My foot slams on the gas pedal as my fingers press the matching buttons. My beautiful Velocità Rossa shoots forward faster than Gabriel’s, but only slightly.
He’s right up my ass as we head into the first corner, and I bite down on my bottom lip to keep from cursing. All of my muscles tense up as the g-force hits me hard, causing adrenaline to course through my body.
Gabriel shoots next to me when we reach the second corner, but I’m ready for the fight.
I manage to keep him behind me for the entire duration of the first lap. By the time the second one comes around, I've managed to create a gap big enough so that he doesn’t get the speed advantage of the drag reduction system, most commonly called DRS. That means, if he’s less than a second behind me, he can use it, letting that flap in his rear wing open to get the speed advantage. When he’s more than a second behind me, he can’t.
Right now, he’s more than a second behind me.
According to Chloe, he’s slowed down for now to prevent tire degradation. I don’t know what the rest of the race will bring, but I’m fucking excited to find out.
And even more excited to win.
Chapter 22
Nevaeh
There’sabsolutelynowayto describe Adrian’s driving other than mesmerizing. He has me glued to the screens while Gillian talks to his camerawoman Fallon about the interviews they’ll be doing later.
I try to focus on them, pay attention and learn, but then Valentina overtakes Grant Irwin with so much elegance and finesse, I let out an excited ‘hell yeah!’ which earns me a cock of Gillian’s brow.
He doesn’t say anything, merely looks me up and down disapprovingly once before going back to his discussion with Fallon.
My attention slips back to the screen in front of me to watch Lincoln overtake Gabriel with one of the dirtiest moves I’ve ever seen. Dirty, but not exactly against the rules. He sped forward enough that his front tire was ahead of Gabriel’s front wing, then took most of the track space and pushed Gabriel so far off, he couldn’t recover quickly enough to get second place back.
“I was in front!” Lincoln defends after his team tells him the FIA will be investigating this incident.
“We’re handling it,” his race engineer, Alberto, says.
Then, there’s nothing but silence from Lincoln, so I check the gap between Adrian and Linc to see if my former best friend is catching up to the man in first place. He isn’t. Adrian keeps up a good pace and the gap of five seconds remains steady right until the first pitstop of the season.
Adrian goes first, and his team performs an effortless stop of two-point-three seconds. Lincoln slips into first place, Gabriel into second, James into third, and Val into fourth. Adrian takes fifth place, barely a second behind Val.
All of the people ahead of him will have to stop soon, too, but that doesn’t stop Adrian from overtaking his sister anyway.
I hold my breath as they fight it out, Valentina not making things easy for her brother. No doubt, Adrian is grinning under his helmet as he finally makes it past her a lap later. He has the faster car, for now, and he knows it.
Lincoln is creating a bigger and bigger gap as Adrian fights his way back to the top.
“Nevaeh, can you come over here,” Gillian says, his tone harsher than the lightness I’ve grown used to over the past few weeks. “Go grab us all some coffee,” my boss goes on, and I furrow my brows a little.
“Okay.” His soft features are hardened into a frown as he tells me exactly what to get all of them and to do it straight away.
“Now, Nevaeh,” he adds when I take too long to grab my purse.
There’s nothing kind about the way he speaks to me, none of hisyou’re not my assistant, you don’t have to get me foodshit. I don’t mind getting us all a coffee, not even a little, but I mind when people speak to me the way Gillian just did.
All weekend, I’ve been running around, going from one place to another without even an hour for lunch. Gillian only gave me five minutes to inhale a granola bar. But if I’ve done something wrong, I’d appreciate it if he’d speak to me instead of passive-aggressively barking orders at me.
“Yes, Mr. Fender,” I say through gritted teeth, sparing the television one more look to watch Adrian slip back into first place after everyone else pitted too.
If I were a lesser person, I might put salt instead of sugar in my boss’s coffee, but when people go low, you have to go higher than you’ve ever gone before. Which is why I place his coffee in front of him with the biggest smile and the sweetest ‘Here you go’ that I can muster. It confuses him, but he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he starts telling me more and more things I have to do.
By the time he’s finished talking and turns back around to Fallon, the race is nearing the end. I almost curse at how much I’ve missed before stopping myself and staring at the wall for a minute becausewhat the hell?When did I become interested in this sport?
I’ve always enjoyed watching Formula One, but I didn’t seek it out every weekend. Not the way I watched tennis every single day when Wimbledon was on or any of the other Grand Slams.
But now?
