Drive me Crazy, page 6
And so, I step back from the door and let it swing shut.
CHAPTER 6
Matt
Bro,” Archie calls out across the lot outside the pit building. It’s hot. No, it’s fucking hot. I’m in shorts, I’ve rolled the sleeves of my T-shirt up, and I’m still sweltering, waiting for my lunch from one of the little food trucks dotted around the area.
“You shouldn’t be talking to the competition.”
“Competition?” He chuckles, slapping me on the shoulder. “You wish.”
I collect my double cheeseburger and curly fries from the food truck, with a quick thank-you, and then turn to Archie, my arms filled. “I’m carb-loading.”
“Christ, mate, you’ll end up like me,” he says, wobbling his stomach and laughing. Archie glances at the empty bench tables and nods his head. “Got a minute?”
I climb over the bench seat and sit down opposite him, unwrapping the greasy paper from my burger and ripping open the paper bag of curly fries so Archie can have some, but he declines with a wave of his hand.
“I watched your lap,” he says, his big fingers rapping on the tabletop.
“Car’s a piece of shit.” I tear into my burger with my teeth, just as I spot Fernando Alonso striding across the lot clutching a green smoothie, back from his track walk. Who the fuck does a track walk at his level? Does he seriously still walk around to look at the condition of the track ahead of the race? And then I wonder if Noah is out there on his own and feel guilty.
Archie tips his head. “It’s still happening, isn’t it?”
I shoot him a look. “How’d you guess?”
“No one slows down coming out of turn seventeen. Even in the rain. Even on this bumpy-ass street circuit.”
I put my half-eaten burger down on the bench and pick up my Coke. Archie is almost recoiling at the amount of grease running down my chin. I roughly wipe at it with a napkin. “Yeah, it’s still happening.”
Archie frowns, then glances around to make sure we’re alone. “Dude, you should—”
“What? What should I do?”
“Maybe it’s time to speak to . . . you know . . . um . . .” He struggles, clumsily, in a field he wasn’t designed to navigate, like a seal trying to ride a bike.
“A therapist, Archie?”
I put my drink down, lean back, and stare up at the clear blue sky, streaked with long milky-white jet streams, and contemplate telling him that I already am speaking to a therapist. A really fucking expensive sports therapist who specializes in recovery after trauma.
And thank god, because yesterday was a mind fuck, and his advice after qualifying is the only thing keeping me from running to the airport and catching the next plane home. “Speak to Chloe about your problems on the track,” Archie says. “You knew her well once. You said you could trust her.”
But when I tried to speak to Chloe and caught her with that gurning sleazebag Jack Sheppard, I lost my way. It bothered me. A lot.
I know Chloe doesn’t need or want me looking out for her anymore, but it’s hard not to. That guy cannot be trusted, and I don’t like him sniffing around her, especially when she’s finally made it to the big league. His sly confidence only thinly veils his desire for status and desperate need to feel in the middle of things. It’s a dangerous mix. He’s the perfect tabloid reporter, actually.
I picture her standing in the low light of her suite last night, her back flush against the wall. Her cheeks pink, lips red, that small waist curving in just above the band of her trousers. The rise and fall of her breasts with every shallow, anxious breath. Everything about her was just so incredibly . . . sexy. I wasn’t expecting that feeling, and I did want to protect her.
And she hated it. In fact, she seems . . . to hate me.
When I relayed all this to my therapist last night, there was a very long, uncertain pause, before he said, “I see. Matthew, maybe just get through the weekend and then we can make some decisions.”
So that’s what I’m doing. Getting through the weekend.
“Maybe I should just retire. I’m thirty-four,” I say, looking back at Archie.
“Lewis is forty.”
“Eight-time world champion Lewis Hamilton? Never heard of him.”
Archie chuckles. “If you’re retiring, can you let me know? I’ll need to line up another gig.”
He puts a finger up to his headphones as a radio message comes in. One sec, he mouths at me.
“I gotta go. Pre-race meeting,” he says, standing. “Don’t you got yours, bro?”
I shrug. “Maybe I’m already retired.”
“Finally, you’re here,” Chloe says, wide-eyed. She’s clutching an enormous water bottle in one hand and a clipboard in the other as she slips out of what is supposed to be the driver room, tucked away at the back of the garage, but appears to be also used as storage for parts.
At Rossini I practically had my own suite. This is going to be a long season.
“Yeah, I heard there’s a race. Thought I may as well show up,” I reply, as I strip off my T-shirt and pull my fireproof underclothes off the hanger, readying myself for the shit show.
But when the cooling gust of the air conditioner hits the bare skin on my chest, I open my arms toward it to feel more of that icy air in this sweltering heat. I run my hands down my chest to my stomach, where a few months ago, I had a really well-defined six-pack, and now it’s a little less taut. Maybe it is time to ease up on the burgers.
“Matt?”
“Sorry, I’m fucking hot.”
I turn back to her, letting the cool of the fan hit my back, as I cover my bare chest with folded arms, stretching my neck side to side. Chloe looks away, a little color flushing her cheeks. The Chloe I remember wouldn’t have even flinched at a half-naked dude in a changing room. She’s seen enough of them over the years.
Today, her hair is braided down her back, black cap pulled down, headphones around her neck. She’s in a black Arden Racing polo, and when she turns to glance back at the garage, I see the curve of her ass in tight blue jeans. But when she looks back, my eyes trail to that mouth of hers, and I have to look quickly away to kill the stirring feeling in my stomach.
“What is it?” I say, quickly fishing for my fireproof shirt and pulling it over my head to cover up. There are four crew in the changing room, almost two dozen out in the garage, and nowhere we can speak alone, though it’s clear as day that’s what Chloe wants.
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” she says, eyeing the crew around us, who are moving much more quietly now, clearly listening in while they gather gloves, tire wraps, and screws for a loose jack. “I’m sorry about what I said. Can we talk, please?”
“After,” I say pointedly, and she sighs.
“Is it the crash, Matt? Are you—”
I cut her off abruptly. “No,” I lie.
“Matt. You clearly have feelings. . . .”
“Oh, I have feelings, Coleman,” I say, laughing as I pull my shorts down so I’m standing in my underwear. Chloe looks everywhere but at me, and I hastily pull on my long fireproof pants.
Two of the pit crew try to slide out unnoticed, and I watch Chloe make herself small so she can let them through, muttering “sorry” no fewer than three times as they pass. She’s going to get eaten alive if she doesn’t learn to take up space in this garage.
“You don’t like the car,” she says matter-of-factly.
“It looks like someone designed it blindfolded.”
“Oh stop. It’s not that bad.”
“That Arden car is the Formula 1 equivalent of a circus car.”
Chloe’s mouth twitches like she’s wrestling away a grin.
“That Arden car is only two seconds slower in a single lap than McLaren. One point nine seconds slower than Rossini. You could be some of that difference.”
“It’s so sad it could make an onion cry,” I snap, as the last two pit crew creep out and I attempt to put a leg into my racing suit, losing my balance and nearly toppling over as I do.
I’m sure I can hear one of them mutter karma as they slip out of the room. I’m certainly not winning friends at Arden, not that I really care. Retirement is feeling more and more like the right move.
“Enough. Let’s be frank with each other.”
“Who’s Frank?” I smirk.
“You don’t want to work for me.”
I stare at her, annoyed more than anything. Have I ever said I don’t want to work for her? “No, not true at all. I’m not sure I want to be here . . . generally.”
“At Arden?”
“Racing.”
“You want to quit?” Her mouth curls up at the edge.
“Retire,” I shoot back.
“Quit,” she says again, grinning this time. But I’m in no mood for this ribbing. I feel absolutely sick with worry about this race, and what I’m going to do next.
“Retire,” I counter slowly, zipping up my racing suit, turning to face her.
“Then why did your brother call me sniffing around about a transfer if you’re thinking about retiring?”
“Because he’s a big idiot.” I really have to speak to Archie about that.
Chloe tips her head to the side and folds her arms. “I know you don’t think I’m up to the job.”
“I don’t know anything, Chloe. It’s been less than twenty-four hours.”
She laughs and scoffs at the same time. “Is there some version of this”—she points between us frantically—“of you and me, that we can make work?”
“You and . . . me?”
Chloe’s cheeks go darker pink, and despite my irritation, there’s something so distracting and adorable about watching her try to push on through her embarrassment. There is the Chloe from our childhood. There is that fire-hot blush that I could bring out so easily in her. I’m momentarily distracted by it, studying the flex of her jaw as she tries to wrestle back control.
“Meet me half-fucking-way here,” she says, sighing theatrically. “Or is that too far around the track for you?”
I almost laugh. Chloe startles at her own words, her eyes growing rounder and larger.
Then, she lets out a guttural groan of frustration before regaining composure. I’m pretty sure the entire garage can hear it.
“Are you okay, Coleman? Too many sherries with Jack Sheppard last night?”
“Grow up, Matt,” she says, and this time when her eyes lock with mine, I see not anger flicker across her face, but disappointment. And I don’t like it.
CHAPTER 7
Chloe
There’s something very wrong with Matt, and I’ve been too wrapped up in my own bitterness toward him to see it. It was fine, I suppose, when I silently loathed him in the privacy of my own brain, but that loathing has spilled out like a backed-up and overflowing toilet and now everyone has to deal with the shit.
Still. What a petulant motherfu—
“Chloe?” The cocky young strategist who made the wrong tire call from yesterday approaches, his face sour enough to curdle milk.
“Hiya,” I say, as cheerfully as I can.
“We’ve agreed on a one-stop. Soft tires, then hard,” he says, handing me his tablet. The sunken gray eyes and whiff of stale cigarette smoke tell me he was out enjoying the town last night.
I feel the same nagging as yesterday. “Softs? In these conditions? Those tires degrade quickly here, and Matt is not known for his tire management skills.”
“I know. We’ve run all the options,” he says plainly, scratching the back of his head, his eyes anywhere but meeting mine. He doesn’t want to have this conversation with me.
I frown. “Okay. If you’ve run all the options.”
The strategist hesitates. “Yep,” he says, tilting his chin up. I watch him saunter back to the other strategists, and they all quickly fall into some kind of private joke together. I narrow my gaze on him. I’ve not felt ready to let anyone go since taking over, but I am watching.
I look over the line of computers that sit opposite the pit lane facing the track and see Matt fucking Warner standing out at the back of the grid, an ice towel around his neck, headphones on, drinking an electric-green sugary slushy. Press occasionally move into his orbit and he moves away quickly. He looks like he wants to retire, honestly. Like he’s done.
The crowd is deafening already. As the music blares from the speakers over the grid, I feel a tap on my shoulder.
“Everything okay with you and your handsome new driver?” It’s Keyla, shouting over the noise, as she pauses her walk across the pit toward McLaren.
“Hiya!” I pull my headphones off. “Mostly . . . why?”
“That’s not convincing. You got a handle on things?”
“Nope,” I say, dropping my voice as much as I can over the noise. “He’s so infuriating, Keyla.”
“Oh no. I know that look. I’ve been that look. You still want to fuck him,” she says, tutting. “You can’t fuck your driver, Chloe.”
“Shut up. I do not,” I shout back, mortified, and hugely grateful that no one is paying attention to us in the pre-race chaos.
“The rumors say otherwise,” she yells back with a knowing stare.
“Rumors?” Oh god. At this point, can anything get worse?
“You can’t go back to that place, Chloe,” she says, wagging a finger at me. “You’ll regret it. If people get wind of it, it’s going to make you look—”
“I know, I know,” I say bitterly. “Pathetic. Tacky. Ridiculous.”
“Your words, not mine,” she says with both hands up. “I’d hate that for you after you’ve worked harder than anyone I know to get here. I also can’t go around beating up every gossiping loser who tries my best friend.”
I laugh and nod at Keyla’s classic ride-or-die attitude, glad to have someone around here who has my back. “Thanks for the straight talk.”
She grins at me. “Good luck tonight, Chloe. I’m rooting for you.” Then she spins back around, her braids swinging as she skips off toward her team.
I glance down at my team, at the glum faces—Noah’s race engineer, technical director, and strategists, and at the far end, an empty seat that Archie will fill soon enough. His transfer is in the process, even though it’s unprecedented to let go of someone like Archie without a period of time when he cannot work for a competitor. Rossini were just so keen to move on from Matt, they agreed, which works better for us.
I look back at Matt, watch him fidget for a moment and then examine the tarmac and saunter down the straight, away from the lights and the cameras and the rest of the drivers.
Has he even done warm-ups? Where are his earbuds? He used to love to listen to music, but now he just looks completely adrift. Unfocused. As my eyes trace the lonely figure, I feel my heart clutch a little. Which Matt are we going to see today?
“It’s lights-out in Singapore,” the loudspeaker booms as twenty Formula 1 engines growl and roar into action. I take a deep breath, glancing up at the numbers on the screen in front of me.
This is it. The main race we’ve been waiting for.
Come on, Matt, I find myself whispering. Willing him to find something. Anything.
As the cars hit speed on the straight, he is surprisingly aggressive. I feel a little thrill as I watch his speed dial up even more out of turn one, and he moves quickly past the lagging Haas.
I turn to my team and give a hopeful smile.
“He’s in eighteenth,” says the strategist.
Then there is a tussle into turns three and four, where Matt finds a little space on the bend, cutting underneath a Williams. Up one more place. He’s now trailing Noah.
“Two places in half a lap,” says one of the strategists and then she points at the screen. “He’s on pace with the midfield.”
“Noah next,” I say.
The excitement starts to fizzle, and I suck back a deep, calming breath as he comes up behind his new teammate. The radio crackles.
“Matt’s behind?” Noah says.
“You know what to do,” says his race engineer.
The radio crackles again, and I feel a tug of guilt. But Matt was always going to be the first driver, and if there was a chance to get him into the middle of the field ahead of Noah, we had to take it.
“You got it,” Noah says, utterly compliant. The perfect teammate.
We watch as Noah pulls to the outside of the lane, and all Matt needs to do is slip through and he’ll have gained three places.
Except he doesn’t.
Something happens as he hits the throttle careering into that sixth turn. Matt suddenly slows, losing his line and coming off the track again. The team runs their checks on the car data.
“Suspension’s fine.”
“Tires are good.”
“He looks stressed again,” someone says, pointing to his heart rate.
“Only time it should be peaking like that is overtaking Lewis Hamilton,” says another.
There is something going on.
Noah and Matt drive almost side by side for three bends.
“Matt, push,” says Noah’s race engineer. “You’ve got the spot. You’re slowing both of you.”
The radio crackles. “Let the kid drive,” Matt says.
And then to our astonishment, we watch him drop back, forcing Noah to pull in forward, ahead of him.
“Matt, strategy was clear,” I say over the radio.
“Oh, hi, Chloe.”
I swear, loudly, off-mic and the race engineer puts a hand on mine to calm me.
“He’s dropped another place,” says someone. “Back at eighteenth out of twenty.”
“He doesn’t listen to you,” the strategist says, turning to glare at me as though it’s not completely clear.
“He’s finished,” I mutter to myself, banging my forehead on the screen in front of me. “I’m finished. We’re finished.”
I walk through the emptying lot to wait for my ride back to the hotel, hiding twice behind parked trucks to evade the press. Jesus Christ, they never give up.
