Meaning we’re forced to walk through a crowd of people, not a small number of whom are calling my name, trying to get my attention. I’m pretty sure I spot Nico’s greasy head among them, making my stomach clench. The last thing I want to do right now is face the media. Especially if the media is Nico fucking Hilliard.
The panic I’m feeling on the inside must show on the outside, too, because Ben’s strong arm tightens around my shoulders and he bends his head—I’m not all that tall (F1 cars are pretty tight, and most drivers, yours truly included, are under six feet) and he’s got a few inches on me—to whisper in my ear.
“Ignore them.”
His voice is huskier than usual, and his breath tickles the back of my neck. The frustration with my DNF is still churning in my gut, along with the aforementioned panic, but they’re joined by something different. Something I definitely shouldn’t be feeling for one of my teammates, especially the one I have to work the closest with. The one in charge of my destiny.
“Easier said than done,” I mutter, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and not on the war of emotions waging inside me.
“Only a few feet more to safety.”
Sure, if you can call Recharge Garage safe. It’s not like there won’t be haters there, too, ready to rip me apart for not even finishing the damn race. Not that it was entirely my fault. I mean, when the car suddenly loses power, there’s not much a driver can do to salvage the situation. This one will be on the engineers to figure out and fix before we head to Zandvoort next week. If we’re lucky, it won’t involve replacing the engine. Or the turbocharger. Or one of the motor generator units. We only get to use three of those before we start to incur pretty hefty grid penalties.
I manage to block out the crowd—thanks in no small part to Ben’s strong, steadying presence—and we make it inside Recharge Garage without incident. A couple of the engineers try to flag us down, but Ben waves them off and escorts me to his office, where we can talk in private, behind his closed door.
“Here.” He hands me a bottle of water from the mini fridge behind his desk and motions for me to sit in one of the guest chairs. “Drink this, keep your mouth shut, and listen.”
I twist off the cap and wait for him to start, not quite sure what to expect. Is he going to lay into me like Marcel would have? Somehow, I don’t think so. Not just because of what he said to me that first day about my input being important and us having to rely on each other, but because of how he’s handled me in the days since.
I get why Jacques hired him. He’s the polar opposite of Marcel. Encouraging where Marcel was fond of berating me, especially when there was an audience. Calm where Marcel was manic. As good at listening to my concerns as he is at communicating his. Marcel enjoyed the sound of his own voice too much to every really pay attention to anyone else.
Maybe that’s why this DNF is hitting me so hard. It’s not like I’ve never DNF’d before. Every driver has his—or, increasingly in F1 and the feeder system, her—flame outs. They’re inevitable.
But this race was different. I know Ben and I have only been working together for a few days, but I didn’t want to let him down. Wanted to prove to him that I was worthy of the bump up to F1. That I wasn’t here only because of my famous father.
Which is stupid. And weird. I’ve never let anyone’s opinion of whether I deserve to be here or not bother me before. So why is it so important that this guy know I’m good enough to make it on my own, without any help from dear old Dad?
“You’re all up in your head again,” he says, reading me like a damn book. “And I want to know what’s going on in that skull of yours. But me first.”
I nod, and he continues, sitting in the other guest chair—not behind his desk, I note—and twisting off the top of his own water bottle. “You did good out there today. What happened at the end was out of your control.”
I nod again, letting him know I’m listening and that although my heart might not agree with him, my head knows he’s right.
“The guys in engineering are already in the garage, going over every inch of the car. They’ll have an answer for us soon. And we’ll have it fixed for the Netherlands.”
“I know.” I do. I have confidence in our engineering group. I just hope they have equal confidence in me. Not that I’ve done anything to deserve it.
Yet.
“And stop worrying about impressing me. We’re teammates. Equals. You don’t have anything to prove to me.”
Jesus Christ. I thought it was scary how he read my body language when we were trying to escape the press on the way here. And the way he knew I was overthinking things when he sat me down. Now he’s a mind reader, too?
“How did you—?”
He waves a hand, cutting me off, but not in a dismissive way. There’s no scorn in his gesture, or disinterest. It’s more gentle, almost sympathetic. Like he’s sparing me from the trouble of finishing my sentence when he already knows what I’m going to say. “I’ve been around the block once or twice. I’ve gotten pretty perceptive.”
You can say that again.
“Empathic accuracy, Dr. Susan calls it,” he goes on, referencing our team’s sports psychologist, Susan Love. Yep, that’s really her name. Can’t make this shit up. But she’s a great doctor, and I’m glad she’s part of the team.
LaRue Motorsports was one of the first teams to have a full-time psychologist on staff, not just for drivers and top management but for the entire staff. The F1 schedule has always been tough—twelve-hour days, months away from family and friends—but now that they’ve lengthened it from twenty to twenty-three races, it’s downright brutal. Jacques and Elodie’s progressive attitude toward looking after team members’ mental health and wellbeing is one of the best things about racing for LaRue.
“Anyway.” Ben pauses to chug his water. “I don’t want you to focus on the DNF. A lot of good stuff happened this weekend. Stuff we can build on for Zandvoort.”
“You didn’t have to bring me into your inner sanctum to tell me that.” Usually the drivers and engineers do an informal debrief in the garage before getting together the Monday after the race to analyze mistakes and come up with solutions. It’s not like he’s saying anything to me in private that he couldn’t say in front of everyone else.
“No, I didn’t.” He finishes his water and chucks the empty bottle into the blue recycling bin next to his desk. That’s another thing LaRue is big on. Recycling. Well, the whole environmental thing, really. Our main factory and technology center in the UK use renewably sourced energy, and the team aims to cut its carbon footprint in half in the next four years. “But I thought it was best to get you out of there before anyone else witnessed your little outburst.”
