Page 93 of Hot Lap
I smile. “Mr. Pritchard, you do realize if thiswasNASCAR, I’d be wearing a helluva lot less, right?”
Reece laughs and doesn’t let go.
I keep my shoulders back and my chin up. If people are gonna look, they can take in the full show.
A pair of kids steps into his path with wide eyes and matching Nitro caps. The boy, who’s maybe ten, is holding a small pad of paper. The girl clutches a homemade poster and a pen. She’s probably thirteen.
“Reece?” the boy asks. “Can we get your autograph, please?”
My husband stops without hesitation. He signs the poster and the notepad, and answers a question about corner speed with a grin that’s way too charming for someone who just pushed a car to the edge of physics yesterday.
Then the girl looks at me. Her voice is soft but sure. “You’re Maiken, right?”
I blink. “Yeah.”
“You’re amazing.” Her eyes are wide. “That post yesterday? The one with the red corset and the roses? My big sister saved it. We’re obsessed.”
I open my mouth, but I’m stunned stupid.
She adds, “Also, your outfit today is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Reece grins at her. “I know, right?”
The girl beams, and her brother nudges her with a look that says, “Stop being embarrassing,” but she doesn’t seem to care.
Hell, neither do I.
“Thank you. That means a lot to me.”
Reece signs one last thing and stands as the kids are ushered away by a smiling adult. He leans close. “You good?”
“Better than.”
He grabs my hand again. “Let’s go raise some hell.”
I laugh and flip my hair. “Damn straight, RP.”
We continue along the paddock, waylaid by more fans wanting his autograph, people from other teams saying hello, other drivers he introduces me to but whose names I immediately forget. It’s impossible to get anywhere fast. Oh, the irony.
Ona and Claudia catch up with us as we near the Nitro garage.
Reece squeezes my fingers. “I’ve gotta go get my head in it. You’ll be with Claudia, yeah?”
“Sure. Go do your thing. I’ll be fine.”
He nods and disappears into the garage with Ona at his side, already slipping into whatever internal zone he goes to when it's time to race.
Claudia hands me a headset as we enter the PNW Nitro garage, which is good because everything hits me all at once.
The smell is powerful — hot rubber, scorched metal, something sharp and electric, and another odor that’s sweet and burnt and kinda lingers at the back of my throat. The sound is even more overwhelming — hissing air compressors, fifty voices talking over radio comms, boots on concrete, the clatter of metal tools, and pneumatic tire thingies that sound violent as fuck.
Above it all, is the rumble of the car. It vibrates through the concrete and into my bones with an irregular, almost impatientrhythm. It's not the smooth idle of any car I've ever heard. This thing sounds like it's barely tolerating being held back, and even at rest, it’s ready to tear someone’s fucking head off and eat their liver. It’s a gleaming lethal beast. And I can’t believe my husband commands it.
I put on the headset. The world dulls instantly, but not entirely as I follow Claudia to a bank of monitors at the rear of the garage.
She dons her own headset and I hear her voice in my ears. “This stays on. These engines aren’t forgiving.”
I nod and look around at all the motion. It’s a choreographed dance, and that’s something I understand. This is where everything happens. Where the polished face of Formula 1 slips off, and the machine underneath bares its teeth.
