Page 97 of All That Glitters
“Do you know where my family’s compound and shop is?”
“Just down the street, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Is that where you’d like to go?”
“Yes. And please, don’t call me Mr. Glitterati again. I’m Ash or Ashton. Hell, I’ll answer to just about anything these days.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
“Unless you’d like me to call you by your last name? We can be very formal. I do have manners, despite some of what you may have witnessed earlier today.”
“That won’t be necessary,” she said with a laugh. “I prefer informality. Makes learning about people easier and in my job, I need to learn about the people I’m working with.”
“I understand that.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” Anything to get my mind off the fact I was in a car with someone I barely knew.
Anything to get my mind off the fact that I was in a car at all.
“I’m curious about your name.”
“What about it?”
“Well, Ashton is pretty American for an Italian racing family.”
“Right. I was the first one, other than my cousin Brax to be born in America and my mother wanted me to fit or blend in better. With a last name of Glitterati, fitting and blending didn’t really happen when I was a kid unless I was racing.”
“Oh. I can see that. Darien wants a close knit a group of drivers. He wants all of you to fit together well. He thinks the team will be more successful that way.”
“He’s not wrong. The drivers, the crews, the engineers, the mechanics, the car chiefs… Trust is key. Sometimes you just know you can trust someone, other times…” My words trailed off as my thoughts wandered back to Hale. We’d known each other our whole lives and I’d trusted Hale with my life more times than I could count and he’d trusted me. Where had that trust gone wrong? Where had it been lost? Was it before the accident on the track? Was it in the moment? Would I ever get it back? Would I ever trust myself to be on a race track with Hale Troye again?
Was that part of the reason I was so hesitant to even attempt getting back in a car of any kind? Was there something to what Helen had taunted me with last night? Letting Hale beat me again? Letting Hale win again?
So much of my energy went into simply hating Hale for what had happened, being so angry with the man I’d called my best friend since we were kids in karts.
I’d accused Hale of taking something from me and I thought it was just my confidence, my drive, my fearlessness, but maybe what he’d really taken from me was my ability to trust not only myself, but my fellow competitors, my friends.
“Did she accept the offer?” Amber asked, her question breaking into my train of thought. I was mildly grateful.
“No.”
Not that I expected any different.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I thought Helen would at least think about it and maybe she would have if Hale hadn’t been in the room. Maybe we’d have been able to have one more argument about it. Maybe I’d have been able to push a little harder, use her desire for me against her enough that she’d consider doing what I wasn’t yet able to.
“Do you think she will?”
“I think she wants to, but I don’t know that she will. We’ll have to see.” My answer was an evasion and I’m sure Amber knew it. Then again, maybe she didn’t.
I wanted to steer the conversation away from Helen because I was still trying to figure out what to do, how to not lose her completely. What I’d started with her had gotten under my skin and to simply lose her was unthinkable. I didn’t care at this point what I had to do, what I had to promise, who I had to move out of the way or go through to get to her… Even if it was her that I had to go through.
“How long have you been in motorsports?”
“Honestly, this is my introduction. I’ve been Darien’s assistant for ten years in his other businesses, but when he sold his interests in all but one of them and decided to start a race team, he asked if I wanted to help him build it from the ground up.”
