Page 47

Cherry

Twenty-two hours and thirty-four minutes after departing Melbourne, we land in Las Vegas.

The change in time zones can mess with a person’s head.

“We’re cutting it fine,” I tell Matt. We’re in the back of a taxi, crawling our way from the airport to the outskirts of the city.

Once we get there, we have to manoeuvre our way to the track on foot as the entire city block is closed to traffic.

Because, you know, there’s a street circuit race starting in two hours.

“I know.” He looks mildly concerned; a direct contrast to my visible panic. We can’t miss this race. It’s just too important. “We didn’t expect delays in both Melbourne and LAX.”

This is one of the many pitfalls of air travel these days. You now can never expect to land anywhere on time, and you just have to accept it as a part of life. For the price we paid for this Qantas fare, we should have been delivered to Las Vegas airport a few hours early.

But alas, this was not the case .

We inch along with the thousands of other cars making their way to the racetrack and my eyes stay glued to my Maps app. Which, at this rate, has us arriving just before lights out.

“How did you get tickets to the race without contacting Nicky?” I ask to distract myself from the fact that we’re travelling so slowly , we may as well be going backwards.

Matt’s cheeks heat and he gives me shifty eyes. “Um, I didn’t.”

I frown. “You didn’t, what?”

“Get tickets.”

For the first time in years, I’m this close to punching my brother in the face. Of all the stupid things…

“What do you mean, you didn’t get tickets? Being there at the track to support Nicky is the whole point of us being here.”

He shrugs and I wonder again how we are related. I’m an anxious person and Matt is so blasé, he barely has a pulse.

“If you haven’t forgotten, we’ve both got inside connections with the team. We can just message someone when we get close.”

This makes sense, though I’m loathe to message Serena to ask for help. I know she was hurt when I just disappeared without saying goodbye after that race in Singapore and the last thing that I want to do is call for a favour when we’re rebuilding our friendship.

Hmm. Who else to ask? Definitely not Frieda.

“I’ll message James,” I say at last. “See what he can do.”

Matt nods. “Yeah, he’s a great guy. He’ll be able to sort us out.”

With this ‘insignificant’ problem solved in his mind, he leans his head back and closes his eyes.

I watch him for a bit, envious of his ability to shut off.

We’ve been travelling for over a day now and as exhausted as I am, there’s no way I’d be able to relax like that.

Not with what I’ve got coming up. The stakes are too high for me .

“James just messaged. He said to text him when we’re outside the Paddock. He’ll come get us.”

Matt peels one eye open and his smile has ‘I told you so’ written all over it. “And he’ll keep it a secret?”

I show him James’ last message, complete with exclamation marks and a wink smiley face. The man is on the Cher-icky ship.

“Great. Now you can relax.”

I snort. There’s no chance of that happening soon.

“This is as far as I can take you,” our taxi driver says a short time later into the silence that had descended on us. He points to the barricades up ahead with a grunt. “Stupid race takes over the whole damn city.”

Matt pays the exorbitant fare and we collect our luggage. “Which way?” he asks.

Consulting my app, I point. “The ‘dome’ will act as our guide.”

The ‘dome’ is a giant digital sphere in the middle of the track, lit up in glorious technicolour, which cycles through each of the drivers' faces, blowing them up to almost grotesque proportions.

“Let’s go.”

We follow my Map app’s directions, taking a few wrong turns, thanks to all the tall buildings messing with the GPS signal. When we near the Paddock, I message James, all the while patting my twisting and turning stomach.

“Cherry.”

Nicky’s bodyguard, and my friend, stands on the other side of the fence waiting for us when we get there.

“And Matt!”

The two men grin at each other as he lets us in through the Vortex Motors team entrance.

“It’s good to see you. Both of you,” James says, giving my brother a manly thump on the shoulder .

I grin at him. “I’m happy to see you, too.”

The look he gives me is careful. “It’s a big day for Nicky.”

“We know,” I rush to acknowledge what he’s not saying. “We’re not here to distract him. Is there any way you can sneak us in without him knowing?”

He nods. “Yeah, I’ll take you up to the sponsor’s box. He won’t ever bother to look up there.”

Matt chuckles. “Nicky hates all that corporate nonsense.”

We follow behind James, and I stick close to my brother, keeping my head down to avoid any attention on me. If anyone was to catch wind of my presence here today, it would get back to Nicky, and that’s the last thing he needs.

When I abruptly left the team after Singapore, the media had a field day with it, saying I’d fled the country in the middle of the night (which, fair, is what I did).

So many articles were written about Nicky as the jilted lover or me as the scorned broken woman, or a mixture of them both.

Neither of us has issued any sort of official statement, so as far as the press and the public are concerned, our relationship is in limbo.

Again, fair. And also, true.

“Thank you, James.” I squeeze his hand in gratitude as he sneaks us up to a spot where no one will pay us any attention.

“Cherry, I hope you’re here to stay this time. Nicky won’t survive it if you leave him again.”

Nibbling on my bottom lip, with my eyes stinging, I can only nod in response.

“Don’t worry, dude. I’ve spoken to her. Sorted it all out.” Matt and James chuckle together and I smile weakly. My mind is stuck on what James had just disclosed.

How badly have I hurt Nicky? And what will it take for him to forgive me ?

The drivers take off on their formation lap and Matt leans back in his seat with a smug sigh. “See? Nothing to worry about. We got here right on time.”

I give him a withering stare. If just one more thing had gone even slightly wrong, we would have missed the entire race altogether.

“You need to chill out, Cherry. There’s a whole ninety-plus minutes left to see if Nicky’s World Champion. And if you’re like this the whole time, you’ll have no fingernails left.”

My hands drop from my mouth and I settle for bouncing my legs up and down.

Leading into this race, Nicky has a twenty-six-point lead over Nate, so the F1 maths dictates that he only needs to finish one spot ahead of his rival and he will be crowned Drivers’ Champion at the checkered flag.

With Nicky starting on pole and Nate down in P3, the odds are in his favour.

“Here we go.” Matt leans forward to watch the race start, his thick brows drawn down, belying his relaxed attitude. He wants his best friend to win this almost as much as I do.

“Come on, Nicky. You can do this,” I murmur softly. He works so hard and sacrifices so much; he deserves this win more than anyone.

“It’s lights out and away we go!”

Matt and I remain on the literal edge of our seats, not talking and sometimes not breathing as the race unfolds. Nicky keeps the lead off the line, and by the end of the lap, he has a comfortable three-second gap to the driver behind him.

“He just can’t get too comfortable,” Matt says. “Anything can happen here.”

This we know too well. An untimely safety car can bring down a whole championship. It’s happened before .

“It’s looking good,” Matt mutters twenty-seven laps later. I shush him, glaring at him from the corner of my eye. It’s way too early to even be thinking those thoughts, let alone putting them out into the universe.

Has he not heard of the commentator’s curse before?

“Sis, he’s twenty seconds in front with thirteen laps to go.”

“Shut. Up.” He’s going to jinx it all.

Matt mimes zipping his lips, then takes my hand in his. I squeeze it tight and barely breathe, counting the laps down until the very last one.

“Can I say something now?” he pipes up as Nicky starts the last lap of the race, now thirty seconds in the lead.

“No.” I grin at him, excitement bubbling, taking over where the nerves had just been. There’s now just one minute and twenty-three seconds between Nicky and the checkered flag. Between Nicky and his fifth World Championship Title.

Between Nicky and legendary status.

“People doubted he had it in him to get the job done this year, but as he rounds the final corner, cementing this emphatic win, there’s no denying what a superstar racing driver he is.

As he crosses the line and the checkered flag falls, the Australian driver will reclaim his crown.

Nicolai Dimitrios is the champion of the world, for the fifth time. ”

Tears stream down my face as fireworks explode over the racetrack.

“He did it!” Matt lifts me into a crushing hug and I sob against his chest.

“Yes!”

All the pent-up emotion bursts from me and I’m grinning and crying at the same time.

“It looks like he’s in shock,” Matt says as I wipe my eyes .

I glance at the big screen, which is zoomed in on Nicky as he remains seated in the cockpit of his car. He’s so still; it’s like he’s unaware of what he’s just done. What he’s just achieved.

“It must be a surreal feeling,” I say, concern flickering through me as I watch him unmoving in his car. “I bet he’s soaking it all in.”

Matt nods. “Let’s try to get down there.”

Now that the race is done and won, along with the Championship title, I’m right behind him. Every part of me wants to be close to Nicky, to tell him I love him, to celebrate this victory with him.

“Okay.”

We move through the traffic created by the jubilant crowd, the sponsors enjoying backing the winning team, and head down to the Vortex Motors garage.

“Cherry?”