She smiled. “Okay.”
There was a moment of silence.
He turned to her as she turned to him.
“I—” he started to say.
“I—” she said at the same time.
There was another silent pause.
Rocco needed to say what he was going to say. And he needed to say it before she said anything.
“I never objected to a woman driving Formula 1,” he said before glancing over at her. “I know I made it sound like I did. I didn’t even really object to you driving Formula 1.”
She made a face.
He chuckled. “Okay, well, maybe I did. But that was only because of our spat on social media.” He swallowed. “You hit a nerve when you talked about men moving up from F3 to F1 while women were being overlooked. You were right, of course. But I took it as an attack against me.”
Her brow wrinkled. “Why? I wasn’t even thinking of you when I tweeted that.”
That’s exactly what Dario kept telling me.
He sighed. “I guess I’m overly sensitive because of the way I made it to F1. I had an advantage over other drivers. There were good F2 drivers—every bit as good as me. So, sometimes it feels like what got me to F1 wasn’t solely based on merit—as a driver, I mean.”
She frowned. “But you’ve won three world championships.”
“It still bothers me, and when you posted that tweet, I took it as an attack, and so I attacked back.”
“Were you always following my tweets?”
“No. Someone else brought it to my attention.”
Carolyn Wickham. But he wasn’t about to tell her that.
“I never would have said the things I did, Nico, otherwise. Not that I’m making excuses, I’m not. But … I’m sorry.”
He heard her sigh.
“I’m just as much to blame as you are,” she said. “I felt like I was being attacked too. So, like you, I attacked back. I’m sorry too. Some of the things I said … even Charles, who’s always been my biggest cheerleader, has scolded me for some of the things I tweeted.”
“Charles, he’s your friend who came to the first race in Vegas and this one in Barcelona?”
Nico nodded.
Rocco grinned. “He told me I should tell Casey to consider changing the color of our car and racing suits. Let’s see, uh, he suggested yellow, orange, pink, peach, and lilac. He said those are positive colors, which are bound to yield positive results. He said he’d read it somewhere but couldn’t remember where.”
Nico laughed. “That sounds like Charles.”
“Seems like a good friend.”
“He is. Like Dario.”
“He mentioned someone else—Templeton? He said you wished he could have come too.”
He watched a warm smile like a match light up her face, her cheeks bathed in a warm glow.
She loves him.
