Page 23 of Lights Out (Love in the Paddock #1)

Finally, Caleb leaves the garage, and goose bumps sweep over my skin as I put the headphones over my ears.

He lines up with the other cars on pit lane heading out onto the track, and I find my heart thumping.

Caleb isn’t on a timed lap yet—he’s on his out lap—and over the radio he’s told who the drivers are behind him, who is pushing, etc.

It’s truly amazing how much information Caleb has to process—the radio, driving the car with a steering wheel like a video-game controller, and what is happening on the track around him at insane speeds.

Like two hundred miles per hour. Where one tiny mistake can send your car into a wall.

And all of this makes this sport so incredibly dangerous.

Caleb takes off on a timed lap, and I watch his car on one of the monitors.

He’s flying, absolutely attacking this course.

I find myself holding my breath as he navigates all those turns and elevation changes.

A clock is rolling on the bottom of the screen, and he puts up an incredible time as he runs through the first sector of the track.

And the same pace through the second and third sectors.

But so does Xavier, who is still faster by 0.154 seconds. Mason isn’t far behind Caleb, just like how they performed in the last practice.

Caleb easily makes the second and third rounds of qualifying, and you can feel the tension building as his car is pushed back into the garage after Q2.

The top ten drivers are getting ready to fight it out for that pole position.

Everyone quickly goes to work on the car, the tire blankets put on to keep them at the optimal operating temperature, and now we wait for the green light to come on and for Caleb to get back on the track.

This is the session that means EVERYTHING.

It’s what we’ve all been waiting for this weekend.

Suddenly the tire blankets are removed, and a crew member standing outside of the garage motions for Caleb to exit.

There’s a large vroom as he pulls out and enters pit lane, and I have to remind myself to breathe.

The green light is on. This session is twelve minutes, and Caleb is the first car out.

I bite my lower lip as he does his out lap, followed by Mason, then some other cars.

Xavier is one of the last cars to leave pit lane.

Caleb is on his timed lap, flying around the course at insane speeds. On the monitor, the clock is running on how fast he’s going through sector one. Then it starts running for Mason, and the graphics compare their times side by side on the bottom of the screen.

Come on, Caleb, I think, watching him aggressively drive his car.

When their times on the first sector are compared, Caleb is two-tenths of a second up on Mason. That’s the margin.

When he crosses the start line, his time is 1:14:956. Mason crosses next at 1:15:137.

As Caleb heads back to pit lane to come into the garage, I keep my eyes glued to the monitor. Xavier is flying through the circuit, also at insane speeds.

He’s running faster than Caleb did at his sectors, and he crosses the line with a time of 1:14:846, knocking Caleb out of the top spot and into second.

Oh my God, it’s THAT CLOSE.

Other drivers take their laps, but none are close to the top three.

Now there’s six minutes and twenty-five seconds left in Q3.

Anxiety fills me as the clock continues to go down.

It’s going to be an all-or-nothing lap to win pole position.

I’m about to say something to Catherine when I see her gaze is fixated on a monitor.

She’s watching Mason in his car, his visor up, his espresso-colored eyes looking just as focused as Caleb’s were earlier.

The clock continues to tick. My anxiety grows with each second that is running down.

At four minutes, the tire blankets are taken off. Anticipation is thick in the air.

Caleb is about to go.

The powerful engine of his car roars as he’s guided out of the garage, and he joins all the other cars headed for one last lap to get pole position.

Caleb enters the track. I keep watching time run down on the screen. This is it. Everything comes down to these last two minutes.

Other drivers begin their attack on the clock. I continue to fight my nerves as I wait for Caleb to take his shot.

There’s fifty seconds left on the clock.

Xavier begins his final lap. Then Mason.

With forty-four seconds on the clock, Caleb begins his final lap.

All three of them are fast. Xavier and Mason are near the times they had on the last run.

When Caleb’s time is flashed up for the first sector, I suck in a breath. He’s faster than both of them.

By .072 seconds.

Normally, as a race fan, this is everything you want in qualifying. A close, dramatic, nail-biting finish to the end.

But now that I know Caleb? This is one of the most stressful things I’ve ever encountered.

The clock now shows zero. There are no more chances to be had. This is the last lap for qualifying.

The remaining cars continue to race each other and the clock.

Xavier crosses the line at 1:14:844. Mason finishes second at 1:15.002.

Come on, I will Caleb. You can do this. You can beat Xavier’s time.

His time is flashed up on the screen. Caleb is faster in the second sector, by mere fractions of a second.

He has a shot at it!

It all comes down to the third sector. Caleb makes his final push toward the finish line. The time is running, running, running. My heart is racing, and my nerves are on edge.

He flies across the line. His time is 1:14:796.

Oh my God.

Caleb has beaten Xavier.

And he is on the pole for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix tomorrow.