Page 96 of Hot Lap
Ona touches my arm, and I meet her dark gaze. There’s understanding behind her eyes. She knows what I’m feeling. She’s already accepted this risk. I nod, release the console, and return my focus to the screen.
I've spent the last week thinking about whether I could fit into Reece’s world, but I've been asking myself the wrong question. Because belonging and adapting is easy. The real question is if I can carry the weight of loving someone who does something this dangerous, this astonishing, and this absolutely fucking terrifying week after week after week.
Can I say goodbye to him over and over not knowing if I’ll get another chance to say hello?
I look around the garage at all these people who've made their peace with this threat. They show up every race weekend knowing that any of these cars could turn from machine to missile in the space of a heartbeat. They love these drivers enough to build their lives around this calculated madness.
I turn back to watch as Reece's car weaves behind the safety car.
He’s been through so fucking much to get where he is. Endured mental and physical punishment, obstacles his ownfatherthrew in his path. Reece Ayrton Pritchard is a master class in sheer grit, and he loves racing. He must. There’s no other explanation for why he carries on despite the unrelenting discipline and undeniable dangers of this sport.
That’s a kind of bravery I understand. Not because what I do is dangerous, but because it’s defiant.
And that’s what I think I love about Reece. While my defiance is naked, raw, and in your face, his is quiet, methodical, andunrelenting. The world says we’re crazy for what we do. We shrug and do it anyway. Because we love it. It’s the blood in our veins and the breath in our lungs.
We are wired wrong for society, but right for each other. Two sides of the same coin.
I watch his green and pink car flow around the track, and I feel it.
Not just acceptance.
Choice.
This is what he loves. This is who he is. If I'm going to be his wife, then this is what I'm choosing too. The glory, terror, podiums, crashes, champagne, risk.
All of it.
I’m choosing all of Reece, just like last night he chose all of me.
The safety car pulls off the track. The lights go green. And they're racing again without fanfare or drama. It’s just the pure violence of speed snapping back into place.
This time I don't flinch. I lean forward like everyone else in the Nitro garage. Only a fearless idiot would do what Reece Pritchard does, and only a bigger, more fearless idiot would fall for him.
His green and pink car remains in P4. He explained last night that part of being a team player is protecting the faster car. Today that’s Petra. It means Reece needs to get ahead of Lynch’s red and white car, then keep the Telco driver behind him. He’s slowly managed to close the time gap between them over the course of the race with relentless, inch-by-inch precision. Now, the safety car has bunched up the field, giving him the perfect opportunity to seize third place from Lynch, just like he did yesterday.
Reece drives like a man who uses Crest toothpaste and only wears black boxer briefs and classic watches. Consistent,reliable, dogged. This man I married isn’t flashy or aggressive. He’s relentless.
Which, I realize, is why we work. I’m the pizazz he needs. He’s the reliability I’ve been missing.
Misho’s voice crackles in the headset. “DRS window. Deploy as needed.”
“Copy.”
The timing screen shows that Reece understands the assignment as one more tenth, then another, fall between his car and the Telco just ahead.
My husband is hunting Lynch Sutton.
Two laps later, he gets it done. The pass is clinical and so fast I almost miss it. A blur of green and pink slices inside the Telco car’s line, then slips back onto the racing line like it was nothing.
There’s a soft exhale behind me from one of the tire techs. A subtle nod from someone near the telemetry station.
They don’t cheer here. Not during the move. They feel it, and right now, that feeling is good.
Reece locks into third place, a defensive wall between Petra and the rest of the field.
In first place, Nico’s too far ahead and untouchable today; there’s a reason he’s already clinched his fourth Drivers’ World Championship. Reece holds off Lynch and Wyn, lap after lap.
Even to my newbie’s eyes it’s obvious he’s not driving defensively. He’s locked in and controlling his position.
