Page 8 of Drive Me Wild
I ignore him and greet her with a warm smile. “Hi, Wes.”
“‘Ello,” she replies, her Essex accent giving her already melodious voice a slight lilt. “How goes it?”
“Oh, just lovely.” I look toward the door, where Theo and Blake elbow one another to leave the room and get to the cafeteria first. “How was your meeting?”
“Well, it was inTeamwork,if that’s any indication.” Wes snorts and rolls her baby blue eyes. “Did you see the TikTok AlphaVite made?’”
“Yes.” I sigh begrudgingly as we head downstairs to grab lunch. “It’s trending.”
If I sound bitter, it’s because I am. I may have gotten McAllister over twenty-five million views on TikTok last year, but then I was told we should spend our energy and budget on other platforms. Management simply sees the numbers, and right now, the numbers are great. No need to fix what isn’t broken and all that bullshit. If Thomas Edison didn’t experiment with carbon filament, we’d still be using candles instead of light bulbs. But what do I know, right?
“Just means we have to work harder todrive innovation,” she says, mimicking McAllister’s tagline. “Although the only thing I’ll be driving is a pen into my eye if I have to hear Rhys say that one more time.”
I grin at her as we enter the cafeteria. Nearly every seat is filled with bodies wearing McAllister’s cherry-red color, each side conversation louder than the next. The one person wearing blue sticks out a like a sore thumb—even more so because their shirt boasts the lightning-looking logo of AlphaVite, one of McAllister’s biggest competitors.
“Grab us a table?” I ask Wes, nodding toward the door of the motorhome. “Gonna go say hi.”
I weave my way through engineers and mechanics holding trays of sandwiches and salads and sidle up next to Lucas.
“Staking out enemy territory?” I tease.
Lucas Adler’s three-musketeer status with Blake and Theo is the only reason him being here isn’t raising any red flags. Noone so much as bats an eye when he wanders in looking for his friends. If Everest—another top Formula 1 team—driver Harry Thompson walked in on the other hand… that’d be reason to worry.
“Ah, my favorite McAllister employee.” Lucas’s olive-green eyes twinkle with amusement. “Although don’t tell Dumb and Dumber.”
I laugh at his nicknames for the McAllister drivers and pull him in for a quick hug. “How was your winter break? You went back to Boston, right?”
The opening lines to “Boston” slip out before I can even consider stopping them.
He chuckles and runs a ring-clad hand through his dark blonde locks, which have the obnoxiously perfect amount of volume. “For a bit, but then I went to Monaco. How are things with you? Blake said you’ve been helping Ella out with her podcast.”
“Mm-hmm. It’s been a lot of fun. The most fun I’ve had working in a while, actually.” A dash of color flushes my cheeks at my admission. “Not that working for McAllister isn’t fun, but Blake and Theo are like drunken toddlers who need constant care and attention. Can get a bit exhausting, you know?”
Lucas chuckles before taking a sip of his water. “Oh, I know. Theo called me at three a.m. for Tums because he ate one too many shrimp cocktails at the party last night.”
Yep. That sounds about right.I roll my eyes at Theo’s predictability. “He eats those things like he’s never seen food before in his life. I don’t know how many times I have to remind him that his mouth isn’t a vacuum.”
“It’s Theo,” Lucas says simply. “He’s… well, he’s him.”
“Amen to that.” I tap my McAllister-branded water bottle against his AlphaVite one. “But yeah, it’s been nice to changethings up a bit. Learned more about your beloved American baseball than I ever wanted to, but I’ll survive.”
“Are you interested in freelancing?” Lucas asks with a head tilt. “A buddy of mine is looking for a marketing consultant. I can name-drop you if you’re interested.”
“Oh,” I state dumbly. “Um… maybe? I haven’t really given it a thought outside ofCoffee with Champions. And that’s technically not even freelancing because I’m not being paid. Not that Ella won’t pay me, she’s insisting on it, but I’m not about to take money for helping her with something I genuinely enjoy doing, you know? I want to see her succeed. She can pay me in pints of ice cream or jugs of iced coffee. I’m easy. Not like sexually easy. I mean, I’ve had a one-night stand before, but I’m not like putting up posters advertising my tits. But no judgement if that’s what people do, or want to do. Free the nips, right? I, uh… meant easy as in go with the flow.”
I exhale sharply to catch my breath. “And I’m going to stop talking now. Thank you for attending my TED Talk.”
He waves off my mortification with an affectionate grin. “Ah, how I missed your long-winded tangents, Jos. I’ll keep you posted once he starts seriously looking for someone, though. I?—”
His voice falters and I follow his gaze to find Theo and Blake walking into the cafeteria. Theo’s hitting Blake’s arm repeatedly with a can of sour cream and onion Pringles… that his hand is stuck in.
Let the season begin.
FOUR
THEO
Points,podium wins, pussy. What more can a Formula 1 driver want? Well, besides all those things with McAllister. It’s only the first Grand Prix of the season, but I may need to go out and purchase some scuba gear because I know I’m going to be swimming in all three.
