Chapter Nine
“Arthur isn’t texting me back.”
“Oh, he will!” Sarah tells Delaney reassuringly. “I bet he’s just asleep. He crushed it at Quali today.”
I take a sip of my San Pellegrino.
Am I in the mood to be sandwiched between Delaney and my ex-boyfriend’s secret new girlfriend as they trade stories about childhood vacations to Barcelona and the Cotswolds? While seated at a huge family-style outdoor dining table on a stunningly beautiful evening at a farm-to-table Michelin-star restaurant? With aforementioned ex-boyfriend, Max, stealing glances at me from where he’s been plopped across the table?
Nope. But I’m sipping sparkling water, nodding accordingly, and playing nice. This is my first Ignition team dinner, and I’m planning on stubbornly sticking it out until the after-dinner espressos have been downed and the fairy lights swaying above us have been turned off. Unlike Arthur, who’s been incognito since he left the media pen.
Ergo Delaney’s texts.
But it’ll be fine. It’s her job to track him down and make sure he isn’t drinking himself under a table, or any other early-2000s paparazzi faux pas. Truly, I shouldn’t go running after him.
Fine. I’m a teensy bit guilty that he’s skipping dinner after I snapped at him.
Okay, maybe a lot guilty, since he did well today and deserves to be celebrating with his team after winning Qualifying or however that’s phrased. But that annoyingly buzzy guilt operates on the assumption that me pushing Arthur away would be the reason he isn’t here, which is presumptuous and, based on my past experience with him, super wrong. Arthur loves to be pushed so he can spring right back up, like some sort of anthropomorphized punching bag that wins every fight by never backing down. On a normal post-argument evening, he would’ve been the first one seated at this table when I walked in, knife and fork in hand, grinning while he waited for our proverbial boxing bell to goding-ding.
I can’t be the reason he isn’t here.
So, I don’t dwell on it as Max passes me a plate of smoked salmon, which I then pass to Sarah. “Oh,” Max says. To me. “I thought you ate fish?”
“No worries,” I say, surprised that he’s initiating conversation. Here, and at all.
“Was today…” He pokes his salmon lump with a fork. “Did you manage to record Arthur’s last lap today? We’ll need that for the film.”
Ah yes. This is why we talk now: the film. I nod, keeping my eyes on my glazed carrots, despite my frustration kicking to life like a wind-up toy. “Yeah. I managed.”
“Nice. Can I take a look at it—”
My saved-by-the-bell moment comes in the form of a man with a cowboy hat, standing by the head of the table, tapping a knife against his wineglass. I flash Max an apologetic look, then turn along with everyone else to the toast-giver.
“Howdy, folks. Some of you may know me as Robert, the owner of Ignition Energy Drink Racing,” he says, thick Texas accent twanging in the breeze. “But my friends just call me Bob. Letme start off by thanking y’all for coming. It’s always a pleasure to see my team all in one place.”
My eyes flick down the table of people on instinct.
Still isn’t here.
“Some of you guessed it, though—we didn’t just have this dinner to feed y’all.” Forced laughter, some louder than others. “I’d like to cut to the chase and invite up our team principal, Holmes Bianco, to discuss our driver strategy for Hungary.”
Pause.
I need a second. I need my camera. But our friend Bob keeps talking as Holmes Bianco shuffle-saunters to the front. He’s slightly shorter and older, with dark hair combed away from his round face and a thick gold pinkie ring glinting in the light. There are traces of Arthur woven through his features: identical Roman nose, same critical shine to his brown eyes. Weirdly, I haven’t seen him often.
“Salve, everyone,” Holmes says with a smile. “Yes, the rumors swirling today are true. Since Faust has, sadly, needed to step back, we’ve decided to preemptively schedule Arthur to drive Hungary, Belgium, and the Netherlands.”
Three more races? Shocked, my gaze sticks to Faust as he manages a weak smile that lasts as long as the clapping. He’s a large man, sloped shoulders, ruffled brown hair, deep tan skin. Fake happiness looks wrong on his face, as if he doesn’t have the same smile lines everyone else picks up in their mid-twenties.
When the noise dies down, he excuses himself from the table.
Max had been seated next to him. Now that the chair is empty, he leans ever so slightly forward and catches my eye in that way we always used to communicate on location, when subject matters were going bonkers and we needed to realign our wavelength.
What’s going on?I can read all over Max’s tuned-in face, previous conversation forgotten.
I blink back,No clue.
Our Morse code is cut short.
