Page 2 of Until The Lights Go Out

“Yeah, and where might he be?”

“More like where were you during your actual scheduled training time?”

“Come on mate, no one drops balls like you.”

“Fucking idiot,” my brother muttered under his breath. I smirked, feeling like I won in our mini battle. Truth was, Sebastian was a life saver, because when I was stuck without a manager with only a few races left of last season, he had stepped in. Dropped everything, left his life, and came here. Said it wasn’t an issue and nothing was holding him in Ireland at the time anyway. I doubted it, but the brute hadn’t told me what had actually happened between him and his ex. So here he was back in the circuit, just like old times.

“Feck,” I hissed at the bright overhead lights Sebastian flipped on, my accent bleeding through when I cursed.

“I should get you one of those damn signs, ‘0 days since he was last fined for cursing,’” Sebastian mocked.

“I don’t see any bloody cameras here,” I shot back, running a hand over my eyes. Maybe I was a little hungover. Maybe I had been out a little too late the night before. But go out with a bang and all that.

The night before came to mind in flashes. Hands trailing up bare skin, shots, a glimpse of red hair. My heart rate spiking. Another redhead to fill the void and my bed. It wasn’t her though—no one would ever be her.

Preseason had just begun, and Sebastian was muttering on about how I needed to cut back the partying and the drinking and the extracurricular activities. I tuned him out through warm-ups, through reps of neck pulls and dead lifts. It was always the same. Some version of ‘Clean up your act.’ And I did during the season, for the most part. Or at least my version anyway. I focused on the races, scored points every weekend, and fought for the podium seats every time I put the helmet on and had my hands on the wheel. Sebastian knew that. My dedication was there, not so much my heart anymore. I was twenty-eight years old. Rather old for a racing driver these days. New rookies joined every year. This year, we even had one young enough to have not finished his exams yet.

I had sat in the middle ranking for a time on a bottom-tier team before I got back up to a top team. Kaz Energy had been new to the rankings a few years back, taking a chance on me as a seasoned driver. Since then, I’ve been pretty consistent. Just shy of winning Constructors’ or Drivers’ Championships. Belen Racing had been at the top of the game for so many years with Alexander Wright as their driver. He was good, but I wanted to be better. We were neck and neck last season. This would be my year. To break him off his damn streak. Six years was long enough to win the Drivers’ Championship in a row for Christ’s sake.

“Theo,” Sebastian brought me back to reality. “Where the hell is your head at?”

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Alright, that’s enough of that. Go walk the track with your team,” he directed and began his own workout. Seb was taller than me and larger, built like a damn wall. He did some MMA fighting a while back, even won a title or two. Much to my mother’s dismay, we both had ink, him more than me. I glanced down at the script on the side of my hand, tapped it twice, and left the room.

“What’s got you in a funk?” Angel, my race engineer, asked as we walked through the preseason testing track. Her jet-black hair was in a short crop style, much shorter than before the break.

Angel was one of the first female race engineers in Formula One when we first started together. Now there were a few, but Angel was the one who paved the way. She broke barriers and was damn good at her job. She reminded me of her. But everything did.

“Just in my head a bit,” I admitted. I liked Angel; I trusted her. She was one of the few who had earned it. As a professional, Angel could handle most things that were thrown her way. She also frequently acted as a wall between me and the press and Kaz Energy management. That alone was worth her salary tenfold. I’d made damn sure she was paid just as much as her male counterparts in this field because glass ceilings pissed me off.

“Hmm,” she hummed her response. I wasn’t one to open up and chat about my feelings, and she knew this, so we just walked in companionable silence. Just having a person exist next to me was a luxury I often forgot about. Not demanding anything, not asking for favors or to record some video. Angel wrote down notes as we walked, glancing up and over at me to see if I was looking. We communicated this way on our track walks. She would note issue corners, her familiar scrawl in blue pen, and I would read as she wrote. It was a habit we had fallen into years ago. Sometimes the noise was too constant, and this respite was something I looked forward to. Today we were on a track we wouldn’t be racing on for months. A walk wasn’t needed here, but when I approached her and asked her to join me, she dropped what she was doing and we began walking, no questions asked. And I tried to get my head screwed onto my shoulders again.

“There’s a new presenter that PitSpark hired. They’re launching a channel with interviews and an inside look at this season.” Angel broke the silence on the last bit of the track.

I grunted in response, uninterested.

“I know you’re not a fan of media obligations, but PitSpark is the biggest sponsor for Kaz Racing, so corporate has made it very clear you are to be…pleasant.”

“Pleasant?” I scoffed at her, running a hand down my face. “Do you know who it is?”

“Not yet, apparently things are still being finalized, but she will be coming from a background in motorsport, and her official title is Strategic Analyst Commentator.”

“She, huh?” I smirked, which earned me a glare.

“Don’t even think about it.”

2

MAISEY | PRESENT

It was a Monday, and I was in the very last place I wanted to be: a packed bar on a karaoke night. Some might’ve thought it the perfect night out, but for me, this was the seventh level of hell. Another added level of hell just for me: a blind date. A girl had to eat though.

“Be honest Maisey, you probably just like Formula One because of the men. I mean, do you even know what DRS means?” my date asked over the screeching of someone on the karaoke stage who should not have been trying to hit high notes. I tried to let the comment slide off my shoulders because, after tonight, I would literally never speak to this man again. Honestly, maybe after the next sentence. So long, free dinner.

“You’re so right.” I beamed a bright smile at him, leaning my head on my hand. “Why would I need to know the logistics of a drag reduction system when I spent every weekend racing for over a decade? I just pushed the button when my engineer told me to. It was in hot pink and everything.”

He stared at me with confusion. I rolled my eyes. “I don’t think this is going to work.” I patted his arm with a mock frown. “Good luck out there though!” I reached into my purse, pulled out some bills to cover our drinks, placed them on the counter, and smiled at the bartender before I turned on my high-heeled-booted foot and walked the hell out of that bar.