Page 23 of Faster

Chapter Fifteen

Micaela didn’t love rainy races. Didn’t love driving them. And she hadn’t loved watching her dad in them as a kid. Rain at Suzuka made her even more uneasy. People had died when it rained at this track.

But it was a lot of drivers’ favorite track in the wet. The grid got out of order when it rained. People who shouldn’t win races made gambles that paid off. Or didn’t.

It was the precisely wrong race for her to have a chance of being out of position.

The track had started out dry. About five laps in, it had started to mist. And five laps after that, it had started to rain hard enough that her tires were slipping.

It was too early for a pit stop in the carefully calculated race strategy, but it didn’t matter.

If she wanted to finish this race with her car and body intact, she’d have to stop and put on wets.

She also hated the pit lane during the beginning of a bout of rain. Everything was chaotic and everyone was a little on edge. Rain might have been in the forecast, but the sky had been clear all day. And they’d moved the race from October to April to avoid conditions like this.

Fortunately, no one hit her as she pulled into the pits.

Brent had stopped on the lap before her, so she had a lot of time to make up.

Her tires came off without a problem, and the whole stop lasted 1.

7 seconds of stationary time. But it felt like a billion heartbeats between when she stopped and when she got going again.

“Perfect pit stop, Micaela.” She was surprised to hear Liam’s voice over the radio. She usually only heard from her engineer, Frankie.

“Thank you.” She didn’t smile, even though praise from Liam was really nice to hear. In any other context, she’d probably melt a little. But her heart was still in her stomach thinking about where she would rejoin the race.

“Almost everyone has pitted in front of you, Micaela,” Frankie said in her light Scottish accent.

When they’d started together in the first open-wheel series after graduating from karting, Frankie had been nearly impossible for Micaela to understand.

But her engineer had worked on her enunciation for “Mikey’s delicate and fragile ears,” and Micaela had started listening to a series of audiobooks narrated by a Scot.

They’d come together. “But that means that they’ll have to pit before you again.

The rain is supposed to last another thirty minutes.

Just hold tight, and you’ll be able to push until the end. ”

Frankie was talking too much. Micaela slotted in between two other drivers from backmarker teams. Shit.

“Where am I?”

Again, she was surprised when Liam spoke. “You’re in P14. On the current strategy, you’re projected to finish P4.”

Most of the time during races, she liked to pretend Liam couldn’t see her. She knew she wouldn’t perform at her best if she thought he was always watching everything she did. Well, she got a sick thrill from thinking about him watching certain things she did, but she couldn’t think about that now.

And she hated that the highest she could finish on the current strategy was P4. She needed to get on the podium again. She needed to be on the top of the podium. But this was not the kind of race that was going to let her hunt for glory. It was the kind of race she just had to survive.

She felt like she was on her own for several laps. Frankie knew how nervous the rain made her, and her engineer knew she needed more silence when she was nervous. She wondered if Frankie had told Liam about her not loving the rain, and that’s why he’d spoken over her radio during the race.

The rain started to let up. She would be able to strap on slick tires in a few more laps.

“Frankie, I want to get in before Brent to put on mediums. I know I can beat him.” She kind of hoped that Liam was listening.

It was very odd to compete for her boss’s approval with his own son.

But she didn’t even think about Brent in that context anymore.

She didn’t even think of him as her ex. She thought of him as competition that needed to be vanquished.

And, when she was behind the wheel of this beast of a car, she felt completely invincible.

Frankie didn’t respond right away, and Micaela started to wonder what was going on. “Bendetto and Harrow crashed at the front.” Micaela saw the yellow flag and safety car lights come on immediately and she slowed down.

“Are they okay?” That was always the first concern when there was a crash. It didn’t matter at all how much she hated another driver. If there was a crash, she wanted them to walk away from it unscathed. Even though acceptance of death was a requirement in this sport, it didn’t mean you wanted it.

“They both walked away, but they’re both out of the race.” That was the best kind of crash. “We’re just strategizing.”

Micaela hated waiting for them to strategize, but she tried to suppress her impatience. It was one of her best and worst qualities. But the team needed a few moments to revise their plan for the rest of the race.

“Okay, it’s going to take them several minutes to clear the chicane. We want to double stack the stops and strap on hards.” So, they’d crashed on the Casio Chicane right before the pit lane—a wild and desperate place to make a move.

“What?” Micaela didn’t question Frankie often, but hard tires were probably the worst choice for her.

“We’re going to keep you out until the end of the race.”

Micaela didn’t know how to feel. She knew Frankie had to believe there was a good chance of her winning if she was willing to try something this risky—if the strategist agreed with her.

There was every chance her tires could fall off a cliff at the last moment.

If there was another safety car, then all this might be for nothing.

“You’re sure?” She hoped she didn’t sound as scared as she felt.

“We know you can do this, Micaela. You take good care of the tires, and you’re smarter than everyone on that track,” Liam said. So, he was on board with this plan too. And he thought she was smart. Most girls wouldn’t have pants feelings about their tire management, but Micaela wasn’t most girls.

“Head down, Micaela.” Frankie knew she was spiraling.

“Got it.”

Micaela stood on top of the podium, next to her teammate, and raised the trophy above her head. She had no idea what she’d said to the former driver that had interviewed the top three after the race. In her head, all she heard was the rush of blood and adrenaline from winning.

She’d won tons of races before just to get here, but this was special. Only the best won races in this series. It didn’t matter that two of the top contenders had crashed to make this happen. She was the winner.

Liam stood behind her on the dais to collect the prize for the top constructor.

She’d been expecting to see Frankie in the cooldown room and was surprised to see him instead.

He had a reputation for shining the spotlight on other team members out of some faux-egalitarian, American thing, but he was there.

She looked over her shoulder at him, and they locked eyes. Something danced in the atmosphere between them that she would name as attraction if he were anyone else.

They started playing “God Save the King,” so she turned around and put the trophy down. Then, they played the “Star-Spangled Banner,” which people didn’t get to hear very often before Panther Motors had signed her. Before she’d won this race today.

She was vibrating with excitement, and the cork from the bottle of champagne they gave them to spray almost hit her in the chin. Liam frowned at her and looked like he was about to tell her to be careful, but she started laughing.

Brent smirked at her and sprayed sticky, fizzy wine right in her face.