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“Hi.”
“You did your first practice session.”
“Yeah.”
“And you did really well.”
My pulse flutters. “You think so?”
“Yeah. You were flying on that last lap.”
I laugh. “How would you know?”
“I was watching on the track screens.”
“You were—seriously?”
He shrugs. “I was on a cool-down lap.”
He says it likes it’s nothing, and I’m struck by the magnitude of the skill gap between us. I don’t think I even noticed the track screens. Or the grandstands, or the crowds, or anything that wasn’t directly in front of me. There were times I literally stopped myself from blinking, because even that tiny lapse of attention would have doomed me.
“Give it a few years,” Travis says. “You’ll get used to it.”
“If I get a seat, you mean.”
“If you keep driving like that, I don’t see how you won’t. Now, c’mon.” He smacks me playfully. “Let’s get some food.”
“Did you seriously just slap my ass?” I ask.
“Punishment for that Cole Milton comment,” he says, his eyes dancing. “Don’t do it again.”
A warm pulse of blood moves through me, and as I follow him from the room, I make a mental note to do it again very soon.
We grab food at the Harper Team Hub, which has much better food than Crosswire’s. The first few times I ate here with Travis, it felt sort of awkward, but now I don’t think much about it. Some people at Harper know we’re dating, some think we’re good friends, and most probably haven’t given the matter any thought. Travis isn’t a hotshot celebrity to them, he’s just a guy they work with every day.
The chefs do have a soft spot for him, though. One of them grates a little extra parmesan onto his pasta and winks at me when I notice her do it.
We sit down at a table with Matty and Heather, who are deep in conversation over half-finished plates. Heather looks a bit frustrated, and Matty looks evasive, which is not uncommon these days. Matty’s had a difficult season so far. His first few races were okay, fourths and fifths to Travis’s firsts and seconds, but then he had a string of bad luck with crashes and mechanical issues, and since then, his results have been…worse.
Much worse. Struggling-to-get-out-of-Q1 worse.
He slaps on a wide smile when he sees us coming, though, and says, “Yo! It’s the man of the hour.” He grips my shoulder and shakes me roughly as I sit down beside him. “You killed it out there, rookie. Five out of five stars, for real.”
I laugh. “Thanks. Did you see Travis try to kill me?”
“I did. Totally unacceptable. The stewards should give him at least a ten-place grid penalty.”
Travis snorts. “You’re hilarious.”
“Would you have preferred that he run over a dog?” Heather asks.
“Fuck, no,” Matty says. “That little bastard was adorable. Or little bitch, maybe.”
“Matty.”
“What? It’s the proper name for a girl dog!”
“Did they manage to catch it?” Travis asks.
