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I snicker and begin putting on my race gloves. Fuck this guy, he’s not worth busting my knuckles up for. He’s not worth much of anything. Security can bounce his ass out.
“Come on, Stan, let me take you up to hospitality. We’ve got a keg of local beer tapped. It’s good shit.” Liam puts a hand around Stan’s shoulders and tries to herd him out.
“Yeah, okay,” Stan mumbles and looks at me like I’m the biggest piece of shit on earth. He’s told me that enough times, I know the look.
“Liam?” I call to him as he escorts my drunken sperm donor away. He turns his head, and I point to my eyes then point to Emily.
He nods. He knows I don’t want Stan anywhere near my girl ever again. His drunk ass had better be on a plane by the time this race is over. I can deal with a lot of things, but I won’t tolerate him near Emily.
I make a mental note to give Liam a bonus for dealing with this trash. Maybe bring his family in for the next race or something.
Emily has seen Stan be led away, but I don’t think she could have heard us, so I just wink again and give her a thumbs up, then climb into the car.
Fuck you, Stan. Not today.
The track is dry today, the sun is out, and the car is, for once, doing exactly what it should. I’m sure that’s, in no small part, thanks to our sexy new engineer. I freaking love this track, one of the all-time classics. Flat-out corners, long straights, elevation changes—it’s perfection.
“All right, fuel and tires look good, Cole. You can push now. Repeat, push now,” Edmund comes through the earpiece in my helmet, and I close the gap to the car in front, who happens to be Dante.
For the better part of several laps, Dante and I squabble back and forth, wheel to wheel. I’d pass him, then he’d pass me, but I’m finally in front of him and pulling a lead now.
“Tell him to stick that in his cannoli,” I laugh over the radio.
“Uh, copy cannoli message,” Edmund replies, trying to be serious.
With two more laps to go and no one close behind, this is a second-place podium for me if I can bring it home, and the car is rock solid. It’s never over before it’s over, but I can back off and relax just a little.
“GG,” I say over the radio and hope Emily registers the code since I’m not that big of a pussy to call her gorgeous girl over the radio so it can be broadcast in thirty-six countries. “The car is tight as hell, so smooth through the corners.”
There’s a long pause, and then I hear the crackling in my ear and her voice, quiet and nervous about her first time talking on the radio, “Yes, I see that from your data. Tight and smooth.”
I hear the garage laughing before Emily releases the button to speak to me. I love that they all love her, too. And they should, she’s the last one to leave the factory every night. She’s thrown herself into this circus, embraced it, and has been working with damn near every team at Imperium. Because she’s a total badass, even if she doesn’t always know it.
A meteor could not wipe the smile off my face as I cross the finish line in second. I do a little bob and swerve with the car to acknowledge the crew standing along the race wall, cheering and hooting as Dante and I bring both cars home.
We pull the cars into parc ferme, wave to the fans, and get mobbed by our teams behind metal crowd fencing. All the pit crew and engineers hug me and pat my helmet, but I’m looking for her. She’s a few people deep, but I grab her hand and pull her forward to the fencing. She takes my helmet, plants a kiss on my visor, and squeals.
I get about ten-seconds with my crew, and then the FIA is pulling me away to get weighed and hustle to the podium ceremony. It’s a massive win for Imperium to have two drivers on the podium, and the whole team is damn near rioting on the ground beneath our platform. There’s going to be one hell of a party in Brussels tonight, I’m sure.
I’ll be having my own party, after the private chocolate making class course Mila arranged for Em and I, of course. I don’t even care how much shit Dante is going to give me about it.
I’m wooing.
It seems like an hour passes before all the media and hoopla is over and Dante and I finally head back to the garage. He’s already making plans for drinking and fucking his way through all of Brussels tonight.
Emily’s not in the garage when we walk in, but the crew is looking at both of us like something is wrong. We look around in question, then we hear it, Stan yelling and carrying on from the back room.
“Goddamn it,” I toss my helmet down and storm into the back room, Dante in tow.
Stan is piss-drunk, yelling and swearing at Liam, and a couple mechanics who are trying to corral him out of the building before he makes more of a scene.
“I told you to get the fuck out,” I point at him.
“You don’t tell me shit, you little pissant,” he lunges at me but stumbles.
Liam is trying to reason with him, but you can’t reason with a career alcoholic.
“Second-place, that the best you got?”
