Page 30 of Kiss & Collide
A couple of days in Paris with Violet. That wouldn’t be so bad.
13
Violet cast a look around the half-empty Pinnacle post-race party, wondering how much longer she was professionally obligated to stick around. Everyone else had scoped out the new Pinnacle at Spielberg. Tonight was pretty much just Pinnacle staff and a few corporate sponsors who didn’t have better invites.
The team’s dismal nineteenth- and twentieth-place finishes today hadn’t helped the vibes. Chase had been doing relatively well for the first half. But he’d had a disastrous pit stop and slid right back down the ranking.
Across the room, Reece was holding a loud conversation with Oscar Davies, the two of them in some competition to out-asshole each other. Oscar was more flushed and sweaty than usual, a sure sign he was drunk, and Reece was doing that squinty-eyed thing he did whenever he’d been snorting coke in the bathroom. Poor Imogen hovered behind Reece, visibly flinching every time his voice rang out through the room. Violet caught her eye and gave her an encouraging thumbs-up. Imogen waved back sadly.
“Hi.”
She turned to face Chase. “Sorry about today. What happened out there?”
He winced and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Fucking Oscar,” he groaned, spearing his fingers through his hair and fisting them. It took effort not to get distracted imagining her own fingers running through that silky black hair.
“What’d he do this time?”
He cast a quick glance around to make sure no one could overhear, then took a step closer, lowering his voice. “He decided to change up the tire organization when we got here, with no warning.”
“Yikes.” Pit crews drilled pit stops relentlessly. There was no time to wonder where something was. They had to know it in their bones so they could work on instinct. Changing things around at the last minute was a recipe for disaster.
“Yeah.” Chase sighed. “When I came in for my pit stop, I ended up with three hard tires and one medium, because one guy messed up and went to the old rack location. It was like wrestling a whale. I can’t even blame him. This is all on Oscar. I went into that stop in fourteenth and I finished the race in nineteenth.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, fuck. You were right, Violet. The biggest thing holding this team back is that guy.” He glared at Oscar across the room, still grandstanding with Reece.
“I’m working on it.”
He cracked a grin. “Then he doesn’t stand a chance, does he?” He ran a hand across the back of his neck. “So I’m … uh, heading back to the hotel.” He hiked one of his ridiculous eyebrows meaningfully. That was all it took for her body to start lighting up in anticipation.
Violet made a show of checking her phone. “Maybe I’ll catch a ride with you.” She shrugged. “You know, since there’s a car for you and we’re staying in the same hotel.”
Chase shrugged playfully. “Well, that makes totalprofessionalsense. Maybe we can even get a jump on that media training on the ride back.”
“I’ll meet you out front in ten.”
When she made her way outside, a black sedan was idling at the curb with the back door open. Chase was already waiting inside, suit jacket off, tie long gone, and his dress shirt unbuttoned at the neck. His long legs splayed out as he lounged back on the leather seat. Her pulse accelerated just at the sight of him.
God, she wanted to climb on him and do filthy things.
“Okay, so media training,” she began as she joined him in the car.
He blinked. “I was joking. You really want to do media training now?”
“Well,Iwasn’t. Let’s go.”
He sighed. “What do I need to know?”
“The most important thing is to develop your talking points and keep them in mind. I’ll help you with that in advance.”
“Talking points?”
“What you should talk about with press.”
“Oh.” He visibly relaxed. “I just want to talk about driving.”
“Yes, Iknowthat. And we’ll practice what to say about the team and the car. But if I do my job right, they’ll also want to know aboutyou. You need to be ready for the unexpected personal questions.”
