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Challenger Championship
Race Three
Jameson
“Jameson! Have you processed that the next few hours will change your future? Do you still think you can beat Theo given your injury? How do you feel about your chances today?”
The reporters are a throng of phones and lights, pressing question after question as if they expect me to divine my future in convenient soundbites.
It’s the final test in the Challenger Championship at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
The circuit is the nearest one to Ashford HQ and the academy, so all of the company’s employees and stakeholders are in attendance. The track itself is compact, tricky, and unforgiving.
It’s all I’ve wanted my entire life. Driving the fastest cars in the world. Racing the best. But suddenly it feels empty. I told myself the hole inside my chest would be filled once I got the seat. That was before I learned exactly what we’ve allowed to happen in the name of success, achievement.
I always needed to prove myself.
Why was I born first? Why am I more deserving than Theo? Why do we both have the name, but I get all the perks?
Now, it feels as if I have to demonstrate there’s something good to come out of ARI, and out of my family. I can’t make all of the suffering—Shay’s, Dekker’s, who knows how many others’—worthwhile. But I can do everything in my power to try.
Pre-race media ends and the morning is a blur. There’s the tension of race day, the banners in the crowds, the cameras capturing footage to broadcast around the world.
After a month of supposed healing, my body still hurts. But I can’t afford weakness. The stakes are too high for anything less than all I have to give.
Theo and I run into each other coming out of the changing room.
“Shay’s not coming,” he says.
My head snaps up. “Since when?”
He adjusts the collar of his fire suit, fastening the snap at the neck. “You tell me.”
My brother’s eyes are calmer than usual. Instead of the amused irreverence that normally lives there, I see genuine disappointment.
Theo grew up. Part of me’s satisfied to see it, but I hate that it’s me he’s disappointed in. All those years I tried to be what he needed, and I failed him anyway.
“You better hope Megan didn’t fuck up your car.” He glances over toward the engineer across the garage. Her glower when she spots me answers whether she knows about Shay.
I’m still using the setup they advised on.
Even given what I said, deep down I figured she’d be here today. She deserves to be, and it’s one more thing I’ve taken from her.
I’ve been haunted by our last conversation. Of course I shouldn’t have expected her to go down easy. But the way she fought for me, fought for us…
I thought I’d buried the hurt, but it snakes out a tentacle and stings deep in my chest.
Shay worked her ass off for this moment, and I told her to go. I said horrible things in the name of showing her exactly how little she has in the world, thanks to me and the company that bears my family name.
The speakers crackle to life, and both our attention lifts to the podium at the head of the VIP area of the track.
Our father fills the podium. He’s in his element, as much as he can be outside of a car.
“This day will decide our future as a company, and an industry. Nothing will stand in the way of Ashford Racing.”
There’s a grim edge to his voice, a finality and satisfaction that used to be comforting, but now is unsettling. What he’s not saying is that one person could still get in the way of ARI’s future.
One person.
