“I’m sorry to tell you this, but Val’s happily taken, Nevaeh. However, she and I do look a lot alike…” He trails off, making me laugh.
“You do look a lot alike, but Val’s got curves to die for,” I say, tilting my head to the side and causing his jaw to drop. He places his hand on his stomach to imitate getting stabbed.
“Are you telling me my ass doesn’t do it for you?” he says while sticking out his ass and making me bend over from laughter. I have no doubt his butt is impressively trained, but his racing suit does nothing for him. “Okay, okay, my ego can only take so much laughter,” he reminds me and pats my back to get me to stand upright again. “Just because you have a perfect ass and body.”
Adrian pouts, twisting his head to take a peek at his, while my mind lingers on the fact that he likes my body. I do have a nice ass. It’s all the squats and running I did when I played tennis.
“Stop looking, it’s fine,” I assure him, too amused not to smile.
He frowns at me, and I pull out my notebook to focus on what’s important: work.
“Alright, first pre-quali question,” I start, and Adrian straightens out his back, taking a sip of his water and giving me his ‘I’m ready smirk.’ He’s shown it to me ten times in the last thirty hours, and I seem to like it more every single time I see it. “What is your routine?” I ask, and Adrian goes into detail about every little step, including what he eats, the warm-ups he does, and the responsibilities he has.
I jot down notes, listening closely even though it’s quite loud.
“You know what, this is all incredibly boring. Write this in your article instead,” he says and leans against the wall we’re standing by, crossing his arms in front of his chest. When his gaze fixates on my face and one corner of his mouth lifts, my cheeks burn.
God, why is he so hot?
“For good luck, my performance coach and I have this ritual where we jump rope to see who can go the longest. If he wins, it means I’ll have a shitty race. If I win, it means I’ll have a great one. We do the same for Qualifying, too.” I smile at the visual while swinging my pen around on the page, the ink staining the paper.
“So, he won a lot last season, right?” I tease, making Adrian touch the roof of his mouth with his tongue.
“Nevaeh. Sweet, beautiful Nevaeh, that’s the second time in five minutes you’ve made fun of me. Careful when you do that,mon ange, because I have a weak spot for women who tease me,” he drawls, only making my cheeks go redder. He takes a step toward me and smiles. “You can also keep going, but don’t bring me to my knees if I’m not allowed to taste you the second I hit the ground,” he says, and I swallow so hard, it feels like a toad is lodged in my throat.
An unbearable ache appears between my legs, but Adrian leaves me standing by myself when his strategists call him.
He’s a player. This is what he does, but he’s so damn good at it, sometimes it’s hard to remember.
I catch my breath before watching him zip up his suit and place his balaclava over his head. He winks at me one last time before he slides his helmet on, adjusting until it sits right. His body disappears into the car so swiftly, I blink and he’s gone.
Qualifying starts, Q1 and Q2 going by painfully slowly. Those two are my least favorite parts about Qualifying since the teams with the drivers I care about the most—Valentina, Cameron, Gabriel, Lincoln, James Landon, Leonard Tick, and Adrian—usually make it to Q3. Val is the only rookie, but she does incredibly well, just like the first five Qualifyings this season.
I’m so happy for her, I jump up and down a little.
Her team isn’t nearly as fast as the top three, Hawke, Grenzenlos, and Velocità Rossa, but she does well with what she’s been given. That woman is without a doubt a future Formula One champion, and I’ve never been prouder to know someone than I am right this second.
Q3 starts, and my nerves get the best of me, making my heart race a little. The first eight minutes are torture. The positions mean little until all the drivers race down the track for the last time this session. Adrian is fastest in the first sector of the track, but Lincoln is fastest in the second. This is absolutely nerve-racking. I cover my eyes and stare at the ground, too nervous about who’ll take pole position.
Every single driver crosses the line in the span of another minute, and I wait impatiently for the results.
Adrian and Lincoln are one and two respectively, Gabriel was struggling and ended up in fifth while James Landon is third and Kyle Hughes is fourth. Val is in sixth, and Grant Irwin is ninth. The drivers of the Spark team, Cameron Kion and Michael Lin, are seventh and eighth. Leonard Tick came in tenth.
For some reason, excitement pumps through my bloodstream.
Adrian is first.
I rush outside with the rest of Adrian’s team, my camera in hand and ready to snap a few photos for my article. This is not the type of journalism I hoped I’d be doing when I first started studying it, but it’s pretty damn close.
After all the drivers get interviewed, Adrian signs the trophy the pole sitter of a race weekend receives, presses his lips to it, and raises it to his chest to take pictures. I hold my camera high, looking through the eyepiece before taking a dozen photos.
When he sees me, he winks and turns his body so I can get a better shot. His bottom lip moves between his teeth, but his attention is ripped from me to another reporter a second later.
Adrian tells me to meet him outside of the Velocità Rossa motorhome, so I make my way there, sweat running down the back of my neck. The weather here in São Paulo is humid and hot today, something I’m not used to anymore since moving to England, but I love it. I love sweating with every step, as strange as it sounds . I simply love the warmth, even if it’s a little overwhelming.
“Nevaeh,” I hear Adrian say right as I was about to walk past a gap between the two buildings. His voice comes from the alley, so I smile as I make my way over to where he’s standing with Daniel, Gabriel, and Gabriel’s performance coach.
“What’s going on?” I ask, a little breathless when I take in his bare chest.
