Page 21 of The Fast Track

I’m halfway through an article about the latest updates at Scuderia Marino’s Maranello factory when Roz says, out of the blue, “Fancy going to The Hound?”

I peel my eyes reluctantly away from pictures of the Marino design lab. “As in The Hound and the Bacon? That grubby pub five blocks from my apartment?”

“Exactly!”

“You want to leave this”—I gesture at our glamorous, picture-perfect surroundings—“to go to a dive bar? Didn’t you say the bathrooms there are so gross, you’re lucky if you walk out of there without picking up a disease?” Even more concerning, Roz’s tolerance for disgusting bathrooms is already sky-high; she shares a porta-potty with nine mechanics on race weekends and I’ve never heard a single complaint.

“Just felt like a beer, that’s all.” She shrugs, too nonchalant.

I raise my eyebrows.

“Okay, fine.” She huffs. “I saw on Grayson’s Snap that he’s there with some of the guys. I thought we could go run into them.”

“Which guys?”

“Cameron, Pat. Sasha Devin from Triton is there too.” Roz squints at her phone, then tosses it aside. “Oh, who cares? Everyone’s out. Let’s just go.”

A knot forms in my stomach. I’ve successfully managed to avoid any one-on-one interaction with Cameron since our car-building debacle two weeks ago and would very much prefer to keep the streak going. “Can’t we hang out here? This is way nicer than stalking boys at the pub.”

“Not stalking. Conveniently running into them. Besides, might be nice for you to go out, take your mind off things. Better than moping around all day over some daft thing Dietrich Lange said.”

I want to point out I’m not moping, just licking my wounds. But Roz is like our old golden retriever when she got her mouth on a new squeaker toy.

“Pretty please?” She bats her eyes.

“Fine,” I groan. If the whole bro gang is out, there’s still a chance I can continue avoiding Cameron by blending into the crowd. “But I’m demanding full access to your uncle’s pool for the rest of the summer.”

“Done!” She giggles. “Now, shall we go pick something to wear? I want to show boob, but in a classy way.”

My doubts about The Hound and the Bacon aren’t assuaged as we pull up to the dingy black-and-faded-gold entrance. Through a dusty bay window that looks like it hasn’t been cleaned since the Chicago Bulls’ last championship, I spot the guys piled into a corner booth. Cameron manages to look both persnickety and immaculate, even while shoveling french fries into his mouth.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I turn to Roz, who’s doing her best to get out of the Uber in her red minidress without flashing anyone. “We could go see a movie and try that new Asian fusion restaurant.”

Roz ignores me and adjusts the front of her strappy dress so it reveals the tops of her boobs, a skill I can only be envious of, given my own nonexistent cleavage. “Right, so here’s the plan. We’ll walk in there, pretend we don’t see them at first, be all cool, yeah? Then you’re going to go up to them like, ‘Well, hello, lads! Fancy running into you here!’?”

I groan. This keeps getting worse. “Why do I have to approach them? He’syourcrush.”

“That’s the point. I can’t be seen going up; that’s too creepy.”

“But it’s okay for me to be a creep?”

“You can pretend you’ve got some driver thing to chat with them about. Like, ‘Grayson, how’s the new pull-up routine,’ y’know, that sort of thing—”

“That is so not how it works.”

“The point is, you chat him up, all friendly-like, then he invites you to join, and you call me over, and I’m like, ‘Oh, hey! Sure, why not?’?”

I run through all the conceivable topics I could attempt to start a conversation with Grayson about. The list isn’t very long. “Why can’t you just ask him out like a normal human being?”

“Because.” Roz rolls her eyes. “Boys like to hunt, so you have to give them the chase.”

“Isn’t that kind of 1990s? What happened to smashing the patriarchy?”

“Yeah, well, I also want his patriarchy to smashme, so can you please help a sister out?”

Roz yanks the entrance door open, and I’m hit in the face by the smell of stale beer and fish and chips. The pub is overrun with soccer fans avidly watching the game broadcasted on every screen in the place. I make my way toward the guys’ table. Might as well get the torture over with.

“Not straightaway,” Roz hisses out of the corner of her mouth. “Act natural—sit somewhere less obvious first.”