Did Joaquín know? There’s no way. How would anyone find out? Did Matt say something that may haveindicated?—?
“As a teammate? How do you feel about working alongside Robert?”
Matt’s heart is about to give out. “He’s—he’s good, he’s a good guy. Good.”
“I’m sure you already know, but he’s been talking with a couple of teams behind the scenes. At least one of them is a top team, so I don’t know how serious he was, but he did tell me he was particularly interested in Kaas.”
Matt gulps. “He did?”
“Yes. And, to be frank, Kaas could use the money.”
Any team could. It wasn’t a secret that Robert had sponsors—all anyone had to do was turn on a TV. Or read a magazine. Or walk around outside.
“Before I give him our answer, I wanted to be sure you two would get along. Fight cleanly. You seem friendly with each other, but so much of Formation 1 is PR relationships, so I wanted to ask you directly. Would you be interested in being teammates with Robert again?”
Matt tries not to sound too eager when he replies, “I’d like that very much, sir.”
Matt is welcomed back to his own garage by a barrage of boos and hisses—mostly from his own mechanics.
“Traitor!’ Reggie shouts.
“Get’em outta here!” Peter adds.
“You never loved us!” Nate fake-cries.
Matt laughs and he tries to wave them away. “Shut up, guys. You knew this day would come.”
“To be fair,” Nate says. “It’s coming a week early. We had a Vegas surprise for you and everything.”
“Yeah? Well, I designed a special going-away helmet so I guess we’re all disappointed.” Matt’s joking, but he’s really not.
He liked his ‘Goodbye Andes’ helmet.
“Heard you infiltrated the enemy.” Robert slides up beside him and wraps his arm around Matt’s waist. “Got anything we can use in the next race?”
“Um…” There’s a hand on Matt’s waist. Robert’s hand. Holding him close. In public. In front of everyone. “Yeah, uh—a couple of suggestions. It might be better if we keep it to ourselves, though. At least until next year.”
“Ourselves?” Robert squeezes him closer, a smile playing at his lips.
“Yeah. Until next year.”
Peter makes a retching noise that reminds Matt other people are watching. “I almost preferred it when they were fighting.”
