Fast & Hard: A Formula 1 Romance (The Fast Series) Page 5

  Baby, please answer me.

  Please answer your phone, we need to talk.

  This is stupid, Lennox. I love you.

  Did you block my number? WTF.

  There are a dozen or so, all unread and unanswered from Kate the Waif, my new name for her, trying to get Lennox to respond. I knew they were linked a year or so ago because there are photos of them everywhere, but this must have been a relationship gone sour. Or else she’s off her rocker and stalking him, which is also a possibility based on the messages I’ve read tonight.

  In any case, it feels gross reading what are obviously private comments, no matter that a tiny part of me enjoys gossip as much as the next person. Aria would be squealing if she could see this, that girl is up to date on every celebrity gossip blog in existence.

  I have to assume he cheated on her because, let’s be serious, you can’t throw a rock without hitting evidence of his philandering ways. Who cheats on a supermodel?

  Lennox Gibbes, apparently.

  Six

  Lennox

  Ten years ago, my teenage self would have killed to be sitting where I am right now, behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car about to head onto the track. Now? Now I’m bored senseless.

  The two choices I have are to be in a blind rage twenty-four seven or drown it all out and exist in a semi-conscious state of apathy, with the random snide remark to keep my heart pumping.

  The only thing keeping me awake today in between runs during Free Practice is my NILF flitting around the garage like a kid in a candy store, in utter fascination with the big boy toys. She didn’t find my new acronym for her, the Nanny I’d Like to Fuck, very funny but it hasn’t stopped her from chasing me around like a harpy all day asking a million questions.

  It might be cute if she weren’t also taking pictures all day long for her cockamamie marketing ploys, and that gets on my nerves. The whole influencer generation grates on me. None of it is real, the bullshit people post to their profiles. Vacation photos of the happy couple who sleep in separate bedrooms and pray for the other to die so they can collect on the life insurance policy. But damned if they aren’t going to post beach photos from the Bahamas and gush about how in love they are so they can try and one-up the neighbors. Are they really fooling anyone?

  Everyone wants what someone else has.

  “What about this button, what does it do?”

  Nanny has asked about every button on my steering wheel so far and she’s doing it because I am fully strapped into the car, helmet on, ready to go and can’t get out. I’m being held hostage and begging the crew to release the car so I can get the fuck out of here. She’s perched over me in the cockpit and deliberately flipping her long hair over me and leaning her chest in so I can see down her shirt. I know this game.

  Unfortunately, she’s winning it because being smashed into the car is not a comfortable time to have a semi.

  “How about this button, and what does this dial do?” Her fingers are sneaking in trying to push every goddamn button the steering wheel.

  “Fucking stop, you evil harpy!” I swat her hands away, but she keeps it up relentlessly.

  “And this one, and this one, ooo what is that switch?”

  “Matty, for fuck sake, pick her up and lock her in the motorhome!” I yell to Matty who is standing beside me with a cold air hose blowing on me, watching her with rapt fascination.

  “You don’t pay me enough for the sexual harassment lawsuit, sorry,” he answers and cocks his head to the side in wonder at her obnoxious and unprecedented behavior.

  Nanny manages to hit a clutch pedal behind the steering wheel and the car rocks forward a split second before I catch it. “Stop before you kill someone, wench!”

  “I’ll stop it when you stop calling me Nanny,” she stands and puts her hands on her hip.

  “You’re mad,” I shake my helmeted head at her, as much as one can shake their head with a HANS device on.

  “Ok then,” and she’s back to double fisting every fidgety bit she can reach within the cockpit.

  “You realize this car is worth about seventeen million pounds, aye? I guarantee that destroying it will get you sent back to New Hampshire faster than I ever could.” I know she’s from New York.

  “Sounds like your problem.” Push push push, fidget fidget fidget.

  “FINE,” I declare defeat and swat her away. She may have won the battle but I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon making war preparations.

  “Ha! That means no ‘Nanny’, no “NILF’, no ‘AU that’s a great PAIR of tits ya’ got there, none of it, Lennox!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I wave her off and look straight ahead but it’s impossible to miss her giant smile as she stands to my side, thoroughly impressed with herself.

  The crew lowers the car from the dolly and sends me out moments later and I can finally adjust myself as soon as I pull out. Fucking hot nanny always arguing with me with that smart mouth. I can think of much prettier ways for her to use it.

  I do a couple of dozen laps and run the programs the engineers call for, not that it matters, they’ll see to it that I don’t win the race anyway, and then I pull back into my garage bay. I’ve got twenty minutes before the next session so I hop out of the car and make my way into the back to find the bathroom because Matty pumps gallons of water into me every day.

  Rounding the corner I hear Mallory giggling and I’m planning to announce that she neglected to ban the word ‘babysitter’ and I’ve come up with a few puns for that while driving around the track. But as soon as I see her, my jaw locks and my hands instinctively ball into fists.

  My piece of shit teammate, Digby DuPont, is leaning against the wall with one arm above Mallory running a long strand of her hair between his fingers and she’s laughing and smiling. Falling for his bullshit.

  “Dickby!” I roar and march toward them.

  Mallory jumps from the boom of my voice but Digby only turns to smirk at me like the manipulative little bitch he is and puts his arm around her shoulders.

  “Ahh, Lennox, I see you’re in caveman mode yet again. How charming. I was just introducing myself to the lovely Ms. Mitchell,” and he glances down to smile at her with his smug artificially-whitened toothy grin.

  “Get your fucking hands off the nanny,” I seethe.

  Mallory looks mortified and tries to slink out from under his arm but the prick tightens his grip on her shoulder and locks her against his side. She has no idea what kind of rat bastard is preying on her right now and I can feel my pulse ratchet up.

  “Really Lennox, must you be so uncivilized all the time? It’s tiring. Mallory and I were just having a chat about who makes the best cheesecake in New York City. Weren’t we, Mallory?”

  “Remove your hands from her or I will remove them from your torso.”

  “Oh good lord,” his arms drop and he turns back to face Mallory, grinning with his full phony charm bullshit act. “Mallory, my apologies for having to witness this behavior. I do hope we can chat again soon in more pleasant company.”

  She looks between Digby and me and nods, unsure about what is happening here. We’re supposed to be teammates. Fuckface makes his exit from the room going in the opposite direction of me, which is a really good call on his part.

  “What the hell was that?” Mallory snaps at me as soon as he’s out of earshot. “He was just introducing himself, not that it’s any of your business!”

  “Stay away from him.”

  “Why should I? You can’t tell me who to talk to!” She’s flustered and confused and I’m sure as hell not getting into it with her right now, or ever.

  “I can and I will. Stay. Away. From him.” I growl at her.

  She shakes her head at me like I’m the world’s biggest disappointment, which may be true, but I don’t need this shit right now and she doesn’t know what she’s doing with Digby. “Piss off, Lennox,” she says as she pushes past me and storms off.

  Now I have two minutes to take a leak and get
back in the car and I’m still fuming as the crew straps me back in, the guys cinching down my shoulder straps giving me a wide berth and knowing better than to make chit chat.

  Dickweed DuPont is the reason my career is a joke, he embodies everything that is wrong with this sport now. He’s a pay driver - Daddy in Monaco gives Celeritas enough money to let him drive a rocket around the track like the no-talent hack he is, endangering everyone else’s life and throwing it in the faces of everyone who busted their ass to get here.

  Oh yeah, and he fucked my girlfriend.

  My car gets released from the garage and I tear out, needing to burn off this adrenaline before Digby gets his ass beat, again.

  Two years ago I had one bad season, it happens. Small mistakes that add up. I was just coming off my world championship and I was a shoo-in to clinch it two years in a row, but shit happens. I own it.

  But you make the smallest of errors here and the pundits and journalists and the suits blow it up like it’s an act of war. As if I don’t feel bad enough when I screw up, knowing hundreds of people back at the factory work their asses off every single day to get me into this car for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoons.

  One bad season was all it took for Kate to move onto the next big sensation, the golden boy of the paddock, Digby DuPont. Walked into them fucking. On my bed, in my suite, in my on-track motorhome. He wasn’t even on the Celeritas team then but he came into my house and fucked my girlfriend.

  Didn’t matter that Kate and I had been together for over a year and she was pushing me to get married. She was as full of shit as DuPunk. Just another user ruining people’s lives for sport, stepping on them like rungs on her social-climbing ladder. It had been going on for months, all the while she posted those sickening happy photos of us all over the internet while I was an oblivious asshole.

  Fuck her and fuck Digby DuPont.

  The bruises on his pretty-boy face weren’t even healed when Celeritas brought him aboard as a driver, courtesy of Daddy DuPont’s deep pockets, which are deep enough for the team to dictate his position as the Number One driver, getting all the priority and strategy from day one.

  My loyalty to the team, all the car development, the world championship I brought them, meant nothing once enough money flowed through their coffers. My commitment to Kate, the life we had together, meant nothing once a shinier new toy was dangled in front of her.

  Matty calls Kate vampyyri, the vampire. It’s perfect.

  And Digby, the whole paddock calls him a piece of shit.

  Celeritas has firmly cemented that he is the priority, he is to win. I’m to let him pass, give him tows down the straights, smile for the cameras like he’s Mr. Personality and we’re all a happy family. They can suck my dick.

  I’ll do my time and ride out my contract but I have zero fucks left to give. That’s why I don’t participate in their bullshit sponsorship events and fake ass media campaigns. That’s when I became such an asshole.

  At first, the playboy act was just to get back at Kate. Then it took focus over my shit season and the even shittier things happening at Celeritas and it just became easier to let people focus on my dick rather than my driving.

  After the twentieth lap around the track, the engineers call me over the radio to come back into the garage. I ‘accidentally’ lock up the brakes to flat spot and ruin this set of tires. I’m a petty asshole, apparently.

  I’m done for the day but I can’t even go have a drink or six because I’m driving again within 24 hours and I won’t be losing my super license over these clowns. Dickweed’s car is in his bay in the garage though and I do want to ensure his hands are nowhere near my nanny.

  I have no idea why I care besides the fact that Mallory is my plaything and he isn’t going to steal that from me next. That’s all the reason I need.

  “Where is she?” I bark to Jack who is in the motorhome sorting cases of 5x8 stock photos for this weekend’s autograph session.

  “Who?” His head pops up from behind the tower of cardboard boxes.

  “The bloody nanny, Mallory, where is she?”

  “Ah, she took off for the day. She said, and I think these were her exact words, ‘Lennox Gibbes is a primate who belongs in a zoo’ and she stomped off. I didn’t stop her to argue.”

  “Where’s Dipshit?”

  “With his physio, why?”

  Good, as long as they’re not together that suits me fine. I unzip my race suit down to my waist and think about how to handle this. Now that he knows there’s a new way to get under my skin, he’ll be relentless. Like a case of herpes.

  “I want her hotel room moved, right across from mine,” I tell Jack.

  “Oh really,” his eyebrows perk up, “Is that how it is now?”

  “Don’t give me shit, just do it.”

  “Like, tonight?”

  “Aye Jack, tonight and every night thereafter. Right across from mine.”

  “The hell do you want me to say the reason why is?” Jack is trying to make sense of this and there’s no rational explanation for him, it just needs to happen.

  “Tell her the old room has bed bugs for all I care.”

  “Oh, that’s good. Wait, does the hotel have bed bugs? They’re insidious, you know.”

  Seven

  Mallory

  Since neither my parents, nor Lennox Gibbes, are driving me away from this job, I’m determined to find other sane and tolerable human beings in this environment to surround myself with. Preferably human beings without deep gravelly voices and Scottish accents that get thicker when angry, which is fairly often.

  Yesterday was odd with Lennox and his teammate Digby, weird even for Lennox’s standards. He has no business dictating who I can speak with and I don’t see what he cares. He lets me know, often and in no uncertain terms, that my presence is a constant irritation to him. I thought we had made a tiny shard of progress — he seemed a little more playful versus malicious and agreed to stop calling me his nanny. But since the Digby incident, he’s back to being a stone wall and all around crabass.

  He’s not going to kill my mood today, though. Sandra called this morning to give me sponsor engagement event dates but also to tell me she’s pleased with my work so far on presenting a more… acceptable version of their bad boy driver. The watch post did better than I could have even hoped, the engagement was through the roof and it seemed to get a lot of people hyped up for the new season. Sandra said it did so well she shared it to their main marketing sites.

  I got tons of usable material from free practice yesterday, too, including some candid video of him goofing about in the cockpit of his car with his crew and fans online loved seeing a different, more personal side to him.

  So I’m patting myself on the back while sipping my coffee and I’m pleased, despite Grumpy Gibbes being back on the prowl today. Not only am I not fired yet, nor run out of here by Lennox’s deliberate attempts at sabotage, nor failing as my parents and sister are waiting for me to do — I’m doing well.

  Ha, take that, suckers.

  So while the cars are running on track this morning, I’m making myself friendly and available for new friends in the team motorhome dining area. I’m coordinating Lennox’s calendar with the sponsor engagements Sandra sent to me this morning and I have to say, I’m looking forward to some of these. There’s a black tie affair or two in there. Part of me shivers in response to the thought of Lennox in a tuxedo and part of me shudders at the thoughts of all the ways he can, and probably will try to sabotage a formal event.

  Two of the kitchen staff are chatting together and filling up coffee mugs from the self-serve beverage station in the dining area and as they scan the room for a place to sit I sit up tall and smile brightly at them like a new girl at school, desperate for someone to join her at lunch.

  My lonely puppy eyes work and I’m thrilled when two younger girls make their way to my table with cheeks round from authentic smiles. Women are an obvious minority in the paddock — no equal op
portunity hiring happening here — and I’m overly eager to just hang with girls and be normal for a few minutes. I miss Aria.

  “Hi ladies, please join me!” I greet them when they make their way near my table. “I’m new and don’t know many people here yet.”

  “Yes, you’re the new media girl for Lennox, right? I’m Francisca!” Both girls take a seat and shake my hand. Francisca is maybe in her early twenties and has youth and perfect sun-kissed olive skin and a beautiful Latin accent. I have yet to meet another American, now that I think of it.

  “Yes, his new Publicity Manager,” I nod.

  “I’m Tatiana,” the second girl shakes my hand, “welcome to the team!” She also has a Latin accent, stunning eyelashes, and sleek black hair.

  More importantly, both girls are smiling and chatty and behave like normal, kind humans when meeting a new coworker! Hell’s bells!

  “So what do you ladies do here?” I sip my locally roasted Australian bean coffee and ask them. The coffee here in Oz is no joke, I would sit here all day sucking it down if I didn’t have a plan up my sleeve for this evening.

  “We’re both in catering,” Francisca says.

  “That has to be a lot of work to put out so much food every day for everyone at Celeritas,” I say, wanting very much to make the kind of simple small talk and chit chat I usually hate.

  “It’s a lot of work,” Tatiana says, “but there’s a pretty big team back in the kitchen and it can be a lot of fun, too.”

  “Well, if the coffee is any indicator, you guys are doing an amazing job. This stuff is legit.” I nod to them holding my warm mug up.

  “I’m glad you like it. The catering team tries to incorporate as much local cuisine into the meals as possible so the food is always fresh and not the same thing over and over all season long.” Francisca tells me.