanderhouse in Brisbane with a grandmother who’d never planned to start parenting all over again. She’d done it anyway. No fuss. No tears in front of him. Just meals on the table every night, rules about homework before karting practice, and the quiet, unspoken rule that he could cry if he needed to — but he’d better get back up the next day.
She’d never let him wallow.
And she’d never let him quit.
“How’s the neck?” she asked, softer now. The kettle whistled in the background — she was making tea, probably the way she liked with two sugars and a splash of milk, the same way she’d made it for him after every bad race when he was a kid.
“Fine. Physio tomorrow in Austin. Still clicks a little, but it’s holding.”
“Good. Don’t push it. You’re not invincible, no matter what those commentators say on the telly.”
“I know.”
A beat. The familiar clink of her spoon against ceramic, stirring slowly.
“You sound tired, love.”
He exhaled through his nose, rubbing a hand over his stubbled jaw. “Yeah. Team’s on my back about image again. Sponsors want serious. Owners want results. Feels like I’m auditioning for a different job half the time.”
“You’re not auditioning,” she said firmly, the same tone she used when he was a teenager and tried to skip school to go karting. “You’re the driver. You’ve always been the driver. The rest is noise.”
He smiled faintly. “Noise is loud when it’s your seat on the line.”
“Then turn it down.” Her voice sharpened, but there was a slight catch in it — something he hadn’t heard before, a tiny waver that made his chest tighten. “You’ve got the talent. You’ve got the fire. You’ve had it since you were an awkward kid sneaking out at dawn to practice on the back roads with that second-hand kart I bought you. Don’t let them snuff it out with suits and headlines.”
