“Impressing you was my number one goal, so I’m glad I can check it off my list,” he replies.
“I said the race was impressive, not you,” I remind him with a teasing grin, but he’s so high on his victory, he merely shrugs.
“I won the race, so it’s the same thing,” the cocky man replies, taking a step toward me but not too close, always honoring the space I asked for in public.
“So, are you saying you won just so you could impress me?” I ask, crossing my arms in front of my chest.
My cheeks hurt, I’m smiling so hard, and I haven’t smiled this much in days.
I tried to stay away from him, to keep my feelings from growing because I can’t have feelings for him. I canceled our friendly French tutoring appointment to avoid growing closer, but it’s useless. Adrian draws me to him, and there is no escaping the pull he has on me.
“I’m saying, knowing you were watching made me want to show you that I’m the best there is. I wanted you to look at those screens and see that I’m the kind of racer you can be glad to cheer for. I didn’t fight dirty, not unlike some other drivers,” he says and pauses to shake his head at whatever he’s thinking about. “And I wanted you to be proud.”
“Iamproud, Adrian,” I say, my voice cracking from all of the emotions his honesty and vulnerability brought out in me.
“Thank God because that race was fucking exhausting. My ass cheeks haven’t hurt this much since Abu Dhabi three years ago,” he says and attempts to rub them, but when Fatima clears her throat, he seems to remember we’re surrounded by enough reporters to turn his joke into something it’s not. He turns back to me with that smile of his still on his lips.
“So, Monsieur Romana, tell me, what was the fundamental reason the race went so well for you today?” I ask to switch the subject. With my notebook ready, I look up to watch his gaze gluing itself to my mouth before slowly trailing up my face.
“I am,” he says with a wink, ever the smug man. I almost roll my eyes before remembering where I am. “Alright, where’s your boss? I would have thought he’d be the first one here to grill me about my race,” he says, so I turn around to look for Gillian.
“I have no idea where he is. He was supposed to be here five minutes ago,” I reply, spinning back around to face the Monegasque. My hair flies all over the place, making him chuckle as he reaches for me to help me smooth it back down. He stops himself as he thinks better of it, so I tuck it behind my ears and clear my throat.
I’m about to speak again when my boss interrupts me.
“Pardon our tardiness, Mr. Romana. We had a small problem with our camera,” Gillian says as he rushes toward us. “But we’re here now and ready whenever you are.”
Adrian furrows his brows at me, clearly confused, but then puts on a fake smile as he turns to my boss to give his interview.
Fatima holds a telephone next to Adrian, recording the conversation while I take notes. Lincoln is the next of our four drivers to walk up to us, waiting with a scowl on his face behind Adrian. I thought he’d be happy about second place, but he looks as unhappy as if he’d just taken last place.
When he catches me looking at him, his features soften a little, but he makes no attempt to speak to me, and I’m glad he doesn’t.
As far as I’m concerned, my relationship with Lincoln is irreparable. After our last conversation, I don’t ever want to speak to him again. He hasn’t apologized for his behavior, and no matter how much it pains me to lose my best friend, I lost him a long time ago.
There is no pointing holding onto something that slipped through my fingers years ago.
Chapter 23
Nevaeh
It’sbeenovertwomonths since the first race weekend. Four more have passed since, and Gillian seems to despise me more and more with every race. I feel like a burden to him, a little amateur journalist he doesn’t want to train or explain anything to. All he does is boss me around, making it infinitely more difficult for me to do as Ms. Martin asked me to: write an article about something captivating I see each weekend. She hasn’t published any of my work yet, but I don’t blame her.
I have so little time and energy by the end of the day because of Gillian, my writing has suffered immensely.
I tried speaking to Papa about my situation at work, but he told me to have a little faith that things will eventually get better, so that’s what I’m doing.
Valentina also told me to give it a bit more time, but she added that if they didn’t start treating me better, she’d kick all of their asses without hesitation. It made me laugh so hard, I snorted repeatedly.
Adrian and I speak almost every other day.
The Monegasque got third place in the second race of the season, won the third race, and got second place in the fourth and fifth races. Lincoln has steadily come in second or third. Gabriel Biancheri won the second and fourth races. Valentina has been switching between getting fourth, fifth, and sixth place for the past five races. I know I’m supposed to focus on Velocità Rossa and Grenzenlos, but every single time I watch Valentina race, I wish I could focus only on her.
To tell the entire world to watch her, too.
We’re at the sixth race of the season. Gillian, Fallon, Liz, and I arrived in São Paulo three days ago.
Gillian has been giving me tasks to run from one motorhome to the other, not once letting me sit down to even have a drink of water. He also asked me to prepare for the interviews and come up with a list of questions that kept me up until three last night.
