Page 17 of Start Your Engines

“Fucking oversteered. He needs to get the car under his control,” I mumble as I get a flashback of the moment Niki oversteered and ended up flying towards the barrier. I don’t know if I can do this.

Jacs watches the screen with me. “It’s going well. He’s doing fine. It’s just first-race nerves.”

I nod but don’t look away from the images of cars zooming around the track. Connor seems to slow and back away from other cars. He’s not fighting, and he’s still making mistakes.

I drag water from my bottle.

“Would it help if I distracted you?”

I side-eye Jacs. “And how are you going to do that?”

“That mechanic that used to work at Vessa, the one that brought us together, asked me for a job.”

I choke on my water, and Jacs taps me on the back.

“I know, right?”

“Maybe we should offer him one. If not for him, then we wouldn’t be best friends,” I say as I recall the night I met Jacs at an end-of-season dinner. A jumped-up engineer from Vessa explained how she’d never amount to anything because there wasn’t space for women like her in Formula One.

She tips her head and glares at me. “Don’t even think about it.”

“You need to get control of the car. Watch the track limits,” Macca, Connor’s race engineer, says over the radio, referring to Connor driving slightly over the edges of the track, which will incur penalties.

Cars bunch around the track in different spots, but Connor has a straight track without many cars around him. His driving should be as smooth as Antoine’s.

“I’m trying, Macca,” Connor replies, his voice wavering. “Some of these corners are really testing the car. That’s why I oversteered.”

He’s not the driver he was.

“You’re doing really well,” I say into my microphone.

Jacs waves at me and heads back to her team.

“Hey, boss.” Connor’s shaky voice is lighter.

“Hey, Dane,” I reply. “You’re doing well on the tyres. Are you happy with the strategy?”

It isn’t my place to talk on the radio. It should be between Connor and Macca, and I wouldn’t do the same with Antoine. But this helped Connor when he was younger. Although I’ve tried to distance myself from him, I’ve listened to his after-race interviews, and he’s commented that chatter can help.

“Yes, Coults.” He drops in my nickname and introduces a familiarity that I’ve tried to avoid. “Is there anything I can do to improve?”

“Let’s not share too much with everyone,” Macca says, reminding us the radio is open and anyone can listen.

“Dane, do you remember the race where you were first called Dane the Pain and why?”

“Yeah.” He chuckles, and I hide my mouth with my hand so no one sees my smile.

I watch the screen as his car speeds up, as if he’s chasing another driver.

“You and Niki teased me mercilessly before that race. You showed me a photo of Layla wearing a T-shirt you’d designed and sent her,” he says.

My giggle slips out at the way he grumbles. It said on the front,Senna is the best driver ever, and on the back,Connor Dane sucks.

“Well, if you don’t bring Dane the Pain to this race, I’m getting T-shirts made for the whole team and insisting they wear them around head office and the factory for the next week. The back will say, ‘Connor Dane sucks.’ I won’t tell you what the front will say. I need to work out how many N’s are in Antoine, though.”

His growl fills my ears, and my belly flutters.

“You’re not ready for the adrenaline I’ll be bringing back into the garage with me.”

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