Page 24 of The Fast Track

“Would’ve been champion if my car didn’t break down in Sochi.”

“I watched that. That sucked.” My heart had broken for him at the time. He was clearly the most talented driver on the grid, robbed by circumstances beyond his control.

This was, of course, before I met him in real life.

“I survived; you will too.” He shrugs, then downs the last dregs of beer in his glass. “I guess what I’m saying is, no need to go jumping off terraces or anything after one race.”

I smile despite myself. Did someone spike his beer with a kindness pill?

“It’d be a right pain in the arse to have to finish that car by myself.”

Though his joke is stupid and corny, it makes me laugh alittle. Then, because he’s looking at me kindly, his eyes like the velvety molten chocolate you always see in high-end ads, my brain short-circuits and I share, “Dietrich dumped me as mentee after Spielberg.”

I regret it the microsecond the words are out and brace myself for a smirk.

“Bloody hell,” he mutters instead. “I’m sorry.”

I’m grateful he didn’t laugh in my face and even more grateful he’s another driver. Roz had been comforting, but she didn’t understand what it would feel like, getting assigned to and dropped by one of the sport’s biggest deals.

“Are you gutted?” he asks.

My lip trembles. I pull myself together and give as nonchalant of a shrug as I can muster. “Nothing I can do about it now.”

He raises his hand toward me, then drops it. “When I was a kid, my nan entered me in a go-kart competition. I won, but last minute at the prize-giving ceremony they told us the sponsor changed their mind: They wanted to split the pot equally among the top three finishers. The worst was, I had to stand up there and smile for photos with everyone, though I was dying to chuck my trophy to the ground. It traumatized me for years.”

The image of little Cameron, with his full head of Adonis hair, doing his best not to throw his first-place championship cup to the ground in front of an army of reporters and company reps makes me smile. “I’m surprised you had the self-control.”

“We’re not all menaces like you.” He bumps me gently with his shoulder. “Broken any more pieces of Orbital equipment lately?”

I laugh. My first genuine one since I got here. “Shush, Pat and Grayson are right there. Do you want Frank to find out and make us build a second car?”

“I’ll tell him I was just an accessory to the crime. You were the mastermind.”

There’s a grunt behind us. “Hendriksen, six quid.” The bartender slides a pint glass across the counter to Cameron and then a slimmer glass to me. “Ten quid.”

Cameron watches me scan my phone. “You ought to have the beer next time; anything else here is daylight robbery.”

The irony of Cameron quibbling about a few pounds while wearing a sweater that costs as much as a computer makes me chuckle. “Shilling for the sponsor, are we?”

Hendriksen Brewing is Orbital’s title sponsor (technically the team’s full name is Orbital-Hendriksen Racing, but nobody ever calls it that). Their logos are plastered all over our cars and racing suits. Luckily, there’s no contractual requirement to actually drink it. I had my first and last Hendriksen at someone’s end-of-school party last year. It came out of a keg, was lukewarm, and tasted even worse than Natty Lite, the only other drink on offer. I vowed then and there I was never touching beer again.

“It’s good from the tap. You want a sip?” He holds up his freshly filled glass.

“No thanks, beer tastes like pee water to me.”

He does an exaggerated clutching-his-heart motion. “Why do you have to hurt me? That’s sacrilege. Have you tried their craft labels?”

“It also is, like, the worst drink nutrition-wise. You might as well be eating Wonder Bread.”

“It’s not any worse than the crisps you have every day at lunch.” To my astonishment, he lists off all my favorite junk food. “Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Chilli Heatwave Doritos—”

“What, are you watching me?”

“Someone told me I had to keep an eye on the competition.” He dimples, and my pulse jumps.

I reach for my drink to have an excuse to break my gaze on him.Cool it, Justine. Just because he’s devastatingly handsome and gets how much it sucks to be dumped by the assigned F1 mentor doesn’t mean he’s not the asshole who drove into me at testing.

“There you are.” Pat comes up, throwing an arm around Cameron. “We gotta go. I told Savannah we’d be at dinner by eight.”