Page 96 of Double Apex

There’s enough of a dry line forming that Powell’s full-wet tyres are degrading fast—they need the water to avoid overheating. He’s obviously gonna box soon. Which is why I cannot believe my eyes when it becomes clear that Cosmin is about to try overtaking.

I jump to my feet, arms flung out. “What the hell are you doing?” I rage.

Admittedly, the opening is tempting, but it’s such maverick bullshit that if I could get my hands on him, I’d strangle the guy. Leaving the racing line, inters are rubbish—they shift only about 35 percent of the water full-wet tyres do.

Is he blind?What’s telling him this move is smart?

I clench my hair as I watch the inevitable crash. The safety car comes out—Powell and everyone else must be throwing air-kisses at Cosmin for gifting them with basically a free pit stop.

Lovely. More points Drew Powell (who already has the driver’s championship locked down) and Allonby Racing don’t need, and which Emeralddoes.

Seeing Cosmin climb from the car causes one second of relief before I want to punch him in the back of the head for crashing out of a points-paying position that might’ve solidified us third place in the constructors’ championship.

World champion driver status is great for the cock of the walk who clinches it. It’s the public face of Formula 1, and what everyone thinks of when they hear “world championship.” Drivers are the glamour and sex appeal of the sport, with their swaggering egos, seductive accents, and thirst-trap workout videos splashed on social media.

But what a team wants most is to bag theconstructors’championship, because that’s what determines the bottom line—prize money—and money makes a team run. The points for the constructors’ championship are the same as those awarded to the drivers: dependent on where they finish during the race. But those points are combined, so ifbothdrivers finish in the top ten, it can amount to a good haul for their team.

This is precisely why I’m throwing a drunk hissy fit in front of the TV, yelling at stupid Cosmin about how many millions of dollars he’s potentially cost us. As I pace in the living room, ranting a shrill inventory of his crimes, I notice tears are running down my cheeks, and the rant has gotten very personal.

Slapping my hands over my face, I stomp blindly toward the recliner. I step on the edge of a party-size bowl of cheesypoofs, and it flips up, slamming me on the shin hard enough that I rage-shriek and collapse in front of the chair.

I let myself cry for a while, and as I trail off into whining and sniffling, I realize I have my arms draped on the recliner as if my dad were in it and I’m still the little kid who would sit on the floor and lean against his knees while we watched TV.

I grope for the remote and turn the race off. Silence descends.

I haul myself up and put on a coat and the rain boots I’ve had since I was fourteen. Dad got them for me because they have cartoon birds on them and he always called me chickadee, and that’s what the birds sort of look like. The boots are too tight now, but I still love them.

I walk outside and down to the water’s edge to talk to Mo, like he told me to.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, Mo,” I say. “Everything fucking sucks. You didn’t want me to be, but… I’m in love with Cosmin and I’m miserable without him.”

A wave races up and seethes around my boots, which sink into the sand an inch.

“If you were here,” I go on, “you could tell me what to do. That’s the one flaw in your ‘Come down to the ocean and talk to me’ suggestion—the conversation just goes one way, and I have to guess your replies.” A grim chuckle escapes me. “Fortunately I know you pretty well.”

I give a sheepish look at the waves.

“I’m the same with Cosmin. Even back when I couldn’t stand the guy, we were in each other’s heads from the firstday. I never thought I could know a person who wasn’t you this well. Weird, huh? And depressing, since I one hundred percent can’t be with him.”

I shake my head, lips pressed in a determined line.

“But I’m not going to disappoint the team—you’ll see. I’ll make you proud.”

I stare at my boots, pulling them free of the sand.

“Dammit, Mo! I could use some advice. Maybe an email?” I joke.

I’m studying one of the cartoon birds when a crazy thought flashes through me with such a shock that I gasp.

Chickadee.

Email.

Fuck!

I pivot and sprint back to the house. I’m laughing like a maniac as I wrestle the boots off and drop them, then rush to my laptop.

Of course I don’t remember the password for [email protected], because I haven’t used it in like four years. I basically use only my work email, because who the hell emails for anythingotherthan work?

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