Page 10 of Green Flag (StormSprint #2)

Everly

The track was chaos. A level of organised chaos, but chaos all the same.

I did as I was told, Abbé laughing at how flustered I suddenly was. There were hundreds of people waiting to get onto the tarmac. The buzz didn’t feel… good. It felt more like a scandal. Hushed whispers echoed and greedy glances anticipated any news.

They weren’t looking at me.

People had whispered about me at StormSprint when rumours had spilled across the pit lane like petrol. But it hadn’t felt as open as this.

“First proper day,” Abbé commented with a smile. His cap was low across his face, trying to hide from the sun. “How did your tours go?”

“Fine,” I mumbled, looking around for my dad. He should be here. What could be so important for him to be absent? “Nothing really to report. Hardly any people wanted tours.”

I’d been so ready to show people the facilities and tell them everything I knew about the bikes, but so few people had shown up, and those who did needed a thorough education on racing.

All they cared about was getting photos and spotting the racers, which was fine, but they wanted more gossip than expertise.

Though I guessed I’d also been on the lookout for my own racer, hoping to run into Luca.

“A lot of people wanted to stay for the inquiry,” he muttered. “Just wanting the latest drama.”

Really, I wished I’d been able to stay for it too. But that hadn’t been possible when I had a job to do. One I had to excel at. If I couldn’t do well here, a job I had been subconsciously raised for, I couldn’t work anywhere.

I twirled my mum’s ring.

“You’ll be fine,” he said. “You’ve done the hardest part. After the race, they’ll want some shots of the whole team. Normally, they would want to interview fresh meat, but… I guess you’re not particularly fresh, are you?”

“Hey!” I cried and half-heartedly slapped his arm. My focus was on the grid spaces, trying to find twelfth place, where Luca would need to pull up. If I was still with Nix, I’d be up in second.

I would have to talk to Luca, just the two of us. My stomach flip-flopped in nervous excitement like I was a teenager in front of her celebrity crush.

He was startlingly attractive; anyone could see that. He was a good guy, there was no doubt. But last night… he’d weakened me to my knees.

I wanted to go again.

“Well, that, and the inquiry’s making the press act differently. My phone malfunctioned it’s had so many calls.”

That was right; I doubted Luca would be up for chit-chat.

“Probably because your phone is from the 90s, Abbé.”

“That doesn’t help, I guess,” he said with a laugh as the bikes turned the corner.

The noise was a roar of testosterone and I wished I’d taken the earplugs that Abbé had offered because I tried not to grimace in discomfort.

He was talking as he passed me the Ciclati flag decorated with ‘68’, but I didn’t hear his words until the engines cut out. “Hold this high.”

The bodies behind us rushed forward to get on the grid, and we were taken along with them through the swarm, though Abbé aimed for higher up the grid.

“You’re leaving me?”

“I need to talk to Nix. Then I’ll leave him to talk to Luca,” he shouted through the crowd as he was swallowed up by a sea of mechanics and press. “As Livie said, you just have to smile!”

“Okay,” I sighed, spat out by the pushers onto the tarmac. I gathered myself and followed the other girls’ lead. Flag high. Did I want to hold my flag higher than the others? Did I want to be the best? Yes.

But I also didn’t want to embarrass myself, so I held it half-heartedly, jealous of the women who had straight, tanned arms and biceps that were lean enough to be seen. Tanned and toned.

Proper grid girls.

Not the faux one I was.

I still wasn’t at the twelfth half-rectangle. I didn’t doubt I could find Luca in any crowd, leathered and helmeted. But the 68 on his back was helpful.

Cameras, Ever, there are cameras. Look like you have your shit together.

Luca’s front tyre wasn’t even a centimetre off the white line of twelfth place.

He was laughing as he pulled off his helmet, smiling at the rider in front of him, Cesari, as they both spoke in Italian. Cesari was almost wetting himself with laughter, hitting the bike’s engine.

When I saw Luca earlier, I tried to avoid him, embarrassed about the night before. Did he think I was a frigid bitch? Leading him on? He’d triggered goosebumps over every inch of my skin, made me come twice, and had me breaking out in a sweat.

I hadn’t even touched him. What a greedy, selfish—

He wasn’t thinking about me, his laugh so free and comforting. And completely unexpected.

“You okay?” I asked. I had mentally prepared for multiple possibilities since I left the pit box and he was debriefed on how the press meeting had gone. Anger, calm, outright depression. Not humour.

He nodded and took the can of drink I offered with a thanks. I pulled my flag from the belt strap as Livie had taught me. Then I lifted the umbrella into the sky, shading him from the incessant sun.

“Fine,” he said, but turned his smile on me. It didn’t quite reach his eyes. “How are you? How’s your head?”

“No complaints,” I told him, searching for the mechanics. Everyone in our colours of red and green was at Nix’s side. “I might have been a little late getting up. I’m in Dad’s bad books for it.”

“Just the place we intended,” he said with a grin.

There was no nervous energy about him, not about the race, nor being around me after last night.

Thank god.

Because the thought of Luca Mendes not liking me? Not acceptable. Him avoiding me like I had him this morning? An overwhelming depth of sadness pitched in my chest at the thought of it, which was stupid because I hardly knew the guy.

“I’m glad we’re not awkward about it,” I said, shrugging.

“Nothing to be awkward about,” he said with a laugh. “We’re friends. Who happen to kiss.”

But I didn’t hear if he said happen or happened. And that wasn’t all that had happened between us.

I could really do with a friend. I’d expected some messages from people at uni asking if I was coming back, but I’d had nothing.

When I went through my contacts, there were very few people I could really talk to. Given the weight of what I was planning to do at Ciclati, a friend would probably be good for me.

“You really did enjoy kissing me,” I said with a whimsical sigh. “My lips hurt.”

I’d woken to a swollen bottom lip from the way we’d ravaged each other.

“Of course I did,” he laughed. “Who wouldn’t enjoy kissing you?”

I looked around to check no one was paying any attention to us. They looked over, but not close enough to hear.

“But, really, how are you?” I asked, but he looked to Abbé, who came over with a wave.

“Right, Luca, you alright?” he asked.

“I am fine, ” he stressed. With me he had been light-hearted, with Abbé… was there such a thing as heavy-hearted? “Ready to race.”

“So you are,” Abbé said, throwing a look of warning my way, before reminding him of something related to the changed tyre pressure and the bikes.

Luca nodded but didn’t say anything as the mechanics got to work beside our feet.

“Right, well, okay. Good luck.”

“Thanks,” he muttered.

And the second he was gone, the press descended.

“Mendes!” one of them shouted before launching forward and right in front of Luca’s front wheel, almost straddling it. “You were absent for the inquiry,” they said. They paused, expecting Luca to say something, but he remained silent. “We were expecting you to be there.”

“I’ve read the report and know what the StormSprint and Ciclati press release said. I didn’t need to be there.”

“Any thoughts you’d like to share?”

Three more press arrived in the time he asked that question.

While Luca’s jaw stiffened. “I am glad changes have been made to the helmets. I am saddened by what my cousin has gone through. My publicist made it clear to you all that there would be time for questions with Ciclati after the race, not at the beginning.”

“Yes, well—”

“Do you think the helmet changes are satisfactory?” another asked.

“I have been assured they are,” he said with a sigh. He was paling. I wanted to reach out to hold his leather gloves.

“Will this change your mind on staying with Ciclati?”

Here they went, meddling. Just as they’d done to me when Pedro had been arrested.

“Ciclati were my dream,” he said with a smile but it ticked, his dimples not as pronounced as they had been at the bar last night. “Of course I want to stay.”

“Can’t help but note the past tense, Luca,” one laughed.

My back straightened and my eyes narrowed on the shit-stirring piece of crap before me. He was tall, suited, even in the hot weather. His microphone was shoved in Luca’s face.

Prick.

If they wanted a story, I had one. If only they knew what I did… if only I could prove it. They wouldn’t need to be so cruel to Luca, scrounging for anything to publish at his expense.

“Didn’t realise StormSprint was hiring linguists for the press,” I said with a sharp smile. “Impressive, really, how well some of you know your fiction. Digging for stories that don’t exist. Twisting words just to chase a headline.”

The audacity of these slander-hungry assholes.

Fuck you, fuck you, and, oh yeah, you.

“Maybe let the boxing champion and StormSprint’s breakout rider of the yea r breathe before his race? Just a thought.”

I let the passive-aggressive threat simmer.

Luca tried to smother his smile, but his eyes widened, looking down at his bike.

“There is no story here,” he clarified after a second.

“And Cally, Alv’s wife, how is she holding up? And the children?”

“They deserve their privacy,” he snapped. “As do I.”

It was then that I could see Luca’s protective side. He didn’t care for himself, but his cousin’s wife was a different story.

“Any update on his condition? They mentioned only that he was still stable in the inquiry…”

But Abbé was there, glare ready to kill as he stormed over. “I’m sure you’re aware but we have an interview scheduled for after the race. Riling my racers up before is not appropriate and you know it.”

“No riling—”

“Riling,” I countered, voice tight.

Only for Abbé’s glare to spin around and root me to the floor.

I swallowed.

“Our media manager has already discussed with you—”

But they were starting to leave, as Abbé stood his ground and Luca drank his drink, the sucking of his empty straw the only sound he made as he side-eyed Abbé and then the crowd.

“That was dramatic,” I sighed.

One of the mechanics laughed beside my feet.

“Livie told you to just smile,” Abbé sighed. “Nothing more, Everly.”

“Well, someone had to say something,” I said. “Luca was just fed to the sharks. I can’t believe the press are allowed on the track before the race.”

Luca groaned. “We’ve been fighting it all season.”

“StormSprint seem to like the drama,” Abbé sighed. “Live and all.” He looked at Luca with a sorry smile. “Did you say anything you shouldn’t have?”

“Don’t think so.” But his twitching mouth turned to me and put me right in the firing line.

The sympathy Abbé had for Luca disappeared. “Oh, Ever, what did you say?”

“Just that they were chasing stories that weren’t there.”

“She’s not wrong,” Luca said. “They won’t appreciate it though.”

Abbé sighed. “Well, it was your first and last day of working here, Everly. See you in Florida, I guess.”

And he walked off.

“See you in Florida?” Luca asked. “You got a little family holiday coming up?”

“No,” I grumbled, swapping the arm I held the umbrella with and crossing the other over my chest.

Abbé knew my strategy: I would see Dad a couple of times a year, mostly when Ciclati were in places I couldn’t afford to travel. Dad was always willing to fly me out. Mum had relocated to America, so he would pay for my plane ticket to Florida. I was always there for that race.

“Aw, don’t sulk, babe,” Luca laughed and slapped his knee.

“I’m not sulking,” I snapped. “I just… do they always speak to you like that?”

He crushed his can in his fist, the straw lifting further out of the can. It wasn’t threatening — but damn, it was hot.

My dad invited me to these races and didn’t expect me to want these men?

“No, they don’t,” he said thoughtfully and nodded when the last mechanic stood and left. “Normally, they actually like me. I made the front page of Australia’s bike magazine while I was there. Without a photoshoot. They like me when it’s fashionable to.”

“What does Livie say?”

“She’s helping me avoid them,” he said. “But that isn’t so easy when there’s twelve of them on the track and she’s not allowed here.”

“Maybe it would have been best for her to be here instead of me,” I mumbled, looking at my feet.

My arms hurt from holding the umbrella, but I could stay here with Luca for far longer.

“Nah,” he said and smiled up at me, grabbing his helmet with both hands, ready to put it on. “I quite liked your outburst. I think I’ll enjoy you being on the grid with me.”

As the green flag was lifted at the front of the track, my signal to go, I felt a real genuine smile.

Abbé waited for me at the side of the track and pointed me towards a recycling bin to put Luca’s can in.

The roar of the bikes was almost too much.

Yes, next time, I would take the offer of earplugs because, damn, this was not the comfort of VIP. My ears might vibrate off.

When the red light above the bikes went black, they all started to flee and I had no choice but to put my hands over my ears.

“Fuck,” Abbé mouthed and he was shouldering past people beside us to get on the tarmac. He was a seasoned racer, analyst, bike enthusiast, so I doubted the sound impacted him so wildly.

“What?” I shouted after him, but he and the mechanics were rushing forward.

Luca was the only one still on the track.