Page 106 of Kiss & Collide
Then, in Lap Thirty, as if there hadn’t already been enough carnage out here, Michael Pinman and Giulio Conti got a little too close taking Turn Seventeen. In these conditions, all it had taken was Giulio’s nose clipping Michael’s tire and they were both off the track, into the wall, and out of the race.
The field had bunched back up behind the safety car, then Bence Takács, who was literally last on the grid at present, had misjudged a turn and sent himself into the wall.
Eight cars out of the race.Eight. There were only twelve of them left with ten laps to go. It was practically like fucking qualifying. The rain had ended and the sun had come out, but the previous forty-six laps had taken far longer than the usual ninety minutes.
“Nine laps to go,” Emil barked in his ear, as he crossed over the start/finish line. As he dipped into the Marina section of the grandstands, he glanced in his mirrors and caught a glimpseof a towering black cloud formation behind him, just north of the circuit. If that caught them, they’d have another run in the wet before all was said and done.
The first fat plop of rain hit his visor as he exited Turn Sixteen. In seconds, when he was halfway down the straight, the skies opened up. Rain fell so hard and fast it was ricocheting off the track and back up. The sky was still blue over most of the circuit. It was a classic Florida pocket thunderstorm.
Up ahead, he saw Liam and Kai Nolan hit Turn Seventeen and slide off the track. Though they managed to recover, his instincts kicked in.
“I’m boxing.”
There was no way his current slick tires would be usable in the next lap if this rain continued.
“Confirm, boxing,” Emil replied. “Which tires?”
“Inters,” he replied, again on instinct.
Emil paused. “Inters. You sure?”
No. Maybe.
“Yes.” He’d seen loads of these storms when he’d run a racing series in Florida as a teenager. Brutal, but brief, which meant he might be driving on a dry track again before the race was over. If that happened, he’d be glad to be on inters.
As Chase entered the pit, the team garages were all in utter chaos. Teams were struggling to get tires out of blankets and crew into the pit lane in preparation for panicked drivers arriving for an unexpected stop. Every driver had called in to box, but nearly everyone had been past the pit lane when the rain started.
Only he, Liam, Axel Nyström, and Kai Nolan had made it in on the current lap.
It took under three seconds, despite the late warning. As they dropped him off the jacks and he accelerated back out, he spotted both Axel and Kai still up on jacks.
Fuck yes.
Emil crackled over the radio, “You just jumped up two spots—ninth place, Chase.”
But could he hold it?
VIOLET STOOD ATCarter’s side, chewing on her thumbnail, destroying her manicure, while Chase flew through his last pit stop a few feet away.
Earlier, when the rain had stopped, she’d brought Carter and Corrine down to watch the rest of the race from the garage. Then the rain had started again and so had the chaos.
Inters. Chase had asked to go onto intermediate tires instead of full wets, while the rain was still coming down in rivers. God, she hoped he knew what he was doing.
“What’s happening there?” Carter asked her, pointing to one of the monitors trained on the other teams’ garages. Axel Nyström and Kai Nolan had both gotten tangled up during their pit stops. Their crews had been scrambling to get new tires ready, and they weren’t in position yet when the drivers had come in for the swap. Those few seconds lost them both spots in the race.
“Holy shit,” she muttered under her breath. Then she looked at Carter. “Chase is now in ninth place. We’re in the top ten.” Which, when there were only twelve cars left in the race, wasn’tthatimpressive, but Carter didn’t need to know that.
Violet was too nervous to smile, but Carter did it for her, grinning as he watched the chaos unfold on the monitors. “Watch closely,” she told him. “This race is about to get very interesting.”
Keeping one eye on Chase out on the track, she explained the different kinds of tires to Carter, as concisely as possible,and how that would affect what he was about to see happening. The other cars had already passed the pit lane exit. They wouldn’t be able to change their slick tires for another lap.
“So Chase is on the right tires now?”
She shook her head. “Not exactly. I think he’s betting on the rain stopping before the end of the race. If the track dries out enough,thenhe’ll be on the right tires, and no one else will be.”
Carter looked outside at the rain still coming down. “That’s quite a gamble.”
She sighed and shook her head. “That’s Chase.” All reckless optimism and faith. Whatever happened out there, she wouldn’t want him any other way. He was perfect just as he was.
