Page 24 of Rush
By the time she headed back to the table, her face looking a little brighter and her voice full of enthusiasm, he had her favourite dessert sitting in front of her. Jesse wasn’t the only one who remembered the little things.
Savannah sat down, their chairs still close from their practice kiss, and took a deep breath. ‘Jesse wants to fly us out to Los Angeles and meet the man who is fake-dating his girlfriend.’
10
Race day seemed to have taken an age to arrive, and Savi and her teammates had been wide awake since stupid o’clock, sitting in the hotel restaurant and eating what their team principal called a breakfast of champions.
‘How’s your buddy situation been going, Savi?’ Miko asked. ‘You two getting on okay?’
‘Great,’ she grinned. That was the truth, Marco had spent yesterday evening going over race strategies with her and teaching her everything he knew about the circuit. The best places to overtake, the areas to avoid the risk. He was taking his roles as a teammate and a buddy seriously, in addition to his one as fake boyfriend.
‘It’s so unfair,’ Kodie whined. ‘You get De Luca at your disposal whenever you want, but I keep losing Julien to babysitting duties.’
‘He’s not babysitting, Kodie. They’re his kids.’
‘Yeah but he brings them to our meetings. I had to hold Emmy through lunch the other day. I get there are two of them, because they were unfortunate enough to be cursed withtwins, but couldn’t he have put one in a highchair or something while he held the other, rather than dragging me into it? Better yet, get Faith to have them?’
‘Faith was filming content with me and Brett,’ Miko sheepishly admitted. Julien had let slip he was debatingretiring in a couple of years, but Savi couldn’t imagine him not being their teammate. The three guys were part of the furniture at this point.
‘It must be hard trying to balance everything. They only use their nanny on quali and race days, they give her the rest of race week off to see all the sights.’
‘Screw sightseeing, Sav! This rookie needs help!’
‘You don’t need help,’ Miko reassured her. ‘You’re great out there, Kodie. We all are.’
‘Morning, ladies.’ Brett swanned in with Marco and Jules hot on his tail, each holding one of the Moretz twins. Faith and Lucie followed soon after with camera bags and pushchairs. It was the picture of chaos, but it put a smile on Savi’s face. Revolution Racing was beginning to feel more like family for her.
‘Hi.’ Marco dropped down and greeted Savi with a kiss on the cheek, part of their plan to ease the team into the idea of them, and then Margot was reaching for her. She semi-reluctantly held her arms out and the almost-one year old crawled onto her lap.
‘Please don’t hand me the other one,’ Kodie winced.
‘Not a fan of kids, Kodie?’ Faith patted her on the shoulder and took her daughter from Julien so he could go and get breakfast from the continental buffet.
‘Absolutely not. Yours are cute, though. I’m not a witch, just… they’re loud. The most noise I can handle is that of an engine.’ She said it matter of factly, but she still sat there playing with Margot’s stuffed tiger.
‘Oh, I think Emmy wants Uncle Mars.’ Faith let the other twin clamber across to Marco who had seated himself nextto Savi, squashed up in the booth seat. He was in the process of helping himself to her untouched cup of coffee.
‘Of course she does,’ Brett rolled his eyes. ‘Uncle Brett’s love and affection is never enough.’ He removed himself from the table to join Julien while Savi and Marco found themselves making a tiger and a panda interact with squeaky voices.
‘You nervous about today?’ Marco spoke quietly.
‘A little,’ she confessed. ‘Although I’m not sure why. You’ve taught me everything you can about the track, and it’s not like it’s my first race.’
‘Could it be because this is our debut?’
‘There’s that, too. I’m mostly nervous for how the rest of the team will react.’
She would be lying if she said it hadn’t kept her awake last night, tossing and turning for hours and trying to quash the feeling of dread. Photos of their kiss at lunch hadn’t hit the media yet, and they may not. Cameras didn’t always follow them everywhere. But that meant there was more pressure on today, and their pre- or post-race kiss, whichever they opted for, would be an even bigger deal. It didn’t help matters that she hadn’t heard from Jesse since he’d invited her and Marco to LA.
‘We’ve got this, Cowgirl.’ He nudged her arm.
But as Margot cuddled up to her and Savi let herself get lost in baby snuggles and a drama-free breakfast, pushing all thoughts of Jesse aside in an effort to get her head back on race day, the butterflies in her stomach continued to flutter.
‘Savi, Mars, can we have a quick chat?’ A very dishevelled-looking Jasper pulled them aside on their way into the garage. There was a lot more pressure on his shoulders since bringing in a second car this season.
They followed him to team HQ and into a conference room, which was just a big table and chairs with some leafy green potted plants in the corner. It was basic, but it did the job. This was where they held drivers’ briefings, and also where they argued back and forth and analysed the race result on days things didn’t go quite right. To be dragged in for a private meeting was a whole different ball game, but Savi knew what this was about.
‘Sir,’ Marco nodded at their boss, prompting him to start talking.
