“This.You. Me.”
“The jury’s still out, is it?” he says roughly.
“Well, you don’t seem that into it. Maybe Faust would be willing to star in a movie? He’s having an interesting summer.”
Arthur swallows. He’s trying not to look stricken. “You don’t want Faust.”
“Or James…”
An engineer pops up by his side. “Hey, King, we need to get you in the car.”
He ignores them. “No James.”
“I guess it depends on if you actually win today,” I mumble. “If you don’t, then I don’t need to keep touching you. Ever.”
Arthur’s bright eyes narrow, a spark glowing in the dead of night. “Are you challenging me to win the Grand Prix for your hand, Graywood?”
I squint at him, innocent. “If you think winning would be a challenge, I guess not.”
“No. No, I’m winning this.”
“King, we really need you to—”
“I’m coming,” Arthur snaps at the engineer. Then he points at me, a real scowl on his lips. “Put your headphones on and sit where I can find you later, micetta. You’re about to watch the best race of your life.”
Then he’s gone.
Chapter Eleven
Arthur doesn’t run away, per se. Just vanishes for the formation lap in three of his massive steps, and then he’s surrounded by people, and I’m left to stew in my own flustered irritation as he gets swept onto the track. Sit where he can find me later?
Nope. Telling me what to do is also not how this is going to work.
I get one irritated sneaker out the back door and gasp as the rain soaks through my canvas shoes. Rain. Forgot about the rain. Bouncing back, I look for any other exit or overhanging. There isn’t one. And even if I did miraculously find an escape route to another staff-only section, I wouldn’t make it a minute before the Formula 1 officials had me back in here. Above us is the “Paddock Club,” a fan seating area that’s as expensive and security locked as it sounds. Regular grandstands would be safer.
Hm. There’s an idea.
I throw a rain cover over my camera, pocket my work badge, and head to the closest grandstand, joining the fans lingering in the first row. My camera is in my hands by the time all twenty cars are at the starting line, tires warmed and pedestrians cleared off the track. In Formula 1, there are five lights that hang above the track like stoplights, and all of them have to turn red then go out before anyone can drive. The first light illuminates, and I turn my camera on. The second, and I have it up to my eye. By the third light, I’ve got my foot braced on the chain-link fence between me and thegrass and the track, and it sways beneath my sneaker. I miss the fourth light as I get the focus right on Arthur’s car—the back of his orange helmet. The fifth light turns red, and I think about his wrist, that one fragile stretch of skin.
You better win, I think to myself.
The entire crowd leans forward as the five lights turn black at once.
“Lights out,” Arthur says.
“And away we go,” Cameron replies.
Instantly, I understand why Sarah would want someone to watch their first Formula 1 race in person. I could’ve watched a thousand different videos of the first minute from different races, and that still wouldn’t have prepared me for the British Grand Prix with Arthur on pole.
I don’t know how to describe it. Imagine twenty fireworks going off at once, twenty dams breaking, flooding the earth. The overwhelming sound of engines, the booming crowd, the rain slicking clothes to skin, the announcers, information, cars, clocks, ticking.
Usually, I have trouble with noise. And crowds. And being places I haven’t mapped out fully in my mind. Then, once I start to feel anxious—or the ADHD goblins get their hooks in my concentration—it’s hard to come back. Being behind a camera helps, but not always. Filming something that my brain has deemed “boring” is like being on a horrible first date at a restaurant you love; the setting is right, the food is good, but something’s off.
There isn’t a spare second in a Formula 1 race to clock out. No breaking it down into its individual pieces and separating the cars from the noise and the people and the crowds and the action. It’s all so shockingly overwhelming and cohesive that I don’t have to hope that my natural instinct to hyperfocus kicks in.
I just focus.
Arthur is the only thing on my mind as he explodes down the circuit, nineteen cars behind him, the dark gold Leone in second place swerving as it tries to find a way around him. The Leone isn’t the only one, either. Virtually every other driver is trying to pass one another, pass Arthur, weaving, dancing, and I clutch my camera like a security blanket as carbon fiber on carbon fiber comes close again and again, tiresalmosttouching, centimeters apart.
