Page 59 of First in Line

Our Formula 4 life isn’t panning out like we expected. We’ve been in Indiana for six months, and it’s been nothing but struggles and money issues the entire time. It’s even worse than when we lived in Colorado.

Most of the other drivers on my team live in the team housing, crammed together in tiny apartments that the organization rents out cheap. But that was never really an option for me. Not with Evie. So we burned through almost all our savings during the first two weeks between the security deposit on our one-bedroom rental and the bare minimum of secondhand furniture.

The team barely covers anything. They gave me a seat because I proved I could compete, but I didn’t come up through karting like the other guys, so I’m not part of their junior driver program, and I don’t have some millionaire backing me either. Which means I’m paying for almost everything but my seat—race entries, travel, equipment, testing… The sponsors I already had from my touring car days help, but they’re small local sponsors, and they expect results. Results I’m not getting yet.

Adapting to an open-wheel car has been harder than I expected. I knew it would be different from touring car racing, but the high-speed cornering and insane downforce are fucking me up. The car reacts to everything differently. Braking points, steering inputs, weight transfer—hell, even sitting so low to the ground changes how I perceive speed. I’m comfortable with the paddle-shift gearbox now, but that took a hot minute to get used to.

So, I’ve basically been paying obscene amounts of money to lose.

And because I’m not winning, new sponsors aren’t exactly lining up. That’s the problem with Formula 4. You spend money before you make money. We ran the numbers a dozen times already, and if I want a serious shot at surviving the season, we need to sink over two hundred grand into it.

Whenever there’s a free weekend, I drive out to run touring car races with the SCCA. I know those cars. I can actually win in them. The prize money isn’t huge, but sometimes it’s enough to cover tires, or a hotel, or one more entry fee. Every dollar we make goes straight back into racing.

Evie was supposed to work part-time while studying architecture at the community college. Instead, she’s working full-time at an ice cream shop and picking up every extra shift they’ll give her just to keep us afloat. And she goes to college part-time, doing the best she can with online and evening courses. On top of all that, she basically acts as my manager. She emails sponsors, handles registrations, organizes travel, runs my social media, edits clips from old races, answers messages, negotiates deals—everything. Hell, she even braids my hair like my mom used to before race weekends, so it sits right under my helmet.

She’s paying for our food. Our rent. Our electricity. I’m fucking failing her.

I thought I’d be able to buy her nice things. Take her out. Give her something better than this constant stress. Instead, she’s working herself to exhaustion while I empty our bank account faster than we can refill it, chasing a dream that might never happen.

And to make everything worse, we barely even see each other anymore. Between her work schedule and me constantly leaving town for races and testing, I don’t think we spend four real hours together in an average week.

Maybe this was a mistake.

Maybe I dreamed too big and took a bite I can’t chew. Maybe I’m not meant to be anything more than a touring car driver. I could switch to NASCAR. It’s closer to what I know. It might be easier.

But every time I get behind the wheel of that one-seater, I feel it. I feel myself getting closer to understanding it. The physics, the rhythm, the weird little tricks hidden inside open-wheel racing.

And once I finally crack it, I know I’ll be dangerous.

“There you go,” Evie says with a smile, placing a chocolate and peanut butter milkshake in front of me. “I still have about half an hour of work, then we can leave. Is that okay?”

“Of course.”

I watch her walk away in her uniform—a fit-and-flare shirt dress the color of mint ice cream, and a pink apron over it.

My princess hasn’t complained once. This is so much harder than what I promised her, but she hasn’t resented me for it. She still believes in the dream, more than I do, and I fear the day the veil falls from her eyes and reality hits her.

She invested in the wrong guy. All the money she’s given me over the years. All the time she put into me. All the hope she harbors… I wasn’t the right person to give it to. And I fucking hate myself for it. She deserves so much better than what I’vegiven her so far. And I’m beginning to doubt I’ll ever get to buy her a house with a pool, let alone the one we used to talk about in Italy.

After some cleanup behind the counter, she comes to my table with a tray full of napkin dispensers that need to be refilled. I know the drill, so I start working on them while she cleans up the tables with a spray bottle full of Lysol and a cloth.

I miss her. We live together, yet I see her less than I used to back in Colorado. Even when we finally get some time together, she’s so tired she can barely maintain a full conversation.

It’s like I’m watching the light slowly fade behind her eyes, and I can’t fucking bear it. Either I get my head out of my ass and find a way to make this work, or I need to free her from this money pit I put us into. She’d be doing so much better if she didn’t have to support me as well as herself.

“Princess, can you—can you come sit with me for a moment?”

“I’m almost done, give me a sec.”

Two more tables, and she comes to sit on the cushioned bench facing mine. “What’s up, Hot Wheels?”

“I’ve been wondering… We should rethink this whole thing. It’s not working out.”

Her face falls into despair, and she stammers, “Are you br—breaking up with me?”

“What?! No! Evie, never. Jesus Christ…”

She releases a reassured breath. “Phew, Jax. Don’t word things that way.”