‘On a different but not unrelated note, did you see Logan posted again?’ Nyla says.
My skin crawls at the mention of my last ex.
‘Urgh, yes.’ I reach for my entire rhode collection. Yes, I really do need all of them. ‘Why can’t he move on to a Victoria’s Secret model like the others and be grateful? He had an eighties mullet before he met me. Think of the dating pool now open to him.’
I’m trying to make light of it despite a great ball of lead sitting in my stomach, and enough alerts on his activity that I almost know what he’s going to post before he does.
‘Did you see his haiku?’ she adds.
‘I guess I should be glad he’s moved on from Bible passages.’
‘I don’t know.’ She makes a face. ‘He rhymed love with bruv. I think he’s trying to win you back by talking roadman.’
Give me strength. He’s whiter than paper. ‘He’s fromArizona.’
He never quite got the hang of a PR relationship, despite sliding into my DMs the second I started sprinkling NFL clues. He knew who I was and what I was doing, and yet somewhere between that DM and our second ‘date’, the words ‘I love you’ singed my ears.
My other exes saw me as nothing more than eye-candy; sponsor bait; an ego stroke; a sixth heterosexual member ofQueer Eye. Why didn’t he? My boundaries were as airtight as normal. He was never invited to my house. He never met my friends. I never showed him affection in private. I never saw him outside of work events or content.
A small part of me feels bad – I never set out to hurt anybody. But it’s not like any of this is covert. There’s a viral poll, for Christ’s sake! I know he’s been hit on the head a few times, but you’d think if he interrogated it a smidge, he’d realise there was nothing authentic about us. I said so multiple times. Maybe he thought he’d John Tucker’d me, morphing me into a loyal, committed, warm, loving woman.
Hah.
Chapter 4
TIAGO
MELBOURNE
The monitor near me flashes with sector times. Volare’s hotshot new rookie’s P12.Fuck.
I should be out there. Practice sessions should be fast and fluid. You go out, you test, you come in. Changing tyres, data flowing, making decisions. Instead, I’m stuck in the garage, listening to the sounds of teams setting themselves up for victory, and fans roaring their asses off about it.
‘Are we nearly ready?’ I ask the closest engineer. I don’t know his name. What’s the point? I won’t be here long.
‘We’re still collecting data,’ he mumbles. Translation: we don’t have solutions yet.
I lean back against the headrest padding. I’m too good for this. Five years of experience and two podiums, and I’m stationary during FP1. It doesn’t help my teammate’s out there. Nothing wrong with his diagnostics.
He’s another rookie, one of six this year. The most F1’s ever had. Rookies are dangerous. They don’t yet understand the demands of driving at this level but are eager to make it look like they do. Frontrunners like Jack and Tom can steer clear, but backmarkers? Forget it. It’s basically a ticking time bomb before one wipes me out.
Leone’s garage makes Volare look space age. Sparse mechanics, older equipment, and none of the slickness. Everyone’s hesitant, pausing, agonising. It’s sad, but also an opportunity. I plan to use everything I learned at Volare to ace this early part of the season. Work closely with the engineers and galvanise them into a winning team. I did it once, I can do it again. Imagine winning a Grand Prix in a Leone. Volare will bebeggingto have me back.
Though I do have to drive to execute this plan.
‘Ok, Tiago,’ says my race engineer through my earpiece, and my heart sings. ‘Session starts in five minutes. We’ll start on the hard tyre. Run plan C, fuel for a long stint.’
YES.
I mean, not ideal tyres when everyone else is on softs, and I don’t like the sound of a long stint when this session’s about action and reaction, but I’ll take what I can get. We’re a work in progress. I’m back, baby!
‘No need to push on this run, just collect data,’ he adds as I’m about to head out.
What is it with this team and data? They don’t seem to be doing anything with it.
The car feels sluggish under me as I push out to the pit lane. These dumb tyres are like ice blocks attached to the bottom of my chassis. I’m understeering and wandering all over the place. There’s still no straight-line speed, despite the engineers assuring me it’d change after I bombed pre-season testing. I’m not even allowed full deployment of the engine mode, so acceleration’s flat as fuck. God help me on Sunday, I’ll trudge off the line.
A Pagari zips by so rapidly I might as well be in a tractor. This is ridiculous, we’re here torace. I push a little harder and the car violently spasms. Shaking hands white-knuckle the wheel as I swallow down a ghostly,‘Ahhh!’
