Page 95 of Double Apex

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NORTH CAROLINA

MID-NOVEMBER

PHAEDRA

Interlagos, the track for the Brazilian Grand Prix, is tricky for multiple reasons. It’s bumpy as hell, full of hilly bits that follow the natural terrain rather than having been built flat. The circuit runs counterclockwise—one of only a handful that do—so it’s especially physically demanding because the strain on the driver’s body is ass-backward. And finally,the damned rain.

I’m watching the race from the Holden Beach house, where I’m staying alone. It might make me a bad daughter that I was relieved when my mother declined to join me here. I did stay with her for a week before heading to the coast, so I’m notentirely garbage. But when I asked whether she’d like to come along, she said she wasn’t ready yet.

Frankly,I’mnot ready yet. Dad’s ghost (speaking in a non-paranormal Cranky Science Nerd way) is everywhere. I see him gazing at the beach from the deck chairs, chuckling in the living room while eating ice cream in front of the TV, and I hear the comforting rumble of him talking with Mama down the hall as I fall asleep.

I’m not imagining I can smell him—Mo wore Brut by Fabergé my entire life, and it’s permeated the fabric of his recliner, where I now sit. It’s noon here when the race begins, and I wait until 12:01 before pouring a glass of scotch to make it acceptable because, y’know, it’s the afternoon now.

The start is delayed because the track is so wet. Commentators are killing time, trying to find human interest shit to blab about, broadcasting footage from the garages, nattering about driver strengths and weaknesses, and so on.

I cheer and raise a toast when Natalia shows up on the screen. Unfortunately for her, she’s standing next to that prick reporter Alexander Laskaris—the one she went on the failed date with. The guy’s a dipshit who happens to have great bone structure and journalism-royalty parents rather than talent, but he draws a lot of water at the magazine.

I can’t help my smirk when a commentator mentions that the weather conditions should be no problem for Cosmin because “Ardelean is fantastic in the rain.” The memory comes back to me with a surge of heat, being in the back seat ofthat Lincoln while rain hammered the roof and Cosmin hammered me.

Fantastic indeed.

It may seem callous that I blocked his number before I even left the hotel in Austin to head for the airport. But I know my limits. I once again proved I have no self-control where he’s concerned.

I haven’t determined yet whether I’m enough of an undisciplined garbage-monster that I’ll have to spend next season in the United States, or if I can set aside my unquenchable thirst for the infuriating asshole I’m in love with. Realistically, it’ll probably require that one or both of us gets into a new relationship—a prospect that sounds about as appealing as sucking on cardboard.

Cos had a tragically poor showing in the US Grand Prix a few days after I left. He qualified sixth, made two stupid mistakes, and bitched over the radio about tyre strategy, which meant he not only looked like a passive-aggressive team-undermining dick but a whiner for implying it was a strategic issue when anyone with eyes could see he was driving like crap.

I get that his lack of focus may be my fault.

Our fault.

They just flashed a view of Cosmin in the car, waiting, andmy God. Those intense, black-flecked blue eyes staring out from his helmet make me unconsciously stop breathing while he’s on-screen, as if the flutter of my breath might cause the camera to pan away.

The scene changes to a pair of dazzling-without-makeup female eyes—Sage Sikora in the white-and-sky-blue Harrier HR77. That freaky witch has doubled Team Harrier’s points in six races.

I’d be actively hoping for João Valle to be abducted by aliens and disappear from the sport to bequest Sage his seat, if it weren’t for the shrewd part of my brain that wonders how much money we’ll have to throw at her to lure her to Emerald.

It’s my call now; that’sonegood thing. My heart is broken, but I can insist we court the driver I want. Huzzah.

Jakob is a sweetheart, but his contract is up after next year, and Sage Sikora would be a feather in our cap. Mad talent plus the X factor of being a woman has the entire planet watching her. Can a biblical plague be agoodthing? Because if so, there’s a biblical plague of sponsor dollars poised to deluge the lucky team that “puts a ring on it” with the F1 It Girl.

I get myself inappropriately day-drunk over the hour delay, watching track stewards use push brooms to clear water off the low spots, and metaphorically dumping sand over the coals in my aching heart every time I spot Cos.

I check the satellite weather for São Paulo again and it doesn’t look good. Once the cars get going, there’s a chance another wave of rain will hit before even a half-ass dry line forms on the track. Any further delays and the race will time out before the full seventy-one laps.

By the time it starts, I’m pickled. Enough so that I’m commenting out loud as if Mo were here watching with me.

“Olsson—track limits again! What the hell is this, amateur hour?”

“Two defensive moves! Penalty, you beaky fucker!”

“Unsafe release! Christ, can the race stewards wake up?”

Things look exciting for Emerald—Cosmin’s chasing Powell for second.

He changed from full-wet to intermediate tyres at his last pit stop, which was risky. When he insisted on it over the radio, I literally growled in frustration. It feels too soon. If I were his race engineer today, I’d have questioned it. But Lars rolled over, so inters it is.

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